KING. If this, or more than this, I would deny, To flatter up these powers of mine with reft," The sudden hand of death close up mine eye! Hence ever then my heart is in thy breaft. BIRON. And what to me, my love? and what to me? Ros. You must be purged too, your fins are rank; 7 You are attaint with faults and perjury; Again, in his Lover's Complaint: "Love lack'd a dwelling, and made him her place." Again, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona: " MALONE. "O thou, that doft inhabit in my breast, "Leave not the manfion fo long tenantless, "Left growing ruinous the building fall. We may certainly speak, in general terms, of building a manfion for Love to dwell in, or, of that manfion when it is become a Ruin, without departure from elegance; but when we defcend to fuch particulars as tiling-in Love, a fufpicion will arife, that the technicals of the bricklayer have debafed the imagery of the poet. I hope, therefore, that the fecond in the word intitled was an undefigned omiffion in the quarto, 1598, and, confequently, that intiled was not the original reading. STEEVENS, t 6 To flatter up thefe powers of mine with reft,] Dr. Warburton would read fetter, but flatter or footh is, in my opinion, more appofite to the king's purpose than fetter. Perhaps we may read: To flatter on these hours of time with reft; That is, I would not deny to live in the hermitage, to make the year of delay pass in quiet. JOHNSON. 7 bent. are rank;] The folio and quarto, 1598, read -are rack'd. STEEVENS. your fins are rack'd,] i. e. extended to the top of their So, in Much ado about nothing: "Why, then we rack the value. Mr. Rowe and the fubfequent editors read -are rank. MALONE. Rowe's emendation is every way juftifiable. Things rank (not those which are racked) need purging. Befides, Shakspeare has ufed the fame epithet on the fame occafion in Hamlet: "O! my offence is rank, it smells to heaven." STEEVENS. A twelvemonth fhall you fpend, and never reft, DUM. But what to me, my love? but what to me? KATH. A wife!-A beard, fair health, and honefly; With three-fold love I wish you all these three. DUM. O, fhall I fay, I thank you, gentle wife? KATH. Not fo, my lord;-a twelvemonth and a day I'll mark no words that fimooth-fac'd woers fay: DUM. I'll ferve thee true and faithfully till then. MAR. At the twelvemonth's end, I'll change my black gown for a faithful friend. LONG. I'll flay with patience; but the time is long. MAR. The liker you; few taller are fo young. Biron. And what to me, my love? and what to me? Therefore, if you my favour mean to get, A twelvemonth fhall you spend, and never reft,. But feek the weary beds of people fick.] Thefe fix verfes both Dr. Thirlby and Mr. Warburton concur to think should be expun ged; and therefore I have put them between crotchets : not that they were an interpolation, but as the author's draught, which he afterwards rejected, and executed the fame thought a little lower with much more fpirit and elegance. Shakspeare is not to answer for the prefent abfurd repetition, but his actor-editors; who, thinking Rofaline's fpeech too long in the fecond plan, had abridg'd it to the lines above quoted; but, in publishing the play, flupidly printed both the original fpeech of Shakspeare, and their own abridgement of it. THEOBALD. BIRON. Studies my lady? miftrefs, look on me, Behold the window of my heart, mine eye, What humble fuit attends thy answer there; Impofe fome fervice on me for thy love. Ros. Oft have I heard of you, my lord Birón, Before I faw you: and the world's large tongue Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks; Full of comparisons, and wounding flouts; Which you on all eftates will execute, That lie within the mercy of your wit: To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain; And, therewithal, to win me, if you please, (Without the which I am not to be won,) You fhall this twelvemonth term from day to day Vifit the fpeechlefs fick, and ftill converfe With groaning wretches; and your task fhall be, With all the fierce endeavour of your wit, To enforce the pained impotent to fmile. BIRON. To move wild laughter in the throat of death? It cannot be; it is impoffible: Mirth cannot move a foul in agony. Ros. Why, that's the way to choke a gibing fpirit, Whose influence is begot of that loofe grace, Of him that hears it, never in the tongue Of him that makes it: then, if fickly ears, Deaf'd with the clamours of their own dear groans,* 9 fierce endeavour -] Fierce is vehement, rapid. So, in K. John: 3 fierce extremes of fickness." STEEVENS. dear groans,] Dear fhould here, as in many other places, be dere, fad, odious. JOHNSON. Will hear your idle fcorns, continue then, BIRON. A twelvemonth? well, befal what will befal, I'll jeft a twelvemonth in an hofpital.' leave. PRIN. Ay, fweet my lord; and fo I take my [To the KING. KING. No, madam: we will bring you on your way. BIRON. Our wooing doth not end like an old play; Jack hath not Jill: these ladies' courtesy Might well have made our sport a comedy. KING. Come fir, it wants a twelvemonth and a day, And then 'twill end. BIRON. That's too long for a play. Enter ARMADO. ARM. Sweet majefty, vouchsafe me,— DUM. The worthy knight of Troy. I believe dear in this place, as in many others, means only immediate, confequential. So, already in this fcene: full of dear guiltinefs. STEEVENS. 3 The characters of Biron and Rofaline fuffer much by compari fon with thofe of Benedick and Beatrice. We know that Love's Labour's Loft was the elder performance; and as our author grew more experienced in dramatic writing, he might have seen how much he could improve on his own originals. To this circumftance, perhaps, we are indebted for the more perfect comedy of Much ado about Nothing. STEEVENS. ARM. I will kifs thy royal finger, and take leave: I am a votary; I have vowed to Jaquenetta to hold the plough for her sweet love three years. But, most efteemed greatnels, will you hear the dialogue that the two learned men have compiled, in praise of the owl and the cuckoo? it fhould have followed in the end of our fhow. KING. Call them forth quickly, we will do fo. Enter HOLOFERNES, NATHANIEL, Moth, This fide is Hiems, winter; this Ver, the fpring; the one maintain'd by the owl, the other by the cuckoo. Ver, begin. SONG. Spring. When daifies pied,* and violets blue, And cuckoo-buds' of yellow hue, Do paint the meadows with delight, 4 When daifies pied, &c.] The first lines of this fong that were tranfpofed, have been replaced by Mr. Theobald. JOHNSON. cuckoo-buds--] Gerard in his Herbal, 1597, fays, that the flos cuculi cardamine, &c. are called "in English cuckoo-flowers, in Norfolk Canterbury-bells, and at Namptwich in Chefhire ladie Smocks. Shakspeare, however, might not have been fufficiently fkilled in botany to be aware of this particular. 33 Mr. Tollet has obferved that Lyte in his Herbal, 1578 and 1579, remarks, that cowflips are in French, of fome called coquu, prime vere, and brayes de coquu. This he thinks will fufficiently account for our authors cuckoo-buds, by which he fuppofes cowflip-buds to be meant; and further directs the reader to Cotgrave's Dictionary, under the articles Cocu, and herbe a coqu. STEEVENS. Cuckoo-buds mult be wrong. I believe cowflip-buds, the true reading. FARMER, |