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Upon these last words we find the two following notes in the Variorum edition, one by Johnson, the other by Steevens :

The first-born of Egypt,' a proverbial expression for highborn persons. JOHNSON. The phrase is Scriptural as well as proverbial. So in Exodus xii. 29: And the Lord smote all the first-born of Egypt.'

STEEVENS.

This is rather a curious way of dealing with the matter, and one feels somewhat at a loss to determine whether of the two pieces of criticism, though very different in kind, is the less satisfactory. The play in which the passage occurs turns upon two incidents, in both of which an eldest brother is mainly concerned, in the one as suffering, and in the other as doing injury. And the reflection, therefore, naturally presents itself to the moralising Jaques, that to be a first-born son is a piece of good fortune not to be coveted now, any more than it was in the days of Pharaoh, when all the first-born of Egypt were cut off, but rather to be railed at.' In Act i. Sc. 1, Orlando says to Oliver, 'The courtesy of nations allows you my better in that you are the first born.' If it be objected that Jaques was not yet aware of what had happened to Orlando, still, I think, the poet might have put the sentiment into the mouth of such an one as Jaques, to be as a kind of waking dream, half experimental in regard to what he already knew, half prophetical of what he would

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soon discover; but, at all events, the reference to 'the old Duke,' who had been banished by his younger brother, the new Duke,' will hold good. See Act i. Sc. I. And he rails at ' him, not only as showing sympathy, after his quaint manner, with the old Duke's banishment, but as reflecting upon his own folly in becoming voluntarily a partaker of the banishment, and thereby forfeiting all his 'lands and revenues' to the usurper; as he had sung just before in the verse, which (he says) 'I made yesterday in despite of my invention:'

If it do come to pass
That any man turn ass,

Leaving his wealth and ease,
A stubborn will to please,
Here shall he see

Gross fools as he,

An if he will come to me.

7. The miraculous food provided for the chosen people in the wilderness is alluded to in the Merchant of Venice, where Lorenzo, hearing from Nerissa that he was to inherit all the property of Shylock, addresses her and Portia :

Fair ladies, you drop manna in the way
Of starved people.

Act v. Sc. 1.

Again, in King Lear, when the eyes of Gloster had been put out by Cornwall, the servants who

* See above, Pt. I. ch. i. p. 27.

were present thus philosophize upon the savage cruelty which he and Regan had shown :

1st Serv. I'll never care what wickedness I do If this man comes to good.

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And, in the end, meet the old course of death,
Women will all turn monsters.

Act iii. Sc. 4.

of death' is the

mouth of Moses,

To meet the old course same idea which we find in the with reference to the fate of the rebels Korah and his company.

If these men die the common death of all men, or if they be visited after the visitation of all men, then the Lord hath not sent Numb. xvi. 29.

me.

A further reference to an incident in the early history of the Israelites is to be met with in King Henry V., where the King asks:

May I with right and conscience make this claim ? viz. the claim to the kingdom of France, in virtue of his actual, though irregular, succession to Edward III., whose mother Isabella was daughter to King Philip IV. of France—a claim alleged to have been barred by the operation of the Salic law. To this enquiry of his sovereign, the Archbishop of Canterbury answers:

The sin upon my head, dread sovereign!
For in the Book of Numbers it is writ,
When the son dies, let the inheritance
Descend unto the daughter.

Act i. Sc. 2.

The Variorum edition affords here neither note nor reference. Our poet alludes to the divine answer given to the plea of the daughters of Zelophehad, as recorded in Numbers xxvii. 1-8, and again in Joshua xvii. 3, 4.

8. I am not sure that our poet is justified in putting a sword into the hand of Deborah, as he does in King Henry VI. 1st Part; where Charles, the Dauphin of France, says to the Maid of Orleans:

Stay, stay thy hands; thou art an Amazon,

And fightest with the sword of Deborah. Act i. Sc. 2. All that we know from the sacred narrative is, that she consented to accompany Barak in the successful expedition against Sisera. See Judges iv. 9.

The manner by which Sisera met his death was doubtless in our poet's recollection when he put what follows into the mouth of Caliban. Stephano had asked him, with reference to his proposal to make away with Prospero, and take possession of the island, 'Can'st thou bring me to the party?'—

Yea, yea, my lord; I'll yield him thee asleep,
When thou may'st knock a nail into his head.
Tempest, Act iii. Sc. z.

The play of King Henry VI. 3rd Part, contains a reference to another portion of the same Book of Judges, viz. xi. 30-40.

Clarence.

Why, trow'st thou, Warwick,

That Clarence is so harsh, so blunt, unnatural,

To bend the fatal instruments of war
Against his brother, and his lawful king?
Perhaps, thou wilt object my holy oath :
To keep that oath, were more impiety

Than Jephthah's when he sacrificed his daughter.

Act v. Sc. I.

This last line Mr. Bowdler has thought it necessary to omit. That Jephthah was one who obtained a good report through faith,' we know from the New Testament, Heb. xi. 32, 39; but this can be no sufficient cause to conceal the sacred narrative to which our poet refers, still less to condemn the use which he has made of it. We may conjecture that he had heard read in church the Homily against swearing and perjury,' the second part of which

contains what follows:

And Jephthah, when God had given to him victory of the children of Ammon, promised (of a foolish devotion) unto God, to offer for a sacrifice unto Him, that person which of his own house should first meet with him after his return home. By force of which fond and unadvised oath, he did slay his own and only daughter, which came out of his house with mirth and joy to welcome him home. Thus the promise which he made most foolishly to God, against God's everlasting will, and the law of nature, most cruelly he performed: so committing against God. a double offence. Therefore, whosoever maketh any promise, binding himself thereunto by an oath, let him foresee that the thing which he promiseth be good and honest and not against the commandment of God; and that it be in his own power to perform it justly; and such good promise must all men keep evermore assuredly. But if a man at any time shall, either of ignorance or of malice, swear to do anything which is either

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