even poore I know to be stuft in it. It deserves such a labour, as well as the best commedy in Terence or Plautus. And beleeve this, that when hee is gone, and his commedies out of sale, you will scramble for them, and set up a new English inquisition. Take this for a warning, and at the perill of your pleasures losse, and judgements, refuse not, nor like this the lesse, for not being sullied with the smoaky breath of the multitude; but thanke fortune for the scape it hath made amongst you: since by the grand possessors wills I believe you should have prayd for them [r. it] rather then becne prayd. And so I leave all such to bee prayd for (for the states of their wits healths) that will not praise it. Vale. { Page 125. I cannot regard this Prologue (which indeed is wanting in the quarto editions) as the work of Shakspeare; and perhaps the drama before us was not entirely of his construction. It appears to have been unknown to his associates, Hemings and Condell, till after the first folio was almost printed off. STEEVENS. I conceive this prologue to have been written, and the dialogue, in more than one place, interpolated by some Kyd or Marlowe of the time; who may have been paid for altering and amending one of Shakspeare's plays: a very extraordinary instance of our author's negligence, and the managers' taste! RITSON. ful. P. 125, 1. 5. Orgulous, i. e. proud, disdain- And Antenorides,] The names of the gates are here exhibited as in the old copy, for the reason assigned by Dr. Fariner; except in the instance of Antenorides, instead of which the old copy has Antenonydus. The quotation from Lydgate shews that, was an error of the printer. MALONE, Mr. Theobald informs us that the very names of the gates of Troy have been barbarously demolished by the editors; and a deal of learned dust he makes in setting them right again; much however to Mr. Heath's satisfaction. Indeed the learning is modestly withdrawn from the later editions, and we are quietly instructed to read Dardan, and Thymbria, Ilia, Scaea, Tro→ But had he looked into the Troy boke of Lydgate, instead of puzzling himself with Dares Phrygius, he would have found the horrid demolition to have been neither the work of Shakspeare, nor his editors : 4 1 Therto his cyte | compassed enuyrowne "Had gates VI to entre into the towne: "The fourthe gate hyshte also Cetheas; “Stronge and mighty both in werre and pes.” V The Troye Boke was somewhat modernized, and reduced into regular stanzas, about the be ginning of the last century, under the name of, The Life and Death of Hector who fought a Hundred mayne Battailes in open Field against the Grecians; wherein there were slaine on both Sides Fourteene Hundred and Sixe Thousand, Fourscore and Sixe Men. Fol. no date. This work Dr. Fuller, and several other criticks, have erroneously quoted as the original; and observe in consequence, that "if Chaucer's coin were of greater weight for deeper learning, Lydgate's were of a more refined standard for purer language so that one might mistake him for a modern writer. FARMER. On other occasions, in the course of this play, I shall insert quotations from the Troye Booke modernized, as being the most intelligible of the two. STEEVENS. P. 125, 1. 21. fulfilling bolts,] To fulfill in this place means to fill till there be no room for more. In this sense it is now obsolete. STEEVENS. To be "fulfilled with grace and benediction is still the language of our liturgy. BLACKSTONE. P. 125, 1. 25, 26. And hither am I come A prologue arm'd,] I come here to speak the prologue, and come in armour; not defying the audience, in confidence of either the autor's or actor's abilities, but inerely in à character suited to the subject, in a dress of war, before a warlike play. JOHNSON. P. 125, 1. 29. 30. Leaps o'er the vaunt] went before. STEEVENS. that our play i. e. the avant, what The vaunt is the vanguard, called in our author's time the vaunt-guard. PERCY. P. 125, 1. 50. firstlings] A scriptural phrase, signifying the first produce or offspring. STEEVENS. P. 127, 1. 6. varlet,] This word anciently signified a servant or footman to a knight or warrior. STEEVENS. Concerning the word varlet, see Recherches historiques sur les cartes à jouer. Lyon, 1757. p. 61. M. C. TUTET. P. 127, I. 11. Will this geer ne'er be mend ed? There is some→ what proverbial in this question, which I likewise meet with in the Interlude of King Darius, 1565: "Wyll not yet this geere be amended, STEEVENS. P. 127, l. 12. 13. skilful to their strength,] i. e. in addition to their strength. STEEVENS. P. 127, 1. 16, — fonder -] i. e. more weak,` or foolish. MALONE. P. 127, l. 17. skill-less ] Mr. Dryden, in his alteration of this play, has taken this speech as it stands, except that he has changed skill-less to artless, not for the better, because skill-less refers to skill and skilful. Johnson. P. 128, 1. 11. To blench is to shrink, or fly off. STEEVENS. P. 128, I. 23. Bury'd this sigh in wrinkle of a smile:J So, in doth smile his face into more lines than the new map with the #augmentation of the Indies. MALONE. P. 129, 1. 5. Handlest in thy discourse, O, ཙྪི ཨཱུ མྷི ཏི ཨནྟི that her hand,] Handlest is here used metaphorically, with an allusion at the same time to its literal meaning, and the jingle between hand and handlest is perfectly in our author's manner. MALONE. Though our author has many and very consi derable obligations to Mr. Malone, I cannot regard the foregoing supposition, as one of them; for in what does it consist? In making Shakspeare answerable for two of the worst lines in a degraded play, merely because they exhibite a jingle simi lar to that in the speech before us. STEEVENS P. 129, l. 9. 10. — spirit of sense, as p Hard as the palm of ploughman!] In comparison with Cressida's hand, says he, the spirit of sense, the utmost degree, the most exquisite power of sensibility, which implies a soft hand, since the sense of touching, as Scaliger says in his Exercitations, resides chiefly in the fingers, is hard as the callous and insensible palm of the Floughman. Warburton reads: spite of sense: Hanmer, to th' spirit of sense. ད་ ༈་ཉི། It is not proper to make a lover profess to praise his mistress in spite of sense; for though he often does it in spite of the sense of others, his own senses are subdued to his desires. JOHNSON...it Spirit of sense is a phrase that occurs again in the third act of this play: 66 nor doth the eye itself, "That most pure spirit of sense, behold 2 itself." |