Pol.

How should this grow?

Cam. I know not: but, I am sure, 't is safer to
Avoid what's grown than question how 't is born.
If therefore you dare trust my honesty,-
That lies enclosed in this trunk, which you
Shall bear along impawn'd,—away to-night.
Your followers I will whisper to the business:
And will, by twos, and threes, at several posterns,
Clear them o' the city: For myself, I'll put
My fortunes to your service, which are here
By this discovery lost. Be not uncertain;
For, by the honour of my parents, I

Have utter'd truth: which, if you seek to prove,
I dare not stand by; nor shall you be safer.

Than one condemn'd by the king's own mouth, thereon
His execution sworn.

I saw his heart in his face. Give me thy hand;
Be pilot to me, and thy places shall

а

Still neighbour mine: My ships are ready, and
My people did expect my hence departure
Two days ago. This jealousy

Is for a precious creature as she's rare,
Must it be great; and, as his person's mighty,
Must it be violent: and as he does conceive
He is dishonour'd by a man which ever
Profess'd to him, why, his revenges must

In that be made more bitter. Fear o'ershades me:
Good expedition be my friend, and comfort
The gracious queen, part of his theme, but nothing
Of his ill-ta'en suspicion! Come, Camillo;

I will respect thee as a father, if

Thou bear'st my life off hence: Let us avoid.

Cam. It is in mine authority to command

The keys of all the posterns: Please your highness
To take the urgent hour: come, sir, away.

a Places-honours.

[Exeunt.

"to

NARES, in his 'Glossary,' rightly explains the verb to virginal, here used, as play with the fingers as on a virginal;" but he adds, "apparently intended as a word coined in contempt or indignation." It appears to us that Shakspere meant simply to convey the notion of a rapid movement with the fingers; just in the same way that Cowper, describing his tame hare, says, "He would invite me to the garden by drumming upon my knee." The virginal was a sort of rectangular spinnet, with one wire to each note; and Nares suggests that the name was derived from their "being used by young girls." The idea which Shakspere has conveyed in the passage before us is elaborated in the Hundred and Twenty-eighth Sonnet :

"How oft, when thou, my music, music play'st,

Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds

With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently sway'st

The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,

Do I envy those jacks, that nimble leap

To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,

Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap,

At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand!

To be so tickled, they would change their state

And situation with those dancing chips,
O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,
Making dead wood more bless'd than living lips.
Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,

Give them thy fingers, me thy lips, to kiss."

2 SCENE II." Will you take eggs for money?"?"

The answer of Mamillius shows that this quaint proverbial expression was familiar enough even to a boy :

VOL. IV.

No, my lord, I'll fight."

D

The meaning is pretty evident,-Will you truckle, submit to injustice, be bullied, cheated? Reed says that Leontes "seems only to ask his son if he would fly from an enemy;" and he quotes the following passage in support of his opinion :

"The French infantry skirmisheth bravely afar off, and cavalry gives a furious onset at the first charge; but after the first heat they will take eggs for their money.”(Relations of the Most Famous Kingdoms,' &c., 1630.) This, it appears to us, is a special application of a general meaning. It was part of the defence of the Earl of Kildare, in answer to Wolsey's charge against him that he had not been sufficiently active to take the rebellious Earl of Desmond, that "my good brother of Ossory, notwithstanding his high promises, having also the king's power, is glad to take eggs for his money, and bring him in at leisure."

3 SCENE II." Lower messes."

A mess was a company of four persons, dining together with an apportioned provision, such as we see in this day in the halls of the Inns of Court. The lower messes are therefore the inferior servants, or retainers; those who sat below the salt. The setting out of the provisions apportioned to each mess was a great duty in the old establishments of the nobility. In the 'Northumberland Household Book' we find that the clerks of the kitchen are to be with the cooks at the "striking out of the messes ;" and in the same curious picture of ancient manners there are the most minute directions for serving delicacies to my lord's own mess; but bacon and other pièces de résistance to the Lord Chamberlain's and Steward's messes.

ACT II.

SCENE I.Sicilia-The Palace.

Enter HERMIONE, MAMILLIUS, and Ladies.

Her. Take the boy to you: he so troubles me 'Tis past enduring.

1 Lady.

Come, my gracious lord,

No, I'll none of you.

Shall I be your playfellow?

Mam.

1 Lady. Why, my sweet lord?

Mam. You'll kiss me hard; and speak to me as if

I were a baby still. I love you better.

2 Lady. And why so, my lord? a

Mam.

Not for because

Your brows are blacker; yet black brows, they say,
Become some women best; so that there be not

Too much hair there, but in a semicircle,

Or a half-moon made with a pen.

2 Lady.

Who taught you this?

Mam. I learn'd it out of women's faces: pray now What colour are your eyebrows?

1 Lady.

Blue, my lord.

Mam. Nay, that's a mock: I have seen a lady's nose That has been blue, but not her eyebrows.

2 Lady.

Hark ye:

The queen, your mother, rounds apace: we shall

Present our services to a fine new prince,

One of these days; and then you'd wanton with us,
If we would have you.

a The general reading is, my good lord. Some thirty lines lower down we find "let's have that, good sir." In this passage good is left out in the modern editions. The reason which Steevens gives for thus corrupting the text is singularly amusing "The epithet good, which is wanting in the old copies, is transplanted (for the sake of metre) from a redundant speech in the following page."

1 Lady.

She is spread of late

Into a goodly bulk: Good time encounter her!

Her. What wisdom stirs amongst you? Come, sir, now I am for you again: Pray you, sit by us,

And tell's a tale.

Let's have that, good sir. your best

Come on, sit down:-Come on, and do

To fright me with your sprites: you're powerful at it.

Mam. There was a man,—

Her.

Nay, come, sit down; then on. Mam. Dwelt by a churchyard;-I will tell it softly; Yon crickets shall not hear it.

Her.

And give 't me in mine ear.

Come on then,

Enter LEONTES, ANTIGONUS, Lords, and others.

; never

Leon. Was he met there? his train? Camillo with him?
1 Lord. Behind the tuft of pines I met them
Saw I men scour so on their way: I ey'd them
Even to their ships.

Leon.
How bless'd am I
In my just censure!-in my true opinion!—
Alack, for lesser knowledge!-How accurs'd
In being so bless'd!—There may be in the cup
A spider steep'd,a and one may drink; depart,
And yet partake no venom; for his knowledge
Is not infected: but if one present

The abhorr'd ingredient to his eye, make known
How he hath drunk, he cracks his gorge, his sides,
With violent hefts: -I have drunk, and seen the spider.

a There was a popular notion that spiders were poisonous. One of the witnesses against the Countess of Somerset, in the affair of Sir Thomas Overbury, says,— "The Countess wished me to get the strongest poison I could, &c. Accordingly I bought seven great spiders and cantharides."

b Hefts-heavings.