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Appendix.

263

The register of all rarieties[1]
Since leathern Adam till this youngest hour.

Re-enter Lodowick with the Countess.

Go, Lodowick, put thy hand into my purse,

Play, spend, give, riot, waste; do what thou wilt,
So thou wilt hence awhile, and leave me here. [Exit Lodowick.

Having already, out of a desire and determination to do no possible injustice to the actual merits of this play in the eyes of any reader who might never have gone over the text on which I had to comment, exceeded in no small degree the limits I had intended to impose upon my task in the way of citation, I shall not give so full a transcript from the next and last scene between the Countess and the King.

Edward. Now, my soul's playfellow! art thou come
To speak the more than heavenly word of yea
To my objection in thy beauteous love?

(Again, this singular use of the word objection in the sense of offer or proposal has no parallel in the plays of Shakespeare.)

Countess. My father on his blessing hath commanded—
Edward. That thou shalt yield to me.
Countess. Ay, dear my liege, your due.
Edward. And that, my dearest love, can be no less
Than right for right, and render[2] love for love.
Countess. Than wrong for wrong, and endless hate for hate.
But, sith I see your majesty so bent,


  1. Another word indiscoverable in any genuine verse of Shakespeare's, though not (I believe) unused on occasion by some among the poets contemporary with his earlier years.
  2. This word was perhaps unnecessarily altered by our good Capell to "tender."
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