If tinkers may have leave to live,
And bear the sow-skin budget;
Then my account I well may give,

And in the stocks avouch it.

My traffic is sheets; when the kite builds, look to lesser linen." My father named me Autolycus; who, being, as I am, littered under Mercury, was likewise a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles: With die 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?

Aut. If the springe hold, the cock's mine.

[Aside.

Clo. I cannot do't without counters.-Let me see; what am I to buy for our sheep-shearing feast? Three pound of sugar; five pound of currants; rice What will this sister 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 song-men 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 colour the warden pies ; mace,-dates,-none; that's out of my note; mutmegs, seven; a race, or two, of ginger; but that I may beg;-four pound of prunes, and as many of raisins o'the sun.

n My traffic is sheets; &c.] Autolycus means that his practice was to steal sheets and large pieces of linen, leaving the smaller pieces for the kites to build with.-M. MASON.

With die, and drab,] i. e. With gaming and whoring.

the silly cheat Cant term for picking pockets.

tods;] i. e. Yields a tod. Every eleven wethers will produce a tod, or twenty-eight pounds of wool.

r

t

three-man song-men all, i. e. Singers of catches in three parts.
means] i. e. Tenor's.

warden pies ;] i. e. Pies made of the warden, a kind of large, hard, baking pear.

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 főótman.

Clo. Indeed, he should be a foot-man, by the garments he hath left with thee; if this be a horseman'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; I fear, sir, my shoulder-blade is out.

Clo. How now? cans't stand?

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. Nó, 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; with trol-my dames:] Trou-madame, French. The old English title of this game was pigeon-holes; as the arches in the machine through which the

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 bring out another, and the shearers prove sheep, let me be unrolled, and my name put in the book of virtue ! balls are rolled, resemble the cavities made for pigeons in a dove-house.— STEEVENS.

X motion of the prodigal son,] i. e. The puppet-shew, then called motions. A term frequently occurring in our author.-WARBUrton.

y prig:] In the canting language, prig is a thief or pick-pocket.—

WHALLEY.

unrolled,] Begging gypsies were in the time of our author in gangs or companies, that had something of the shew of an incorporated body. From this noble society he wishes to be unrolled if he does not so and so.WARBURTON.

Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way,
And merrily hent the stile-a:

A merry heart goes all the day,

Your sad tires in a mile-a.

SCENE III.

The same. A Shepherd's Cottage.

Enter FLORIZEL and PERDITA.

[Exit.

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

Per.

queen on't.b

C

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 obscur'd
With a swain's wearing; and me, poor lowly maid,
Most goddess-like prank'd 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 differences forges dread; your greatness

a

hent-] i. e. Take hold of.

And you the queen on't.] Il n'y a rien de plus frais, de plus jeune, de plus pastoral, et de plus noble à la fois que les amours de Florizel et de Perdita. Le prince, entraîné par sa passion, descend à l'état de berger, tandis que la bergère paraît remonter naturellement à celui de princesse, et que les guirlandes deviennent des couronnes entre ses mains. SCHLEgel.

your extremes,] Perdita does not mean his extravagant praises, but the extravagance of his conduct in obscuring himself in swains wearing while he prank'd her up most goddess-like.-M. MASON.

· The gracious mark-] The object of all men's notice and expectation. prank'd up :] i. e. Drest with ostentation.

sworn, I think,

To show myself a glass.] The sense is, that the prince by assuming a peasant's dress seems sworn to show her as in a glass, what dress she ought to wear instead of the fanciful attire that she had put on for the feast.

8

the difference-] i. e. Between his rank and hers.

Even now I tremble

Hath not been used to fear.

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 borrow'd 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 bellow'd; the green Neptune
A ram, and bleated: and the fire-rob'd 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 honour; nor my lusts
Burn hotter than my faith.

Per.

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

Oppos'd, 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 purpose, Or I my life.

Flo.

Thou dearest Perdita,

With these forc'di 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:

Vilely bound up?] It is impossible for any man to rid his mind of his profession. The authorship of Shakspeare has supplied him with a metaphor, which, rather than he would lose it, he has put with no great propriety into the mouth of a country maid. Thinking of his own works, his mind passed naturally to the binder. I am glad that he has no hint at an editor.