And these great tears' grace his remembrance more, young girl, ought to keep up the credit which her father had established, who was the best physician of the age; and the by her anfwer, O, were that all! feems to admit that it would be no difficult matter for her to do fo." The abfurdity of this is evident; and the words will admit of no other interpretation. Some alteration therefore is neceffary; and that which I propofe is, to read uphold, inftead of muft hold, and then the meaning will be this: Lafeu, obferving that Helena had fhed a torrent of tears, which he and the Countefs both afcribe to her grief for her father, fays, that the upholds the credit of her father, on this principle, that the fureft proof that can be given of the merit of a perfon deceased, are the lamentations of thofe who furvive him. But Helena, who knows her own heart, wishes that he had no other caufe of grief, except the lofs of her father, whom she thinks no more of." M. MASON. O, were that all! &c.] Would that the attention to maintain the credit of my father, (or, not to act unbecoming the daughter of fuch a father, for fuch perhaps is the meaning,) were my only folicitude! I think not of him. My cares are all for Bertram. MALONE. 7 thefe great tears-] The tears which the King and Countefs fhed for him. JOHNSON. And thefe great tears grace his remembrance more, Than thofe I fhed for him.] Johnfon fuppofes that, by thefe great tears, Helena means the tears which the King and the Countess fhed for her father; but it does not appear that either of thofe great perfons had fhed tears for him, though they spoke of him with regret. By thefe great tears, Helena does not mean the tears of great people, but the big and copious tears fhe then shed herself, which were caufed in reality by Bertram's departure, though attributed by Lafeu and the Countefs, to the lofs of her father; and from this-mifapprehenfion of theirs, graced his remembrance more than those the actually fhed for him. What the calls gracing his remembrance, is what Lafeu had styled before, upholding his credit, the two paffages tending to explain each other.-It is fcarcely neceffary to make this grammatical obfervation-That if Helena had alluded to any tears fuppofed to have been shed by the King, fhe would have faid thofe tears, not thefe, as the latter pronoun muft neceffarily refer to fomething prefent at the time. M. MASON. I am undone; there is no living, none, His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls, 9 Of every line and trick of his fweet favour: " and collateral light ye. 8 In his bright radiance, ] I cannot be united with him and move in the fame Sphere, but must be comforted at a distance by the radiance that fhoots on all fides from him. JOHNSON. 9 So, in Milton's Paradife Loft, B. X: - from his radiant feat he rofe "Of high collateral glory." STEEVENS. To fee him every hour, to fit and draw His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls, In our heart's table;] So, in our author's 24th Sonnet: A table was in our author's time a term for a picture, in which fenfe it is ufed here. Tableau, Fr. So, on a picture painted in the time of Queen Elizabeth, in the poffeffion of the Hon. Horace Walpole: "The Queen to Walfingham this table fent, "Mark of her people's and her own content." MALONE, Table here only fignifies the board on which any picture was painted. So, in Mr. Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting in England, Vol. I. p. 58: Item, one table with the picture of the Duchefs of Milan." "Item, one table, with the pictures of the King's Majefty and Queen Jane:" &c. Helena would not have talked of drawing Bertram's picture in her heart's picture; but confiders her heart as the tablet or furface on which his resemblance was to be pourtrayed. STEEVENS. trick of his fweet favour:] So, in King John: " he hath VOL. VI. But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy Enter PAROLLES. One that goes with him: I love him for his fake; Think him a great way fool, folely a coward; That they take place, when virtue's steely bones PAR. Save you, fair queen. HEL. And you, monárch.^ HEL. And no." PAR. Are you meditating on virginity? a trick of Cœur de Lion's face." Trick feems to be fome pecu liarity or feature. JOHNSON. Trick is an expreffion taken from drarving, and is fo explained in King John, Act I. fc. i. The present inftance explains itself: to fit and draw His arched brows, &c. and trick of his feet favour. Trick, however, on the prefent occafion, may mean neither tracing nor outline, but peculiarity. STEEVENS. Tricking is used by heralds for the delineation and colouring of arms, &c. MALONE. 3 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 Shakspeare. Concerning this perfon, fee the notes on Love's Labour's Loft, A& IV. fc. i. STEEVENS. 5 And no.] I am no more a queen than you are a monarch, or Monarche. MALONE. HEL. Ay. You have some stain of foldier" in you; let me ask you a question: Man is enemy to virginity; 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 refistance. PAR. There is none; man, fitting down before you, will undermine you, and blow you up. HEL. Blefs our poor virginity from underminers, and blowers up!-Is there no military policy, how virgins might blow up men? 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 common 6 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 these expreffions, that Parolles was entirely dreft in red. Shakspeare writes only fome fain of foldier, meaning in one fenfe, that he had red breeches on, (which is fufficiently evident from calling him afterwards red-tail'd humblebee,) and in another, that he was a difgrace to foldiery. Stain is ufed in an adverfe fenfe by Shakspeare, in Troilus and Creffida: nor any man an attaint, but he carries fome ftain of it." Mr. M. Mafon obferves on this occafion that " though a red coat is now the mark of a foldier in the British service, it was not fo in the days of Shakspeare, when we had no ftanding army, and the use of armour still prevailed." To this I reply, that the colour red has always been annexed to foldierfhip. Chaucer, in his Knight's Tale, v. 1749, has "Mars the rede," and Boccace has given Mars the fame epithet in the opening of his Thefeida: -O rubicondo Marte." STEEVENS. Stain rather for what we now say tincture, some qualities, at least fuperficial, of a foldier. JOHNSON, 1 with the breach yourselves made, you lose your city.] So, in our author's Lover's Complaint: O 2 wealth 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, it is ever loft: 'tis too cold a companion; away with it. HEL. I will stand 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 speak on the part of virginity, is to accufe your mothers; which is most infallible difobedience. He, that hangs himself, is a virgin virginity murders itfelf;" 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 fo dies with feeding his own ftomach. Besides, virginity is peevish, proud, idle, made of felf-love, which is the most inhibited fin2 in the canon. Keep it not; you cannot choose but lose by't: Out with't: within ten years it will "And long upon these terms I held my city, Till thus he 'gan befiege me." Again, in The Rape of Lucrece: "This makes in him more rage, and leffer pity, "To make the breach, and enter this fweet city." MALONE. 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. 9 He, that hangs himself, is a virgin: virginity murders itfelf;] i. e. he that hangs himself, and a virgin, are in this circumstance alike; they are both felf-deftroyers. MALONE. a practiser "Of arts inhibited and out of warrant." STEEVENS. |