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And what impoffibility would flay

In common fenfe, fenfe faves another way.
Thy life is dear; for all, that life can rate
Worth name of life, in thee hath estimate *;
* Youth, beauty, wifdom, courage, virtue, all
That happiness and prime, can happy call:
Thou this to hazard, needs must intimate
Skill infinite, or monftrous defperate.
Sweet practifer, thy phyfick I will try ;
That minifters thine own death, if I die.
Hel. If I break time, or flinch in property
Of what I spoke, unpitied let me die;

articulate or inarticulate. Befides, the construction is vicious with the two ablatives, in thee, and, within an organ weak.

therefore should be thus read and pointed:

Methinks, in thee fome blessed spirit doth speak:

His power full founds within an organ weak.

The lines

But the Oxford editor would be only fo far beholden to this emendation, as to enable him to make fenfe of the lines another way, whatever become of the rules of criticism or ingenuous dealing:

It powerful founds within an organ weak.

WARBURTON.

The verb, doth Speak, in the first line, fhould be understood to be repeated in the conftruction of the fecond, thus:

His powerful found speaks within a weak organ. REVISAL. This, in my opinion, is a very just and happy explanation. STEEVENS. 4in thee hath eftimate:] May be counted among the gifts enjoyed by them. JOHNSON.

5 Youth, beauty, wisdom, courage, all 】 The verfe wants a foot. Virtue, by mifchance, has dropt out of the line. WARBURTON.

prime,] Youth; the fpring or morning of life,

JOHNSON. Should not we read-pride? Dr. Johnfon explains prime to mean youth; and indeed I do not fee any other plaufible interpretation that can be given of it. But how does that fuit with the context? You have all that is worth the name of life; youth, beauty, &c. all, That happiness and youth can happy call.' Happiness and pride, may fignify, I think, the pride of happiness; the proudeft ftate of happiness. So, in the Second Part of Henry IV. act III. fc. i: the voice and echo, is put for the voice of echo, or, the echoing voice. TYRWHITT.

And

And well deferv'd: Not helping, death's my fee;
But, if I help, what do you promise me?
King. Make thy demand.

Hel. But will you make it even?

King. Ay, by my fcepter, and my hopes of heaven! Hel. Then fhalt thou give me, with thy kingly hand What husband in thy power I will command: Exempted be from me the arrogance

To chufe from forth the royal blood of France;
My low and humble name to propagate
With any branch or image of thy ftate":
But fuch a one, thy vaffal, whom I know
Is free for me to afk, thee to bestow.

King. Here is my hand; the premises obferv'd,
Thy will by my performance fhall be ferv'd:
So make the choice of thine own time; for I,
Thy refolv'd patient, on thee ftill rely.

More fhould I queftion thee, and more I muft;
Though, more to know, could not be more to truft;
From whence thou cain'ft, how tended on,-But rest
Unqueftion'd welcome, and undoubted bleft.-
Give me fome help here, ho!-If thou proceed
As high as word, my deed fhall match thy deed.
[Exeunt

7 King. Make thy demand.

Hel. But will you make it even?

King. Ay, by my feepter, and my hopes of help.] The king could have but a very flight hope of help from her, scarce enough to fwear by: and therefore Helen might fufpect he meant to equivocate with her. Befides, obferve, the greateft part of the fcene is ftrictly in rhime: and there is no fhadow of reason why it fhould be interrupted here. I rather imagine the poet wrote:

Ay, by my feepter, and my hopes of heaven. THIRLBY. With any branch or image of thy ftate;] Shakespeare unqueftionably wrote impage, grafting. Impe a graff, or flip, or fucker: by which the means one of the fons of France. Caxton calls our prince Arthur, that noble impe of fame. WARBURton.

Image is furely the true reading, and may mean any reprefentative of thine; i. e. any one who refembles you as being related to your family, or as a prince reflects any part of your ftate and majefty. There is no fuch word as impage. STEEVENS.

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Count. Come on, fir; I fhall now put you to the Height of your breeding.

Clo. I will fhew myself highly fed, and lowly aught: I know my business is but to the court.

Count. But to the court! why, what place make you special, when you put off that with fuch contempt? But to the court!

Clo. Truly, madam, if God have lent a man any manners, he may eafily put it off at court: he that cannot make a leg, put off's cap, kiss his hand, and fay nothing, has neither leg, hands, lip, nor cap and, indeed, fuch a fellow, to fay precifely, were not for the court: but, for me, I have an answer. will ferve all men.

Count. Marry, that's a bountiful anfwer, that fits all queftions.

Clo. It is like a barber's chair, that fits all buttocks; the pin-buttock, the quatch-buttock, the brawn-buttock, or any buttock.

Count. Will your anfwer ferve fit to all questions Clo. As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney, as your French crown for your taffaty punk, as Tib's rufh for Tom's fore-finger', as a pancake for Shrove

It is like a barber's chair, &c.] This expreffion is proverbial.. See Ray's Proverbs. STEEVENS.

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Tib's rush for Tom's fore-finger,-] Tom is the man, and by Tib we are to understand Tabitha the woman, and therefore, more properly we might read-Tom's rush for, &c. The allufion is to an ancient practice of marrying with a rush ring, as well in other countries as in England. Breval, in his Antiquities of Paris mentions it as a kind of efpoufal ufed in France, by fuch perfons as meant to live together in a state of concubinage: but in Eng

land,

Shrove-tuefday, a morris for May-day, as the nail to his hole; the cuckold to his horn, as a fcolding quean to a wrangling knave, as the nun's lip to the friar's mouth; nay, as the pudding to his skin.

Count. Have you, I fay, an answer of fuch fitness for all questions?

Clo. From below your duke, to beneath your conftable, it will fit any question.

Count. It must be an answer of moft monftrous fize, that muft fit all demands.

land, it was fcarce ever practifed except by defigning men, for the purpose of corrupting those young women to whoin they pretended love.

Richard Poore, bishop of Salisbury, in his Conftitutions, anni 1217, forbids the putting of rub rings, or any the like matter, on women's fingers, in order to the debauching them more readily: and he infinuates as the reafon for the prohibition, that there were fome people weak enough to believe, that what was thus done in jeft, was a real marriage.

But notwithstanding this cenfure on it, the practice was not abolifhed; for it is alluded to in a fong in a play written by fir William Davenant, called The Rivals:

"I'll crown thee with a garland of straw then,

"And I'll marry thee with a rush ring.”

Which fong, by the way, was first fung by Mifs Davis; fhe acted the part of Celania in the play; and king Charles II. upon hear ing it, was fo pleased with her voice and action, that he took her from the stage, and made her his mistress.

Again, in the fong called the Winchester Wedding, in D'Urfey's Pills to Purge Melancholy, vol. i. page 276:

Pert Strephon was kind to Betty,

"And blithe as a bird in the fpring;

"And Tommy was fo to Katy,

"And wedded her with a rub ring."

SIR J. HAWKINS. Tib's rush for Tom's fore-finger,] In humorous oppofition to the regular form of matrimony, this may have been the exact ceremonial of an unlawful efpoufal. I conceive the forefinger to mean the thumb in Romeo and Juliet, act I. fc. iv. as the thumb ituft be confidered the forcmoft, where five fingers are faid to appertain to a hand; which latter expreffion occurs in Shakespeare's Troilus and Creffide, act II. fc. ii:

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- a knot five-finger tied." TOLLET.

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Clo. But a trifle neither, in good faith, if the learned should speak truth of it: here it is, and all that belongs to❜t: Afk me, if I am a courtier; it fhall do you no harm to learn.

2

Count. To be young again, if we could:-I will be a fool in queftion, hoping to be the wifer by your anfwer. I pray you, fir, are you a courtier ?

3

Clo. O Lord, fir, There's a fimple putting off:-more, more, a hundred of them.

Count. Sir, I am a poor friend of yours, that loves you.

Clo. O Lord, fir,-Thick,, thick, fpare not me. Count. I think, fir, you can eat none of this homely

meat.

Clo. O Lord, fir,- -Nay, put me to't, I war

rant you.

Count. You were lately whip'd, fir, as I think.
Clo. O Lord, fir,Spare not me.

Count. Do you cry, O Lord, fir, at your whipping, and pare not me? Indeed, your O Lord, fir, is very fequent to your whipping; you would anfwer very well to a whipping, if you were but bound to't.

Clo. I ne'er had worfe luck in my life, in my

O Lord, fir: I fee, things may ferve long, but not ferve ever.

Count. I play the noble housewife with the time, to entertain it fo merrily with a fool.

Clo. O Lord, fir,-Why, there't ferves well again.

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To be young again,] The lady cenfures her own levity in trifling with her jefter, as a ridiculous attempt to return back to youth. JOHNSON.

3 O Lord, fir,] A ridicule on that foolish expletive of fpeech then in vogue at court. WARBURTON.

Thus Clove and Orange, in Every Man out of his Humour : "You conceive me, fir?". "O Lord, fir."

Cleaveland, in one of his fongs, makes his gentleman,

"Anfwer, O Lord, fir! and talk play-book oaths."

FARMER.

Count

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