However, but a folly bought with wit, PRO. So, by your circumftance, you call me fool. you: PRO. Yet writers fay, As in the sweetest bud The eating canker dwells," fo eating love Inhabits in the finest wits of all. VAL. And writers fay, As the most forward bud Is eaten by the canker ere it blow, Even fo by love the young and tender wit Once more adieu: my father at the road PRO. And thither will I bring thee, Valentine. VAL. Sweet Proteus, no; now let us take our leave. At Milan, let me hear from thee by letters, However, but a folly &c.] This love will end in a foolish action, to produce which you are long to spend your wit, or it will end in the lofs of your wit, which will be overpowered by the folly of love. JOHNSON. The eating canker dwells,] So, in our author's 70th Sonnet : "For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love." MALONE. At Milan,] The old copy has-To Milan. The emendation Of thy fuccefs in love, and what news else PRO. All happiness bechance to thee in Milan! VAL. As much to you at home! and so, farewell. [Exit VALENTINE. PRO. He after honour hunts, I after love: He leaves his friends, to dignify them more; I leave myself, my friends, and all for love. Thou, Julia, thou haft metamorphos'd me; Made me neglect my ftudies, lofe my time, War with good counfel, fet the world at nought; Made wit with mufing weak,' heart fick with thought. Enter SPEED.2 SPEED. Sir Proteus, fave you: Saw ter? you my maf was made by the editor of the fecond folio. The first copy however may be right. "To Milan"-may here be intended as an imperfect fentence. I am now bound for Milan. Or the conftruction intended may have been-Let me hear from thee by letters to Milan, i. e. addressed to me there. MALONE. Made wit with mufing weak,] For made read make. Thou Julia, haft made me war with good counsel, and make wit weak with mufing. JOHNSON. Surely there is no need of emendation. It is Julia who "has already made wit weak with musing," &c. STEEVENS. 2 This whole scene, like many others in thefe plays (fome of which, I believe, were written by Shakspeare, and others interpolated by the players,) is compofed of the lowest and most trifling conceits, to be accounted for only from the grofs taste of the age he lived in; Populo ut placerent. I wish I had authority to leave them out; but I have done all I could, set a mark of reprobation upon them throughout this edition. POPE. That this, like many other scenes, is mean and vulgar, will be PRO. But now he parted hence, to embark for Milan. SPEED, Twenty to one then, he is shipp'd already; And I have play'd the fheep, in lofing him. PRO. Indeed a sheep doth very often stray, An if the shepherd be awhile away. SPEED. You conclude that any master is a fhep herd then, and I a fheep?3 PRO. I do. SPEED. Why then my horns are his horns, whether I wake or sleep. PRO. A filly anfwer, and fitting well a fheep. PRO. True; and thy mafter a fhepherd. SPEED. Nay, that I can deny by a circumftance. PRO. It fhall go hard, but I'll prove it by another. SPEED. The fhepherd feeks the sheep, and not the sheep the fhepherd; but I feek my master, and my mafter feeks not me: therefore, I am no fheep. PRO. The fheep for fodder follow the shepherd, the fhepherd for food follows not the fheep; thou for wages followest thy master, thy mafter for wages follows not thee: therefore, thou art a sheep. SPEED. Such another proof will make me cry baa, PRO. But doft thou hear? gav'ft thou my letter to Julia? SPEED, Ay, fir; I, a loft mutton, gave your let univerfally allowed; but that it was interpolated by the players feems advanced without any proof, only to give a greater licence to criticism. JOHNSON. 3 a fheep?] The article, which is wanting in the original copy, was fupplied by the editor of the fecond folio. MALONE. ter to her, a laced mutton; and fhe, a laced mutton, gave me, a loft mutton, nothing for my la bour. PRO. Here's too finall a pasture for such a store of muttons. SPEED. If the ground be overcharged, you were beft flick her. I, a loft mutton, gave your letter to her, a laced mutton;] Speed calls himself a loft mutton, because he had loft his mafter, and becaufe Proteus had been proving him a fheep. But why does he call the lady a laced mutton? Wenchers are to this day called mutton-mongers; and confequently the object of their paffion muft, by the metaphor, be the mutton. And Cotgrave, in his English-French Dictionary, explains laced mutton, Une garfe, putain, fille de joye. And Mr. Motteux has rendered this paffage of Rabelais, in the prologue of his fourth book, Cailles coiphees mignonnement chantans, in this manner; Coated quails and laced mutton waggishly finging. So that laced mutton has been a fort of standard phrafe for girls of pleasure. THEOBALD. Nath, in his Have with you to Saffron Walden, 1595, speaking of Gabriel Harvey's incontinence, fays: "he would not Stick to extoll rotten lac'd mutton." So, in the comedy of The Shoemaker's Holiday, or the Gentle Craft, 1610: 66 Why here's good lac'd mutton, as I promis'd you." Again, in Whetstone's Promos and Caffandra, 1578: "And I fmelt he lov'd lac'd mutton well." Again, Heywood, in his Love's Mifirefs, 1636, speaking of Cupid, fays, he is the "Hero of hie-hoes, admiral of ay-mes, and monfieur of mutton lac'd." STEEVENS. A laced mutton was in our author's time fo established a term for a courtezan, that a ftreet in Clerkenwell, which was much frequented by women of the town, was then called Mutton-lane. It feems to have been a phrase of the fame kind as the French expreffion-caille coifce, and might be rendered in that language mouton en corfet. This appellation appears to have been as old as the time of King Henry III. "Item fequitur gravis pœna corporalis, fed fine amiffione vitæ vel membrorum, fi raptus fit de concubina legitimâ, vel alia quejium faciente, fine delectu perfonarum has quidem oves debet rex tueri pro pace fuâ." Bracton de Legibus, lib. ii. MALONE. : PRO. Nay, in that you are aftray;5 'twere best. pound you. SPEED. Nay, fir, less than a pound shall serve me for carrying your letter. PRO. You mistake; I mean the pound, a pinfold. SPEED. From a pound to a pin? fold it over and over, 'Tis threefold too little for carrying a letter to your lover. PRO. But what faid fhe? did fhe nod." SPEED. I. [SPEED nods. 5 PRO. Nod, I? why, that's noddy.7 Nay, in that you are aftray;] For the reafon Proteus gives, Dr. Thirlby advises that we should read, a ftray, i. e. a stray theep; which continues Proteus's banter upon Speed. THEOBALD. From the word aftray here, and loft mutton above, it is obvious that the double reference was to the first sentence of the General Confeffion in the Prayer-book. HENLEY. did fhe nod.] These words were fupplied by Theobald, to introduce what follows. STEEVENS. In Speed's answer the old fpelling of the affirmative particle has been retained; otherwife the conceit of Proteus (fuch as it is) would be unintelligible. MALONE. 7 why, that's noddy.] Noddy was a game at cards: So, in The Inner Temple Mask, by Middleton, 1619: "I leave them wholly (fays Christmas) to my eldest fon Noddy, whom during his minority, I commit to the cuftody of a pair of knaves, and one and thirty. Again, in Quarles's Virgin Widow, 1649: "Let her forbear chefs and noddy, as games too ferious." STEEVENS. This play upon fyllables is hardly worth explaining. The fpeakers intend to fix the name of noddy, that is, fool, on each other. So, in The Second Part of Pafquil's Mad Cappe, 1600, fig. E: If fuch a Noddy be not thought a fool." Again, E1: "If fuch an affe be noddied for the nounce." |