Then, homeward, every man attach the hand 2 We will with fome strange pastime folace them, And juflice always whirls in equal measure: 3 4 Fore-run fair Love, ] i. e. Venus. So, in Antony and Cleopatra: "Now for the love of Love, and her foft hours. MALONE. fow'd cockle reap'd no corn;] This proverbial expreffion intimates, that beginning with perjury, they can expect to reap nothing but falfhood. The following lines lead us to this sense. WARBURTON. Dr. Warburton's firft interpretation of this paffage, which is preferved in Mr. Theobald's edition," if we don't take the proper measures for winning these ladies, we shall never achieve them, is undoubtedly the true one. HEATH. " Mr. Edwards, however, approves of Dr. Warburton's fecond thoughts. MALONE. • If so, our copper buys no better treasure.] Here Mr. Theobald ends the third a&. JOHNSON, ACT V. SCENE I. Another part of the fame. Enter HOLOFERNES, Sir NATHANIEL, and DULL. HOL. Satis quod fufficit." NATH. I praife God for you, fir: your reafons at dinner have been' fharp and fententious; pleasant without fcurrility, witty without affection, audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and ftrange without herefy. I did converfe this quondam day with a companion of the king's, who is intituled, nominated, or called, Don Adriano de Armado. 5 Satis quod fufficit.] i. e. Enough's as good as a feaft. STEEVENS. 6 - your reafons at dinner have been, &c.] I know not well what degree of refpect Shakspeare intends to obtain for this vicar, but he has here put into his mouth a finished reprefentation of colloquial excellence. It is very difficult to add any thing to his character of the school-mafter's table-talk, and perhaps all the precepts of Caftiglione will scarcely be found to comprehend a rule for converfation fo juftly delineated, fo widely dilated, and fo nicely limited. It may be proper juft to note, that reafon here, and in many other places, fignifies difcourfe; and that audacious is ufed in a good fenfe for fpirited, animated, confident. Opinion is the fame with obftinacy or opiniâtreté. JOHNSON. So again, in this play: Yet fear not thou, but fpeak audaciously. " Audacious was not always ufed by our ancient writers in a bad fense. It means no more here, and in the following inftance from Ben Jonson's Silent Woman, than liberal or commendable boldness: fhe that fhall be my wife, muft be accomplished with courtly and audacious ornaments. STEEVENS. 7 without affedion, ] i. e. without affectation. So, in Hamlet: No matter that might indite the author of affection. Again, in Twelfth Night, Malvolio is call'd "an affection'd afs. 19 STREVENS, 8 HOL. Novi hominem tanquam te: His humour is lofty, his difcourfe peremptory, his tongue filed, 3 his eye ambitious, his gait majeftical, and his general behaviour vain, ridiculous, and thrafonical. He is too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd as it were, too peregrinate, as I may call it. 2 NATH. A moft fingular and choice epithet. [Takes out his table-book. HOL. He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument. I abhor fuch 8 his tongue filed,] Chaucer, Skelton, and Spenser, are frequent in their ufe of this phrafe. Ben Jonfon has it likewise. STEEVENS. 9 thrafonical.] The ufe of the word thrafonical is no argument that the author had read Terence. It was introduced to our language long before Shakspeare's time. FARMER. It is found in Bullokar's Expofitor, 8vo. 1616. MALONE. He is too picked,] To have the beard piqued or fhorn so as to end in a point, was, in our authour's time, a mark of a traveller affeding foreign fafhions: fo fays the Baftard in K. John: I cathechife "My piqued man of countries." JOHNSON. See a note on K. John, A&t I. and another on K. Lear, where the reader will find the epithet piqued differently fpelt and interpreted. Piqued may allude to the length of the fhoes then worn. Bulwer, in his Artificial Changeling, fays:- "We weare our forked shoes almost as long again as our feete, not a little to the hindrance of the action of the foote; and not only fo, but they prove an impediment to reverentiall devotion, for our bootes and fhooes are fo long fnouted, that we can hardly kneele in God's house. STEEVENS. It I believe picked (for fo it fhould be written) fignifies nicely dreft in general, without reference to any particular fashion of drefs. is a metaphor taken from birds, who drefs themfelves by picking out or pruning, their broken or fuperfluous feathers. So Chaucer ufes the word, in his defcription of Damian dreffing himself, Cant. Tales, ver. 9885. "He kembeth him, he proineth him and piketh." And Shakspeare in this very play, uses the correfponding word pruning for dreffing, A& IV. fc. iii: or fpend a minute's time “In pruning me fanatical phantafms, 3 fuch infociable and pointdevife companions; fuch rackers of orthography, as to fpeak, dout, fine, when he fhould fay, doubt; det, when he fhould pronounce, debt; d, e, b, t; not, d, e, t: he clepeth a calf, cauf; half, hauf; neighbour, vocatur, nebour; neigh, abbreviated, ne: This is abhominable,' (which he would call abominable,) it infinuate th me of infanie; Ne intelligis domine? to make frantick, lunatick. 6 too much The fubftantive pickedness is ufed by Ben Jonfon for nicety in dress. Discoveries, Vol. VII. Whalley's edit. p. 116: pickedness is not manly." TYRWHITT. σε he Again, in Nafhe's Apologie of Piercy Penniless, 1593: might have showed a picked elfeminate carpet knight, under the fiaionate person of Hermaphroditus." MALONE. 4 STEEVENS. point-devife ] A French expreffion for the utmoft, or finical exadness. So, in Twelfth Night, Malvolio fays: "I will be point- device, the very man. STEEVENS. This is abhominable, &c.] He has here well imitated the language of the moft redoubtable pedants of that time. On fuch fort of occafions, Jofeph Scaliger ufed to break out," Abominor, execror. Afinitas mera eft, impietas," &c. and calls his adversary, "Lutum fiercore maceratum, dæmoniacum recrementum infcitiæ, fterquilinium, ftercus diaboli, Scarabæum, larvam, pecus poftremum beftiarum, infame propudium. náleppa." WARBURTON. κάθαρμα, Shakspeare knew nothing of this language; and the refemblance which Dr. Warburton finds, if it deferves that title, is quite accidental. It is far more probable, that he means to ridicule the foppish manner of speaking, and affected pronunciation, introduced at court by Lyly and his imitators. abhominable, Thus the word is conftantly fpelt in the old moralities and other antiquated books. So, in Lufi, Juventus, 1561: "And then I will bryng in 6 Abhominable lyving. STEEVENS. it infinuateth me of infanie; &c.] In former editions, it infinuateth me of infamie; Ne intelligis, domine? to make frantisk, lunatick, Nath. Laus Deo, bone intelligo. Hol. Bome, boon for boon Prifcian; a little fcrath, 'twill NATH. Laus deo, bone intelligo. HOL. Bone?-bone, for bene: Prifcian a little fcratch'd; 'twill ferve. Enter ARMADO, MOTH, and COSTARD. NATH. Videfne quis venit? HOL. Video, & gaudeo. ARM. Chirrra ! HOL. Quare Chirra, not firrah? [ TO MOTH. ARM. Men of peace, well encounter'd. ferve.] Why fhould infamy be explained by making frantick, lunatick? It is plain and obvious that the poet intended the pedant should coin an uncouth affected word here, infanie from infania of the Latins. Then, what a piece of unintelligible jargon have these learned criticks given us for Latin? I think, I may venture to affirm, I have restored the paffage to its true purity. Nath. Laus Deo, bone, intelligo. The curate, addreffing with complaifance his brother pedant, fays, bone, to him, as we frequently in Terence find bone vir; but the pedant, thinking he had mistaken the adverb, thus defcants on it. Bone? -bone for bene. Prifcian a little fcratched: 'twill ferve. Alluding to the common phrafe, Diminuis Prifciani caput, applied to fuch as fpeak falfe Latin. THEOBALD. There feems yet fomething wanting to the integrity of this paffage, which Mr. Theobald has in the most corrupt and difficult places very happily reftored. For ne intelligis domine? to make frantick, lunatick, I read (nonne intelligis, domine?) to be mad, frantick, lunatick. JOHNSON. Infanie appears to have been a word anciently used. In a book entitled, The Fall and evil Succeffe of Rebellion from Time to Time, &c. written in verfe by Wilfride Holme, imprinted at London by Henry Bynneman; without date, (though from the concluding ftanza, it appears to have been produced in the 8th year of the reign of Henry VIII.) I find the word ufed: "In the days of fixth Henry, Jack Cade made a brag, "With a multitude of people; but in the confequence, After a little infanie they fled tag and rag, "For Alexander Iden he did his diligence. STEEVENS. I fhould rather read it infinuateth men of infanie.' FARMER. |