DOGB. God's my life! where's the fexton? let him write down-the prince's officer, coxcomb.Come, bind them:-Thou naughty varlet!

CON. Away! you are an ass, you are an ass.

DOGB. Doft thou not fufpect my place? Doft thou not fufpect my years?-O that he were here to write

Dr. Warburton's affertion, as to the dignity of a fexton or facriftan, may be fupported by the following paflage in Stanyhurft's Verfion of the fourth Book of the Eneid, where he calls the Maffylian priestess: in foil Maffyla begotten,

"Sexten of Hefperides finagog." STEEVENS.

Let them be in hand.] I had conjectured that these words fhould be given to Verges, and read thus-Let them bind their hands. I am still of opinion that the paffage belongs to Verges; but, for the true reading of it, I fhould wish to adopt a much neater emendation, which has fince been fuggefted to me in conversation by Mr. Steevens-Let them be in band. Shak fpeare, as he observed to me, commonly uses band for bond. TYRWHITT.

It is plain that they were bound from a fubfequent speech of Pedro: Whom have you offended, mafters, that you are thus bound to your anfwer?" STEEVENS.

Off, coxcomb!] The old copies read-of, and thefe words make a part of the laft fpeech," Let them be in the hands of coxcomb." The prefent regulation was made by Dr. Warburton, and has been adopted by the fubfequent editors. Off was formerly fpelt of. In the early editions of these plays a broken fentence (like that before us,-Let them be in the hands-) is almost always corrupted by being tacked, through the ignorance of the tranfcriber or printer, to the fubfequent words. So, in Coriolanus, inftead of

"You fhames of Rome! you herd of-Boils and plagues "Plaister you o'er!"

we have in the folío, 1623, and the fubfequent copies,

"You fhames of Rome, you! Herd of boils and plagues," &c. See alfo Measure for Measure.

Perhaps, however, we should read and regulate the paffage thus: Ver. Let them be in the hands of-[the law, he might have intended to fay.]

Con. Coxcomb! MALONE.

There is nothing in the old quarto different in this fcene from the common copies, except that the names of two actors, Kempe and Cowley, are placed at the beginning of the fpeeches, instead of the proper words. JOHNSON.

me down-an afs !-but, mafters, remember, that I am an ass; though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an afs :-No, thou villain, thou art full of piety, as fhall be proved upon thee by good witnefs. I am a wife fellow; and, which is more, an officer; and, which is more, a houfholder; and, which is more, as pretty a piece of flesh as any is in Meffina; and one that knows the law, go to; and a rich fellow enough, go to; and a fellow that hath had loffes; and one that hath two gowns, and every thing handsome about him :-Bring him away. O, that I had been writ down-an afs! [Exeunt.

ANT. If you go on thus, you will kill yourself; And 'tis not wifdom, thus to fecond grief

Against yourself.

LEON.
I pray thee, cease thy counsel,
Which falls into mine ears as profitless

As water in a fieve: give not me counsel;
Nor let no comforter delight mine ear,

But such a one whofe wrongs do fuit with mine.
Bring me a father, that so lov'd his child,
Whofe joy of her is overwhelm'd like mine,
And bid him fpeak of patience;8

And bid him fpeak of patience;] Read

"And bid him fpeak to me of patience." RITSON.

Measure his woe the length and breadth of mine,
And let it answer every strain for strain;
As thus for thus, and fuch a grief for fuch,
In every lineament, branch, fhape, and form:
If fuch a one will smile, and stroke his beard;
Cry-forrow, wag! and hem, when he should groan;'

9 Cry-forrow, wag! and hem, when he should groan;] The quarto 1600 and folio 1623, read—

"And forrow, wagge, cry hem," &c.

Mr. Rowe and Mr. Pope

"And hallow, wag," &c.

Mr. Theobald

"And forrow wage," &c.

Sir Tho. Hanmer and Dr. Warburton"And forrow waive," &c.

Mr. Malone

"In forrow wag," &c.

But I am perfuaded that Dr. Johnfon's explanation as well as arrangement of the original words, is appofite and juft: "I cannot (fays he) but think the true meaning nearer than it is imagined. If fuch a one will smile, and ftroke his beard,

And, forrow, wag! cry; hem, when he should groan, &c. That is, If he will fmile, and cry forrow be gone! and hem inftead of groaning.' The order in which and and cry are placed, is harsh, and this harshness made the fenfe miftaken. Range the words in the common order, and my reading will be free from all difficulty.

If fuch a one will smile, and stroke his beard,

Cry, forrow, wag! and hem when he should groan” Thus far Dr. Johnson; and in my opinion he has left fucceeding criticks nothing to do refpecting the paffage before us. Let me, however, claim the honour of fupporting his opinion.

To cry-Care away! was once an expreffion of triumph. So, in Acolaftus, a comedy, 1540: I may now fay, Care araye!"

Patch grief with proverbs; make misfortune drunk
With candle-wafters; bring him yet to me,
And I of him will gather patience.

Again, ibidem: " Now grievous forrowe and care away!"
Again, at the conclufion of Barnaby Googe's third Eglog:

"Som chestnuts have I there in store,
"With cheese and pleasaunt whaye;
"God fends me vittayles for my nede,
"And I fynge Care awaye!"

Again, as Dr. Farmer obferves to me, in George Withers's Philarete, 1622:

66

Why fhould we grieve or pine at that?

Hang forrow! care will kill a cat."

Sorrow go by! is alfo (as I am affured) a common exclamation of hilarity even at this time, in Scotland. Sorrow wag! might have been juft fuch another. The verb, to wag, is feveral times used by our author in the fenfe of to go, or pack off.

The Prince, in the First Part of King Henry IV. A&t II. fc. iv. fays " They cry hem! and bid you play it off." And Mr. M. Mafon obferves that this expreffion alfo occurs in As you Like it, where Rofalind fays-" These burs are in my heart;" and Celia replies" Hem them away." The foregoing examples fufficiently prove the exclamation hem, to have been of a comic turn.

make misfortune drunk

STEEVENS.

With candle-wafters;] This may mean, either wash away his forrow among those who fit up all night to drink, and in that fenfe may be ftyled wafters of candles; or overpower his misfortunes by fwallowing flap-dragons in his glafs, which are described by Falstaff as made of candles' ends. STEEVENS,

This is a very difficult paffage, and hath not, I think, been fatisfactorily cleared up. The explanation I fhall offer, will give, I believe, as little fatisfaction; but I will, however, venture it. Candle-wafters is a term of contempt for fcholars: thus Jonfon, in Cynthia's Revels, A&t III. fc. ii: " fpoiled by a whorefon book-worm, a candle-wafter." In The Antiquary, Act III. is a like term of ridicule: "He should more catch your delicate courtear, than all your head-scratchers, thumb-biters, lamp-wafters of them all." The fenfe then, which I would affign to Shakspeare, is this: "If fuch a one will patch grief with proverbs,--cafe or cover the wounds of his grief with proverbial sayings;—make misfortune drunk with candle-wafters,-ftupify misfortune, or render bimfelf infenfible to the ftrokes of it, by the converfation or lucubrations of fcholars; the production of the lamp, but not fitted to

But there is no fuch man: For, brother, men
Can counsel, and speak comfort to that grief
Which they themselves not feel; but, tafting it,
Their counsel turns to paffion, which before
Would give preceptial medicine to rage,
Fetter ftrong madness in a filken thread,
Charm ach with air, and agony with words:
No, no; 'tis all men's office to fpeak patience
To those that wring under the load of forrow;
But no man's virtue, nor fufficiency,

To be fo moral, when he fhall endure

The like himself: therefore give me no counsel: My griefs cry louder than advertisement.'

ANT. Therein do men from children nothing differ. LEON. I pray thee, peace; I will be flesh and blood; For there was never yet philofopher,

That could endure the tooth-ach patiently;
However they have writ the ftyle of gods,

buman nature." Patch, in the fenfe of mending a defect or breach, occurs in Hamlet, A& V. fc. i:

3

"O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,
"Should patch a wall, to expel the winter's flaw."
WHALLEY.

than advertisement.] That is, than admonition, than moral inftruction. JOHNSON.

4 However they have writ the ftyle of gods,] This alludes to the extravagant titles the Stoics gave their wife men. Sapiens ille cum Diis, ex pari, vivit. Senec. Ep. 59. Jupiter quo antecedit virum bonum? diutius bonus eft. Sapiens nihilo fe minoris æftimat.— Deus non vincit fapientem felicitate. Ep. 73. WARBURTON.

Shakspeare might have used this expreffion, without any acquaintance with the hyperboles of ftoicifm. By the ftyle of gods, he meant an exalted language; fuch as we may fuppofe would be written by beings fuperior to human calamities, and therefore regarding them with neglect and coldness.

Beaumont and Fletcher have the fame expreffion in the first of their Four Plays in One:

"Athens doth make women philofophers,

"And fure their children chat the talk of gods." STEEVENS.