Page images
PDF
EPUB

Ber. Madam, I defire your holy wishes.

Laf. How understand we that?

Count. Be thou bleft, Bertram! and fucceed thy father

In manners, as in fhape! thy blood, and virtue,
Contend for empire in thee; and thy goodness
Share with thy birth-right! Love all, trust a few,
Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy
Rather in power, than ufe; and keep thy friend
Under thy own life's key: be check'd for filence,
But never tax'd for fpeech. What heaven more will,
3 That thee may furnish, and my prayers pluck down,
Fall on thy head! Farewell. My lord,

'Tis an unfeafon'd courtier, good my lord,
Advife him.

Laf. He cannot want the beft,

That fhall attend his love.

Count. Heaven blefs him! Farewell, Bertram. [Exit Countefs.

Ber. [To Helena.] 4The best wishes, that can be forg'd in your thoughts, be fervants to you! Be comfortable to my mother, your miftrefs, and make much of her.

Laf. Farewell, pretty lady: You must hold the credit of your father. [Exeunt Bertram and Lafeu.

countefs; and if the living be not enemy to the grief, [i. e. ftrive to conquer it,] the excefs makes it foon mortal. WARBURTON.

This emendation I had once admitted into the text, but reftored the old reading, because I think it capable of an eafy explication. Lafeu fays, exceffive grief is the enemy of the living: the countefs replies, If the living be an enemy to grief, the excess foon makes it mortal: that is, if the living do not indulge grief, grief defroys itself by its own excess. By the word mortal I understand that which dies, and Dr. Warburton, that which deftroys. I think that my interpretation gives a sentence more acute and more refined. Let the reader judge. JOHNSON.

3 That thee may furnish,- ] That may help thee with more and better qualifications. JOHNSON.

4 The beft wishes, &c.] That is, may you be mistress of your wifhes, and have power to bring them to effect. JOHNson.

[ocr errors]

Helo

Hel. Oh, were that all!-I think not on my father;
5 And these great tears grace his remembrance more,
Than those I shed for him. What was he like?
I have forgot him; my imagination
Carries no favour in it, but Bertram's.
I am undone; there is no living, none,
If Bertram be away. It were all one,
That I should love a bright particular star,
And think to wed it, he is fo above me:
"In his bright radiance and collateral light
Muft I be comforted, not in his sphere.
The ambition in my love thus plagues itself:
The hind, that would be mated by the lion,

Muft die for love. 'Twas pretty, though a plague,
To fee him every hour; to fit and draw
His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,
In our heart's table; heart, too capable
Of every line and trick of his sweet favour,
But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy
Muft fanctify his relicks. Who comes here?

Enter Parolles.

One that goes with him: I love him for his fake; And yet I know him a notorious liar,

5 thefe great tears

] The tears which the king and coun

tefs fhed for him. JOHNSON.

• In his bright radiance &c.] I cannot be united with him and move in the fame fphere, but must be comforted at a distance by the radiance that shoots on all fides from him. JOHNSON.

Milton, b. x:

7

66

from his radiant feat he rofe

Of high collateral glory." STEEVENS.

trick of his feet favour,] So, in King John: "he hath

a trick of Cœur de Lion's face."

arity or feature. JOHNSON.

Trick feems to be fome peculi

Trick is an expreffion taken from drawing, and is fo explained in another place. The prefent inftance explains itself:

to fit and draw

His arched brows, &c.

and trick of his feet favour.

Trick, however, may mean peculiarity. STEEVENS.

Think him a great way fool, folely a coward;
Yet these fix'd evils fit fo fit in him,

[ocr errors]

That they take place, when virtue's steely bones Look bleak in the cold wind: withal, full oft we fee

[ocr errors]

* Cold wisdom waiting on fuperfluous folly.

Par. Save you, fair queen.

Hel. And you, monarch 9.

Par. No.

Hel. And no.

Par. Are you meditating on virginity?

I

Hel. Ay. You have fome ftain of foldier in you; let me afk you a queftion: Man is enemy to virgi nity; how may we barricado it against him? Par. Keep him out.

Hel. But he affails; and our virginity, though valiant, in the defence yet is weak: unfold to us fome warlike refiftance.

Par. There is none; man, fitting down before you, will undermine you, and blow you up.

Hel. Bless our poor virginity from underminers, and

Cold wifdom waiting on fuperfluous folly.] Cold for naked; as fuperfluous for over-cloathed. This makes the propriety of the antithefis. WARBURTON.

And you monarch.] Perhaps here is fome allufion defigned to Monarcho, a ridiculous fantastical character of the age of Shakefpeare. Concerning this perfon, fee the notes on Love's Labour Loft, act IV. fc. i. STEEVENS.

I

-ftain of foldier] Stain for colour. Parolles was in red, as appears from his being afterwards called red-tail'd humble-bee. WARBURTON.

It does not appear from either of thefe expreffions, that Parolles was entirely dreft in red. Shakespeare writes only fome ftain of fol dier, meaning in one fenfe, that he had red breeches on, (which is fufficiently evident from calling him afterwards red-tailed humblebee,) and in another, that he was a difgrace to foldiery. Stain is used in an adverse fenfe by Shakespeare, in Troilus and Creffida: nor any man an attaint, but he carries fome ftain of it." STEEVENS. Stain rather for what we now fay tincture, fome qualities, at least fuperficial, of a foldier. JOHNSON.

66

blowers

blowers up!-Is there no military policy, how virgins might blow up men?

2

Par. Virginity being blown down, man will quicklier be blown up: marry, in blowing him down again, with the breach yourselves made, you lofe your city. It is not politick in the commonwealth of nature, to preferve virginity. Lofs of virginity is rational increase; and there was never virgin got, till virginity was first loft. That, you were made of, is metal to make virgins. Virginity, by being once loft, may be ten times found: by being ever kept, is ever loft: 'tis too cold a companion; away with it.

Hel. I will ftand for't a little, though therefore I die a virgin.

Par. There's little can be faid in't; 'tis against the rule of nature. To fpeak on the part of virginity, is to accufe your mothers; which is moft infallible difobedience. He, that hangs himself, is a virgin: virginity murders itself; and fhould be buried in highways, out of all fanctified limit, as a defperate offendress against nature. Virginity breeds mites, much like a cheese; confumes itself to the very paring, and

Lofs of virginity is rational increase ;] I believe we should read, national. TYRWHITT.

Rational increase may mean the regular increase by which rational beings are propagated. STEEVENS.

3 He, that hangs himself, is a virgin :] But why is he that hangs himfelf a virgin? Surely, not for the reafon that follows; Virginity murders itself. For though every virgin be a fuicide, yet every fuicide is not a virgin. A word or two are dropt, which introduced a comparison in this place; and Shakespeare wrote it thus: as he, that hangs himself, fo is a virgin.

And then it follows naturally, virginity murders itself. By this emendation, the Oxford editor was enabled to alter the text thus: He that hangs himself is like a virgin.

And this is his ufual way of becoming a critick at a cheap expence. WARBURTON.

I believe most readers will spare both the emendations, which I do not think much worth a claim or a conteft. The old reading is more fpritely and equally juft. JOHNSON.

fo

fo dies with feeding its own ftomach. Befides, virginity is peevish, proud, idle, made of felf-love, which is the most inhibited fin in the canon. Keep it not; you cannot chufe but lose by't: Out with't: within ten years it will make itself two, which is a goodly increase; and the principal itself not much the worse : Away with't.

Hel. How might one do, fir, to lose it to her own liking?

6

Par. Let me fee: Marry, ill, to like him that ne'er it likes. 'Tis a commodity will lofe the glofs with lying; the longer kept, the lefs worth off with't, while 'tis vendible: anfwer the time of request. Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her cap out of fashion; richly fuited, but unfuitable: juft like the brooch and the tooth-pick, which wear not now: Your date is better in your pye and your porridge, than in your cheek: And your virginity, yourold virginity,

[ocr errors]

·inhibited fin Ji.e. forbidden. So, in Othello :i
--a practifer

• Of arts inhibited and out of warrant.” So the first folio. Theobald reads prohibited.

5

Meth 97h

STEEVENS,

within ten years it will make itself two, which is goodly increafe; I think we should either read; within ten years it will make itself ten; or, within two years it will make itfelf two. Inftead of two, Mr. Tollet would read twelve. STEEVENS.

6-Marry, ill, to like him that ne'er it likes.] Parolles, in anfwer to the queftion, how one shall lofe virginity to her own liking? plays upon the word liking, and fays, he must do ill, for virginity, to be fo loft, must like him that likes not virginity. JOHNSON.

7 —which wear not now:] Thus the old copy, and rightly. Shakespeare often uses, the active for the paffive. The modern editors read, "which we wear not now. TYRWHITT.

8

[ocr errors]

Your date is better] Here is a quibble on the word date, which means both age, and a kind of candied fruit much ufed in our author's time. So, in Romeo and Juliet :

"They call for dates and quinces in the pastry."

The fame quibble occurs in Troilus and Creffida: "—and then to be bak'd with no date in the pye, for then the man's date is out." STEEVENS.

A

« PreviousContinue »