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A man of sovereign [parts, peerless] esteem’d,

Well fitted in arts, glorious in arms;

Nothing becomes him ill that he would well.

The only soil of his fair virtue’s gloss,

If virtue’s gloss will stain with any soil,

Is a sharp wit match’d with too blunt a will,

Whose edge hath power to cut, whose will still wills

It should none spare that come within his power.

Prin.

Some merry mocking lord belike, is’t so?

[Mar.]

They say so most that most his humors know.

Prin.

Such short-liv’d wits do wither as they grow.

Who are the rest?

[Kath.]

The young Dumaine, a well-accomplish’d youth,

Of all that virtue love for virtue loved;

Most power to do most harm, least knowing ill;

For he hath wit to make an ill shape good,

And shape to win grace though he had no wit.

I saw him at the Duke Alanson’s once,

And much too little of that good I saw

Is my report to his great worthiness.

[Ros.]

Another of these students at that time

Was there with him, if I have heard a truth.

Berowne they call him, but a merrier man,