JUL. Why not on Proteus, as of all the rest? Luc. Then thus,-of many good I think him best. JUL. Your reason? Luc. I have no other but a woman's reason; I think him so, because I think him so. JUL. And would'st thou have me cast my love on him? Luc. Ay, if you thought your love not cast away. JUL. Why, he of all the rest hath never mov'd me. Luc. Yet he of all the rest, I think, best loves ye. JUL. His little speaking shows his love but small. Luc. Fire that's closest kept, burns most of all ®. JUL. They do not love, that do not show their love. Luc. O, they love least, that let men know their love. JUL. I would, I knew his mind. Luc. Peruse this paper, madam. Say, from whom? Luc. That the contents will show. 8 Luc. Sir Valentine's page; and sent, I think, from Proteus: He would have given it you, but I, being in the way, generally signified to give one's judgment or opinion. So, in The Winter's Tale, Act II. Sc. I.: 66 -How blest am I "In my just censure? in my true opinion?" See the note there. MALone. 8 FIRE that's closest kept, burns most of all.] The second and third words in this line are thus abbreviated in the only authentick copy of this play; and hence it appears that fire is here, as in many other places in these plays, used as a dissyllable. So, in the "Letting of Humour's Blood," 8vo. 1600: "O rare compound, a dying horse to choke, If it should be urged, that "Fire that is closest " is a smoother line, I answer that we are not to re-write our author's plays. MALONE. Did in your name receive it; pardon the fault, I pray. There, take the paper, see it be return'd; Luc. To plead for love deserves more fee than hate. Luc. That you may ruminate. [Exit. JUL. And yet, I would I had o'erlook'd the letter. It were a shame, to call her back again, And pray her to a fault for which I chid her. *First folio, ye. 9-a goodly BROKER!] A broker was used for matchmaker, sometimes for a procuress. JOHNSON. So, in Daniel's Complaint of Rosamond, 1599: "And flie (o flie) these bed-brokers unclean, "The monsters of our sex," &c. STEEVENS. Again, more appositely, in "Look to 't, for I'le stab ye," a collection of satirical verses by S. R. i. e. Samuel Rowlands, 8vo. 1604: "You scurvie fellow in the broker's suite "A sattin doublet fac'd with greace and ale, * * * * * * "Thou that within thy table hast set down MALONE. say No, to that, &c.] A paraphrase on the old proverb, "Maids say nay, and take it." STEEVENS. How angerly I taught my brow to frown, When inward joy enforc'd my heart to smile! And ask remission for my folly past:- Re-enter LUCETTA. Luc. What would your ladyship? JUL. Is it * dinner-time? Luc. I would, it were; 3 That you might kill your stomach on your meat, And not upon your maid. JUL. What is't that you Took up so gingerly? Luc. Nothing. JUL. Why didst thou stoop then? Luc. To take a paper up that I let fall. JUL. And is that paper nothing? Luc. Nothing concerning me. JUL. Then let it lie for those that it concerns. Luc. Madam, it will not lie where it concerns, Unless it have a false interpreter. JUL. Some love of yours hath writ to you in rhime. Luc. That I might sing it, madam, to a tune: Give me a note: your ladyship can set. 4 JUL. As little by such toys as may be possible: *First folio, Is't. 2 HOW ANGERLY-] Thus the old copy; and such was the usage of that time; not angrily, as several of the modern editions have exhibited the word. So, in Macbeth: 66 MALONE. Why how now, Hecate? thou look'st angerly." 3-stomach-] Was used for passion or obstinacy. JOHNSON. 4 As little by such toys-] Set is here used equivocally, in the preceding speech, in the sense in which it is used by musicians; and in the present line with the addition of the preposition by, in a quite different sense. To set by in old language signifies to make account of. So, in the First Book of Samuel, xviii. 30: "David behaved himself more wisely than all, so that he was much set by." MALONE. Best sing it to the tune of Light o' love3. JUL. Heavy? belike, it hath some burden then. Luc. Ay; and melodious were it, would you sing it. JUL. And why not you? Luc. I cannot reach so high. JUL. Let's see your song:-How now, minion? Luc. Keep tune there still, so you will sing it out: And yet, methinks, I do not like this tune. JUL. You do not? Luc. No, madam; tis too sharp. Luc. Nay, now you are too flat, And mar the concord with too harsh a descant": There wanteth but a mean' to fill your song. 5 JUL. The mean is drown'd with your unruly baseR. Luc. Indeed I bid the base for Proteus". Light o' love.] This tune is given in a note on Much Ado About Nothing, Act III. Sc. IV. STEEVENS. 6 And mar the concord with too harsh a DESCANT:] Descant signified formerly what we now denominate variations. So in some ancient poem of which I have neglected to preserve the title : "O what a world of descant makes my soul Upon the voluntary ground of love!" MALOne.. > There wanteth but a MEAN-] The mean is the tenor in musick. So, in the Interlude of Marie Magdalen's Repentance, 1569: "Utilitie can sing the base full cleane, "And noble honour shall sing the meane." STEEVENS. 8 with YOUR unruly base.] The only authentick copy of 1623 has, by a mistake of the press, of you unruly base. This typographical errour was corrected in the second folio. MALONE. 9 Indeed, I bid the base for Proteus.] The speaker here turns the allusion (which her mistress employed) from the base in musick to a country exercise, bid the base: in which some pursue, and others are made prisoners. So that Lucetta would intend, by this, to say, Indeed I take pains to make you a captive to Proteus's passion. WARBurton. Dr. Warburton is not quite accurate. The game was not called bid the base, but the base. To bid the base means here, I believe, "to challenge to an encounter." So, in our author's Venus and Adonis : JUL. This babble shall not henceforth trouble me. Here is a coil with protestation! [Tears the letter. "To bid the wind a base he now prepares, "And wh'er he run, or fly, they knew not whether." Again, in Hall's Chronicle, fol. 98. b: "The Queen marched from York to Wakefield, and bade base to the Duke even before his castle." Again, in a letter from Lord Henry Howard to James King of Scotland, Cecil's Correspondence, p. 41, 8vo. 1766:-" It were a vain part for him to contend alone, or to bid base foolishly." Mr. Todd, in a note on Spencer's Pastoral for September, p. 162, contends that Dr. Warburton is right, and that the game was called "to bid the base;' " which he infers from the following lines of that poet : 66 Whylome thou wont the shepheard's handes to lead "In rimes, in riddles, and in bidding base." But, not to insist that the quotation by no means proves what it is supposed to prove, the following instances will decisively shew that the game was called the base, or prison base, or prison bars. The first is found in Cymbeline: 66 lads more like to run "The country base, than to commit such slaughter." Again, in Annalia Dubrensia, 4to. 1636, Signat. Č. 4; "Yet was no better than our prison base." Again, in The Silke Wormes and their Flies, 4to. 1599: "All flies were made ere wormes beganne to peepe, "Both they which all day long at base do play." Again, in the Letting of Humours in the Head-vaine, 8vo. 1600: "To drinke half pots, or deale at the whole canne ;- To the same purpose the celebrated Doctor Caius, or Key, in his Treatise "On the Sweat," printed by Berthollet, 1552, affords another example: "Tossing the windee balle, skirmish at base, an exercise for a gentleman, much used among the Italians." On the passage in Cymbeline, Act IV. Sc. II. (above quoted), Mr. Steevens has produced four other instances of the same phraseology: there can therefore, I conceive, be no doubt entertained that the game was called the base, or prison base, or prison bars, and not " bidding the base" or "to bid the base." In further confirmation of what has been here stated, I may add that Coles in his Dictionary, 1679, has prison base, "a play, diffugium;" and "to bid battle" he renders by "hostem provocare." In Ireland this game is called prison bars. I have often played at it, when a school-boy. MALONE. |