But mine is all as hungry as the sea, And can digeft as much: make no compare And that I owe Olivia. V10. Ay, but I know, DUKE. What doft thou know? V10. Too well what love women to men may owe: In faith, they are as true of heart as we. DUKE. And what's her history? Vio. A blank, my lord: She never told her love, But let concealment, like a worm i'the bud,' Feed on her damask cheek: fhe pin'd in thought;" Mr. Mafon would read-fuffers; but there is no need of change. Suffer is governed by women, implied under the words, "their love." The love of women, &c. who fuffer-. MALONE. 5 like a worm i'the bud,] So, in the 5th Sonnet of Shakspeare: Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose, "Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name." Again, in our author's Rape of Lucrece: STEEVENS. "Why should the worm intrude the maiden bud ?” Again, in King Richard II: "But now will canker forrow eat my bud, "And chase the native beauty from his cheek." MALONE. 6 fhe pin'd in thought;] Thought formerly fignified melancholy. So, in Hamlet: "Is ficklied o'er with the pale caft of thought." Again, in The Tragical Hiftory of Romeus and Juliet, 1562: "The caufe of this her death was inward care and thought.” MALONE. Mr. Malone fays, thought means melancholy. But why wreit from this word its plain and ufual acceptation, and make Shakspeare guilty of tautology? for in the very next line he ufes "Melan holy." DOUCE, And, with a green and yellow melancholy, Smiling at grief. Was not this love, indeed? 7 She fat like patience on a monument, Smiling at grief.] Mr. Theobald fuppofes this might poffibly be borrowed from Chaucer : "And her befidis wonder difcreetlie "Dame pacience fitting there I fonde "With face pale, upon a hill of fonde." And adds: " If he was indebted, however, for the firft rude draught, bow amply has he repaid that debt, in heightening the picture! How much does the green and yellow melancholy tranfcend the old bard's pale face; the monument his hill of fand."-I hope this critie does not imagine Shakspeare meant to give us a picture of the face of patience, by his green and yellow melancholy; becaufe, he fays. it tranfcends the pale face of patience given us by Chaucer. To throw patience into a fit of melancholy, would be indeed very extraordinary. The green and yellow then belonged not to patience, but to her who fat like patience. To give patience a pale face was proper and had Shakspeare defcribed her, he had done it as Chaucer did. But Shakspeare is fpeaking of a marble statue of patience; Chaucer of patience herself. And the two representations of her, are in quite different views. Our poet, fpeaking of a defpairing lover, judiciously compares her to patience exercifed on the death of friends and relations; which affords him the beautiful picture of patience on a monument. The old bard, fpeaking of patience herfelf, directly, and not by comparison, as judiciously draws her in that circumstance where fhe is moft exercifed, and has occafion for all her virtue; that is to fay, under the laffes of hipwreck. And now we fee why she is reprefented as fitting on a hill of fand, to defign the fcene to be the fea-fhore. It is finely imagined; and one of the noble fimplicities of that admirable poet. But the critic thought, in good earnest, that Chaucer's invention was fo barren, and his imagination fo beggarly, that he was not able to be at the charge of a monument for his goddess, but left her, like a stroller, funning herself upon a heap of fand. WARBURTON. This celebrated image was not improbably first sketched out in the old play of Pericles. I think, Shakspeare's hand may be fome times feen in the latter part of it, and there only. thou [Marina] doft look "Like Patience, gazing on kings' graves, and fmiling I We men may fay more, fwear more: but, indeed, Our shows are more than will; for ftill we prove Much in our vows, but little in our love. So, in our author's Rape of Lucrece : "So mild, that Patience feem'd to fcorn his woes." In the paffage in the text, our author perhaps meant to personify GRIEF as well as PATIENCE; for we can scarcely understand " at grief" to mean "in grief," as no ftatuary could, I imagine, form a countenance in which fmiles and grief should be at once expreffed. Shakspeare might have borrowed his imagery from fome ancient monument on which these two figures were reprefented. The following lines in The Winter's Tale, feem to countenance Such an idea: ་་ "I doubt not then, but innocence shall make Again, in King Richard III: like dumb flatues, or unbreathing ftones, "Star'd on each other, and look'd deadly pale." In King Lear, we again meet with two perfonages introduced in the text: "Patience and Sorrow ftrove, "Who fhould exprefs her goodlieft." Again, in Cymbeline, the fame kind of imagery may be traced: nobly he yokes 66 "A fmiling with a figh. I do note "That Grief and Patience, rooted in him both, Mingle their fpurs together." I am aware that Homer's exputer yeλcare, and a paffage in Macbeth, My plenteous joys "Wanton in fullness, seek to hide themselves "In drops of forrow-" may be urged againft this interpretation; but it fhould be remembered, that in thefe inftances it is joy which bursts into tears. There is no inftance, I believe, either in poetry or real life, of forrow fmiling in anguish. In pain indeed the cafe is different: the fuffering Indian having been known to fmile in the midst of torture. But, however this may be, the fculptor and the painter are confined to one point of time, and cannot exhibit fucceffive movements in the countenance. Dr. Percy however, thinks, that "grief may here mean grievance, in which fenfe it is ufed in Dr, Powel's Hiftory of Wales, quarto, DUKE. But dy'd thy fifter of her love, my boy? 356. "Of the wrongs and griefs done to the noblemen at Stratolyn," &c. In the original, (printed at the end of Wynne's Hiftory of Wales, octavo,) it is gravamina, i. e. grievances.-The word is often ufed by our author in the fame fenfe, (So, in King Henry IV. P. I: 66 the king hath fent to know "The nature of your griefs;)" but never, I believe, in the fingular number. In fupport of what has been fuggefted, the authority of Mr. Rowe may be adduced, for in his life of Shakspeare he has thus exhibited this paffage: "She fat like Patience on a monument, "Smiling at Grief." In the obfervations now fubmitted to the reader, I had once fome confidence, nor am I yet convinced that the objection founded on the particle at, and on the difficulty, if not impoffibility, of a fculptor forming fuch a figure as thefe words are commonly fuppofed to defcribe, is without foundation. I have therefore retained my note; yet I muft acknowledge, that the following lines in K. Richard II. which have lately occurred to me, render my theory fomewhat doubtful, though they do not overturn it: "His face ftill combating with tears and smiles, Here we have the fame idea as that in the text; and perhaps Shakspeare never confidered whether it could be exhibited in marble. I have expreffed a doubt whether the word grief was employed in the fingular number, in the fenfe of grievance. I have lately obferved that our author has himself used it in that fenfe in King Henry IV. P. II: "an inch of any ground "To build a grief on." Dr. Percy's interpretation, therefore, may be the true one. MALONE. I am unwilling to fuppofe a monumental image of Patience was ever confronted by an emblematical figure of Grief, on purpose that one might fit and fmile at the other; becaufe fuch a reprefentation might be confidered as a fatire on human infenfibility. When Patience fmiles, it is to exprefs a chriftian triumph over the common caufe of forrow, a caufe, of which the farcophagus, near her station, ought very fufficiently to remind her. True Patience, when it is her cue to fmile over calamity, knows her office without a prompter; knows that stubborn lamentation difplays a will most incorrect to heaven; and therefore appears content with one of its fevereft difpenfations, the lofs of a relation or a friend. Ancient tombs, in V10. I am all the daughters of my father's house, And all the brothers too; -and yet I know not:Sir, fhall I to this lady? DUKE. Ay, that's the theme. To her in hafte; give her this jewel; say, My love can give no place, bide no denay." [Exeunt. deed (if we must conftrue grief into grievance, and Shakspeare has certainly used the former word for the latter,) frequently exhibit cumbent figures of the deceased, and over these an image of Patience, without impropriety, might exprefs a fmile of complacence: "Her meek hands folded on her modest breast, "With calm fubmiffion lift the adoring eye "Even to the ftorm that wrecks her." After all, however, I believe the Homeric elucidation of the paffage to be the true one. Tyrant poetry often imposes such complicated tasks as painting and fculpture muft fail to execute.-I cannot help adding, that, to fmile at grief, is as juftifiable an expreffion as to rejoice at profperity, or repine at ill fortune. It is not neceffary we should fuppofe the good or bad event, in either inftance, is an object vifible, except to the eye of imagination. STEEVENS. She fat like patience on a monument, Smiling at grief.] So, in Middleton's Witch, A& IV. fc. iii : "She does not love me now, but painefully “Like one that's forc'd to smile upon a grief." I am all the daughters of my father's boufe, DOUCE. And all the brothers too;] This was the most artful answer that could be given. The queftion was of fuch a nature, that to have declined the appearance of a direct answer, must have raised fufpicion. This has the appearance of a direct answer, that the fifter died of her love; fhe (who paffed for a man) faying, the was all the daughters of her father's house. WARBURTON. Such another equivoque occurs in Lylly's Galathea, 1592: my father had but one daughter, and therefore I could have no fifter." STEEVENS. 9-bide no denay.] Denay, is denial. To denay is an antiquated verb fometimes ufed by Holinfhed: fo, p. 620: the ftate of a cardinal which was naied and denaied him." Again, in Warner's Albion's England, 1602, B. II. ch. 10: 66 thus did fay "The thing, friend Battus, you demand, not gladly I denay." STEEVENS, |