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Since the phyfician at your father's died?
He was much fam'd.

Ber. Some fix months fince, my lord.

King. If he were living, I would try him yet ;Lend me an arm;the reft have worn me out With feveral applications :-nature and sickness Debate it at their leifure. Welcome, count; My fon's no dearer.

Ber. Thank your majefty.

SCENE

[Flourish. Exeunt.

III.

A room in the count's palace.

Enter Countefs, Steward, and Clown". Count. I will now hear: what say you tlewoman?

of this gen

Steward, and Clown.] A Clown in Shakespeare is commonly taken for a licenfed jefter, or domeftick fool. We are not to wonder that we find this character often in his plays, fince fools were, at that time, maintained in all great families, to keep up merriment in the houfe. In the picture of fir Thomas More's family, by Hans Holbein, the only fervant reprefented is Patifon the fool. This is a proof of the familiarity to which they were admitted, not by the great only, but the wife.

In fome plays, a fervant, or a ruftic, of remarkable petulance and freedom of fpeech, is likewife called a clown. JOHNSON.

This dialogue, or that in Twelfth Night, between Olivia and the Clown, feems to have been particularly cenfured by Cartwright, in one of the copies of verfes prefixed to the works of Beaumont

and Fletcher.

"Shakespeare to thee was dull, whose best jeft lies
"I' th' lady's queftions, and fool's replies;

"Old fashion'd wit, which walk'd from town to town

"In trunk hofe, which our fathers call'd the Clown." In the MS. register of lord Stanhope of Harrington, treasurer of the chamber to king James I. from 1613 to 16:6, are the following entries: "Tom Derry, his majefty's fool, at 2 s. per diem, -1615. Paid John Mawe, for the diet and lodging of Thomas Derrie, her majefty's jefter, for 13 weeks, 10. 18 s. 6d. -1616.

C 4

STEEVENS.

Stew.

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Stew. Madam, the care I have had to even your content, I wish might be found in the calendar of my past endeavours; for then we wound our modefty, and make foul the clearness of our defervings, when of ourselves we publish them.

Count. What does this knave here? Get you gone, firrah: The complaints, I have heard of you, I do not all believe; 'tis my flowness, that I do not: for, I know, you lack not folly to commit them, and have ability enough to make fuch knaveries yours.

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Clo. "Tis not unknown to you, madam, that I am a poor fellow.

Count. Well, fir.

Clo. No, madam, 'tis not fo well, that I am poor; though many of the rich are damn'd: But, if I may

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to even your content, -] To act up to your defires.

JOHNSON.

you lack not folly to commit them, and have ability enough to make fuch knaveries yours.] Well, but if he had folly to commit them, he neither wanted knavery, nor any thing elfe, fure, to make them his own? This nonfenfe fhould be read, To make fuch knaveries YARE; nimble, dextrous. i.e. Though you be fool enough to commit knaveries, yet you have quickness enough to commit them dextroufly: for this obfervation was to let us into his character. But now, though this be fet right, and, I dare fay, in Shakespeare's own words, yet the former part of the sentence will ftill be inaccurate-you lack not folly to commit them. Them, what? the fenfe requires knaveries, but the antecedent referred to, is complaints. But this was certainly a negligence of Shakespeare's, and therefore to be left as we find it. And the reader, who cannot fee that this is an inaccuracy which the author might well commit, and the other what he never could, has either read Shakespeare very little, or greatly mifpent his pains. The principal office of a critick is to diftinguish between those two things. But 'tis that branch of criticism which no precepts can teach the writer to discharge, or the reader to judge of, WARBURTON.

After premifing that the accufative, them, refers to the precedent word, complaints, and that this by a metonymy of the effect for the caufe, ftands for the freaks which occafioned thofe complaints, the fense will be extremely clear. You are fool enough to commit thofe irregularities you are charged with, and yet not fo much fool neither, as to difcredit the accufation by any defect in your ability. Revisal.

have your ladyfhip's good will to go to the world 3, 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.
Count. In what 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 reason 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 reafon?

Clo. Faith, madam, I have other holy reafons, 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 *; for the knaves come to do that for me, which I am a

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-to go to the world,] This phrafe has already occurred in Much Ado about Nothing, and fignifies to be married: and thus, in As you like It, Audrey says: " -it is no dishonest defire, to defire to be a woman of the world." STEEVENS.

+ 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 shallow, 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 my land, fpares my team, and gives me leave to inn the crop : if I be 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?

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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 firstPar l'avis, confeil, prediction des fols vos fçavez quants princes, &c. ont efté confervez, &c. The phrafe-speak the truth the next way, means directly; as they do who are only the instruments or canals of others; fuch as infpired perfons were fuppofed to be. WARBURTON.

Next way, is neareft away. So, in K. Hen. IV. Part I:

""Tis the next way to turn taylor, &c." STEEVENS.

Your

Your marriage comes by deftiny,
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.

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.
With that fhe fighed as fhe flood,
With that he fighed as fhe ftood",
And gave this fentence then;

fings by kind.] I find fomething like two of the lines of this ballad in John Grange's Garden, 1577:

"Content yourself as well as I, let reafon rule your minde, "As cuckoldes come by destinie, so 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 ftanza 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.

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Venice

-fond done, is foolishly done. So, in the Merchant of

Jailor, why art thou fo fond

"To let this man abroad." STEEVENS.

With that he fighed as fhe flood,]

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

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