and make a slight alteration in the expression; pointing the whole in such a manner as to give a totally different sense to that of the text: "O, but man, proud man, "Of what he is most ignorant. Most assur'd, " (His glassy essence) angry, like an ape Plays such fantastic tricks." Which may be interpreted as follows: "Man is proud and ignorant: ignorant even of what he is, his very nature: yet from being vested with a little authority, a perishable authority, [his glassy essence] he assumes a consequence no way pertaining to his earthly station, and thus offends the heavenly powers," &c. The construction is not that-Man (and simply considered) is like an angry ape; but that being angry, he plays tricks like an ape. B. -who with our spleens, Would all themselves laugh mortal. Mr. Theobald says the meaning of this is, "that if they were endowed with our spleens and perishable organs, they would laugh themselves out of immortality:" which amounts to this: that if they were mortal, they would not be immortal. Shakspeare meant no such nonsense. By spleens, he meant that peculiar turn of the human mind, that always inclines it to a spiteful, unseasonable mirth. Had the angels that, says Shakspeare, they would laugh themselves out of their immortality, by indulging a passion which does not deserve that prerogative. The ancients thought, that immoderate laughter was caused by the bigness of the spleen. WARB. "Who with our spleens," &c. The lines might be read as follows: who with our spleens "All mortal,-would laugh themselves. Aug. She speaks, and 'tis Such sense, that my sense breeds with it. B. That my sense breeds with it.] Thus all the folios. Some later editor has changed breeds to bleeds, and Dr. Warburton blames poor Mr. Theobald for recalling the old word which yet is certainly right. My sense breeds with her sense, that is, new thoughts are stirring in my mind, new conceptions are hatched in my imagination. So we say to brood over thought. JOHN. "My seuse breeds with it." This conveys a very imperfect, and when explained by Johnson, a forced kind of meaning. I would read: "She speaks, and 'tis "Such sense, that my sense brees with it." i. e. She speaks so well, so forcibly, that my sense becomes alarmed at it. The consciousness of mine own imperfection startles me. To bree, is with our earlier writers, to alarm, to frighten. B. Wherein (let no man hear me) I take pride, --Change for an idle plume, Which the air beats for vain. Oh place! &c. There is, I believe, no instance in Shakspeare or any other author, of "for vain" being used for "in vain." Besides; has the air or wind less effect on a feather than on twenty other things? or rather is not the reverse of this the truth? An idle plume assuredly is not that "everfixed mark," of which our author speaks elsewhere," that looks on tempests, and is never-shaken." The old copy has vaine, in which way a vane or weather-cock was formerly spelt. [See Minshieu's DICT. 1617, in verb.-So also, in Love's Labor Lost, Act IV. Sc. 1. edit. 1623. “What raine? what weathercock?" I would therefore read vane.-I would exchange my gravity, says Angelo, for an idle feather, which being driven along by the wind serves, to the spectator, for a vane or weathercock. So, in The Winter's Tale: "I am a feather for each wind that blows." 66 Change for an idle plume, "Which the air beats for vain." MAL. Mr. Malone's reading is harsh. Besides a plume is never set up for a vane or weathercock. The truth is, that there is not the smallest necessity for change. Vain is vanity, show. An adjective for a substantive; a licence common with Shakspeare. The sense of the passage is that to accomplish his desires he would lay down his gravity which he takes a pride in, for idle show which he detests. This show he characterises by a feather gaily fluttering in the wind. B. Isab. Yet hath he in him such a mind of honor. Such a mind of honor.] This, in Shakspeare's language, may mean, such an honorable mind, as he uses elsewhere mind of love, for loving mind. STEEV. "Such a mind of honor." "This in Shakspeare's language," &c. A very notable remark! what should mind of honor mean, but an honorable mind? and why must the editor sneer at Shakspeare's language? B. Servile to all the skiey influences That do this habitation, where thou keep'st, Hourly afflict. That do this habitation.] This reading is substituted by Sir Thomas Hanmer, for "A breath thou art," &c. Mr. Porson is wrong in saying that the construction is, "a breath thou art that dost," &c. it is very clearly: "skiey influences that do." But it should first be observed, without attending to this particular, that the expression in Shakspeare is radically bad; inasmuch as habitation is said to be afflicted (for so it will be in reading either do or dost) and by consequence is made to stand for life: for afflicted, we must remember, cannot be spoken of an inanimate thing. Let us attend then to the reasoning of the Duke, as exhibited by Mr. Porson. "Life, thou art a breath servile to all the skiey influences, and thou dost afflict life." Thus it is seen that the expression, as I before observed, is vicious; nor will any thing be gained to the sense of the passage by reading do. Such being the case-how, it will be asked, is the evil to be remedied? Why, by substituting assail in the place of afflict: while habitation must be understood as speaking of the body; which is simply material; as a lodging for the informing part. The passage should he read and pointed thus: Life, thou art a breath Servile to all the skiey influences That do this habitation, where thou keep'st, The incorrectness of this sentence does not appear to have arisen from the carelessness of the transcriber: the fault is in the poet himself: and has been entirely unheeded by his several editors. B. Claud. Thou art by no means valiant; For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork Of a poor worm. the soft and tender fork Of a poor worm : Worm is put for any creeping thing or serpent. Shakspeare supposes falsely, but according to the vulgar notion, that a serpent wounds with his tongue, and that his tongue is forked. He confounds reality and fiction, a serpent's tongue is soft but not forked, nor hurtful. If it could hurt, it could not be soft. In the Midsummer Night's Dream he has the same notion. -With doubler tongue "Than thine, O serpent, never adder stung." JOHN. Shakspeare could never suppose that a serpent wounds with his tongue, or he would not have said, the "soft and tender fork." He insinuates that the tongue of the serpent is exactly the reverse of hurtful; but that men are apt to be frightened by appearance, or alarmed from vulgar prejudice. "Fork" is not forked, but used simply for tongue. B. Claud. Thy best of rest is sleep, And that thou oft provok'st; yet grossly fear'st Thy death, which is no more. -Thy best of rest is sleep, And that thou oft provok'st; yet grossly fear'st Evidently from the following passage of Cicero: "Habes somnum imaginem mortis, eamque quotidie induis, et dubitas quin sensus in morte nullus sit cum in ejus simulacro videas esse nullum sensum." But the Epicurean inși nuation is, with great judgment, omitted in the imitation. WARB. Here Dr. Warburton might have found a sentiment worthy of his animadversion. I cannot without indignation find Shakspeare saying, that death is only sleep, lengthening out his exhortation by a sentence which in the friar is impious, in the reasoner is foolish, and in the poet trite and vulgar. JOHN. Thy best of rest is sleep,' &c. Dr. Johnson's piety and his religious faith has taken the alarm, and made him severe in his animadversion, where there is not even the shadow of a cause. When the Friar says-Death is only sleep, his position goes to nothing further than that in death every thing in respect of this world is forgotten or lost as it is in sleep. That nothing impious was intended by the Poet himself, or to be put into the mouth of the friar, and that the expression is interpreted properly even by Claudio, the acknowledgment of that very Claudio to the man who had undertaken to admonish and prepare him for his passage to eternity, will sufficiently show: Claud. "I humbly thank you, To sue to live, I find I seek to die:' All thy blessed youth Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms Of palsied eld. -for all thy blessed youth Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms Of palsied eld; and when thou'rt old and rich, The drift of this period is to prove, that neither youth nor age can be said to be really enjoyed, which, in poetical language, is,-We have neither youth nor age. But how is this made out? That age is not enjoyed he proves, by recapitulating the infirmities of it, which deprive that period of life of all sense of pleasure. To prove that youth is not enjoyed, he uses these words, for all thy blessed youth Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms Out of which, he that can deduce the conclusion, has a better knack at logic than I have. I suppose the poet wrote, -For pall'd, thy blazed youth Becomes assuaged; and doth beg the alms i. e. when thy youthful appetite becomes palled, as it will be in the very enjoyment, the blaze of youth is at once assuaged, and thou immediately contractest the infirmities of old age; as particularly the palsy and other nervous disorders, consequent on the inordinate use of sensual pleasures. This is to the purpose; and proves youth is not enjoyed, by showing the short duration of it. WARB. Here again I think Dr. Warburton totally mistaken. Shakspeare declares that man has neither youth nor age; for in youth, which is the happiest time, or which might be the happiest, he commonly wants means, to obtain what he could enjoy; he is dependent on palsied eld: must beg alms from the coffers of hoary avarice; and being very niggardly supplied, becomes as aged, looks, like an old man, on happiness which is beyond his reach. And, when he is old amd rich, when he has wealth enough for the purchase of all that formerly excited his desires, he has no longer the powers of enjoyment; -hus neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty, To make his riches pleasant. I have explained this passage according to the present reading, which may stand without much inconvenience; yet I am willing to persuade my reader, because I have almost persuaded myself, that our author wrote, -for all thy blasted youth Becomes as aged.— JOHN. All thy blessed youth,' &c. The reading proposed by Warburton is much too wide from that of the text, and a forced explanation of the passage necessarily results from it. As aged,' is certainly wrong nor is any kind of consequence deducible from the lines as they at present stand. I would therefore readassieged' (assieger fr) i. e. besieged, beset. Assieged, and as aged are so nearly alike in sound that they might easily be mistaken by the reader or transcriber for the press. The meaning will be-Thy happy youth, or rather thy youth which should or might be happy-is laid siege to; is beset [Gout, Serpigo, and Rheum, must here be understood as alluded to, and which had been set down in the immediately preceding line] so hard beset, that thou art perhaps compelled to ask support even from decrepitude, from palsied age. B. Claud. The princely Angelo? Isab. Oh, 'tis the cunning livery of hell, The princely Angelo?—— -princely guards !— The stupid editors, mistaking guards for satellites (whereas it here signifies lace,) altered priestly, in both places, to princely. Whereas Shakspeare wrote it priestly, as appears from the words themselves, -Tis the cunning livery of hell, The damned'st body to invest and cover With priestly guards. In the first place we see that guards here signifies lace, as referring to livery, and as having no sense in the signification of satellites. Now priestly guards means sanctity, which is the sense required. But princely guards means nothing but rich lace, which is a sense the passage will not bear. Angelo, indeed, as deputy, might be called the princely Angelo : but not in this place, where the immediately preceding words of, This outu ard-sainted deputy, demand the reading I have nere restored. WARB. The first folio has, in both places, prenzie, from which the other folios made princely, and every editor may inake what he can. JOHN. Princely guards mean no more than the ornaments of royalty, which Angelo is supposed to assume during the absence of the duke. The stupidity of the first editors is sometimes not n ore niurious to Shakspeare, than the ingenuity of those who succeeded them. SIEEV. With priestly guards.' The ingenuity here spoken of by Mr. S. is sufficiently exemplified in himself. |