Part 5 (2/2)

'Thine in the dearest design of industry.'

[_Dramatic comment_.]

_Boyet. I am much deceived but I remember the style.

_Princess_. Else your memory is bad going o'er it erewhile._

_Jaquenetta_. Good Master Parson, be so good as to read me this letter--it was sent me from Don _Armatho_: I beseech you to read it.

_Holofernes_. [Speaking here, however, not in character but for 'the _Academe_.'] _Fauste precor gelida quando pecus omne sub umbra Ruminat_, and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan! I may speak of thee as the traveller doth of Venice

--Vinegia, Vinegia, Chi non te vede, ei non te pregia.

Old Mantuan! Old Mantuan! Who understandeth thee not, _loves thee not.--Ut re sol la mi fa.--Under pardon_, Sir, what are THE CONTENTS?

or, rather, as Horace says in his--What, my soul, _verses_?

_Nath_. Ay, Sir, and _very learned_ [one would say so _upon examination_].

_Hol_. Let me have a _staff_, a stanza, a verse; _Lege Domine_.

_Nath_. [Reads the 'verses.']--'If love make me forsworn,' etc.

_Hol_. You _find not the apostrophe_, and _so--miss_ the _accent_--[criticising the reading. It is necessary to find the _apostrophe_ in the verses of this Academy, before you can give the accent correctly; there are other points which require to be noted also, in this refined courtier's writings, as this criticism will inform us]. Let me _supervise_ the canzonet. Here _are only numbers_ ratified, but for the elegancy, facility, and golden cadency of poesy, _caret_. _Ovidius Naso_ was the man. And _why_, indeed, Naso; but for _smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy_, the _jerks of invention_. _Imitari_ is nothing; so doth the hound his master, the ape his keeper, the tired horse his rider. [It was no such reading and writing as _that_ which this Academy was going to countenance, or teach.] But, Damosella, was this directed to you?

_Jaq_. Ay, Sir, from one Monsieur Biron, one of the strange queen's lords.

_Hol_. I will _over-glance_ the _super-script_. 'To the snow white hand of the most beauteous lady _Rosaline_.' I will look again _on the intellect_ of the letter for the _nomination_ of the party writing, _to the person written unto_ (_Rosaline_).--[_Look again_.--That is the rule for the reading of letters issued from this Academy, whether they come in Don Armado's name or another's, when the point is _not_ to 'miss the _accent_.'] 'Your ladys.h.i.+p's, in all desired employment, BIRON.' Sir Nathaniel, this Biron is one of the votaries with the king, and here he hath framed a _letter_ to a _sequent_ of the stranger queen's, which, _accidentally or by way of progression_, hath miscarried. Trip and go, my sweet; deliver this paper into the _royal hand of the king. It may concern much_. Stay not thy compliment, I forgive thy duty. _Adieu_.

_Nath_. Sir, you have done this in the fear of G.o.d, very religiously; and as a certain father saith--

_Hol_. Sir, tell me not of _the father_, I do fear colorable colors.

But to return to _the verses_. Did they please you, Sir Nathaniel?

_Nath_. Marvellous well _for the pen_.

_Hol_. I _dine_ to-day at the _father's _of a certain pupil of _mine_, where, if before repast, it shall please you to gratify the table with a grace, I will, on my privilege I have with the parent of the foresaid child, or pupil, undertake your _ben venuto, where I will prove_ those _verses to be very unlearned_, neither savouring of poetry, wit, nor invention. I beseech _your society_.

_Nath_. And thank you, too; for _society_ (saith the text) is _the happiness of_ LIFE.

_Hol_. And, _certes_, the text _most infallibly concludes it_.--Sir, [to Dull] I do _invite you too_, [to hear the verses ex-criticised]

you _shall not_ say me _nay: pauca verba. Away_; the _gentles are at their games_, and we will _to our recreation_.

Another part of the _same_. After dinner.

_Re-enter Holofernes, Sir Nathaniel, and Dull_.

_Hol. Satis quod sufficit_.

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