4, "In the estate of honourable marriage." Folio (and old copies in general; Var.), "In the state." Read "I' th' state." Steevens saw this, partly at least. Ib., near the end. One would almost suspect that there is was a corruption, and that Shakespeare intended a gnomic line, "No staff more rev'rend than one tipt with horn." i. 1, LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. "Why should I joy in any [an] abortive birth? Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled shows: Shows is evidently wrong. Mirth might serve as a bad prop to the rhyme, till the true reading were discovered.1 1 Theobald read earth for the same reason. No doubt, as Walker says, the old copies are wrong, though the difficulty is not so much as noticed by any recent editor. It appears, moreover, that But at the beginning of the last line quoted above has changed places with So at the beginning of the following couplet, for So makes nonsense where it stands even with the present text; but, qu., did not Shakespeare finally write (for the text of this play seems to have originated in a foul copy) ?— "But you'll to study now it is too late; That were to climb o'er th' house t' unlock the gate." The last line is from the first folio; I have only inserted the apostrophes, to remove Mr. Collier's metrical scruples.-Ed. 2, My father's wit, and my mother's tongue, assist me! Arm. Sweet invocation of a child, most pretty and pathetical !” Is not this an erratum for poetical? I say erratum; for Armado is not a blunderer.2 Ib., and again, v. 2, a quibble on No point. Rowley, Noble Soldier, iii. 4, 13th page of the act, "Art thou not yet converted? Balthasar. iii. 1,— No point." it (l'envoy) is an epilogue or discourse to make plain Some obscure precedence that hath tofore been sain.” Is this a quotation from some old treatise on the art of composition,-old in Shakespeare's time? (For precedence, compare Antony and Cleopatra, ii. 5, "I do not like but yet, it doth allay The good precedence.") Ib., "Remuneration!" I imagine that Shakespeare only 2 Walker probably was thinking of Costard's "most pathetical nit." But pathetical seems to have been used in a general sense, i.e., exciting other passions as well as pity. Hence in Chapman, Widow's Tears, "These are strange occurrents, brother, but pretty and pathetical," it seems to mean affecting, but with pleasure rather than pity.-Ed, meant to censure the affected use of the word in conversation. He himself employs it, Troilus and Cressida, iii. 3,— O, let not virtue seek Remuneration for the thing it was." Remuneration occurs frequently in Shakespeare's contemporaries. Ib., near the end,— "Oh! And I, forsooth, in love! I, that have been Love's whip; A critic, nay, a night-watch constable; This wimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy; There ought to be a longer pause after o'er the boy, than the present punctuation implies; for the words, Than whom no mortal &c. refer, not to Cupid, but to Biron himself. iv. 1,— "Hereby, upon the edge of yonder coppice." The double ending breaks in upon the characteristic flow of the blank verse in this play. Qu., copse. Ib., -"What shalt thou exchange for rags? robes; for tittles? titles; for thyself? me." Spenser, C. i. of Mutabilitie, St. vi., "And wrong of right, and bad of good did make, And death for life exchanged foolishlie." I know not whether this was a native English idiom, or borrowed from the Latin. Ib.,-" Ay, my continent of beauty." Does continent here mean simply (ut passim apud poëtas vett.) that which contains; my repository of beauty? Among other instances of continent in this sense, note Herrick, "The Apron of Flowers," Clarke, vol. i. p. 90, cxxi.,— "To gather flowers Sappho went, cccv., "The Broken Crystal.” -- "To fetch me wine my Lucia went, "An I cannot, another can." Miseries of Enforced Marriage, ii. Dodsley, vol. v. p. 25,Scarborow. I will not lie with her [his wife]. Ilford. Cætera volunt [sic] she 'll say still, If you will not, another will." (Qu., Cæteri v.) The latter line seems to have belonged to this same song. W. Rowley, A Match at Midnight, i. [9], Dodsley, vol. vii. p. 314,-" Bloodhound.Then an old -Sim. Then will she answer, If you cannot, a younger man cán. 2, "That sings heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue." Obviously wrong. Read, as in the Passionate Pilgrim, ix., "That sings the heavens' praise." 3, "Thou mak'st the triumviry, the corner-cap of society." Day, Isle of Gulls, iv. 1, near the end," Now am I rid of a triumvirie of fooles, and by their absence haue wonne a free accesse to an escape." Chapman &c., Chabot, iii. 2, near the beginning,-"- the chief of this triumvirie, our chancellor," &c. Ib., "Thou for whom Jove would swear," &c. Were it not for the concluding line, I should conjecture, "Thou for whose love Jove" &c. Ib., "Ah me! says one; O Jove! the other cries; دو One, her hairs were gold, crystal the other's eyes." Considering the scandalous state of the text in this part of the play in the folio,3 I should almost venture to read, One's hairs were &c. Perhaps "One her hairs," whoever wrote it, was meant for the possessive, like "Thomas his book," "Mary her gown," &c. So in the play of Lingua, iv. 7, "Psyche her majesty ;" in Sir Clyomon &c., Dyce's Peele, vol. iii. p. 45, "Atropos her stroke." Faith infringed, which such zeal did swear?" Perhaps "Of faith infringed," or "Faith so infringed." Or can it be "Such faith &c. ?4 i.e.,-if the words will bear such 3 The old copies are at least guiltless of the comma after One; that is due to Malone. The quarto reads One her; the first folio On her; the other folios omit One, and so the earlier editors. This, of course, is a mere sophistication. The modern received reading has two unfortunate defects: it is against sense and metre. Walker's conjecture satisfies both.-Ed. 4 The second folio has, "A faith infringed, which such a zeale did sweare.”—Ed. |