beating which he had just received. To pay, in our author's time, often signified to beat. P 71, c. 2, l. 40.. - primero.] A game at cards. Id 1 65 Sure one of you does not serve heaven well, &c.] The great fault of this play is the frequency of expressions so profane, that no necessity of preserving character can justify them. There are laws of higher authority than those of criticism. JOHNSON. It is more to be regretted, that many of these expressions, omitted in the folio edition, on account of the stat. 3 Jac. I. ch. 21. have been restored by the illaudable industry of subsequent editors. C. a nay-word,] i. e. watch-word. Id 1 15 Id 1. 16. mum; she cries budget;] These words appear to have been in common use before the time of our author. "And now if a man call them to accomptes, and aske the cause of al these their tragical and cruel doings, he shall have a short answer with mum budget, except they will peradventure allege this," &c. Oration against the unlawful insurrections of the Protestants, bl. 1. 8vo. 1615, sign. C. S. REED. Id. 1 40 in a pit hard by Herne's oak,] An oak, which may be that alluded to by Shakspeare, is still standing close to a pit in Windsor forest. It is yet shown as the oak of Herne, STEEVENS. Id. Id. forest, to which the jurisdiction of a particular keeper extends. To the keeper the shoulders and humbles belong as a perquisite. l. 14. a woodman?] A woodman was an attendant on the officer, called forrester. It is here, however, used in a wanton sense, for one who chooses female game as the objects of his pursuit. 1. 33. You orphan-heirs of fixed destiny,] Dr. Warburton corrects orphan to ouphen; and not without plausibility, as the word ouphes occurs both before and afterwards. But, I fancy, in acquiescence to the vulgar doctrine, the address in this line is to a part of the troop, as mortals by birth, but adopted by the fairies: orphans in respect of their real parents, and now oly dependent on destiny herself. FARMER. Id. l. 39.. as bilberry: The bilberry is the whortleberry. Go you, and where you find a maid, Id. l. 45. Raise up the organs of her phantasy,] Mr. Malone supposes the sense of the passage, collectively taken, to be as follows: "Go you, and wherever you find a maid asleep, that hath thrice prayed to the Deity, though, in consequence of her innocence, she sleeps as soundly as an infant, elevate her fancy, and amuse her tranquil mind with some delightful vision; but those whom you find asleep, without having previously thought on their sins, and prayed to heaven for forgiveness, pinch, &c." Id. 1. 70. charactery. For the matter with which they make letters. Id. l. 78. of middle earth.] Earth or world, from its imaginary situation in the midst, or middle of the Ptolemic system. Id. c. 2, l. 3. o'erlook'd even in thy birth.] i. e. slighted as soon as born. Id. l. 44. See you these, husband? do not these fair yokes Become the forest better than the town?] Mrs. Page's meaning is this: Seeing the horns (the types of cuckoldom) in Falstaff's hands, she asks her husband, whether those yokes are not more proper in the forest than in the town; i. e. than in his own family. THEO BALD. Id. l. 76. -a coxcomb of frize?] i. e. fool's-cap made out of Welch materials. Wales was famous for this cloth. P. 74, c. 1, l. 23. Ignorance itself is a plummet o'er me:] i. e. serves to point out my obliquities. This is said in consequence of Evans's last speech. The allusion is to the examination of a carpenter's work by the plummet held over it; of which line sir Hugh is here represented as the lead. HENLEY. Id. c. 2, l. 30,-- amaze her:] i. e. confound her by your questions. FROM THE DRAWINGS OF TITIAN AND CESAR VECELLI, AS REFERRED TO THE NOTES ON THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR, Act. II, Scene 2, Pag. 77. There is great reason to believe, that the serious part of this Comedy is founded on some old translation of the seventh history in the fourth volume of Belleforest's Histoires Tragiques. Belleforest took the story, as usual, from Bandello. The comic scenes appear to have been entirely the production of Shakspeare. It is not impossible, however, that the circumstances of the Duke sending his Page to plead his cause with the Lady, and of the Lady's falling in love with the Page, &c. might be borrowed from the Fifth Eglog of Barnaby Googe, published with his other original poems, in 1563. "A worthy Knyght dyd love her longe, pages of love, that happen styl "To hym declare he muste. "She whan as first she saw his page "He never wolde attempte her more "Nor se her ones agayne," &c. Thus also concludes the first scene of the third act of the play before us: "And so adieu, good madam; never more I offer no apology for the length of the foregoing extract, the book from which it is taken being so uncommon, that only one copy, except that in my own possession, has hitherto occurred. Even Dr. Farmer, the late Rev. T. Warton, Mr. Reed, and Mr. Malone, were unacquainted with this Collection of Googe's P oetry. August 6, 1607, a Comedy called What you will (which is the second title of this play), was entered at Stationers' Hall by Tho. Thorpe. I believe, however, it was Marston's play with that name. Ben. Jonson, who takes every opportunity to find fault with Shakspeare, seems to ridicule the conduct of Twelfth-Night in his Every Man out of his Humour, at the end of Act III. sc. vi. where he makes Mitis say, "That the argument of his comedy might have been of some other nature, as of a duke to be in love with a countess, and that countess to be in love with the duke's son, and the son in love with the lady's waiting maid: some such cross wooing, with a clown to their serving-man, better than be thus near and familiarly allied to the time." STEEVENS. I suppose this comedy to have been written in 1607. Ben Jonson unquestionably could not have ridiculed this play in Every Man out of his Humour, which was written many years before it. MALONE. F OR, WHAT YOU WILL. This play is in the graver part elegant and easy, and in some of the lighter scenes exquisitely humorous. Aguetheek is drawn with great propriety, but his character is, in a great measure, that of natural fatuity, and is therefor not the proper prey of a satirist. The soliloquy of Malvolio is truly comic; he is betrayed to ridicule merely by La pride. The marriage of Olivia, and the succeeding perplexity, though well enough contrived to divert on the i wants credibility, and fails to produce the proper instruction required in the drama, as it exhibits no just picture of life. CURIO. Gentlemen attending on the Duke. SR TOBY BELCH, Uncle of Olivia. MR ANDREW AGUE-CHEEK. MALVOLIO, Steward to Olivia. FABIAN, Clown, } Servants to Olivia. OLIVIA, a rich Countess. VIOLA, in love with the Duke. MARIA, Olivia's Woman. Johnson. Lords, Priests, Sailors, Officers, Musicians and other SCENE, A City in Illyria; and the Sea coast near it. ACT 1. SCENE L-An Apartment in the Duke's Palace. 0, it came o'er my ear like the sweet south, But falls into abatement and low price, Cr. Will you go hunt, my lord? Duke. Cur. What, Curio? The hart. Duke. Why, so I do, the noblest that I have : when mine eyes did see Olivia first, lethought she purged the air of pestilence; hat instant was I turu'd into a hart; and my desires, like fell and cruel hounds, Ter sunce pursue me.-How now? what news from her? Enter VALENTINE. Val. So please my lord, I might not be admitted, from her handmaid do return this answer: he element itself, till seven years heat, At like a cloistress, she will veiled walk, Dike. O, she that hath a heart of that fine frame, pay this debt of love but to a brother, low will she love, when the rich golden shaft lath kill'd the flock of all affections else at live in her! when liver, brain, and heart, tese sovereign thrones, are all supplied, and fill'd, Her sweet perfections) with one self king!— Away before me to sweet beds of flowers; Love-thoughts lie rich, when canopied with bowers. [Exeunt. SCENE II.-The Sea-coast. Enter VIOLA, Captain, and Sailors. Fio. What country, friends, is this? Cap. may he be. Illyria, lady Vio. And what should I do in Illyria? My brother he is in Elysium. [sailors? Perchance he is not drown'd:-What think you, Cap. It is perchance, that you yourself were saved. Vio. O my poor brother! and so, perchance, chance. Cap. True, madam: and, to comfort you with Assure yourself, after our ship did split, When you, and that number saved with you, Hung on our driving boat, I saw your brother, Most provident in peril, bind himself poor (Courage and hope both teaching him the practice) I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves, Vio. The like of him. Know'st thou this country? |