Thon diest within this nour

Unless thou tell'st me when tant ads

To prison with her and awer wit.

Dia.

King. Take her away.

I never

and he is not y

swear to 1.

e. P 269. The persons were ated by Mr. Rowe.

,] We should read- Lefeu. STEE

VENS.

Parolles,] I suppose we should write this name-Paroles, i. e. a treasure made up of empty words. STEEVENS.

Violenta only enters once, and then she neither speaks, nor is spoken to. This name appears to be borrowed from an old metrical history, entitled Didaco and Violenta, 1576. STEEVENS.

АСТ 1.

SCENE I.

209, c. 1, 1. 10. in ward,] Under his parLeular care, as my guardian, till I come to age. It is now almost forgotten in England, that the heirs of great fortunes were the king's wards. Whether the same practice prevailed in France, it is of no great use to enquire, for Shakspeare gives to all nations the manners of England. JOHNSON.

48.. virtuous qualities,] By virtuous qualities are meant qualities of good breeding and erudition, and not moral ones.

BURTON.

WAR

150. - they are virtues and traitors too; in her they are the better for their simpleness; Her virtues are the better for their simpleness, that is, her excellencies are the better because they are artless and open, without design. The learned commentator has Well explained virtues, but has not. I think, reached the force of the word traitors, and therefore has not shown the full extent of Shakspeare's masterly observation. Virtues in an unclean mind are virtues and traitors too Estimable and useful qualities, joined with an evil disposition, give that disposition power over others, who, by admiring the virthe, are betrayed to the malevolence. The Tatler, mentioning the sharpers of his time, observes, that some of them are even of such eleance and knowledge that a young man who falis into their way, is betrayed as much by his judgment as his passions. JOHNSON, c. 2.1.4.all livelihood-1 i. e. all appearance of life.

7.I do affect a sorrow, indeed, but I have it too. Helena has, I believe, a meaning here, that she does not wish should be understood by the countess. Her affected sorrow was for

the death of her father; her real grief for the lowness of her situation, which she feared would for ever be a bar to her union with her beloved Bertram.

Id. 1. 11. If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it soon mortal.] Lafeu says, excessive grief is the enemy of the living: the countess replies, If the living be an enemy to grief. the excess soon makes it mortal: that is, If the living do not indulge grief. grief destroys itself by its own excess the word mortal, I understand that which dies: By and Dr. Warburton [who reads be not enemy-] that which destroys. I think that my interpretation gives a sentence more acute and more refined. Let the reader judge. JOHN

SON.

Id. 1. 23. That thee may furnish,] That may help thee with more and better qualifications.

Id.

Id.

1. 37. Laf. Farewell, pretty lady: You must hold the credit of your father

Hel. 0, were that all! I think not on my father;] Would that the attention to maintain the credit of my father (or, not to act un becoming the daughter of such a father,-fo such, perhaps, is the meaning), were my only solicitude! I think not of him. My cares are all for Bertram. MALONE.

l. 47. In his bright radiance and collateral light, &c] I cannot be united with him and move in the same sphere, but must be comforted at a distance by the radiance that shoots on all sides from him. JOHNSON. Id. 1. 53. In our heart's table:] A table was, in our author's time, a term for a picture, in which sense it is used here.

Id. l. 34.

-trick of his sweet favour: is an expression taken from drawing; but on the present occasion may mean neither tracing nor outline, but peculiarity.

P. 270. c. 1, l. 10. Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly Cold for naked: as superfluous for over-clothed. This makes the propriety of the antithesis. WARBURTON.

Id.

1. 14. And no.] I am no more a queen than you are a monarch.

Id. l. 51. Id. l. 65.

Id.

inhibited sin] i, e. forbidden Your date is better] Here is a quibble on the word date, which means both age, and a candied fruit much used in our au

thor's time.

279, c. 1, l. 10. in ward,] Under his parucular care, as my guardian, till I come to age. It is now almost forgotten in England, that the heirs of great fortunes were the king's wards. Whether the same practice prevailed in France, it is of no great use to enquire, for Shakspeare gives to all nations the manners of England. JOHNSON.

1. 48. virtuous qualities.] By virtuous qualities are meant qualities of good breeding and erudition, and not moral ones.

BURTON.

WAR

150.- they are virtues and traitors too; in her they are the better for their simpleness; Her virtues are the better for their Simpleness, that is, her excellencies are the better because they are artless and open, without design. The learned commentator has well explained virtues, but has not, I think, reached the force of the word traitors, and therefore has not shown the full extent of Shakspeare's masterly observation. Virtues in an unclean mind are virtues and traitors

too

Estimable and useful qualities, joined with an evil disposition, give that disposition power over others, who, by admiring the virtue, are betrayed to the malevolence. The Tatler, mentioning the sharpers of his time, observes, that some of them are even of such elegance and knowledge that a young man who falls into their way, is betrayed as much by his judgment as his passions. JOHNSON. · c. 2, 1. 4. —— all livelihood-] i. e. all appearance of life.

7. I do affect a sorrow, indeed, but I have it too. Helena has, 1 believe, a meaning here, that she does not wish should be understood by the countess. Her affected sorrow was for

the death of her father; her real grief for the lowness of her situation, which she feared would for ever be a bar to her union with her beloved Bertram.

Id. l. 11. If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it soon mortal.] Lafeu says, excessive grief is the enemy of the living: the countess replies, If the living be an enemy to grief. the excess soon makes it mortal: that is, If the living do not indulge grief. grief destroys itself by its own excess By the word mortal, I understand that which dies; and Dr. Warburton [who reads be not enemy-] that which destroys. I think that my interpretation gives a sentence more acute and more refined. Let the reader judge. JOHN

Id.

Id.

SON.

1. 23. That thee may furnish,] That may help thee with more and better qualifications.

1. 37. Laf. Farewell, pretty lady: You must hold the credit of your father,

Hel. 0, were that all! —I think not on my father;] Would that the attention to maintain the credit of my father (or, not to act un becoming the daughter of such a father,-fo such, perhaps, is the meaning), were my only solicitude! I think not of him. My cares are all for Bertram. MALONE.

Id. 1. 47. In his bright radiance and collateral light, &c] I cannot be united with him and move in the same sphere, but must be comforted at a distance by the radiance that shoots on all sides from him. JOHNSON.

Id. 1. 53. In our heart's table:] A table was, in our author's time, a term for a picture, in which sense it is used here.

Id. 1. 34. —— trick of his sweet favour:] Trick is an expression taken from drawing; but on the present occasion may mean neither tracing nor outline, but peculiarity.

P. 270. c. 1, l. 10. Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly Cold for naked: as superfluous for over-clothed. This makes the propriety of the antithesis. WARBURTON.

Id. 1. 14. And no,] I am no more a queen than you are a monarch. Id. 1.51. inhibited sin -] i. e. forbidden Id. l. 65. Your date is better-] Here is a quibble on the word date, which means both age, and a candied fruit much used in our author's time.

Id.

1. 74. A phoenix, &c.] The eight lines following friend, I am persuaded, is the non

sense of some foolish conceited player. WAR

BURTON.

P. 270, c. 2, l. 76. --a traitress,] It seems that traitress was in that age a term of endearment.

Id. c. 2, l. 1.

christendoms,] This word, which signifies a collective body of christianity, every place where the christian religion is embraced, is surely used with much license on the present occassion.

Id. 1. 12. And show what we alone must think;] And show by realities what we now must only think.

Id. l. 37. so thou wilt be capable of a courtier's counsel.] i. e. thou wilt comprehend it.

Id.-1. 48. What power is it, that mounts my love

so high;

That makes me see, and cannot free mine eye?] She means, by what influence is my love directed to a person so much above me? why am I made to discern excellence, and left to long after it, without the food of hope? JOHN

SON.

Id. 1. 51. kiss like native things.] Things formed by nature for each other.

SCENE II.

Id. l. 62. Senoys-1 The Sanesi, as they are termed by Boccace. Painter, who translates him, calls them Senois. They were the people of a small republic, of which the capital was Sienna. The Florentines were at perpetual variance with them. STEEVENS. P. 215, c. 1, l. 19. —— It much repairs me-] To repair, in these plays, generally signifies,

to renovate.

Id. 1. 24. He had the wit, &c,] I believe honour is not dignity of birth or rank, but acquired reputation:- Your father, says the king, had the same airy flights of satirical wit with the young lords of the present time, but they do not what he did, hide their unnoted levity, in honour, cover petty faults with great merit.

This is an excellent observation. Jocose follies, and slight offences, are only allowed by mankind in him that overpowers them by great qualities. JOHNSON.

Id. 1. 30. His tongue obey'd his hand :] We should read-His tongue obey'd the hand. That is, the hand of his honour's clock, showing the true minutes when exceptions bad him speak. Id. 1. 40. So in approof lives not his epitaph,

As in your royal speech.] Mr. Heath supposes the meaning to be this: "His epitaph, or the character he left behind him, is not so well established by the specimens he exhibited of his worth, as by your royal report in his favour."

Id. l. 51.. whose judgments are

Mere fathers of their garments;] Who have no other use of their faculties, than to invent new modes of dress.

SCENE III.

Id. 1. 74. Steward, and Clown.] A clown in Shakspeare is commonly taken for a licensed jester, or domestic fool. We are not to wonder that we find this character often in his plays, since fools were at that time maintained in all great families, to keep up merriment in the house. In the picture of Sir Thomas More's family, by Hans Holbein, the only servant represented is Patison the fool. This is a proof

of the familiarity to which they were admitted not by the great only, but the wise. Id. 1. 78. ——to even your content.] To act up to your desires.

ld. c. 2, l. 9.- you lack not folly to comme them, and have ability enough to make surt knaveries yours.] It appears to me that accusative them refers to knaveries, and t natural sense of the passage seems to be the "You have folly enough to desire to com: these knaveries, and ability enough to acom plish them." M. MASON.

1d.

. 14. to go to the world,] This phr has already occurred, and signifies to be sz ried.

Id. 1. 19. Service is no heritage,] This is a p verbial expression.

Id. l. 40. plough.

that ears my land,] To ear is!

Id. 1. 55. A prophet I, madam; and I speak truth the next way:] It is a superst which has run through all ages and per that natural fools have something in the divinity. On which account they were este ed sacred. Travellers tell us in what e the Turks now hold them; nor had they honour paid them heretofore in France, as pears from the old word benét, for a natura fool. Next way, is nearest way. Id. 1. 57. Was this fair face the cause, &c. T name of Helen, whom the countess has called for, brings an old ballad on the s of Troy to the clown's mind. Fond de foolishly done.

P. 272, c. 1, l. 6. "but every,”] i. e before evert MALONE.

Id. l. 7. 'twould mend the lottery w

Id.

This surely is a strange kind of phrase 1 have never met with any example of it of the contemporary writers; and if there any proof that in the lotteries of queen E beth's time wheels were employed, I be inclined to read lottery wheel.

LONE.

l. 11. Clo. That man, &c.] Here is an sion, violently enough forced in, to satin obstinacy with which the puritans refused use of the ecclesiastical habits, which was that time, one principal cause of the brea the union; and perhaps to insinuate, that modest purity of the surplice was sometimes i cover for pride.

Id. 1. 38. sithence,] i. e. since. Id. 1. 55. By our remembrances-] That is cording to our recollection. So we say, old by my reckoning. JOHNSON. Id. l. 73. What's the matter,

That this distemper'd messenger ein The many-colour'd Iris, rounds thine There is something exquisitely beautiful representation of that suffusion of colours glimmers round the sight when the eye are wet with tears. HENLEY. Id. c. 2, l. 12. I care no more for,] There is a designed ambiguity: I care no more for I care as much for. 1 wish it equally. F

intenible, incapable of holding or retaining it. P.272,c.2, 1.57. And lack not to lose still:] Helena

means to say, that, like a person who pours water into a vessel full of holes, and still continues his employment, though he finds the water all lost, and the vessel empty; so, though she finds that the waters of her love are still lost, that her affection is thrown away on an object whom she thinks she never can deserve, she yet is not discouraged, but perseveres in her hopeless endeavour to accomplish her wishes.

Id 1 63. Whose aged honour cites a virtuous youth,] i. e. whose respectable conduct in age shows, or proves that you were no less virtuous when young.

d. L. 65. Wish chastly, and love dearly, that your Dian

Was both herself and love;] i. e. Venus. Helena means to say - "If ever you wished that the deity who presides over chastity, and the queen of amorous rites, were one and the same person; or, in other words, if ever you wished for the honest and lawful completion of your chaste desires."

! 273, c. 1, l. 1. notes, whose faculties inclusive Receipts in which greater virtues were inclosed than appeared to observation. LI 18. Embowell'd of their doctrine,] i. e. exhausted of their skill.

let higher Italy

Those 'bated, that inherit but the fall Of the last monarchy), see, &c.] The ancient geographers have divided Italy into the higher and the lower, the Apennine hills being a kind of natural line of partition; the side next the Adriatic was denominated the higher Italy, and the other side the lower, and the two seas followed the same terms of distinction, the Adriatic being called the upper Sea, and the Tyrrhene, or Tuscan, the lower. Now the Sennones, or Senois, with whom the Florentines are here supposed to be at war, inhabited the higher Italy, their chief town being Arminium, now called Rimini, upon the Adriatic. HANMER.

Dr. Johnson says, that the sense may be this: Let upper Italy, where you are to exercise your valour, see that you come to gain honour, to the abatement, that is, to the disgrace and depression of those that have now lost their acient military fame, and inherit but the fall of the last monarchy. To abate is used by Shakspeare in the original sense of abattre, to depress, to sink, to deject, to subdue. 11.67.

- beware of being captives, Before you serve.] The word serve is equivocal; the sense is, Be not captives before you serve in the war.

. c. 2, l. 5.

and no sword worn.

But one to dance with!] It should be remembered that, in Shakspeare's time, it was usual for gentlemen to dance with swords on. Our author gave to all countries the manners of his own.

1.1.27. — they wear themselves in the cap of the time, there, do muster true gait, &c.] The obscurity of the passage arises from the

fantastical language of a character like Parolles, whose affectation of wit urges his imagination from one allusion to another, without allowing time for his judgment to determine their congruity. The cap of time being the first image that occurs, true gait, manner of eating, speaking, &c. are the several ornaments which they muster, place, or arrange in time's cap. This is done under the influence of the most received star; that is, the person in the highest repute for setting the fashions:-and though the devil were to lead the measure or dance of fashion, such is their implicit submission, that even he must be followed. HEN

LEY.

Id l. 30. lead the measure,] i. e. the dance. Id. l. 46. - across:] This word is used when any pass of wit miscarries. While chivalry was in vogue, breaking spears against a quintain was a favourite exercise. He who shivered the greatest number was esteemed the most adroit; but then it was to be performed exactly with the point, for if achieved by a side stroke, or across, it showed unskilfulness, and disgraced the practiser.

Id. l. 53. medicine,] is here put for a shephysician.

Id. 7. 55. Id. l. 65.

dance canary.] a kind of dance.

her years, profession,] By profession is meant her declaration of the end and purpose of her coming.

Id. 1. 67. Than I dare blame my weakness:] Lafed's meaning appears to me to be this:"That the amazement she excited in him was so great, that he could not impute it merely to his own weakness, but to the wonderful qualities of the object that occasioned it." M. MA

SON.

P. 274, c. 1, 7. 3.

Cressid's uncle,] 1 am like Pandarus. See Troilus and Cressida. Id. l. 7.. well found,] i. e. of known, acknowledged, excellence.

Id, l. 50. When miracles have by the greatest been denied i. e. disbelieved, or contemned. Id. 1. 66. Myself against the level of mine aim;] i. e. I am not an impostor that proclaim one thing and design another, that proclaim a cure and aim at a fraud.

Id. c. 2, l. 5. -no worse of worst extended,] i. e. to be so defamed that nothing severer can be said against those who are most publicly reported to be infamous.

Id.

l. 9. And what impossibility would slay.

In common sense, sense saves another way.] i. e. and that which, if I trusted to my reason, I should think impossible. I yet, perceiving thee to be actuated by some blessed spirit, think thee capable of effecting. MALONE. Id. l. 12. - in thee hath estimate;] May be counted among the gifts enjoyed by thee. JOHNprime-] Youth; the sprightly vi

SON.

Id. l. 14. gour of life. Id. I. 19.

in property-] In properly seems to be here used, with much laxity, for in the due performance.

Id. 1. 22. With any branch or image of thy state :] Branch refers to the collateral descendants of the royal blood, and image to the direct and immediate line. HENLEY.