am, littered under Mercury, was like-wise a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles. With dye, and drab, I purchased this caparison; and my revenue is the silly cheat. Gallows, and knock, are too powerful on the highway; beating, and hanging, are terrors to me; for the life to come, I sleep out the thought of it.-A prize! A prize!

Enter Clown.

Clo. Let me see; - Every 'leven wether-tods; every tod yields-pound and odd shilling; fifteen hundred shorn, what comes the wool to?

[Aside.

Three pound what will this

Aut. If the springe hold, the cock's mine. Clo. I cannot do't without counters.-Let me see; what am I to buy for our sheep-shearing feast? of sugar; five pound of currants; ricesister of mine do with rice? But my father hath made her mistress of the feast, and she lays it on. She hath made me four-and-twenty nosegays for the shearers; three-man songmen all, and very good ones; but they are most of them means and bases: but one Puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to hornpipes. I must have saffron, to color the warden pies; mace,-dates,-none; that's out of my note; nutmegs, seven; a race, or two, of ginger; but that I may beg;-four pound of prunes, and as many of raisins o'the sun.

Aut. O that ever I was born!

Clo. I'the name of me,

[Grovelling on the ground.

Aut. O, help me, help me! pluck but off these rags; and then, death, death!

Clo. Alack, poor soul! thou hast need of more rags to lay on thee, rather than have these off.

Aut. O, sir, the loathsomeness of them offends me more than the stripes I have received; which are mighty ones and millions.

Clo. Alas, poor man! a million of beating may come to a great matter.

Aut. I am robbed, sir, and beaten; my money and apparel ta'en from me, and these detestable things put upon me. Clo. What, by a horse-man, or a foot-man?

Aut. A foot-man, sweet sir, a foot-man.

Clo. Indeed, he should be a foot-man, by the garments he hath left with thee; if this be a horse-man's coat, it hath seen very hot service. Lend me thy hand; I'll help thee! come, lend me thy hand. [Helping him up.

Aut. O, good sir, tenderly, oh!

Clo. Alas, poor soul!

Aut. O, good sir, softly, good sir.

shoulder-blade is out.

Clo. How now? canst stand?

I fear, sir, my

Aut. Softly, dear sir; [Picks his pocket.] good sir, softly. You ha' done me a charitable office.

Clo. Dost lack any money? I have a little money for thee.

Aut. No, good sweet sir; no, I beseech you, sir; I have a kinsman not past three quarters of a mile hence, unto whom I was going; I shall there have money, or any thing I want. Offer me no money, I pray you, that kills my

heart.

Clo. What manner of fellow was he that robbed you.

Aut. A fellow, sir, that I have known to go about with trol-my dames. I knew him once a servant of the prince; I cannot tell, good sir, for which of his virtues it was, but he was certainly whipped out of the court.

Clo. His vices, you would say; there's no virtue whipped out of the court. They cherish it, to make it stay there; and yet it will no more but abide.

Aut. Vices, I would say, sir. I know this man well: he hath been since an ape-bearer; then a process-server, a bailiff; then he compassed a motion of the prodigal son, and married a tinker's wife within a mile where my land and living lies; and, having flown over many knavish professions, he settled only in rogue. Some call him Autolycus. Clo. Out upon him! Prig, for my life, prig: he haunts wakes, fairs, and bear-baitings.

Aut. Very true, sir; he, sir, he; that's the rogue that put me into this apparel.

Clo. Not a more cowardly rogue in all Bohemia; if you had but looked big, and spit at him, he'd have run.

Aut. I must confess to you, sir, I am no fighter. I am false of heart that way; and that he knew, I warrant him. Clo. How do you now?

Aut. Sweet sir, much better than I was; I can stand, and walk. I will even take my leave of you, and pace softly towards my kinsman's.

Clo. Shall I bring thee on the way?

Aut. No, good-faced sir! no, sweet sir.

Clo. Then fare thee well; I must go buy spices for our sheep-shearing.

Aut. Prosper you, sweet sir!-[Exit Clown.] Your purse is not hot enough to purchase your spice. I'll be with you at your sheep-shearing too. If I make not this cheat

VOL. II.-8

bring out another, and the shearers prove sheep, let me be unrolled, and my name put in the book of virtue!

Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way,
And merrily heat the stile-a:
A merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad tires in a mile-a.

[Exit.

SCENE III. The same. A Shepherd's Cottage.

Enter FLORIZEL and PERDITA.

Flo. These your unusual weeds to each part of you
Do give a life; no shepherdess, but Flora,

Peering in April's front. This your sheep-shearing
Is as a meeting of the petty gods,

And you the queen on't.

Per.
Sir, my gracious lord,
To chide at your extremes, it not becomes me;
O, pardon, that I name them. Your high self,
The gracious mark o'the land, you have obscured
With a swain's wearing; and me, poor, lowly maid,
Most goddess-like pranked up. But that our feasts
In every mess have folly, and the feeders
Digest it with a custom, I should blush
To see you so attired; sworn, I think,
To show myself a glass.

Flo.

I bless the time,
When my good falcon made her flight across
Thy father's ground.

Per.
Now Jove afford you cause!
To me, the difference forges dread; your greatness
Hath not been used to fear. Even now I tremble
To think your father, by some accident,

Should pass this way, as you did. O the fates!
How would he look, to see his work, so noble,
Vilely bound up! What would he say? Or how
Should I, in these my borrowed flaunts, behold
The sternness of his presence?

Flo.
Apprehend
Nothing but jollity. The gods themselves,
Humbling their deities to love, have taken
The shapes of beasts upon them. Jupiter
Became a bull, and bellowed; the green Neptune
A ram, and bleated; and the fire-robed god,
Golden Apollo, a poor, humble swain,

As I seem now. Their transformations
Were never for a piece of beauty rarer;
Nor in a way so chaste; since my desires
Run not before mine honor; nor my lusts
Burn hotter than my faith.

Per.

O, but, dear sir,
Your resolution cannot hold, when 'tis

Opposed, as it must be, by the power o' the king:
One of these two must be necessities,

Which then will speak; that you must change this pur

With these forced thoughts, I pr'ythee, darken not
The mirth o'the feast. Or I'll be thine, my fair,
Or not my father's; for I cannot be

Mine own, nor any thing to any, if

I be not thine: to this I am most constant,
Though destiny say, no. Be merry, gentle;
Strangle such thoughts as these, with any thing
That you behold the while. Your guests are coming:
Lift up your countenance, as it were the day

Of celebration of that nuptial, which

We two have sworn shall come.

Per.

Stand you auspicious!

O lady Fortune,

Enter Shepherd, with POLIXENES and CAMILLO, disguised; Clown, MOPSA, DORCAS, and others.

Flo.

See, your guests approach:
Address yourself to entertain them sprightly,
And let's be red with mirth.

Shep. Fie, daughter! When my old wife lived, upon This day, she was both pantler, butler, cook;

Both dame and servant; welcomed all, served all;

Would sing her song, and dance her turn; now here,
At upper end o' the table, now i'the middle;

On his shoulder, and his; her face o' fire

With labor; and the thing she took to quench it,
She would to each one sip. You are retired,
As if you were a feasted one, and not
The hostess of the meeting. Pray you, bid
These unknown friends to us welcome; for it is
A way to make us better friends, more known.
Come, quench your blushes; and present yourself
That which you are, mistress o' the feast. Come on,

And bid us welcome to your sheep-shearing,
As your good flock shall prosper.

Per.

Welcome, sir! [To POL.

It is my father's will I should take on me
The hostess-ship o' the day.-You're welcome, sir!

[To CAMILLO.
Give me those flowers there, Dorcas.-Reverend sirs,
For you there's rosemary, and rue; these keep
Seeming, and savor, all the winter long.
Grace, and remembrance, be to you both,
And welcome to our shearing!

Pol.

Shepherdess, (A fair one are you,) well you fit our ages With flowers of winter.

Per.

Sir, the year growing ancient,—

Not yet on summer's death, nor on the birth

Of trembling winter,-the fairest flowers o' the season,
Are our carnations, and streaked gilliflowers,

Which some call nature's bastards. Of that kind
Our rustic garden's barren; and I care not
To get slips of them.

Pol.

Wherefore, gentle maiden,

For I have heard it said,

There is an art, which, in their piedness, shares

With great creating nature.

Pol.

Say, there be;

Yet nature is made better by no mean,

But nature makes that mean; so, o'er that art,

Which, you say, adds to nature, is an art

That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry

A gentler scion to the wildest stock;

And make conceive a bark of baser kind

By bud of nobler race. This is an art

Which does mend nature,-change it rather: but
The art itself is nature.

Pol. Then make your garden rich in gilliflowers, And do not call them bastards.

Per.

I'll not put

The dibble in earth to set one slip of them;

No more than, were I painted, I would wish

This youth should say, 'twere well; and only therefore Desire to breed by me.-Here's flowers for you;

Hot lavender, mints, savory marjoram;

The marigold, that goes to bed with the sun,