As to rejoice at friends but newly found.

Prin. I understand you not: my griefs are double.

Biron. Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief;

And by these badges understand the king.

For your fair sakes have we neglected time,
Play'd foul play with our oaths; your beauty, ladies,
Hath much deform'd us, fashioning our humours
Even to the opposed end of our intents:
And what in us hath seem'd ridiculous,-
As love is full of unbefitting strains;
All wanton as a child, skipping, and vain;
Form'd by the eye, and, therefore, like the eye
Full of strange shapes, of habits, and of forms,
Varying in subjects as the eye doth roll
To every varied object in his glance:
Which party-coated presence of loose love
Put on by us, if, in your heavenly eyes,
Have misbecom'd our oaths and gravities,
Those heavenly eyes, that look into these faults,
Suggested us to make: Therefore, ladies,
Our love being yours, the error that love makes
Is likewise yours: we to ourselves prove false,
By being once false for ever to be true

To those that make us both: -fair ladies, you:
And even that falsehood, in itself a sin,

Thus purifies itself, and turns to grace.

long.

Mar. The liker you; few taller are so young.
Biron. Studies my lady? mistress, look on me,
Behold the window of my heart, mine eye,
What humble suit attends thy answer there;

Prin. We have receiv'd your letters full of love; Impose some service on me for thy love.

Your favours the embassadors of love;
And, in our maiden council, rated them
At courtship, pleasant jest, and courtesy,
As bombast, and as lining to the time:

But more devout than this, in our respects,
Have we not been; and therefore met your loves
In their own fashion, like a merriment.

Dum. Our letters, madam, show'd much more
than jest.

Ros. Oft have I heard of you, my lord Birón,
Before I saw you: and the world's large tongue
Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks;
Full of comparisons and wounding flouts;
Which you on all estates will execute,
That lie within the mercy of your wit:
To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain;
And, therewithal, to win me, if you please,
(Without the which I am not to be won,)
You shall this twelvemonth term from day to day

Long. So did our looks.
Ros.
We did not quote them so. Visit the speechless sick, and still converse
King. Now, at the latest minute of the hour,
Grant us your loves.
Prin.

A time, methinks, too short

To make a world-without-end bargain in:
No, no, my lord, your grace is perjur'd much,
Full of dear guiltiness; and, therefore, this,-
If for my love (as there is no such cause)
You will do aught, this shall you do for me:
Your oath I will not trust; but go with speed
To some forlorn and naked hermitage,
Remote from all the pleasures of the world;
There stay until the twelve celestial signs
Have brought about their annual reckoning;
If this austere insociable life

Change not your offer made in heat of blood;
If frosts, and fasts, hard lodging, and thin weeds,
Nip not the gaudy blossoms of your love,
But that it bear this trial, and last love:
Then, at the expiration of the year,

Come challenge, challenge me by these deserts,
And, by this virgin palm now kissing thine,
I will be thine; and till that instant, shut
My woful self up in a mourning house;
Raining the tears of lamentation,

For the remembrance of my father's death.
If this thou do deny, let our hands part;
Neither intitled in the other's heart.

King. If this, or more than this, I would deny,
To flatter up these powers of mine with rest,
The sudden hand of death close up mine eye!
Hence even then my heart is in thy breast.

With groaning wretches; and your task shall be,
With all the fierce endeavour of your wit,
To enforce the pained impotent to smile.

Biron. To move wild laughter in the throat of

death?

In this play, which all the editors have concur red to censure, and some have rejected as unworthy of our poet, it must be confessed that there are many passages mean, childish, and vulgar: and

When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws, some which ought not to have been exhibited, as

we are told they were, to a maiden queen. But there are scattered through the whole many sparks of genius; nor is there any play that has more evident marks of the hand of Shakspeare.

ACT I.

Salerio, a messenger from Venice.

Leonardo, servant to Bassanio.

Balthazar,

Stephano,

}

servants to Portia,

Portia, a rich heiress.

Nerissa, her wailing-maid.

Jessica, daughter to Shylock.

Magnificoes of Venice, officers of the court of Juslice, jailer, servants, and other attendants.

Scene, partly at Venice, and partly at Belmont, the seal of Portia, on the continent.

That such a thing, bechanc'd, would make me sad?
But, tell not me; I know, Antonio

SCENE I.-Venice. A street. Enter Antonio, Is sad to think upon his merchandise.

Salarino, and Salanio.

Antonio.

IN sooth, I know not why I am so sad;

It wearies me; you say, it wearies you;
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,
I am to learn ;

And such a want-wit sadness makes of me,
That I have much ado to know myself.

Salar. Your mind is tossing on the ocean;
There, where your argosies with portly sail,-
Like signiors and rich burghers of the flood,
Or, as it were the pageants of the sea, -
Do overpeer the petty traffickers,

That curt'sy to them, do them reverence,

As they fly by them with their woven wings.

Ant. Believe me, no: I thank my fortune for it,
My ventures are not in one bottom trusted,
Nor to one place; nor is my whole estate
Upon the fortune of this present year:
Therefore, my merchandise makes me not sad.
Salan. Why then you are in love.

Ant.

Fie, fie! Salan. Not in love neither? Then let's say, you

are sad,

Because you are not merry: and 'twere as easy
For you to laugh, and leap, and say, you are merry,
Because you are not sad. Now, by two-headed

Janus,
Nature hath fram'd strange fellows in her time:
Some that will evermore peep through their eyes,
And laugh, like parrots, at a bag-piper;
And other of such vinegar aspéct,

Salan. Believe me, sir, had I such venture forth, That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile,

The better part of my affections would

Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still
Plucking the grass, to know where sits the wind;
Peering in maps, for ports, and piers, and roads;
And every object, that might make me fear
Misfortune to my ventures, out of doubt,
Would make me sad.

Salar.

My wind, cooling my broth,

Would blow me to an ague, when I thought
What harm a wind too great might do at sea.
I should not see the sandy hour-glass run,
But I should think of shallows and of flats;
And see my wealthy Andrew dock'd in sand,
Vailing her high-top lower than her ribs,
To kiss her burial. Should I go to church,
And see the holy edifice of stone,

And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks?
Which touching but my gentle vessel's side,
Would scatter all her spices on the stream;
Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks;
And, in a word, but even now worth this,
And now worth nothing? Shall I have the thought
To think on this; and shall I lack the thought,

(1) Ships of large burthen. (2) Lowering.

Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.

Enter Bassanio, Lorenzo, and Gratiano.

Salan. Here comes Bassanio, your most noble
kinsman,

Gratiano, and Lorenzo: Fare you well;
We leave you now with better company.
Salar. I would have staid till I had made you

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