And I, poor monster, fond as much on him; What thriftless fighs fhall poor Olivia breathe? SCENE III. A room in Olivia's houfe. [Exit. Enter SIR TOBY BELCH, and SIR ANDREW AGUE CHEEK. SIR TO. Approach, fir Andrew: not to be a-bed after midnight, is to be up betimes; and diluculo furgere, thou know'st, SIR AND. Nay, by my troth, I know not: but I know, to be up late, is to be up late. SIR TO. A falfe conclufion; I hate it as an unfill'd can: To be up after midnight, and to go to bed then, is early; fo that, to go to bed after midnight, is to go to bed betimes. Do not our lives confift of the four elements?8 So, in Mother Bombie, 1594: 7 "I'll have thy advice, and if it fadge, thou fhalt eat.". "But how will it fadge in the end?". "All this fadges well." "We are about a matter of legerdemain, how will this fadge?" in good time it fadges." STEEVENS. diluculo furgere,] faluberrimum eft. This adage our author found in Lilly's Grammar, p. 51. MALONE. 8 — Do not our lives confift of the four elements?] So, in our author's 45th Sonnet: SIR AND. 'Faith, fo they fay; but, I think, it rather confifts of eating and drinking." SIR TO. Thou art a scholar; let us therefore eat and drink.-Marian, I say !- -a ftoop of wine! Enter Clown. SIR AND. Here comes the fool, i'faith. CLO. How now, my hearts? Did you never fee the picture of we three?" SIR TO. Welcome, afs. Now let's have a catch. SIR AND. By my troth, the fool has an excellent breast. I had rather than forty fhillings I had "My life being made of four, with two alone "Sinks down to death," &c. So alfo, in King Henry V: "He is pure air and fire; and the dull elements of earth and water never appear in him." MALONE. 9-I think, it rather confifts of eating and drinking.] A ridicule on the medical theory of that time, which fuppofed health to confift in the just temperament and balance of the four elements in the human frame. WARBURTON. 2—a ftoop-] Afloop, cadus, à proppa, Belgis, floop. Ray's Proverbs, p. 111. In Hexham's Low Dutch Dictionary, 1660, a gallon is explained by een kanne van twee floopen. A floop, however, feems to have been fomething more than half a gallon. In a Catalogue of the rarities in the Anatomy Hall at Leyden, printed there, 4to. 1701, is "The bladder of a man containing four stoop (which is fomething above Two English gallons) of water." 3 REED. Did you never see the picture of we three?] An allufion to an old print, fometimes pafted on the wall of a country ale-` house, representing Two, but under which the spectator reads— "We three are affes." HENLEY. I believe Shakspeare had in his thoughts a common fign, in which two wooden heads are exhibited, with this infcription under it: "We three loggerheads be." The spectator or reader is supposed to make the third. The clown means to infinuate, that Sir Toby and Sir Andrew had as good a title to the name of fool as himself. MALONE. By my troth, the fool has an excellent breaft.] Breaft, voice, fuch a leg; and fo fweet a breath to fing, as the fool has. In footh, thou waft in very gracious fooling last night, when thou spokest of Pigrogromitus, of the Vapians paffing the equinoctial of Queubus; 'twas very good, i'faith. I fent thee fix-pence for thy leman; Hadft it?' Breath has been here propofed: but many inftances may be brought to juftify the old reading beyond a doubt. In the ftatutes of StokeCollege, founded by Archbishop Parker, 1535, Strype's Parker, P. 9: "Which faid querifters, after their breasts are changed," &c. that is, after their voices are broken. In Fiddes' Life of Wolfey, Append. p. 128: " Singing-men well-breafted." In Tuffer's Hufbandrie, p. 155. edit. P. Short: The better breft, the leffer reft, "To ferve the queer now there now heere." Tuffer, in this piece, called The Author's Life, tells us, that he was a choir-boy in the collegiate chapel of Wallingford-castle; and that, on account of the excellence of his voice, he was fucceffively removed to various choirs. T. WARTON. B. Jonfon uses the word breaft in the fame manner, in his Mafque of Gypfies, p. 623, edit. 1692. In an old play called The 4 P's, written by J. Heywood, 1569, is this paffage: 66 Poticary. I pray you, tell me, can you fing? "Pedler. Sir, I have fome fight in finging. "Poticary. But is your breaft any thing sweet? "Pedler. Whatever my breaft be, my voice is meet." I fuppofe this cant term to have been current among the muficians of the age. All profeffions have in fome degree their jargon; and the remoter they are from liberal science, and the lefs confequential to the general interefts of life, the more they ftrive to hide themselves behind affected terms and barbarous phrafeology. STEEVENS. 5 I fent thee fix-pence for thy leman; hadft it?] The old copy reads lemon. But the Clown was neither pantler, nor butler. The poet's word was certainly mistaken by the ignorance of the printer. I have restored leman, i. e. I fent thee fix-pence to fpend on thy miftrefs. THEOBALD. I receive Theobald's emendation, because it throws a light on the obfcurity of the following fpeech. Leman is frequently ufed by the ancient writers, and Spenfer in particular. So again, in The Noble Soldier, 1634: "Fright him as he's embracing his new leman." - CLO. I did impeticos thy gratillity; for Malvolio's nofe is no whipftock: My lady has a white hand, and the Myrmidons are no bottle-ale houses. The money was given him for his leman, i. e. his mistress. We have ftill "Leman-ftreet," in Goodman's-fields. He says he did impeticoat the gratuity, i. e. he gave it to his petticoat companion; for (fays he) Malvolio's nofe is no whipflock, i. e. Malvolio may fmell out our connection, but his fufpicion will not prove the inftrument of our punishment. My mistress has a white hand, and the Myrmidons are no bottle-ale houses, i. e. my mistress is handsome, but the houses kept by officers of justice are no places to make merry and entertain her at. Such may be the meaning of this whimsical fpeech. A whipftock is, I believe, the handle of a whip, round which a ftrap of leather is usually twifted, and is fometimes put for the whip itself. So, in Albumazar, 1615: out, Carter, "Hence dirty whipstock Again, in The Two Angry Women of Abingdon, 1599: the coach-man fit! "His duty is before you to ftand, "Having a lufty whipfłock in his hand." The word occurs again in Jeronymo, 1605: "Bought you a whistle and a whipstock too." STEEVENS. 6 I did impeticos thy gratillity;] This, Sir T. Hanmer tells us, is the fame with impocket thy gratuity. He is undoubtedly right; but we must read—I did impeticoat thy gratuity. The fools were kept in long coats, to which the allufion is made. There is yet. much in this dialogue which I do not understand. JOHNSON. Figure 12 in the plate of the Morris-dancers, at the end of K. Henry IV. P. I. fufficiently proves that petticoats were not always a part of the drefs of fools or jefters, though they were of ideots, for a reason which I avoid to offer. STEEVENS. It is a very grofs mistake to imagine that this character was habited like an ideot. Neither he nor Touchstone, though they wear a particoloured drefs, has either coxcomb or bauble, nor is by any means to be confounded with the Fool in King Lear, nor even, I think, with the one in All's Well that Ends Well.-A Differtation on the Fools of Shakspeare, a character he has moft judiciously varied and discriminated, would be a valuable addition to the notes on his plays. RITSON. The old copy reads—“ I did impeticos thy gratillity." The meaning, I think, is, I did impeticoat or impocket thy gratuity; but SIR AND. Excellent! Why, this is the best fooling, when all is done. Now, a fong. SIR TO. Come on; there is fix-pence for let's have a fong. you: SIR AND. There's a teftril of me too: if one knight give a CLO. Would you have a love-fong, or a song of good life?" SIR TO. A love-fong, a love-fong. SIR AND. Ay, ay; I care not for good life. SONG. CLO. O mistress mine, where are you roaming? SIR AND. Excellent good, i'faith! the reading of the old copy fhould not, in my opinion, be here difturbed. The clown ufes the fame kind of fantastick language elsewhere in this fcene. Neither Pigrogromitus, nor the Vapians would object to it. MALONE. 7 —of good life?] I do not fuppofe that by a fong of good life, the Clown means a fong of a moral turn; though Sir Andrew anfwers to it in that fignification. Good life, I believe, is harmless mirth and jollity. It may be a Gallicifm: we call a jolly fellow a bon vivant. STEEVENS. From the oppofition of the words in the Clown's queftion, I incline to think that good life is here ufed in its ufual acceptation. In The Merry Wives of Windfor, thefe words are used for a virtuous character: "Defend your reputation, or farewell to your good life for ever." MALONE. |