Enter BERTRAM, LAFEU, and PAROLLES.

1 LORD. It is the count Roufillon, my good lord, Young Bertram.

KING. Youth, thou bear'ft thy father's face; Frank nature, rather curious than in hafte, Hath well compos'd thee. Thy father's moral May'st thou inherit too! Welcome to Paris.

parts

BER. My thanks and duty are your majesty's. KING. I would I had that corporal foundness now, As when thy father, and myfelf, in friendship First try'd our foldiership! He did look far Into the fervice of the time, and was Difcipled of the braveft: he lafted long; But on us both did haggish age steal on, And wore us out of act. It much repairs me To talk of your good father: In his youth He had the wit, which I can well obferve To-day in our young lords; but they may jeft, Till their own fcorn return to them unnoted, Ere they can hide their levity in honour."

Roufillon,] The old copy reads Rofignoll. STEEVENS,
It much repairs me

To talk of your good father:] To repair, in these plays, generally fignifies, to renovate. So, in Cymbeline:

O difloyal thing,

"That should't repair my youth!" MALONE.

He had the wit, which I can well obferve
To-day in our young lords; but they may jeft,

Till their own fcorn return to them unnoted,

Ere they can hide their levity in honour.] I believe honour is not dignity of birth or rank, but acquired reputation:-Your father, says the king, had the fame airy flights of fatirical wit with the young lords of the prefent time, but they do not what he did, hide their unnoted levity, in honour, cover petty faults with great merit.

This is an excellent obfervation. Jocofe follies, and flight offences, are only allowed by mankind in him that over-powers them by great qualities. JOHNSON,

So like a courtier, contempt nor bitterness
Were in his pride or sharpness; if they were,
His equal had awak'd them;' and his honour,
Clock to itself, knew the true minute when
Exception bid him fpeak, and, at this time,
His tongue obey'd his hand: who were below hin
He us❜d as creatures of another place;"

Point thus:

He had the wit, which I can well obferve
To-day in our young lords: but they may jeft,
Till their own fcorn returns to them, un-noted,
Ere they can hide their levity in honour,
So like a courtier. Contempt, &c.

BLACKSTONE.

The punctuation recommended by Sir William Blackstone is, I believe, the true one, at least it is fuch as deferves the reader's confideration. STEEVENS.

7 So like a courtier, contempt nor bitterness

Were in his pride or sharpness; if they were,

His equal had awak'd them;] Nor was used without reduplication. So, in Measure for Measure

"More nor lefs to others paying,

"Than by felf-offences weighing."

The old text needs to be explained. He was fo like a courtier, that there was in his dignity of manner nothing contemptuous, and in his keenness of wit nothing bitter. If bitterness or contemptuousness ever appeared, they had been awakened by fome injury, not of a man below him, but of his equal. This is the complete image of a well-bred man, and fomewhat like this Voltaire has exhibited his hero Lewis XIV. JOHNSON.

8 His tongue obey'd his band:] We fhould read-His tongue obey'd the hand. That is, the band of his honour's clock, fhowing the true minute when exceptions bad him speak. JOHNSON.

His is put for its. So, in Othello:

her motion

"Blush'd at herself,"-instead of itself. STEEVENS.

9 He us'd as creatures of another place;] i. e. he made allowances for their conduct, and bore from them what he would not from one of his own rank. The Oxford editor, not understanding the fense, has altered another place, to a brother-race. WARBURTON.

I doubt whether this was our author's meaning. I rather incline to think that he meant only, that the father of Bertram treated those below him with becoming condefcenfion, as creatures not indeed

And bow'd his eminent top to their low ranks,
Making them proud of his humility,

In their poor praife he humbled:* Such a man
Might be a copy to thefe younger times;

Which, follow'd well, would démonftrate them now But goers backward.

BER.

·His good remembrance, fir, Lies richer in your thoughts, than on his tomb; So in approof lives not his epitaph,

As in your royal fpeech."

in fo high a place as himfelf, but yet holding a certain place; as one of the links, though not the largeft, of the great chain of fociety. In The Winter's Tale, place is again used for rank or fituation in

life:

"Which I'll not call a creature of thy place." MALONE.

2 Making them proud of his humility,

In their poor praise he humbled:] But why were they proud of his humility? It should be read and pointed thus:

Making them proud; and his humility,

In their poor praise, he humbled—

i. e. by condefcending to ftoop to his inferiors, he exalted them and made them proud; and, in the gracious receiving their poor praife, he humbled even his humility. The fentiment is fine.

WARBURTON.

Every man has feen the mean too often proud of the humility of the great, and perhaps the great may fometimes be humbled in the praises of the mean, of those who commend them without conviction or difcernment: this, however, is not fo common; the mean are found more frequently than the great. JOHNSON.

I think the meaning is,-Making them proud of receiving fuch marks of condefcenfion and affability from a perfon in fo elevated a fituation, and at the fame time lowering or humbling himself, by ftooping to accept of the encomiums of mean perfons for that humility. The conftruction feems to be, "he being humbled in their poor praife." MALONE. !

Giving them a better opinion of their own importance, by his condefcending manner of behaving to them. M. MASON.

So in approof lives not his epitaph,

As in your royal speech.] Epitaph for character.

WARBURTON.

KING. 'Would, I were with him! He would al

ways fay,

(Methinks, I hear him now; his plaufive words
He scatter'd not in ears, but grafted them,
Το grow there, and to bear,)—Let me not live,
Thus his good melancholy oft began,

3

On the catastrophe and heel of pastime,

When it was out,-let me not live, quoth he,

I should wish to read

Approof fo lives not in his epitaph,

As in your royal speech.

Approof is approbation. If I fhould allow Dr. Warburton's interpretation of epitaph, which is more than can be reasonably expected, I can yet find no fenfe in the prefent reading.

We might, by a flight tranfpofition, read

So his approof lives not in epitaph.

JOHNSON.

Approof certainly means approbation. So, in Cynthia's Revenge: "A man fo abfolute in my approof,

"That nature hath referv'd small dignity

"That he enjoys not."

Again, in Meafure for Measure:

"Either of condemnation or approof." STEEVENS.

Perhaps the meaning is this:-His epitaph or infcription on his tomb is not fo much in approbation or commendation of him, as is your royal fpeech. TOLLET.

There can be no doubt but the word approof is frequently used in the fenfe of approbation, but that is not always the cafe; and in this place it fignifies proof or confirmation. The meaning of the paffage appears to be this: "The truth of his epitaph is in no way fo fully proved, as by your royal fpeech." It is needlefs to remark, that epitaphs generally contain the character and praifes of the deceafed. Approof is used in the fame fenfe by Bertram, in the second Act: Laf. But I hope your lordship thinks him not a foldier. "Ber. Yes, my lord, and of very valiant approof."

M. MASON.

Mr. Heath fuppofes the meaning to be this: "His epitaph, or the character he left behind him, is not fo well established by the Specimens he exhibited of his worth, as by your royal report in his favour." The paffage above quoted from Act II. fupports this interpretation. MALONE.

3 Thus-] Old copy-This. Corrected by Mr. Pope. MALONE.

After my flame lacks oil, to be the fnuff
Of younger fpirits, whofe apprehenfive fenfes
All but new things difdain; whofe judgements are
Mere fathers of their garments; whofe conftancies
Expire before their fashions :- -This he wifh'd:
I, after him, do after him wish too,

4

Since I nor wax, nor honey, can bring home,
I quickly were diffolved from my hive,

To give fome labourers room.

You are lov'd, fir;

2 LORD. They, that least lend it you, fhall lack you firft.

KING. I fill a place, I know't.-How long is't,

count,

Since the physician at your father's died?

He was much fam'd.

BER.

Some fix months fince, my lord.

4 whofe judgements are

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

I have a fufpicion that Shakspeare wrote-meer feathers of their garments; i. e. whofe judgements are meerly parts (and infignificant parts) of their drefs, worn and laid afide, as feathers are, from the meer love of novelty and change. He goes on to fay, that they are even less constant in their judgements than in their drefs:

their conftancies

Expire before their fashions. TYRWHITT.

The reading of the old copy-fathers, is supported by a fimilar paffage in Cymbeline:

fome jay of Italy

"Whofe mother was her painting-:'

Again, by another in the fame play:

No, nor thy tailor, rascal,

"Who is thy grandfather; he made those cloaths,

་་ Which, as it feems, make thee."

There the garment is faid to be the father of the man:-in the text, the judgement, being employed folely in forming or giving birth to new dreffes, is called the father of the garment. So, in King Henry IV. P. II:

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every minute now

"Should be the father of some ftratagem." MALONE.