The Pheasant and Partridge 
Shep. I know not, an’t like you. 
Clown [aside] Advocate’s the court-word for a phea- 
sant: say you have none— 
Shep. None, sir ; I have no pheasant, cock nor hen. 
Aut. How blessed are we that are not simple men ! 
Yet nature might have made me as these are ; 
Therefore I will not disdain.! 
We find the parTRIDGE referred to 
twice in the dramas, once as part of 
the game in a puttock’s nest, in the 
passage already cited, and the second 
time in the encounter of wit between 
Beatrice and Benedick at the masked 
ball when she, pretending not to recog- 
nise him, heaps all manner of ridicule 
upon him, ending with the taunt that if 
he should hear what she has been saying 
about him, 
He'll but break a comparison or two on me; 
which peradventure not marked or not laughed 
at, strikes him into melancholy ; and there’s a 
partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no 
supper that night.? 
1 Winter’s Tale, wv. iv. 727. 
2 Much Ado about Nothing, 1. i. 128. 
I 65 
