PRO. So, by your circumftance, you call me fool. VAL. So, by your circumftance, I fear, you'll prove. PRO. 'Tis love you cavil at; I am not love. VAL. Love is your mafter, for he masters And he that is so yoked by a fool, Methinks fhould not be chronicled for wife. you; PRO. Yet writers fay, As in the sweetest bud The eating canker dwells, 7 so eating love Inhabits in the finest wits of all. VAL. And writers fay, As the most forward bud Once more adieu: my father at the road PRO. And thither will I bring thee, Valentine. VAL. Sweet Proteus, no; now let us take our leave. א At Milan, let me hear from thee by letters, in the loss of your wit, which will be overpowered by the folly of love. JOHNSON. 7 As in the fweetest bud The eating canker dwells, ) So, in our author's 70th Sonnet: MALONE. 8 At Milan,) The old copy has To Milan. The emendation was made by the editor of the fecond folio. The firft copy however may be right. "To Milan, - may here be intended as an imperfed fentence. I am now bound for Milan. Or the conflruction intended may have been-Let me hear from thee by letters to Milan, i. e. addressed to me there. MALONE. Of thy fuccefs in love, and what news elfe PRO. All happiness bechance to thee in Milan ! VAL. As much to you at home! and fo, farewell! (Exit VALENTINE. PRO. He after honour hunts, I after love:" He leaves his friends, to dignify them more; I leave myself, my friends, and all for love. Thou, Julia, thou haft metamorphos'd me; Made me neglect my ftudies, lofe my time, War with good counfel, fet the world at nought; Made wit with mufing weak, heart fick with thought. 9 Enter SPEED.2 SPEED. Sir Proteus, fave you: Saw you my mafter? PRO. But now he parted hence to embark for Milan. 9 Made wit with mufing weak,) For made read make. Thou Julia, haft made me war with good counfel, and make wit weak with mufing. JOHNSON. Surely there is no need of emendation. It is Julia, who "has already made wit weak with mufing," &c. STEEVENS. 2 This whole fcene, like many others in thefe plays (fome of which I believe written by Shakspeare, and others interpolated by the players) is compofed of the lowest and most trifling conceits, to be accounted for only from the grofs tafte of the age he lived in ; Populo ut placerent. I wish I had authority to leave them out; but I have done all I could, fet a mark of reprobation upon them throughout this edition. POPE. That this, like many other fcenes, is mean and vulgar, will be univerfally allowed; but that it was interpolated by the players feems advanced without any proof, only to give a greater licence to criticifm. JOHNSON. SPEED. Twenty to one then, he is fhipp'd al ready; And I have play'd the fheep, in lofing him. SPEED. You conclude, that my mafter is a fhepherd then, and I a fheep? 3 PRO. I do. SPEED. Why then my horns are his horns, whether I wake or fleep, PRO. A filly answer, and fitting well a fheep. SPEED. This proves me ftill a fheep. PRO. True; and thy mafter a fhepherd. SPEED. Nay, that I can deny by a circumftance. PRO. It fhall go hard, but I'll prove it by another. SPEED. The fhepherd feeks the sheep, and not the fheep the fhepherd; but I feek my mafter, and my master seeks not me: therefore, I am no fheep. PRO. The fheep for fodder follow the fhepherd, the fhepherd for food follows not the fheep; thou for wages followeft thy mafter, thy mafter for wages follows not thee: therefore, thou art a fheep. SPEED. Such another proof will make me cry baa. PRO. But doft thou hear? gav'ft thou my letter to Julia ? SPEED. Av, fir: I, a loft mutton, gave your letter to her, a laced mutton; and fhe, a laced mut 3 4 a fheep) The article, which is wanting in the original copy, was fupplied by the editor of the fecond folio. MALONE. 4 I, a loft mutton, gave your letter to her, a laced mutton ;) Speed calls himself a loft mutton, because he had loft his mafter, and ton, gave me, a loft mutton, nothing for my la bour. PRO. Here's too fmall a pasture for such a store of muttons. SPEED. If the ground be overcharg'd, you were beft flick her. PRO. Nay, in that you are aftray; ' 'twere best pound you. because Proteus had been proving him a sheep. But why does he call the lady a laced mutton? Wenchers are to this day called mutton-mongers; and confequently the object of their paffion must, by the metaphor, be the mutton. And Cotgrave, in his EnglishFrench Dictionary, explains laced mutton, Une garfe, putain, fille de joye. And Mr. Motteux has rendered this pallage of Rabelais, in the prologue of his fourth book, Cailles coiphées mignonnement chantans, in this manner; Coated quails and laced mutton waggishly finging. So that laced mutton has been a fort of standard phrase for girls of pleasure. THEOBALD. Nafh, in his Have with you to Saffron Walden, 1595, speaking of Gabriel Harvey's incontinence, fays; « he would not flick to extoll rotten lac'd mutton. So, in the comedy of The Shoemaker's Holiday, or the Gentle Craft, 1610: 66 Why here's good lac'd mutton, as I promis'd you, Again, in Whetstone's Promos and Caffandra, 1578: " And I fmelt he lov'd lac'd mutton well. Again, Heywood, in his love's Miftrefs, 1636, fpeaking of Cupid, fays, he is the Hero of hie-hoes, admiral of ay-mes, and monfieur of mutton lac'd. STEEVENS. A laced mutton was in our author's time fo eftablished a term for a courtezan, that a ftreet in Clerkenwell, which was much frequented by women of the town, was then called Mutton-lane. It feems to have been a phrase of the fame kind as the French expresfion- caille coifee, and might be rendered in that language, mouton en corfet. This appellation appears to have been as old as the time of King Henry III. Item fequitur gravis poena corporalis, fed fine amiffione vitæ vel membrorum, fi raptus fit de concubinâ legitimâ, vel aliâ queflum faciente, fine delectu perfonarum: has quidem oves debet rex tueri pro pace fuâ. Biadton de legibus, lib. ii MALONE. 5 Nay, in that you are aftray;) For the reafon Proteus gives, SPEED. Nay, fir, lefs than a pound fhall ferve me for carrying your letter. PRO. You miflake; I mean the pound, a pin fold. SPEED. From a pound to a pin? fold it over and over, 'Tis threefold too little for carrying a letter to your lover. PRO. But what faid fhe? did fhe nod. 6 SPEED. I. (SPEED nods. PRO. Nod, I? why, that's noddy." SPEED. You miftook, fir; I fay, fhe did nod: and you ask me, if fhe did nod; and I fay, I. PRO. And that fet together, is- noddy. Dr. Thirlby advises that we should read, a ftray. i. e. a ftray sheep; which continues Proteus's banter upon Speed. THEOBALD. From the word aftray here, and loft mutton above, it is obvious that the double reference was to the firft fentence of the General Confeffion in the prayer-book. HENLEY. 6 did fhe nod.) These words were fupplied by Theobald, to introduce what follows. STEEVENS. In Speed's answer the old fpelling of the affirmative particle has been retained; otherwife the conceit of Proteus (fuch as it is, would be unintelligible. MALONE. 7 why, that's noddy) Noddy was a game at cards So, "Let in The Inner Temple Mafk, by Middleton, 1619: I leave them Again, E 1. "If fuch an affe be noddied for the nonce. REED. |