Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTard.

JAQ God give you good morrow, mafter perfon. HOL. Mafter perfon,-quafi perf-on. And if one fhould be pierced, which is the one?

COST. Marry, mafter schoolmafter, he that is likeft to a hogfhead.

HOL. Of piercing a hogfhead! a good luftre of conceit in a turf of earth, fire enough for a flint, pearl enough for a swine: 'tis pretty; it is well.

JAQ. Good mafter parfon, be fo good as read me this letter; it was given me by Costard, and fent me from Don Armatho: I beseech you, read it. HOL. Faufte, precor gelidâ quando pecus omne fub

umbrâ

1

Capable is ufed equivocally. One of its fenfes was reasonable; endowed with a ready capacity to learn. So, in King Richard III : "O'tis a parlous boy,

"Bold, quick, ingenious, forward, capable."

The other wants no explanation. MALONE.

8

quafi perf-on.] So, in Holinfhed, p. 953:

Jerom was vicar of Stepnie, and Garrard was perfon of Honiclane. Again, in The Contention betwyxte Churchyard and Camell,

1560:

"And fend fuch whens home to our perfon or vicar." I believe, however, we fhould write the word pers-one. The fame play on the word pierce is put into the mouth of Falstaff. STEEVENS.

The words one and on were, I believe, pronounced nearly alike, at least in some counties, in our author's time; the quibble, therefore, that Mr. Steevens has noted, may have been intended as the text now ftands. In the fame ftyle afterwards Moth fays, "Offer'd by a child to an old man, which is wit-old. MALONE.

Perfon, as Sir William Blackflone obferves in his Commentaries, is the original and proper term; Perfona ecclefiæ. MALONE.

9 Hol. Faufte, precor gelidâ ] Though all the editions concur > give this speech to fir Nathaniel, yet, as Dr. Thirlby ingeni

Ruminat,and fo 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.

2

only obferved to me, it is evident it muft belong to Holofernes. The Curate is employed in reading the letter to himself; and while he is doing fo, that the flage may not ftand ftill, Holofernes either pulls out a book, or, repeating fome verfe by heart from Mantuanus, comments upon the character of that poet. Baptifta Spagnolus (firnamed Mantuanus, from the place of his birth was a writer of poems, who flourished towards the latter end of the 15th century. THEOBALD.

Faufte, precor gelida, &c.] A note of La Monnoye's on thefe very words in Les Contes des Periers, Nov. 42. will explain the hu mour of the quotation, and fhew how well Shakspeare has fuftained the character of his pedant. Il defigne le Carme Baptifle Mantuan, dont au commencement du 16 fiècle on lifoit publiquement à Paris les Poefies; célebres alors, que, comme dit plaifamment Farnabe, dans fa preface fur Martial, les Pedans ne faifoient nulle difficulté de prefèrer ale Arma virumque cano, le Faufte precor gelida; c'est-à-dire, à l'Eneide de Virgil les Eclogues de Mantuan, la première defquelles commence par, Fausie, precor gelidâ. WARBURTON.

The Eclogues of Mantuanus the Carmelite were tranflated before the time of Shakspeare, and the Latin printed on the oppofite fide of the page for the ufe of fchools. SLEEVENS.

From a paffage in Nafhe's Apologie of Pierce Pennilesse, 1593. the Eclogues of Mantuanus appear to have been a school-book in our author's time: With the firft and fecond leafe he plaies very prettilie, and, in ordinarie terms of extenuating, verdits Pierce Pennileffe for a grammar-fchool wit; faies, his margine is as deeply learned as Faufte precor gelida." A tranflation of Mantuanus by George Turberville was printed in 8vo. in 1567. MALONE.

Chi non te vede, ei non te pregia.] Our author is applying the praises of Mantuanus to a common proverbial fentence, faid of Venice. Vinegia, Vinegia! chi non te vede, ei non te pregia. O Venice, Venice, he who has never feen thee, has thee not in esteem.

THEOBALD.

The proverb, as I am informed, is this; He that fees Venice littl values it much; he that fees it much, values it little. But I fuppof

1

3_

Old Mantuan! old Mantuan! Who understandeth thee not, loves thee not.-Ut, re, fol, la, mi, fa. Under pardon, fir, what are the contents? or, rather, as Horace fays in his-What, my foul, verses?

NATH, Ay, fir, and very learned.

HOL. Let me hear a staff, a stanza, a verse; Lege domine.

4

NATH. If love make me forfworn, how fhall I fwear to love?

Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty

vowed!

Though to myself forfworn, to thee I'll faithful

prove;

Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like ofiers bowed.

Mr. Theobald is right, for the true proverb would not ferve the fpeaker's purpose. JOHNSON.

The proverb ftands thus in Howell's Letters. B. I. fec. i. 1. 36. Venetia, Venetia, chi non te vede, non te pregia,

"Ma chi tha troppo veduto te difpregia.

"Venice, Venice, none thee unfeen can prize;

"Who thee hath feen too much, will thee defpife.

The players in their edition, have thus printed the first line.. Vemchie, vencha, que non te unde, que non te perreche.

M. Malone obferves that the editor of the firft folio here, as in many other iuftances, implicitly copied the preceding quarto.. The text was corrected by Mr. Theobald. STEEVENS.

Our author, I believe, found this Italian proverb in Florio's Second Frutes, 4to. 1591, where it ftands thus:

"Venetia, chi non ti vede, non ti pretia;

"Ma chi ti vede, ben gli cofta.' MALONE.

3 Ut, re, fol, &c.] He hums the notes of the gamut, as Edmund does in King Lear, A& I. fc. ii. where fee Dr. Burney's note. DOUCE.

4 If love make me forfworn, &c.] Thefe verfes are printed with fome variations in a book entitled The Paffionate Pilgrim, Svo. 1599.

MALONE

Study his bias leaves, and makes his book thine

eyes;

Where all thofe pleasures live, that art would comprehend:

If knowledge be the mark, to know thee fhall fuffice;

Well learned is that tongue, that well can thee commend:

All ignorant that foul, that fees thee without wonder;

(Which is to me fome praise, that I thy parts

admire;)

Thy eye Jove's lightning bears, thy voice his dreadful thunder,

Which, not to anger bent, is musick, and sweet fire.

Celeftial, as thou art, oh pardon, love, this wrong, That fings heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue!

HOL. You find not the apoftrophes, and fo miss the accent: let me fupervize the canzonet. Here are only numbers ratified; but, for the elegancy,

6

5 — thy voice his dreadful thunder,

Which, not to anger bent, is mufick and fweet fire.] So, in Antony and Cleopatra:

66

his voice was propertied

As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends;

"But when he meant to quail, and shake the `orb,
"He was as ratling thunder. MALONE.

Here are only numbers ratified;] Though this fpeech has all along been placed to fir Nathaniel, I have ventured to join it to the preceding words of Holofernes; and not without reafon. The fpeaker here is impeaching the verfes; but fir Nathaniel, as it appears above, thought them learned ones: befides, As Dr. Thirlby obferves, almoft every word of this fpeech fathers itself on the pedant. So much for the regulation of it: now, a little,

to the contents.

And why, indeed, Nafo; but for Smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy the jerks of invention imitary is nothing.

Ovi

facility, and golden cadence of poefy, caret. dius Nafo was the man: and way, indeed, Naso; but for fmelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy, the jerks of invention? Imitari, is nothing: fo doth the hound his mafter, the ape his keeper, the tired horfe his rider. But, damofella virgin, was this directed to you?

JAQ. Ay, fir, from one Monfieur Biron, one of the ftrange queen's lords.

Sagacity with a vengeance! I fhould be ashamed to own myself a piece of a fcholar, to pretend to the task of an editor, and to pafs such stuff as this upon the world for genuine. Who ever heard of invention imitary? Invention and imitation have ever been accounted two diftin&t things. The fpeech is by a pedant, who frequently throws in a word of Latin among his English; and he is here flourishing upon the merit of invention, beyond that of imita tion, or copying after another. My correction makes the whole fo plain and intelligible, that, I think, it carries conviction along with it. THEOBALD.

This pedantry appears to have been common in the age of Shakfpeare. The author of Lingua, or the Combat of the Tongue and the Five Senfes for Superiority, 1607, takes particular notice of it:

I remember about the year 1602, many used this skew kind of language, which, in my opinion, is not much unlike the man, whom Ptolemy, the fon of Lagus, king of Egypt, brought for a fpe&acle, half white half black.' STEEVENS.

7 the tired horfe] The tired horfe was the horfe adorned with ribands,―The famous Bankes's horfe so often alluded to. Lilly, in his Mother Bombie, brings in a Hackneyman and Mr. Halfpenny at cross-purposes with this word: "Why didft thou boare the horse through the eares?" "It was for tiring." "He would never tire," replies the other. FARMER.

So, in Marflon's Antonio and Mellida, Part II. 1602. "Slink to thy chamber then and tyre thee."

Again, in What you Will, by Marston, 1607:

'

My love hath tyred fome fidler like Albano."

MALONE.

8 Ay, fr, from one Monfieur Biron,] Shakspeare forgot himfelf in this paffage. Jaquenetta knew nothing of Biron, and had faid, juft before, that the letter had been "fent to her from Don Armatho, and given to her by Coftard." M. MASON.