This child of fancy,3 that Armado hight,4 For interim to our ftudies, fhall relate, In high-born words, the worth of many a knight From tawny Spain, loft in the world's debate.5 is here admirably painted, in the perfon of one who was willing to make even right and wrong friends; and to perfuade the one to recede from the accustomed stubbornness of her nature, and wink at the liberties of her oppofite, rather than he would incur the imputation of ill-breeding in keeping up the quarrel. And as our author, and Jonfon his contemporary, are confeffedly the two greatest writers in the drama that our nation could ever boast of, this may be no improper occafion to take notice of one material difference between Shakspeare's worst plays and the other's. Our author owed all to his prodigious natural genius; and Jonfon most to his acquired parts and learning. This, if attended to, will explain the difference we speak of. Which is this, that, in Jonfon's bad pieces, we do not discover the least traces of the author of the Fox and Alchemist; but in the wildest and most extravagant notes of Shakspeare, you every now and then encounter ftrains that recognize their divine composer. And the reafon is this, that Jonfon owing his chief excellence to art, by which he fometimes ftrained himself to an uncommon pitch, when he unbent himself, had nothing to fupport him; but fell below all likeness of himself; while Shakspeare, indebted more largely to nature than the other to his acquired talents, could never, in his moft negligent hours, fo totally divest himself of his genius, but that it would frequently break out with amazing force and fplendour. WARBURTON. This paffage, I believe, means no more than that Don Armado was a man nicely verfed in ceremonial distinctions, one who could diftinguish in the moft delicate queftions of honour the exact boundaries of right and wrong. Compliment, in Shakfpeare's time, did not fignify, at leaft did not only fignify verbal civility, or phrafes of courtesy, but according to its original meaning, the trappings, or ornamental appendages of a character, in the fame manner, and on the fame principles of speech ·with accomplishment. Complement is, as Armado well expreffes it, the varnish of a complete man. JOHNSON. Dr. Johnfon's opinion may be fupported by the following paffage in Lingua, or The Combat of the Tongue and the Five Senfes for Superiority, 1607 :-" after all fafhions and of all colours, with rings, jewels, a fan, and in every other place, odd How you delight, my lords, I know not, I; complements." And again, by the title-page to Richard Braithwaite's English Gentlewoman: "drawne out to the full body, expreffing what habiliments doe best attire her; what ornaments doe beft adorne her; and what complements doe best accomplish her." Again, in p. 59, we are told that " complement hath beene anciently defined, and fo fucceffively retained ;—a no leffe reall than formall accomplishment." Again, in Chapman's verfion of the 24th Iliad: The reacht Achilles tent "Found him ftill fighing; and fome friends, with all their complements Soothing his humour." Again, in Sir Giles Goofecap, 1606: 66 adorned with the exacteft complements belonging to everlafting nobleness." STEEVENS. Thus, in Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio calls Tybalt, "the Captain of complements." M. MASON. 3 This child of fancy,] This fantastick. The expreffion, in another fenfe, has been adopted by Milton in his L'Allegro : "Or sweetest Shakspeare, Fancy's child-." MALONE, • That Armado hight,] Who is called Armado. MALONE. ́ $ From tawny Spain, loft in the world's debate.] i. e. he shall relate to us the celebrated ftories recorded in the old romances, and in their very ftyle. Why he fays from tawny Spain is, because those romances, being of Spanish original, the heroes and the scene were generally of that country. Why he fays, loft in the world's debate is, because the subject of those romances were the crufades of the European Chriftians against the Saracens of Afia and Africa. WARBURTON. I have fuffered this note to hold its place, though Mr. Tyrwhitt has fhewn that it is wholly unfounded, because Dr. Warburton refers to it in his differtation at the end of this play. MALONE. in the world's debate.] The world feems to be used in a monaftick sense by the king, now devoted for a time to a monaftic life. In the world, in feculo, in the buftle of human affairs, from which we are now happily fequeftred, in the world, to which the votaries of folitude have no relation. JOHNSON. Warburton's interpretation is clearly preferable to that of BIRON. Armado is a moft illuftrious wight, A man of fire-new words," fashion's own knight. LONG. Coftard the fwain, and he, fhall be our sport; And, fo to study, three years is but short. Enter DULL, with a letter, and COSTARD. DULL. Which is the duke's own perfon ? DULL. I myself reprehend his own perfon, for I am his grace's tharborough:9 but I would fee his own perfon in flesh and blood. Johnfon. The King had not yet fo weaned himself from the world, as to adopt the language of a cloifter. M. MASON. 6 And I will ufe him for my minftrelfy.] i. e. I will make a minftrel of him, whose occupation was to relate fabulous stories. DOUCE. 7 fire-new words,] "i. e. (fays an intelligent writer in the Edinburgh Magazine, Nov. 1786,) words newly coined, new from the forge. Fire-new, new off the irons, and the Scottish expreffion bren-new, have all the fame origin." The fame compound epithet occurs in King Richard III: "Your fire-new ftamp of honour is scarce current." STEEVENS. * Which is the duke's own perfon ?] The king of Navarre in feveral paffages, through all the copies, is called the duke: but as this must have sprung rather from the inadvertence of the editors than a forgetfulness in the poet, I have every where, to avoid confufion, reftored king to the text. THEOBALD. The princefs in the next act calls the king" this virtuous duke;" a word which, in our author's time, feems to have been ufed with great laxity. And indeed, though this were not the cafe, fuch a fellow as Coftard may well be fuppofed ignorant of his true title. MALONE. I have followed the old copies. STEEVENS. 9 tharborough: i. e. Thirdborough, a peace officer, alike in authority with a headborough or a conftable. SIR J. HAWKINS. VOL. VII C BIRON. This is he. DULL. Signior Arme-Arme-commends you. There's villainy abroad; this letter will tell you more. me. COST. Sir, the contempts thereof are as touching KING. A letter from the magnificent Armado. BIRON. How low foever the matter, I hope in God for high words. LONG. A high hope for a low having:1 God grant us patience! BIRON. To hear? or forbear hearing ?2 LONG. To hear meekly, fir, and to laugh moderately; or to forbear both. BIRON. Well, fir, be it as the style shall give us cause to climb 3 in the merrinefs. A high hope for a low having:] In old editions: "A high hope for a low heaven;" A low heaven, fure, is a very intricate matter to conceive. I dare warrant, I have retrieved the poet's true reading; and the meaning is this: " Though you hope for high words, and should have them, it will be but a low acquifition at beft." This our poet calls a low having: and it is a fubftantive which he uses in feveral other paffages. THEOBALD. It is fo employed in Macbeth, A&t I: great prediction "Of noble having, and of royal hope." Heaven, however, may be the true reading, in allufion to the gradations of happiness promised by Mohammed to his followers. So, in the comedy of Old Fortunatus, 1600: Oh, how my foul is rapt to a third heaven !" STEEVENS. 2 To hear? or forbear hearing?] One of the modern editors plaufibly enough, reads: 3 "To hear? or forbear laughing?" MALONE. as the ftyle fhall give us caufe to climb-] A quibble between the ftile that must be climbed to pass from one field to COST. The matter is to me, fir, as concerning Jaquenetta. The manner of it is, I was taken with the manner.4 BIRON. In what manner? COST. In manner and form following, fir; all those three I was feen with her in the manor house, fitting with her upon the form, and taken following her into the park; which, put together, is, in manner and form following. Now, fir, for the manner, it is the manner of a man to speak to a woman for the form,-in fome form. BIRON. For the following, fir? COST. As it fhall follow in my correction; And God defend the right! KING. Will you hear this letter with attention ? BIRON. As we would hear an oracle. COST. Such is the fimplicity of man to hearken after the flesh. KING. [Reads.] Great deputy, the welkin's vicegerent, and fole dominator of Navarre, my foul's earth's God, and body's foftering patron, COST. Not a word of Coftard yet. KING. So it is, another, and style, the term expreffive of manner of writing in regard to language. STEEVENS. taken with the manner.] i. e. in the fact. So, in Heywood's Rape of Lucrece, 1630: "and, being taken with the manner, had nothing to fay for himself." STEEVens. A forenfick term. A thief is faid to be taken with the manner, i.e. mainour or manour, (for so it is written in our old lawbooks,) when he is apprehended with the thing stolen in his poffeffion. The thing that he has taken was called mainour, from the Fr. manier, manu tractare. MALONE. |