AUTOLYCUS. 139 



me call him, though he says he is " proof against 

 that title," has terrified the old shepherd by a de- 

 scription of the tortures he shall feel, summed up by 

 the words, " All deaths are too few ; the sharpest, 

 too easy." The younger rustic, alarmed on his own 

 account, by the apprehension of similar sufferings, 

 timidly inquires, — " Has the old man e'er a son, sir ; 

 do you hear, an't like you, sir ? " and is utterly hor- 

 rified by the reply: — " He has a son, who shall be 

 flayed aUve, then 'nointed over with honey, set on 

 the head of a wasps' nest, then stand till he be 

 three-quarters and a dram dead : then recovered again 

 with aquavitse, or some other hot infusion : then, 

 raw as he is, and in the hottest day, prognostication 

 proclaims shall he be set against a brick-waU, the 

 sun looking with a southward eye upon him ; where 

 he is to behold him with flies blown to death." 

 " But what talk we of those traitorly rascals," 

 adds Autolycus ; then, changing the subject, inquires 

 their business with the King, and proposes, on being 

 " gently considered," to " whisper him on their be- 

 halfs." The clown, deUghted at the intercession of one 

 who "seems to be of great authority," bids his son 

 " close with him; give him gold." The whole scene 

 is replete with comic humour ; and if the stinging 

 of the wasps has been too long dwelt on — if my pro- 

 lixit)"- has tempted you to exclaim, — " Friend, you 



