BEN. By giving liberty unto thine eyes; Examine other beauties. ROM. 'Tis the way To call hers, exquifite, in queftion more: These happy maiks," that kifs fair ladies' brows, BEN. I'll pay that doctrine, or elfe die in debt. [Exeunt. 6. To call hers, exquifite, in question more:] That is, to call hers, which is exquifite, the more into my remembrance and contemplation. It is in this fenfe, and not in that of doubt, or difpute, that the word question is here ufed. HEATH. More into talk; to make her unparalleled beauty more the fubject of thought and conversation. See Vol. VII. p. 349, n. 9. MALONE. 7 These happy masks, &c.] i. e. the masks worn by female fpectators of the play. So, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Beggar's Bush, fc. ult: "We ftand here for an Epilogue. "Ladies, your bounties firft! the reft will follow ; "If you be pleas'd, look cheerly, throw your eyes Former editors print thofe instead of these, but without authority. STEEVENS. Thefe happy masks, I believe, means no more than the happy nafks. Such is Mr. Tyrwhitt's opinion. See Vol. VI. p. 278, n. 5. MALONE. "What doth her beauty serve,] i. e. what end does it answer? In modern language we fay-" ferve for." STEEVENS. 9 - thou canst not teach me to forget.] "Of all afflictions taught a lover yet, " "Tis fure the hardest science, to forget." Pope's Eloifa. STEEVENS. SCENE II. A Street. Enter CAPULET, PARIS, and Servant. CAP. And Montague is bound' as well as I, In penalty alike; and 'tis not hard, I think, For men fo old as we to keep the peace. PAR. Of honourable reckoning are you both; And pity 'tis, you liv'd at odds fo long. But now, my lord, what fay you to my fuit? CAP. But faying o'er what I have said before : My child is yet a ftranger in the world, She hath not feen the change of fourteen years; Let two more fummers wither in their pride,2 Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride. PAR. Younger than fhe are happy mothers made. CAP. And too foon marr'd are those fo early made.3 1 And Montague is bound-] This fpeech is not in the first quarto. That of 1599 has-But Montague.-In that of 1609, and the folio, But is omitted. The reading of the text is that of the undated quarto. MALONE. 2 Let two more fummers wither in their pride,] So, in our poet's 103d Sonnet : "Have from the forefts fhook three fummer's pride,-." MALONE. 3 And too foon marr'd are thofe fo early made.] The quarto, 1597, reads:-And too soon marr'd are thofe fo early married. Puttenham, in his Art of Poefy, 1589, ufes this expreffion, which feems to be proverbial, as an inftance of a figure which he calls the Rebound: "The maid that foon married is, foon marred is.” The earth hath fwallow'd all my hopes but she, The jingle between marr'd and made is likewise frequent among the old writers. So, Sidney: "Oh! he is marr'd, that is for others made!" Spenfer introduces it very often in his different poems. STEEVENS. Making and marring is enumerated among other unlawful games in the Stat. 2 and 3, Phi. and Ma. c. 9. Great improvements have been made on this ancient game in the present century. MALONE. 4 She is the hopeful lady of my earth :] This line is not in the firft edition. POPE. She is the hopeful lady of my earth :] This is a Gallicism: Fille de terre is the French phrafe for an heiress. King Richard II. calls his land, i. e. his kingdom, his earth: "Feed not thy fovereign's foe, my gentle earth.” Again: "So weeping, smiling, greet I thee, my earth." Earth in other old plays is likewife put for lands, i. e. landed eftate. So, in A Trick to catch the Old One, 1619: "A rich widow, and four hundred a year in good earth." Again, in the Epiftle Dedicatorie to Dr. Bright's Characterie, an Arte of Shorte, Swifte, and Secrete writing by Character, 12mo. 1588: "And this my inuention being altogether of Englifh yeeld, where your Majeftie is the Ladie of the Soyle, it appertayneth of right to you onely." STEEVENS. The explanation of Mr. Steevens may be right; but there is a paffage in The Maid's Tragedy, which leads to another, where Amintor fays: "This earth of mine doth tremble, and I feel "A ftark affrighted motion in my blood." Here earth means corporal part. M. MASON. Again, in this play : "Can I go forward, when my heart is here? Again, in our author's 146th Sonnet : "Poor foul, the center of my finful earth,-." MALONE. My will to her confent is but a part;] To, in this inftance, Lies my An fhe agree, within her scope of choice Such as I love; and you, among the store, fignifies in comparison with, in proportion to. So, in King Henry VIII: These are but fwitches to them." STEEVENS. Earth-treading ftars, that make dark heaven light :] This nonfenfe fhould be reformed thus: Earth-treading fiars that make dark even light: i. e. When the evening is dark, and without ftars, thefe earthly ftars fupply their place, and light it up. So again, in this play : "Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night, "Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear." WARBURTON. But why nonsense? is any thing more commonly faid, than that beauties eclipfe the fun? Has not Pope the thought and the word? "Sol through white curtains fhot a tim'rous ray, Both the old and the new reading are philofophical nonsense; but they are both, and both equally, poetical fenfe. JOHNSON. I will not fay that this paffage, as it ftands, is abfolute nonfenfe; but I think it very abfurd, and am certain that it is not capable of the meaning that Johnfon attributes to it, without the alteration I mean to propofe, which is, to read: Earth-treading fiars that make dark, heaven's light, That is, earthly fiars that outfhine the ftars of heaven, and make them appear dark by their own fuperior brightness. But according to the prefent reading, they are earthly stars that enlighten the gloom of heaven. M. MASON. The old reading is fufficiently fupported by a parallel paffage in Churchyard's Shore's Wife, 1593: "My beautie blafd like torch or twinckling ftarre, "A linely lamp that lends darke world fome light." Mr. M. Mafou's explanation, however, may receive counte nance from Sidney's Arcadie. Book III: "Did light those becftars which greater light did dark." STEEVENS. Such comfort, as do lufty young men feel" 7 do lufty young men feel-] To fay, and to say in pompous words, that a young man hall feel as much in an affembly of beauties, as young men feel in the month of April, is furely to wafte found upon a very poor fentiment. I read: Such comfort as do lufty yeomen feel. You shall feel from the fight and conversation of these ladies, fuch hopes of happiness and such pleasure, as the farmer receives from the fpring, when the plenty of the year begins, and the prospect of the harvest fills him with delight. JOHNSON. Young men are certainly yeomen. So, in A lytell Geste of Robyn Hode, printed by Wynken de Worde: Robyn commaunded his wight yong men. "Of lii. wyght yonge men. "Seuen score of wyght yonge men. "Bufke you my mery yonge men." In all these inftances Copland's edition, printed not many years after, reads-yeomen. So again, in the ancient legend of Adam Bel, printed by Copland: "There met he thefe wight yonge men. "Now go we hence fayed thefe wight yong men. But I have no doubt that he printed from a more antiquated edition, and that these paffages have accidentally efcaped alteration, as we generally meet with "wyght yemen." See alfo Spelman's Gloffary; voce JUNIORES. It is no less fingular that in a subsequent act of this very play the old copies fhould, in two places, read " young trees" and " young tree," instead of yew-trees, and yew-tree. RITSON. : The following paffages from Chaucer's Romaunt of the Rofe, and Virgil's third Georgick, will fupport the present reading, and fhow the propriety of Shakspeare's comparison for to tell Paris that he should feel the fame fort of pleasure in an affembly of beauties, which young folk feel in that feafon when they are moft gay and amorous, was furely as much as the old man ought to fay: ubi fubdita flamma medullis, |