ARM. I am all these three.

MOTH. And three times as much more, and yet nothing at all.

ARM. Fetch hither the swain; he must carry me a letter.

MOTH. A message well sympathised; a horse to be embassador for an ass!

ARM. Ha, ha! what sayest thou?

MOTH. Marry, sir, you must send the ass upon the horse, for he is very slow-gaited: But I go. ARM. The way is but short; away.

MOTH. As swift as lead, sir.

ARM. Thy meaning, pretty ingenious? Is not lead a metal heavy, dull, and slow? MOTH. Minimè, honest master; or rather, master, no.

ARM. I say, lead is slow.

MOTH.

You are too swift, sir, to say so:1

Is that lead slow which is fir'd from a gun?

You are too swift, sir, to say so:] How is he too swift for saying that lead is slow? I fancy we should read, as well to supply the rhyme as the sense:

You are too swift, sir, to say so so soon :

Is that lead slow, sir, which is fir'd from a gun?

JOHNSON.

The meaning, I believe, is, You do not give yourself time to think, if you say so; or, as Mr. M. Mason explains the passage: "You are too hasty in saying that: you have not sufficiently considered it."

Swift, however, means ready at replies. So, in Marston's Malcontent, 1604:

"I have eaten but two spoonfuls, and methinks I could discourse both swiftly and wittily, already." STEEVens.

Swift is here used, as in other places, synonymously with

ARM. Sweet smoke of rhetorick!

He reputes mea cannon; and the bullet, that's he:I shoot thee at the swain.

MOTH.

Thump then, and I flee.

[Exit.

ARM. A most acute juvenal; voluble and free

of grace!

By thy favour, sweet welkin,2 I must sigh in thy

face:

Most rude melancholy, valour gives thee place. My herald is return'd.

Re-enter MOTH and COSTard.

MOTH. A wonder, master; here's a Costard broken 3 in a shin.

ARM. Some enigma, some riddle: come,-thy l'envoy;-begin.

COST. No egma, no riddle, no l'envoy; no salve

witty. I suppose the meaning of Atalanta's better part, in As you like it, is her wit-the swiftness of her mind. FARMER.

So, in As you like it: "He is very swift and sententious." Again, in Much Ado about Nothing :

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Having so swift and excellent a wit."

On reading the letter which contained an intimation of the Gunpowder-plot in 1605, King James said, that "the style was more quick and pithie than was usual in pasquils and libels."

MALONE.

2 By thy favour, sweet welkin,] Welkin is the sky, to which Armado, with the false dignity of a Spaniard, makes an apology for sighing in its face. JOHNSON.

3

here's a Costard broken] i. e. a head. So, in Hycke Scorner :

"I wyll rappe you on the costard with my horne."

STEEVENS.

no l'envoy;] The l'envoy is a term borrowed from the old French poetry. It appeared always at the head of a few con

in the mail, sir: 5 O, sir, plantain, a plain plan

cluding verses to each piece, which either served to convey the moral, or to address the poem to some particular person. It was frequently adopted by the ancient English writers. So, in Monsieur D'Olive, 1606:

"Well said: now to the L'Envoy."-All the Tragedies of John Bochas, translated by Lidgate, are followed by a L'Envoy. STEEVENS.

5

-no salve in the mail, sir:] The old folio reads-no salve in thee male, sir, which, in another folio, is, no salve in the male, sir. What it can mean, is not easily discovered: if mail for a packet or bag was a word then in use, no salve in the mail may mean, no salve in the mountebank's budget. Or shall we read-no enigma, no riddle, no l'envoy-in the vale sirO, sir, plantain. The matter is not great, but one would wish for some meaning or other. JOHNSON.

Male or mail was a word then in use. Reynard the fox sent Kayward's head in a male. So, likewise, in Tamburlane, or the Scythian Shepherd, 1590:

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Open the males, yet guard the treasure sure." I believe Dr. Johnson's first explanation to be right.

STEEVENS.

Male, which is the reading of the old copies, is only the ançient spelling of mail. So, in Taylor the water-poet's works, (Character of a Bawd,) 1630:-"the cloathe-bag of counsel, the capcase, fardle, pack, male, of friendly toleration." The quarto 1598, and the first folio, have thee male. Corrected by the editor of the second folio. MALONE.

I can scarcely think that Shakspeare had so far forgotten his little school-learning, as to suppose the Latin verb salvé and the English substantive, salve, had the same pronunciation; and yet without this the quibble cannot be preserved. FARMEer.

The same quibble occurs in Aristippus, or The Jovial Philosopher, 1630:

Salve, Master Simplicius.

"Salve me; 'tis but a Surgeon's complement."

Perhaps we should read- -no salve in them all, sir.

STEEVENS.

TYRWHITT.

This passage appears to me to be nonsense as it stands, inca. pable of explanation, I have therefore no doubt but we should

tain; no l'envoy, no l'envoy, no salve, sir, but a plantain !

ARM. By virtue, thou enforcest laughter; thy silly thought, my spleen; the heaving of my lungs provokes me to ridiculous smiling: O, pardon me, my stars! Doth the inconsiderate take salve for Penvoy, and the word, l'envoy, for a salve?

MOTH. Do the wise think them other? is not Penvoy a salve?

adopt the amendment proposed by Mr. Tyrwhitt, and read-No salve in them all, Sir.

Moth tells his master, that there was a Costard with a broken shin: and the Knight, supposing that Moth has some conceit in what he said, calls upon him to explain it.-Some riddle, says he, some enigma. Come-thy l'envoy-begin. But Costard supposing that he was calling for these things, in order to apply them to his broken shin, says, he will not have them, as they were none of them salves, and begs for a plain plantain instead of them. This is clearly the meaning of Costard's speech, which provokes the illustrious Armado to laugh at the inconsiderate who takes salve for l'envoy, and the word l'envoy for salve.

But when Moth, who is an arch and sensible character, says, in reply to Armado:-" Do the wise think them other? Is not l'envoy a salve?" we must not suppose that this question is owing to his simplicity, but that he intended thereby either to lead the Knight on to the subsequent explanation of the word l'envoy, or to quibble in the manner stated in the notes upon the English word salve and the Latin salvé; a quibble which operates upon the eye, not the ear:-Yet Steevens has shown it was not a new

one.

If this quibble was intended, which does not evidently appear to be the case, the only way that I account for it, is this:

As the l'envoy was always in the concluding part of a play or poem, it was probably in the l'envoy that the poet or reciter took leave of the audience, and the word itself appears to be derived from the verb envoyer, to send away. Now the usual salutation amongst the Romans at parting, as well as meeting, was the word salvé. Moth, therefore, considers the l'envoy as a salutation or salvé, and then quibbling on this last word, asks if it be not a salve.

I do not offer this explanation with much confidence, but it is the only one that occurs to me. M. MASON.

ARM. No, page: it is an epilogue or discourse, to make plain

Some obscure precedence that hath tofore been

sain.

I will example it: "

6

The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,
Were still at odds, being but three.

There's the moral: Now the l'envoy.

MOTH. I will add the l'envoy: Say the moral again.
ARM. The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,
Were still at odds, being but three:
MOTH. Until the goose came out of door,
And stay'd the odds by adding four.

Now will I begin your moral, and do you follow with my l'envoy.

The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,

Were still at odds, being but three:

ARM. Until the goose came out of door,
Staying the odds by adding four.

MOTH. A good l'envoy, ending in the goose; Would you desire more?

COST. The boy hath sold him a bargain, a goose, that's flat:

Sir, your pennyworth is good, an your goose be

fat.

To sell a bargain well, is as cunning as fast and loose:

Let me see a fat l'envoy; ay, that's a fat goose.

• I will example it: &c.] These words, and some others, are not in the first folio, but in the quarto of 1598. I still believe the old passage to want regulation, though it has not sufficient merit to encourage the editor who should attempt it:

There is in Tusser an old song, beginning

"The ape, the lion, the fox, and the asse,

"Thus sets forth man in a glasse," &c.

Perhaps some ridicule on this ditty was intended. STEEVENS.