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Ros. Nay, but who is it?

Cel. Is it possible?

Ros. Nay, I pray thee now, with most petitionary vehemence, tell me who it is.

Cel. O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful wonderful, and yet again wonderful, and after that out of all whooping 20?

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Ros. Good my complexion 21! dost thou think, though I am caparison'd like a man, I have a doublet and hose in my disposition? One inch of delay more is a South-sea of discovery 22. I pr'ythee, tell me, who is it? quickly, and speak apace: I would thou couldst stammer, that thou might'st pour this concealed man out of thy mouth, as wine comes out of a narrow-mouth'd bottle; either too much at once, or none at all. I pr'ythee take the cork out of thy mouth, that I may drink thy tidings.

Cel. So you may put a man in your belly.

Ros. Is he of God's making? What manner of man? Is his head worth a hat, or his chin worth a beard?

Cel. Nay, he hath but a little beard.

Ros. Why, God will send more, if the man will be thankful: let me stay the growth of his beard, if thou delay me not the knowledge of his chin.

20 To whoop or hoop is to cry out, to exclaim with astonishment. So in K. Henry V. Act ii. Sc. 2:

'That admiration did not whoop at them.'

Out of all cry seems to have been a similar phrase for the expression of vehement admiration.

21 Good my complexion!' This singular phrase was probably only a little unmeaning exclamation similar to Goodness me! many such have been current in familiar speech at all times.

22 A South-sea of discovery,' is not a discovery as far off, but as comprehensive as the South Sea, which being the largest in the world, affords the widest scope for exercising curiosity. Johnson, however, proposed to read a South-sea discovery,' which, if change be necessary, is sufficiently plausible.

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Cel. It is young Orlando; that tripp'd up the wrestler's heels, and your heart, both in an instant. Ros. Nay, but the devil take mocking; speak sad brow, and true maid 23.

Cel. I'faith, coz, 'tis he.
Ros. Orlando?

Cel. Orlando.

Ros. Alas the day! what shall I do with my doublet and hose ?—What did he, when thou saw’st him? What said he? How look'd he? Wherein went he 24? What makes he here? Did he ask for me? Where remains he? How parted he with thee? and when shalt thou see him again? Answer me in one word.

Cel. You must borrow me Garagantua's 25 mouth first 'tis a word too great for any mouth of this age's size: To say, ay, and no, to these particulars, is more than to answer in a catechism.

Ros. But doth he know that I am in this forest, and in man's apparel? Looks he as freshly as he did the day he wrestled?

26

Cel. It is as easy to count atomies as to resolve the propositions of a lover:—but take a taste of my finding him, and relish it with a good observance. I found him under a tree, like a dropp'd acorn.

Ros. It may well be call'd Jove's tree, when it drops forth such fruit.

Cel. Give me audience, good madam.

23 Speak sad brow, and true maid. Speak seriously and honestly; or in other words, 'speak with a serious countenance, and as truly as thou art a virgin.'

24 i. e. how was he dressed?

25' Garagantua.' The giant of Rabelais, who swallowed five pilgrims, their staves and all in a salad.

26 An atomie is a mote flying in the sunne. Any thing so small that it cannot be made lesse.' Bullokar's English Expo

sitor, 1616.

Ros. Proceed.

Cel. There lay he, stretch'd along, like a wounded knight.

Ros. Though it be pity to see such a sight, it well becomes the ground.

Cel. Cry, holla 27! to thy tongue, I pr'ythee; it curvets very unseasonably. He was furnish'd like a hunter.

Ros. O ominous! he comes to kill my heart 28. Cel. I would sing my song without a burden: thou bring'st me out of tune.

Ros. Do you not know I am a woman? when I think, I must speak. Sweet, say on.

Enter ORLANDO and JAQUES.

Cel. You bring me out:-Soft! comes he not here? Ros. 'Tis he; slink by, and note him.

[CELIA and ROSALIND retire. Jaq. I thank you for your company; but, good faith, I had as lief have been myself alone.

Orl. And so had I; but yet, for fashion's sake, I thank you too for your society.

Jaq. God be with you; let's meet as little as we can. Orl. I do desire we may be better strangers. Jaq. I pray you, mar no more trees with writing love-songs in their barks.

Orl. I pray you, mar no more of my verses with reading them ill-favouredly.

27 Holla! This was a term of the manège, by which the rider restrained and stopped his horse. So in Venus and Adonis : What recketh he his rider's angry stir His flattering holla, or his stand I say,'

And in Cotton's Wonders of the Peak:

'But I must give my muse the holla there.'

28 A quibble between hart and heart, then spelt the same.

Jaq. Rosalind is your love's name?

Orl. Yes, just.

Jaq. I do not like her name.

Orl. There was no thought of pleasing you, when she was christen'd.

Jaq. What stature is she of?

Orl. Just as high as my heart.

Jaq. You are full of pretty answers: Have you not been acquainted with goldsmiths' wives, and conn'd them out of rings?

Orl. Not so; but I answer you right painted cloth 29, from whence you have studied your questions.

Jaq. You have a nimble wit; I think it was made of Atalanta's heels. Will you sit down with me? and we two will rail against our mistress the world, and all our misery.

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29 To answer right painted cloth, is to answer sententiously. We still say she talks right Billingsgate. Painted cloth was a species of hangings for the walls of rooms, which has generally been supposed and explained to mean tapestry; but was really cloth or canvass painted with various devices and mottos. The verses, mottos, and proverbial sentences on such cloths are often made the subject of allusion in our old writers. Mayster Thomas More, in hys youth, devysed in hys father's house in London, a goodly hangyng of fyne paynted clothe, with nyne pageauntes, and verses over every of these pageauntes.' These verses I incorporated with the Appendix to the last edition of Roper's Life of More, 1822. So in the old comedy, A Match at Midnight, 1633:

There's a witty posy for you.

No, no, I'll have one shall savour of a saw. Why then it will smell of the painted cloth.' Shakspeare again mentions it in Tarquin and Lucrece : 'Who fears a sentence or an old man's saw

Shall by a painted cloth be kept in awe.'

The old Council House at St. Mary's Hall, in Coventry exhibited, till 1812, a very perfect specimen of these painted cloth hangings, of the reign of Elizabeth; being much decayed it was then removed from its situation, but is still preserved.

Orl. I will chide no breather in the world, but myself; against whom I know most faults.

Jaq. The worst fault you have, is to be in love. Orl. 'Tis a fault I will not change for your best virtue. I am weary of you.

Jaq. By my troth, I was seeking for a fool, when I found you.

Orl. He is drown'd in the brook; look but in, and you shall see him.

Jaq. There shall I see mine own figure.

Orl. Which I take to be either a fool, or a cipher. Jaq. I'll tarry no longer with you: farewell, good signior love.

Orl. I am glad of your departure; adieu, good monsieur melancholy.

[Exit JAQ.-CEL. and Ros. come forward. Ros. I will speak to him like a saucy lacquey, and under that habit play the knave with him.-Do you hear, forester?

Orl. Very well; what would you?

Ros. I pray you, what is't o'clock?

Orl. You should ask me, what time o'day; there's no clock in the forest.

Ros. Then there is no true lover in the forest; else sighing every minute, and groaning every hour, would detect the lazy foot of time, as well as a clock.

Orl. And why not the swift foot of time? had not that been as proper?

Ros. By no means, sir: Time travels in divers paces with divers persons: I'll tell you who time ambles withal, who time trots withal, who time gallops withal, and who he stands still withal.

Orl. I pr'ythee, who doth he trot withal?

Ros. Marry, he trots hard with a young maid, between the contract of her marriage, and the day it is solemnized: if the interim be but a se'nnight, time's

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