have your ladyfhip's good will to go to the world, Ifbel the woman and I will do as we may. Count. Wilt thou needs be a beggar? Clo. I do beg your good will in this cafe. Clo. In Ifbel's cafe, and mine own. Service is no heritage and, I think, I fhall never have the bleffing of God, till I have iffue of my body; for, they fay, bearns are bleffings. Count. Tell me thy reafon why thou wilt marry. Clo. My poor body, madam, requires it; I am driven on by the flesh; and he muft needs go, that the devil drives. Count. Is this all your worship's reason? Clo. Faith, madam, I have other holy reasons, fuch as they are. Count. May the world know them? Clo. I have been, madam, a wicked creature, as you and all flesh and blood are; and, indeed, I do marry, that I may repent. Count. Thy marriage, fooner than thy wickedness. Clo. I am out of friends, madam; and I hope to have friends for my wife's fake. Count. Such friends are thine enemies, knave. Clo. You are fhallow, madam, in great friends 4; for the knaves come to do that for me, which I am a 3 to go to the world,- ] This phrase has already occurred in Much Ado about Nothing, and fignifies to be married: and thus, in As you like It, Audrey fays: " -it is no dishonest defire, to defire to be a woman of the world." STEEVENS. 4 Clo. You are fhallow, madam, in great friends; for the knaves come to do that for me which I am a weary of.-] This last speech, I think, fhould be read thus: You are fhallow, madam; my great friends; TYRWHITT. The meaning feems to be, you are not deeply skilled in the character or offices of great friends. JOHNSON. weary weary of. He, that ears iny land", fpares my team, and gives me leave to inn the crop : if I he his cuckold, he's my drudge: He, that comforts my wife, is the cherisher of my flesh and blood; he, that cherishes my flesh and blood, loves my flesh and blood; he, that loves my flesh and blood, is my friend: ergo, he that kiffes my wife, is my friend. If men could be contented to be what they are, there were no fear in marriage; for young Charbon the puritan, and old Poyfam the papift, howfoe'er their hearts are fever'd in religion, their heads are both one, they may joul horns together, like any deer i' the herd, Count. Wilt thou ever be a foul-mouth'd and calumnious knave? 6 Clo. A prophet, I, madam; and I speak the truth the next way : For I the ballad will repeat, Which men full true fhall find; that ears my land,- -] To ear is to plough. So, in Anthony and Cleopatra: "Make the fea ferve them, which they ear and wound "With keels of every kind." STEEVENS. • A prophet, I, madam; and I speak the truth the next way:] It is a fuperftition, which has run through all ages and people, that natural fools have fomething in them of divinity. On which account they were esteemed facred: travellers tell us in what esteem the Turks now hold them; nor had they lefs honour paid them heretofore in France, as appears from the old word benet, for a natural fool. Hence it was that Pantagruel, in Rabelais, advised Panurge to go and confult the fool Triboulet as an oracle; which gives occafion to a fatirical stroke upon the privy council of Francis the first Par l'avis, confeil, prediction des fols vos fçavez quants princes, &c. ont efté confervez, &c. The phrafe-peak the truth the next way, means directly; as they do who are only the inftruments or canals of others; fuch as infpired persons were fuppofed to be. WARBURTON. Next way, is neareft way. So, in K. Hen. IV. Part I: " 'Tis the next way to turn taylor, &c." STEEVENS. Your Your marriage comes by defting, Your cuckoo fings by kind. Count. Get you gone, fir; I'll talk with you more anon. Stew. May it please you, madam, that he bid Helen come to you; of her I am to speak. Count. Sirrah, tell my gentlewoman, I would speak with her; Helen I mean. 7 8 Clo. Was this fair face the caufe, quoth fhe, [Singing. Why the Grecians facked Troy? Fond done, done fond, Was this king Priam's joy. fings by kind. I find fomething like two of the lines of this ballad in John Grange's Garden, 1577: "Content yourfelf as well as I, let reafon rule your minde, "As cuckoldes come by deftinie, fo cuckowes fing by kinde." STEEVENS. Was this fair face the caufe, quoth fhe, Why the Grecians facked Troy? Fond done, fond done; Was this king Priam's joy.] This is a stanza of an old ballad, out of which a word or two are dropt, equally neceffary to make the fenfe and the alternate rhime. For it was not Helen, who was king Priam's joy, but Paris. The third line therefore fhould be read thus: Fond done, fond done, for Paris, he. WARBURTON. If this be a ftanza taken from any ancient ballad, it will proba bly in time be found entire, and then the restoration may be made with authority. STEEVENS. 9 Venice fond done, is foolishly done. So, in the Merchant of "Jailor, why art thou fo fond With that he fighed as he stood,] STEEVENS. At the end of the line of which this is a repetition, we find added in Italic characters the word bis, denoting, I fuppofe, the neceffity of its being repeated. The correfponding line was twice printed, as it is here inferted, from the ancient and only authentic COPY, STEEVENS. Among Among nine bad if one be good, Count. What, one good in ten? you corrupt the song, firrah. Clo. One good woman in ten, madam; which is a purifying o' the fong: 'Would God would ferve the world fo all the year! we'd find no fault with the tythe-woman, if I were the parfon: One in ten, quoth a' an we might have a good woman born but every blazing ftar, or at an earthquake, 'twould mend the lottery well; a man may draw his heart out, ere he pluck one. Count. You'll be gone, fir knave, and do as I command you? Clo. 4 That man should be at a woman's command, and 2 Among nine bad if one be good, This fecond stanza of the ballad is turned to a joke upon the wo-“ men: a confeffion, that there was one good in ten. Whereon the Countefs obferved, that he corrupted the fong, which fhews the fong faid, Nine good in ten. If one be bad amongst nine good, There's but one bad in ten. This relates to the ten fons of Priam, who all behaved themselves well but Paris. For though he once had fifty, yet at this unfortunate period of his reign he had but ten; Agathon, Antiphon, Deiphobus, Dius, Hector, Helenus, Hippothous, Pammon, Paris, and Polites. WARBURTON. 3 but every blazing ftar,-] The old copy reads-but ore every blazing ftar. STEEVENS. 4 Clo. That man, &c.] The clown's answer is obfcure. His lady bids him do as he is commanded. He anfwers with the licentious petulance of his character, that if a man does as a woman commands, it is likely he will do amifs; that he does not amifs, being at the command of a woman, he makes the effect, not of his lady's goodnefs, but of his own bonefty, which, though not very nice or puritanical, will do no burt; and will not only do no hurt, but, unlike the puritans, will comply with the injunctions of fuperiors, and wear the furplice of humility over the black gown of a big heart; and yet no hurt done!-Though honesty be no puri- Count. Well, now. Stew. I know, madam, you love your gentlewoman intirely. Count. Faith, I do: her father bequeath'd her to me; and the herself, without other advantage, may lawfully make title to as much love as the finds: there is more owing her, than is paid; and more fhall be paid her, than fhe'll demand. Stew. Madam, I was very late more near her than, I think, the wifh'd me: alone fhe was, and did communicate to herself, her own words to her own ears; The thought, I dare vow for her, they touch'd not any stranger fenfe. Her matter was, the lov'd your will obey commands, though not much pleafed with a state of fubjection. Here is an allufion, violently enough forced in, to fatirize the obftinacy with which the puritans refufed the ufe of the ecclefiaftical habits, which was, at that time, one principal cause of the breach of union, and, perhaps, to infinuate, that the modest purity of the furplice was fometimes a cover for pride. JOHNSON. I cannot help thinking that we fhould read. Though honefty be a puritan. TYRWHITT. The averfion of the puritans to a furplice is alluded to in many of the old comedies. So in the following instances: "She loves to act in as clean linen as any gentlewoman of her function about the town; and truly that's the reafon that your fincere puritans cannot abide a furplice, because they say 'tis made of the fame thing that your villainous fin is committed in, of your prophane holland." Cupid's Whirligig by E. S. 1616. Again, in the Match at Midnight, 1633, by W. R. "He has turn'd my ftomach for all the world like a puritan's at the fight of a furplice." Again, in The Hollander, 1635: "a puritan, who, becaufe he faw a furplice in the church, would needs hang himself in the bell-ropes." STEEVÈNS. fon: |