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Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms;

And then, the whining school-boy, with his satchel, And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Dr. Warburton boldly asserts that this was "no unusual division of a play before our author's time." One of Chapman's plays (Two Wise Men and all the rest Fools) is indeed in seven acts. This, however, is the only dramatick piece that I have found so divided. But surely it is not necessary to suppose that our author alluded here to any such precise division of the drama. His comparisons seldom run on four feet. It was sufficient for him that a play was distributed into several acts, and that human life, Jong before his time, had been divided into seven periods. In The Treasury of ancient and modern Times, 1613, Proclus, a Greek author, is said to have divided the life-time of man into SEVEN AGES; over cach of which one of the seven planets was supposed to rule. "The FIRST AGE is called Infancy, containing the space of foure yeares.-The SECOND AGE continueth ten years, until he attaine to the yeares of fourteene: this age is called Childhood.The THIRD AGE consisteth of eight yeares, being named by our auncients Adolescencie or Youthhood; and it lasteth from fourteene, till two and twenty yeares be fully compleate.-The FOURTH AGE paceth on, till a man have accomplished two and fortie yeares, and is termed Young Manhood.-The FIFTH AGE, named Mature Manhood, hath (according to the said author) fifteene yeares of continuance, and therefore makes his progress so far as six and fifty yeares. Afterwards, in adding twelve to fifty-sixe, you shall make up sixty-eight yeares, which reach to the end of the SIXT AGE, and is called Old Age.-The SEAVENTH and last of these seven ages is limited from sixty-eight yeares, so far as four-score and eight, being called weak, declining, and Decrepite Age.—If any man chance to goe beyond this age, (which is more admired than noted in many) you shall evidently perceive that he will returne to his first condition of Infancy againe."

Hippocrates likewise divided the life of man into seven ages, but differs from Proclus in the number of years allotted to each period. See Brown's Vulgar Errors, folio, 1686, p. 173. Malone.

I have seen, more than once, an old print, entitled, The Stage of Man's Life, divided into seven ages. As emblematical representations of this sort were formerly stuck up, both for ornament and instruction, in the generality of houses, it is more probable that Shakspeare took his hint from thence, than from Hippocrates or Proclus. Henley.

One of the representations to which Mr. Henley alludes, was formerly in my possession; and considering the use it is of in explaining the passage before us, "I could have better spared a better print." I well remember that it exhibited the school-boy with his satchel hanging over his shoulder. Steevens.

9 And then,] And, which is wanting in the old copy, was supplied, for the sake of metre, by Mr. Pope. Steevens.

Unwillingly to school: And then, the lover;
Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad

Made to his mistress' eye-brow: Then, a soldier;
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,2
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick3 in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon's mouth: And then, the justice;
In fair round belly, with good capon lin❜d,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances,
And so he plays his part: The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon;5

1 Sighing like furnace,] So, in Cymbeline: " thick sighs from him

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---. Malone.

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Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,] So, in Cynthia's Revels, by Ben Jonson :

"Your soldiers face-the grace of this face consisteth much in a beard."

Steevens.

Beards of different cut were appropriated in our author's time to different characters and professions. The soldier had one fashion, the judge another, the bishop different from both, &c. See a note on King Henry V, Act III, sc. vi: " And what a beard of the general's cut," &c. Malone.

3

sudden and quick-] Lest it should be supposed that these epithets are synonymous, it is necessary to be observed that one of the ancient senses of sudden, is violent. Thus, in Macbeth:

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4 Full of wise saws and modern instances,] It is remarkable that Shakspeare uses modern in the double sense that the Greeks used both for recens and absurdus. Warburton.

καινος,

I am in doubt whether modern is in this place used for absurd: the meaning seems to be, that the justice is full of old sayings and late examples. Johnson.

Modern means trite, common. So, in King John:

"And scorns a modern invocation."

Again, in this play, Act IV, sc.i: " betray themselves to modern censure." Steevens.

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Again, in another of our author's plays: " and familiar things supernatural and causeless."

5

The sixth age shifts

to make modern

Malone.

Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon;] There is a greater beauty than appears at first sight in this image. He is here

With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side;
His youthful hose well sav'd, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound: Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness, and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.
Re-enter ORLANDO, with ADAM.

Duke S. Welcome: Set down your venerable burden,* And let him feed.

Orl.

I thank you most for him.

Adam. So had you need;

I scarce can speak to thank you for myself.

Duke S. Welcome, fall to: I will not trouble you
As yet, to question you about your fortunes:-
Give us some musick; and, good cousin, sing.

comparing human life to a stage play of seven acts, which is no unusual division before our author's time. The sixth he calls the lean and slipper'd pantaloon, alluding to that general character in the Italian comedy, called Il Pantalóne; who is a thin emaciated old man in slippers; and well designed, in that epithet, because Pantalóne is the only character that acts in slippers. Warburton.

In The Travels of the Three English Brothers, a comedy, 1606, an Italian Harlequin is introduced, who offers to perform a play at a lord's house, in which, among other characters, he mentions "a jealous coxcomb, and an old Pantaloune." But this is seven years later than the date of the play before us: nor do I know from whence our author could learn the circumstance mentioned by Dr. Warburton, that "Pantalóne is the only character in the Italian comedy that acts in slippers." In Florio's Italian Dictionary, 1598, the word is not found. In The Taming of the Shrew, one of the characters, if I remember right, is called "an old Pantaloon," but there is no farther description of him. Malone. 6 the lean and slipper'd pantaloon;

With spectacles on nose,] So, in The Plotte of the deade Man's Fortune: "Enter the panteloun and pescode with spectakles.”

Steevens.

7 Set down your venerable burden,] Is it not likely that Shak. speare had in his mind this line of the Metamorphoses ? XIII, 125: 66 ·Patremque

"Fert humeris, venerabile onus, Cythereius heros." Johnson. A. Golding, p. 169, b. edit. 1587, translates it thus:

66 upon his backe

"His aged father and his gods, an honorable packe.” Steevens.

AMIENS sings.

SONG.

I.

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,

Thou art not so unkind

As man's ingratitude;8

Thy tooth is not so keen,

Because thou art not seen,

Although thy breath be rude.

Heigh, ho! sing, heigh, ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving meer folly:
Then, heigh, ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.

& Thou art not so unkind &c.] That is, thy action is not so contrary to thy kind, or to human nature, as the ingratitude of man. So, in our author's Venus and Adonis, 1593:

"O had thy mother borne so bad a mind,

"She had not brought forth thee, but dy'd unkind.”

Thy Tooth is not so keen,

Malone.

Because thou art not seen,] This song is designed to suit the Duke's exiled condition, who had been ruined by ungrateful flatterers. Now the winter wind, the song says, is to be preferred to man's ingratitude. But why? Because it is not seen. But this was not only an aggravation of the injury, as it was done in secret, seen, but was the very circumstance that made the keenness of the ingratitude of his faithless courtiers. Without doubt, Shakspeare wrote the line thus:

not

Because thou art not sheen,

i. e. smiling, shining, like an ungrateful court-servant, who flatters while he wounds, which was a very good reason for giving the winter wind the preference. So, in A Midsummer Night's Dream:

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Spangled star-light sheen."

And several other places. Chaucer uses it in this sense:

"Your blissful sister Lucina the shene."

And Fairfax:

"The sacred angel took his target shene,

"And by the Christian champion stood unseen."

The Oxford editor, who had this emendation communicated to him, takes occasion from hence to alter the whole line thus:

Thou causest not that teen.

But, in his rage of correction, he forgot to leave the reason, which is now wanting, Why the winter wind was to be preferred to man's ingratitude. Warburton.

I am afraid that no reader is satisfied with Dr. Warburton's

II.

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
That dost not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:

Though thou the waters warp,1
Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remember'd not.2
Heigh, ho! sing, heigh, ho! &c.

1

emendation, however vigorously enforced; and it is indeed enforced with more art than truth. Sheen, i. e. smiling, shining. That sheen signifies shining, is easily proved, but when or where did it signify smiling? yet smiling gives the sense necessary in this place. Sir T. Hanmer's change is less uncouth, but too remote from the present text. For my part, I question whether the original line is not lost, and this substituted merely to fill up the measure and the rhyme. Yet even out of this line, by strong agitation may sense be elicited, and sense not unsuitable to the occasion. Thou winter wind, says Amiens, thy rudeness gives the less pain, as thou art not seen, as thou art an enemy that dost not brave us with thy presence, and whose unkindness is therefore not aggravated by insult. Fohnson.

Though the old text may be tortured into a meaning, perhaps it would be as well to read:

Because the heart's not seen.

harts, according to the ancient mode of writing, was easily corrupted. Farmer.

So, in the Sonnet introduced into Love's Labour's Lost: "Through the velvet leaves the wind

"All unseen 'gan passage find." Steevens.

Again, in Measure for Measure:

"To be imprison'd in the viewless winds." Malone.

1 Though thou the waters warp,] The surface of waters, so long as they remain unfrozen, is apparently a perfect plane; whereas, when they are, this surface deviates from its exact flatness, or warps. This is remarkable in small ponds, the surface of which, when frozen, forms a regular concave: the ice on the sides rising higher than that in the middle. Kenrick.

To warp was, probably, in Shakspeare's time, a colloquial word, which conveyed no distant allusion to any thing else, physical or mechanical. To warp is to turn, and to turn is to change: when milk is changed by curdling, we now say it is turned: when water is changed or turned by frost, Shakspeare says, it is curdled. To be warp'd is only to be changed from its natural state.

Johnson.

Dr. Johnson is certainly right. So, in Cynthia's Revels, of Ben Jonson: "I know not, he's grown out of his garb a-late, he 's warp'd. And so, methinks too, he is much converted." Thus

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