Gent. [above.] No, forsooth; I am but the waitinggentlewoman.

Car. He knew that before.

Punt. Pardon me: humanum est errare.
Car. He learn'd that of his chaplain.

Punt. To the perfection of complement (which is the dial of the thought, and guided by the sun of your beauties) are required these three specials; the gnomon, the puntilios, and the superficies: the superficies is that we call place; the puntilios, circumstance; and the gnomon, ceremony; in either of which, for a stranger to err, 'tis easy and facile; and such am I.

Car. True, not knowing her horizon, he must needs err; which I fear he knows too well.

Punt. What call you the lord of the castle, sweet face?

Gent. [above.] The lord of the castle is a knight, sir; signior Puntarvolo.

Punt. Puntarvolo! O

Car. Now must he ruminate.

Fast. Does the wench know him all this while, then?

Car. O, do you know me, man? why, therein lies the syrup of the jest; it's a project, a designment of his own, a thing studied, and rehearst as ordinarily at his coming from hawking or hunting, as a jig after a play.'

Sog. Ay, e'en like your jig, sir.

Punt. 'Tis a most sumptuous and stately edifice! Of what years is the knight, fair damsel ?

• Car. He learn'd that of his chaplain.] An improvement of the quarto, which reads, "He learned that of a Puritan;" the only description of people, perhaps, who never made use of the expression.

7

as a jig after a play.] In our author's days a jig did not always mean a dance, but frequently, as here, a ballad, or a low ludicrous dialogue, in metre. So in The Hog hath lost his Pearl: "Here's the player would speak with you-about the jig I promised

Gent. Faith, much about your years, sir. Punt. What complexion, or what stature bears he? Gent. Of your stature, and very near upon your complexion.

Punt. Mine is melancholy.

Car. So is the dog's, just.

Punt. And doth argue constancy, chiefly in love. What are his endowments? is he courteous ?

Gent. O, the most courteous knight in Christian land, sir.

Punt. Is he magnanimous ?

Gent. As the skin between your brows, sir.
Punt. Is he bountiful?

Car. 'Slud, he takes an inventory of his own good parts.

Gent. Bountiful! ay, sir, I would you should know it; the poor are served at his gate, early and late, sir. him." A. i. S. 1. And in Hamlet: "O! your only jig-maker;" upon which Mr. Steevens cites the following lines from Shirley's Love in a Maze:

Are not, as in the days of understanding,

Now satisfied without a jig, which since

They cannot, with their honour, call for, after

The play, they look to be served up i' th' middle." WHAL. The conclusion of this note affords a curious specimen of the disingenuity of Steevens, and the improper confidence of Whalley. The former quotes this passage to prove that a jig meant, as above, "a farcical dialogue in verse," and breaks off within a word of what expressly ascertains that Shirley meant neither more nor less by it than a dance:

i' th' middle;

Your dance is the best language of some comedies,
And footing runs away with all: a scene
Exprest with life of art, and squared to nature,

Is dull and phlegmatic poetry."

Steevens, as Mr. Gilchrist justly observes, has no plea for thus garbling a quotation, since a hundred passages might be fairly produced, in which jig is used for a scene of low buffoonery, or farce.

Punt. Is he learned?

Gent. O, ay, sir, he can speak the French and Italian.

Punt. Then he has travelled?

Gent. Ay, forsooth, he hath been beyond seas once or twice.

Car. As far as Paris, to fetch over a fashion, and come back again.

Punt. Is he religious?

Gent. Religious! I know not what you call religious, but he goes to church, I am sure.

Fast. 'Slid, methinks these answers should offend him.

Car. Tut, no; he knows they are excellent, and to her capacity that speaks them.

Punt. Would I might but see his face!

Car. She should let down a glass from the window at that word, and request him to look in't.

Punt. Doubtless the gentleman is most exact, and absolutely qualified; doth the castle contain him? Gent. No, sir, he is from home, but his lady is within.

Punt. His lady! what, is she fair, splendidious, and amiable?

Gent. O, Lord, sir!

Punt. Prithee, dear nymph, intreat her beauties to shine on this side of the building.

[Exit Waiting-gentlewoman from the window. Car. That he may erect a new dial of compliment, with his gnomons and his puntilios.

Fast. Nay, thou art such another Cynick now, a man had need walk uprightly before thee.

Car. Heart, can any man walk more upright than he does? Look, look; as if he went in a frame, or had a suit of wainscot on: and the dog watching him, lest he should leap out on't.

Fast. O, villain !

Car. Well, an e'er I meet him in the city, I'll have him jointed, I'll pawn him in Eastcheap, among the butchers, else.

Fast. Peace; who be these, Carlo?

Enter SORDIDO and FUNGOSO.

Sord. Yonder's your godfather; do your duty to

him, son,

Sog. This, sir? a poor elder brother of mine, sir, a yeoman, may dispend some seven or eight hundred a year; that's his son, my nephew, there.

Punt. You are not ill come, neighbour Sordido, though I have not yet said, well-come; what, my godson is grown a great proficient by this.

Sord. I hope he will grow great one day, sir.
Fast. What does he study? the law?

Sog. Ay, sir, he is a gentleman, though his father be but a yeoman.

Car. What call you your nephew, signior?

Sog. Marry, his name is Fungoso.

Car. Fungoso! O, he look'd somewhat like a sponge in that pink'd yellow doublet, methought; well, make much of him; I see he was never born to ride upon a mule.R

8 I see he was never born to ride upon a mule,] i. e. he was never born to be a great lawyer. It was the custom anciently for the judges or serjeants at law to go to Westminster in great state, and riding on mules. Thus Stow, describing the order of Wolsey's going to Westminster, in term-time: "And when he come at the hall door, there was hys mule, being trapped all in crimson velvet, wyth a saddle of the same, and guilte styrops."-Ann. ed. 1580, P. 917. WHAL.

John Whiddon, justice of the King's Bench Court, 1 Mar. as we are informed by Dugdale, "was the first of the judges who rode to Westminster-hall on an horse or gelding; for before that time they rode on mules." Dug. Orig. Ju. L. p. 38.

Jonson, or his printer, spells this word several ways, moile, moyl, and mule, I have adopted the last.

Gent. [reappears at the window.] My lady will come presently, sir.

Sog. O, now, now!

Punt. Stand by, retire yourselves a space; nay, pray you, forget not the use of your hat; the air is piercing. [SORDIDO and FUNGOSO withdraw. Fast. What! will not their presence prevail against the current of his humour?

Car. O, no; it's a mere flood, a torrent carries all afore it. [LADY PUNTARVOLO appears at the window. Punt. What more than heavenly pulchritude is this,

What magazine, or treasury of bliss?
Dazzle, you organs to my optic sense,
To view a creature of such eminence:
O, I am planet-struck, and in yon sphere
A brighter star than Venus doth appear!
Fast. How! in verse!

Car. An extacy, an extacy, man.

Lady P. [above.] Is your desire to speak with me, sir knight?

Car. He will tell you that anon; neither his brain nor his body are yet moulded for an answer.

Punt. Most debonair, and luculent lady, I decline me as low as the basis of your altitude.

Cor. He makes congies to his wife in geometrical proportions.

Mit. Is it possible there should be any such humourist?

Cor. Very easily possible, sir, you see there is.

Punt. I have scarce collected my spirits, but lately scattered in the admiration of your form; to which, if the bounties of your mind be any way responsible, I doubt not, but my desires shall find a smooth and secure passage. I am a poor knight-errant, lady, that hunting in the adjacent forest, was by adventure,