KING. How, I pray you?

PAR. He did love her, sir, as a gentleman loves a woman. KING. How is that?

PAR. He loved her, sir, and loved her not.

KING. As thou art a knave, and no knave:-What an equivocal companion is this!

PAR. I am a poor man, and at your majesty's command. LAF. He's a good drum, my lord, but a naughty orator. DIA. Do you know he promised me marriage?

PAR. 'Faith, I know more than I'll speak.

KING. But wilt thou not speak all thou know'st?

PAR. Yes, so please your majesty: I did go between them, as I said; but more than that, he loved her,—for, indeed, he was mad for her, and talked of Satan, and of limbo, and of furies, and I know not what: yet I was in that credit with them at that time, that I knew of their going to bed; and of other motions, as promising her marriage, and things which would derive me ill will to speak of, therefore I will not speak what I know.

KING. Thou hast spoken all already, unless thou canst say they are married: But thou art too fine in thy evidence; therefore stand aside. This ring, you say, was yours? DIA. Ay, my good lord.

KING. Where did you buy it? or who gave it you?
DIA. It was not given me, nor I did not buy it.

KING. Who lent it you?

DIA.

It was not lent me neither.

I found it not.

KING. Where did you find it then?
DIA.

KING. If it were yours by none of all these ways,
How could you give it him?

DIA.

I never gave it him.

LAF. This woman 's an easy glove, my lord; she goes off

and on at pleasure.

KING. This ring was mine, I gave it his first wife.
DIA. It might be yours, or hers, for aught I know.
KING. Take her away, I do not like her now;

To prison with her: and away with him.—
Unless thou tell'st me where thou hadst this ring,
Thou diest within this hour.

DIA.

KING. Take her away.

DIA.

I'll never tell you.

I'll put in bail, my liege.

KING. I think thee now some common customer. DIA. By Jove, if ever I knew man, 't was you. KING. Wherefore hast thou accus'd him all this while? DIA. Because he's guilty, and he is not guilty: He knows I am no maid, and he'll swear to 't: I'll swear I am a maid, and he knows not. Great king, I am no strumpet, by my life; I am either maid, or else this old man's wife.

[Pointing to LAFEU. KING. She doth abuse our ears; to prison with her. DIA. Good mother, fetch my bail.-Stay, royal sir;

[Exit Widow.

The jeweller that owes the ring is sent for,
And he shall surety me. But for this lord,
Who hath abus'd me, as he knows himself,
Though yet he never harm'd me, here I quit him:
He knows himself my bed he hath defil'd;
And at that time he got his wife with child:
Dead though she be, she feels her young one kick;
So there's my riddle,—One that 's dead is quick;
And now behold the meaning.

KING.

Re-enter Widow, with HELENA.

Is there no exorcist

Beguiles the truer office of mine eyes?

Is 't real that I see?

HEL.

No, my good lord;

"T is but the shadow of a wife you see,

The name, and not the thing.

BER.
Both, both; O, pardon!
HEL. O, my good lord, when I was like this maid,
I found you wond'rous kind.
There is your ring,
And, look you, here 's your letter: This it says,
"When from my finger you can get this ring,
And are by me with child," &c.-This is done:
Will you be mine, now you are doubly won?

BER. If she, my liege, can make me know this clearly, I'll love her dearly, ever, ever dearly.

HEL. If it appear not plain, and prove untrue, Deadly divorce step between me and you!—

O, my dear mother, do I see you living?

LAF. Mine eyes smell onions, I shall weep anon:Good Tom Drum [to PAROLLES], lend me a handkerchief: So, I thank thee; wait on me home, I'll make sport with thee: Let thy courtesies alone, they are scurvy ones.

[TO DIANA.

KING. Let us from point to point this story know,
To make the even truth in pleasure flow:—
If thou be'st yet a fresh uncropped flower,
Choose thou thy husband, and I'll pay thy dower;
For I can guess, that, by thy honest aid,
Thou kept'st a wife herself, thyself a maid.—
Of that and all the progress, more and less,
Resolvedly more leisure shall express:
All yet seems well; and, if it end so meet,
The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet.

(Advancing.)

[Flourish.

The king's a beggar, now the play is done:
All is well ended, if this suit be won,
That you express content; which we will pay,
With strife to please you, day exceeding day:
Ours be your patience then, and yours our parts;
Your gentle hands lend us, and take our hearts.

[Exeunt.

VARIOUS READINGS.

"The mightiest space in nature fortune brings
To join like likes, and kiss like native things."

Malone suggested this reading in the place of the original:"The mightiest space in fortune nature brings," &c.

But Malone added, "I believe the text is right."

The Manuscript Corrector has the same transposition; and Mr. Collier says, "the meaning is then evident, viz. that fortune occasions things that are like each other to join, notwithstanding the mightiest space in nature may intervene between them."

(ACT I., Sc. 1.)

The lines are found in the soliloquy of Helena. In the third scene the Steward tells the Countess that he had overheard Helena: "Alone she was, and did communicate to herself her own words to her own ears. - Her matter was, she loved your son: Fortune, she said, was no goddess, that had put such difference betwixt their two estates." Helena acknowledges this difference; but in the spirit of hope says, that the disparity of rank may be remedied by the equality of nature. There was no "space in nature" to "intervene between them."

"My honour's at the stake, which to defend
I must produce my power."

This is Theobald's alteration;
and of the Manuscript Corrector
also. The original has-
"My honour's at the stake, which
to defeat," &c.

(ACT II., Sc. 3.) Farmer and Tyrwhitt resisted the change; Farmer truly saying, "The implication or clause of the sentence (as the grammarians say) served for the antecedentwhich danger to defeat."

"I see that men make hopes in such affairs,

MALONE.

That we 'll forsake ourselves." (ACT IV., Sc. 2.) RowE. "I see that men make hopes in such a scene, &c. "I see that men make hopes in such a suit," &c.

Mr. Collier considers that the difficulty of the original line,

MS. Corrector.

It is not likely that a printer or transcriber would mistake such a

An astringer is a falconer. A gentle astringer was probably the head of the king's hawking establishment, an officer of high rank, as in England, where the grand falconer is a nobleman.

"And boarded her i' the wanton way of youth."

To board is to accost. It is used in this sense repeatedly by Shakspere, and by other writers of his day.

AID. Act IV., Sc. 2.

"Since Frenchmen are so braid."

Steevens thinks that braid here means crafty. Mr. Richardson, in his dictionary, considers that in this passage it has the sense of violent.

"And brokes with all that can in such a suit."

To broke is to transact business for others, and generally in an