Whofe golden touch could foften fsteel and ftones,
Make tygers tame, and huge leviathans
Forfake unfounded deeps to dance on fands.
After your dire-lamenting elegies,

Vift by night your lady's chamber-window
With fome sweet concert: to their inftruments
Tune a deploring dump; the night's dead filence.
Will well become fuch fweet complaining grievance.
This, or else nothing, will inherit her.

Duke. This difcipline fhews thou hast been in love.
Thu. And thy advice this night I'll put in practice:
Therefore, fweet Protheus, my direction-giver,
Let us into the city presently

To fort? fome gentlemen well skill'd in mufick
I have a fonnet, that will ferve the turn,
To give the onfet to thy good advice.

Duke. About it, gentlemen.

Pro. We'll wait upon your grace, till after fupper; And afterwards determine our proceedings.

Duke. Even now about it; I will pardon you.

[Exeunt.

lover, the quality given to his lute is unintelligible. But, confidered as a lawgiver, the thought is noble, and the imagery exquifitely beautiful. For by his lute is to be understood his fyftem of laws; and by the poet's fines, the power of numbers, which Orpheus actually employed in thofe laws to make them received by a fierce and barbarous people. WARBURTON.

5 Tune a deploring dump;] A dump was the ancient term for a mournful elegy. STEEVENS.

will inherit her.] To inherit, is, by our author, fometimes used, as in this inftance, for to obtain poffeffion of, without any idea of acquiring by inheritance. So in Titus Andronicus: "He that had wit would think that I had none, "To bury fo much gold under a tree, "And never after to inherit it." STEEVENS, To fort] i e. to chufe out. So in K. Richard III:

"Yet I will fort a pitchy hour for thee." STEEVENS. -I will pardon you.] I will excufe you from waiting.

JOHNSON.

ACT

ACT IV.

IV. SCENE I.

A foreft, leading towards Mantua,

Enter certain Out-laws.

1 Out. Fellows, ftand faft; I see a paffenger.
2 Out. If there be ten, fhrink not, but down
with 'em.

Enter Valentine and Speed.

3 Out. Stand, fir, and throw us what you have about you;

If not, we'll make you fit, and rifle you.

Speed. Sir, we are undone! thefe are the villains That all the travellers do fear fo much.

Val. My friends,

1 Out. That's not fo, fir; we are your enemies, 2 Out. Peace; we'll hear him.

3 Out. Ay, by my beard, will we;

For he's a proper man.

Val. Then know, that I have little wealth to lose; A man I am, crofs'd with adversity:

My riches are these poor habiliments,

Of which if you should here disfurnish me,

You take the fum and substance that I have. 2 Out. Whither travel you?

Val. To Verona.

1 Out. Whence came you ? Val. From Milan.

3 Out. Have you long fojourn'd there?

• If not, we'll make you fit, and rifle you.] The old copy reads as I have printed the paffage. Paltry as the oppofition between fland and fit may be thought, it is Shakespeare's own. The editors read, we'll make you, fir, &c. STEEVENS.

Val. Some fixteen months; and longer might have

ftaid,

If crooked fortune had not thwarted me.

1 Out. What, were you banifh'd thence?

Val. I was.

2 Out. For what offence?

Val. For that which now torments me to rehearse; I kill'd a man, whofe death I much repent; But yet I flew him manfully in fight, Without falfe vantage, or bafe treachery.

1 Out. Why ne'er repent it, if it were done fo: But were you banifh'd for fo fmall a fault? Val. I was, and held me glad of fuch a doom. Out. Have you the tongues?

Val. My youthful travel therein made me happy ; Or elfe I often had been miferable.

I

3 Out. By the bare fcalp of Robin Hood's fat

friar,

This fellow were a king for our wild faction. 1 Out. We'll have him: firs, a word. Speed. Mafter, be one of them;

It is a kind of honourable thievery.

Val. Peace, villain!

2 Out. Tell us this; Have you any thing to take to?

Val. Nothing, but my fortune.

3 Out. Know then, that fome of us are gentlemen, Such as the fury of ungovern'd youth

Thruft

1 Robin Hood was captain of a band of robbers, and was much inclined to rob churchmen. JOHNSON.

So in A mery Gefte of Robyn Hoode, &c. bl. 1. no date :

"Thefe byshoppes and these archebyshoppes

"Ye shall them beate and bynde, &c.'

By Robin Hood's fat friar, I believe, Shakespeare means Friar Tuck, who was confeffor and companion to this noted out. law. So in one of the old fongs of Robin Hood:

"And of brave little John,

"Of Friar Tuck and Will Scarlett,
"Stokelly and Maid Marian.”

Thruft from the company of awful men;
Myfelf was from Verona banished,
For practifing to fteal away a lady,

3 An heir, and niece ally'd unto the duke.
2 Out. And I from Mantua, for a gentleman,
Whom, in my mood, I ftabb'd unto the heart.

I Out. And I, for fuch like petty crimes as thefe.
But to the purpose,-(for we cite our faults,
That they may hold excus'd our lawless lives)
And, partly, feeing you are beautify'd
With goodly fhape; and by your own report
A linguift; and a man of fuch perfection,
As we do in our quality much want,-

2 Out. Indeed, becaufe you are a banish'd man, Therefore, above the reft, we parley to you:

Again, in the 26th fong of Drayton's Polyolbion:

"Of Tuck the merry friar which many a fermon made, "In praife of Robin Hoode, his outlawes, and his trade." See figure III. in the plate at the end of the first part of K, Henry IV. with Mr. Tollet's obfervations on it. STEEVENS. 2awful men:] Reverend, worshipful, fuch as magiftrates, and other principal members of civil communities. JOHNSON. I think we should read lawful in oppofition to lawless men. In judicial proceedings the word has this fenfe. SIR J. HAWKINS. The author of The Revifal has propofed the fame emendation. STEEVENS.

Awful is ufed by Shakespeare, in another place, in the sense of lawful. Second part of Henry IV. act IV. fo. ii.

"We come within our awful banks again." TYRWHITT. All the impreffions, from the firft downwards, An heir and niece allied unto the duke. But our poet would never have expreffed himself fo ftupidly, as to tell us, this lady was the duke's nicce, and allied to him: for her alliance was certainly fufficiently included in the first term. Our author meant to fay, fhe was an beirefs, and near allied to the duke; an expreffion the most natu ral that can be for the purpose, and very frequently used by the ftage-poets. THEOBALD.

A niece or a nephew did not always fignify the daughter of a brother or fifter, but any remote defcendant. Of this use I have given inftances as to a nephew. See Othello, act I. STEEVENS.

-in our quality] Quality is nature relatively confidered.

STEEVENS.

Are

Are you content to be our general?
To make a virtue of neceffity,'

And live, as we do, in the wilderness?

3 Out. What fay'ft thou? wilt thou be of our confort?

Say, ay, and be the captain of us all :

We'll do thee homage, and be rul'd by thee,
Love thee as our commander, and our king.

1 Out. But if thou fcorn our courtesy, thou dy'ft.
2 Out. Thou shalt not live to brag what we have
offer'd.

5

Val. I take your offer, and will live with you; Provided, that do no outrages you On filly women, or poor paffengers.

3 Out. No, we deteft fuch vile bafe practices. Come, go with us, we'll bring thee to our crews, And fhew thee all the treasure we have got ; Which, with ourselves, all reft at thy difpofe.

[Exeunt.

Pro. Already have I been falfe to Valentine,
And now I must be as unjuft to Thurio.
Under the colour of commending him,
I have access my own love to prefer;
But Silvia is too fair, too true, too holy,
To be corrupted with my worthless gifts.
When I protest true loyalty to her,

She twits me with my falfhood to my friend;
When to her beauty I commend my vows,
She bids me think, how I have been forfworn

-no outrages

On filly women or poor passengers.] This was one of the rules of Robin Hood's government. STEEVENS.