Helen, after reflecting on Bertram, the object of her love, who had immediately before takenhis leave to fet out for the court, on feeing Parolles, by her obfervations on him, prepares the reader for fome notable entertainment which is to enfue. Her tenderness in difcuffing of his vices is a strong, though delicate, confeffion of her love to Bertram :

HELEN.

I love him for his fake;

And yet I know him a notorious liar,

Think him a great way fool, folely a coward:

Yet thefe fix'd evils fit fo fit on him,

That they take place when virtue's steely brows
Look bleak to the cold wind.

There is fuch a relative charm, in that which in any manner appertains to the perfon we love, let it be never fo infignificant and worthlefs, that we are fure to be pleased with it, because it calls to mind the object of our affections. Helen's remark, that the flight and worthless, provided they have talents to excite gaiety and cheerfulness,

cheerfulness, are often preferred to the meritorious, but lefs pliable in temper, is equally juft; and of this many instances can be produced.

Lully, the famous French mufician, was a debauched fellow and a voluptuary; his company was notwithstanding the delight of all parties, of the witty and the gay, the grave and the learned. He excelled in mimicry and the art of inventing and telling little ftories. He was not over nice in the felection of his terms, but indulged a licentious humour to the height. The fevere Boileau, who was not so much. fought after and invited as Lully, wondered at the diftinction bestowed upon that obfcene buffoon, as he called him; and would often chide Moliere for his tafte in admiring his talent of exciting mirth, for Moliere was as filent in Lully's company as Garrick used to be in Foote's.

He was always inviting him to indulge his talent:

matic writer to the merry mufician. But this happy talent of pleafing, in a man of merit, and not abfolutely abandoned, may be reconciled to conveniency, if not approved by reason. But Parolles was marked with so many vices, that we can hardly justify the countenance given him by his fuperiors. But there is, in fome men, an uncommon power of fubduing the minds of others, fo that, in spite of a thousand reasons against it, you are fo bewitched as not to difcern their vices, though ever fo grofs, through the inchanted veil which they throw over them.

Dr. Swift was, of all men, if we may believe himself, the most cautious in the felection of his friends and companions. Earl Rivers, the father of the unfortunate Savage, was, in Swift's opinion, the most profligate and abandoned of men: and yet he was fo inchanted by his irresistible power of pleafing in conversation,* that he could

* Amongst other allurements, Homer gives Juno, to charm Jupiter, is the attraction of perfuafive conversation. Παρφασις, η τ' εκλεψε νοον πυκα περ φρονεοντων.

ILIAD, Lib. XIV.

could not help declaring, that he loved

the dog dearly.'

The same scene continued.

HELE N.

With a world

Of fond adoptious Christendoms.

The word Christendom is no where ufed in this fenfe by Shakspeare, I believe, except by Prince Arthur, in King John, act iv. fcene 1:

By my Christendom,

So I were out of prison, and kept sheep,
I should be as merry as the day is long.

Swearing by Christendom is fwearing by all that is dear.

in

you,

HELE N.

But the compofition, that your valour and fear make is the virtue of a good wing. I like it well. Dr. Warburton produces abundance of argument to fupport his emendations of the text. He would substitute › ming for wing, a word common, he fays, in Shakfpeare and the writers of the age: →→→→→→→ where, pray? Dr. Johnson rejects his

-- but

ming, but cannot preferve the original word, wing, without allowing it to be a metaphor taken from hawking; and this Mr. Steevens, I think, very substantially proves. Helen's meaning, then, may be thus plainly deduced : "The agreement,

which is fettled between your valour, which is paffive, and your fear, which is active, will carry you through all dangers; and you will foar, with a well-poised wing, very fafely."

HELEN.

The mightiest space in fortune nature brings
To join like likes, and kiss like native things.
Impoffible be strange attempts to those

That weigh their pain with sense, and do fuppofe
What hath been cannot be.

I agree with Dr. Johnson, that thefe lines are not without obfcurity; but our great poet's conceptions were fo quick, that he very often did not allow himself time to give them proper clothing. In this paffage, Shakspeare gives only the feelings of the character. "There is

(fays