fear of your adventure would counsel you to a more equal enterprise. We pray you, for your own fake, to embrace your own safety, and give over this attempt. Ros. Do, young fir; your reputation shall not therefore be misprised: we will make it our fuit to the duke, that the wrestling might not go forward. ORL. I beseech you, punish me not with your hard thoughts; wherein I confefs me much guilty, to deny fo fair and excellent ladies any thing. But let your fair eyes, and gentle wishes, go with me -our eyes, and our judgment. The argument is, Your Spirits are too bold, and therefore your judgment deceives you; but did you fee and know yourself with our more impartial judgment, you would forbear. WARBURTON. I cannot find the abfurdity of the present reading. If you were not blinded and intoxicated, says the princess, with the spirit of enterprise, if you could use your own eyes to fee, or your own judgment to know yourself, the fear of your adventure would counsel you. JOHNSON. 4 I beseech you, punish me not, &c.] I should wish to read, I beseech you, punish me not with your hard thoughts. Therein I confefs myself much guilty to deny fo fair and excellent ladies any thing. JOHNSON. As the word wherein must always refer to something preceding, I have no doubt but there is an error in this passage, and that we ought to read herein, instead of wherein. The hard thoughts that he complains of are the apprehenfions expressed by the ladies of his not being able to contend with the wrestler. He beseeches that they will not punish him with them; and then adds, " Herein I confefs me much guilty to deny fo fair and excellent ladies any thing. But let your fair eyes and gentle wishes go with me to my trial." M. MASON. The meaning I think is, "punish me not with your unfavourable opinion (of my abilities); which, however, I confess, I deserve to incur, for denying such fair ladies any request." The expreffion is licentious, but our author's plays furnish many such. MALONE. to my trial: wherein if I be foiled, there is but one shamed that was never gracious; if killed, but one dead that is willing to be so: I shall do my friends no wrong, for I have none to lament me; the world no injury, for in it I have nothing; only in the world I fill up a place, which may be better supplied when I have made it empty. Ros. The little strength that I have, I would it were with you. CEL. And mine, to eke out hers. Ros. Fare you well. Pray heaven, I be deceived in you! CEL. Your heart's defires be with you! CHA. Come, where is this young gallant, that is so defirous to lie with his mother earth? ORL. Ready, fir; but his will hath in it a more modeft working. DUKE F. You shall try but one fall. CHA. No, I warrant your grace; you shall not entreat him to a second, that have so mightily perfuaded him from a firft. ORL. You mean to mock me after; you should not have mocked me before: but come your ways. Ros. Now, Hercules be thy speed, young man! CEL. I would I were invisible, to catch the strong fellow by the leg. [CHARLES and ORLANDO wrestle. Ros. O excellent young man! 5 - let your gentle wishes, go with me to my trial:] Addifon might have had this passage in his memory, when he put the following words into Juba's mouth: Marcia, may I hope " That thy kind wishes follow me to battle?" STEEVENS, CEL. If I had a thunderbolt in mine eye, I can tell who should down. [CHARLES is thrown. Shout. DUKE F. No more, no more. ORL. Yes, I beseech your grace; I am not yet well breathed. DUKE F. How dost thou, Charles? LE BEAU. He cannot speak, my lord. DUKE F. Bear him away. [CHARLES is borne out.] What is thy name, young man? ORL. Orlando, my liege; the youngest fon of fir Rowland de Bois. DUKE F. I would, thou hadst been fon to fome man elfe. The world esteem'd thy father honourable, [Exeunt Duke FRED. Train, and Le BEAU. CEL. Were I my father, coz, would I do this? ORL. I am more proud to be fir Rowland's fon, His youngest fon; and would not change that calling,+ To be adopted heir to Frederick. Ros. My father lov'd fir Rowland as his foul, And all the world was of my father's mind : Had I before known this young man his fon, 3 His youngest fon ;) The words "than to be descended from any other house, however high," must be understood. Orlando is replying to the duke, who is just gone out, and had faid, 4 " Thou should'st have better pleas'd me with this deed, that calling,] i. e. appellation; a very unusual, if not unprecedented sense of the word. STEEVENS. I should have given him tears unto entreaties, CEL. Gentle coufin, Let us go thank him, and encourage him: If you do keep your promises in love, Ros. Gentleman, 5 [Giving him a chain from her neck. Wear this for me; one out of suits with fortune;' That could give more, but that her hand lacks means. Shall we go, coz? CEL. Ay:-Fare you well, fair gentleman. ORL. Can I not say, I thank you? My better parts Are all thrown down; and that which here stands up, Is but a quintain, a mere lifeless block." 5 6 as you have exceeded promise,] The old copy, without regard to the measure, reads all promise. STEEVENS. of fuits with fortune;] This seems an allufion to cards, where he that has no more cards to play of any particular fort, is out of fuit. JOHNSON. one out Out of fuits with fortune, I believe means, turned out of her fervice, and stripped of her livery. STEEVENS. So afterwards Celia says, " - but turning these jests out of fervice, let us talk in good earnest." MALONE. 7 Is but a quintain, a mere lifeless block.] A quintain was a poft or butt set up for several kinds of martial exercises, againft which they threw their darts and exercised their arms. The allufion is beautiful. I am, says Orlando, only a quintain, a lifeless block on which love only exercises his arms in jest, the great difparity of condition between Rosalind and me, not suffering me to hope that love will ever make a ferious matter of it. The famous fatirift Regnier, who lived about the time of our uthour, uses the fame metaphor, on the same subject, though the thought be different: Ros. He calls us back: My pride fell with my I'll ask him what he would:-Did you call, fir?- More than your enemies. CEL. Will you go, coz? Ros. Have with you :-Fare you well. [Exeunt ROSALIND and Celia. ORL. What passion hangs these weights upon my tongue? I cannot speak to her, yet she urg'd conference. " Et qui depuis dix ans jusqu'en fes derniers jours, Laffe en fin de servir au peuple de quintaine, "Elle" &c. WARBURTON. This is but an imperfect (to call it no worse) explanation of a beautiful passage. The quintain was not the object of the darts and arms: it was a stake driven into a field, upon which were hung a shield and other trophies of war, at which they shot, darted, or rode, with a lance. When the shield and the trophies were all thrown down, the quintain remained. Without this information how could the reader understand the allufion of My better parts Are all thrown down? GUTHRIE. Mr. Malone has disputed the propriety of Mr. Guthrie's animadversions; and Mr. Douce is equally dissatisfied with those of Mr. Malone. The phalanx of our auxiliaries, as well as their circumstantiality, is so much increased, that we are often led (as Hamlet observes) to 66 fight for a fpot "Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause." The present strictures therefore of Mr. Malone and Mr. Douce, (which are too valuable to be omitted, and too ample to find their place under the text of our author,) must appear at the conclufion of the play. STEEVENS. For a more particular description of a quintain, see a note on a passage in Jonfon's Underwoods, Whalley's edit. Vol. VII. p. 55. M. MASON. A humourous description of this amusement may also be read in Laneham's Letter from "Killingwoorth Castle." HENLEY. |