then adds: "But will you any thing with it?" meaning in a jocular way: "As you have been talking so much about virginity, have you any thing to say to me?" I would make a transposition of the other lines of Helena's speech, and read the whole as follows: "Not my virginity yet. Will you any thing with it?

"The court's a learning place

"There shall your master have a thousand foves,
"A mother, and a mistress, and a friend.

"I know not what he shall. God send him well,

"For he is one--"

Par. What one, i'faith?

Hel. That I wish well, &c. B.

A Phenix, captain, &c.] The eight lines following friend, I am persuaded, is the nonsense of some foolish conceited player. What put it into his head was Helen's saying, as it should be read for the future: There shall your master have a thousand loves;

A mother, and a mistress, and a friend.

I know not what he shall.God send him well,

Where the fellow, finding a thousand loves spoken of, and only three reckoned up, namely, a mother's, a mistress's, and a friend's, (which, by the way, were all a judicious writer could mention; for there are but these three species of love in nature) he would help out the number, by the intermediate nonsense: and, because they were yet too few, he pieces out his loves with enmities, and makes of the whole such finished nonsense as is never heard out of Bedlam. WARB.

"A Phoenix, captain," &c. Such is Warburton's opinion respecting the lines beginning with Phenix, and ending with gossips and every one but Mr. Steevens, I imagine, will concur in it. He, bowever, calls it "a rapturous effusion," and "its obscurity," he says, "may be its merit." It is not for obscurity, however, but nonsensicalness that a sentence is reprobated by the learned annotator. But with nonsense Mr. S. is familiar, and therefore stands up for it boldly: how little too, does he attend to his author! He informs us that Helen tells Parolles, and in speaking of Bertram, his master, that in the enjoyment of her [Helen] he should find the gratification of his most romantic wishes." Now this is totally adverse from the meaning, for "there shall he find a thousand loves" is not to be referred to herself, but to the court at which Bertram is about to sojourn: nor can we for a moment suppose the lady so entirely lost to delicacy as to hold such language to the braggart captain, and whom she had just before spoken of as a "notorious liar," "a great way fool," &c. Beside, her regard for Bertram is only known to herself. "She never told her love." Mr. Steevens farther observes in support of the Bedlamitic effusion, a Phoenix," &c. that "our ancient writers delighted in catalogues," &c. This expression is so very curious, that I could not immediately discover, and which will be the case, I think, with many others-what the commentator would give us to understand by it. B.

-a traitress,—] It seems that traitress was in that age a term of endearment, for when Lafeu introduces Helena to the king, he says, You are like a traytor, but such traytors his majesty does not much fear. JOHN. , I cannot conceive that traitress (spoken seriously) was in any age a term of endearment. From the present passage, we might as well suppose enemy (in the last line but one) to be a term of endearment. In the other passage quoted, Lafeu is plainly speaking ironically. TYRWH.

Traditora, a traitress, in the Italian language, is generally used as a term of endearment. The meaning of Helen is, that she shall prove every thing to Bertram. Our ancient writers delighted in catalogues, and always characterize love by contrarieties. STEEV.

Falstaff, in The Merry Wives of Windsor, says to Mrs. Ford: "Thou art a traitor to say so." In his interview with her, he certainly meant to use the language of love. MAL.

' a traitress.' It appears strange that Johnson should not have discovered the double meaning of 'traitor!' It signifies not only a treacherous, a perfidious person, but a flatterer, inasmuch as a flatterer, like a traitor, may be called false: for the precise, the particular acceptation of the word flattery, is false praise. The French accordingly say, "tous les flatteurs sont traitres." You are like a traitor [flatterer] but such traitors, &c. is an expression which may now be understood." You are a traitor [flatterer] to say so."-Merry Wives of Windsor. B.

Hel. The composition, that your valour and fear makes in you, is a virtue of a good wing, and I like the wear well.

is a virtue of a good wing; Mr. Edwards is of opinion that a virtue of a good wing refers to his nimbleness or fleetness in running away. The phrase, however, is taken from falconry, as may appear from the following passage in Marston's Fawne, 1606: "I love my horse after a journeying easiness, as he is easy in journeying; my hawk, for the goodness of his wing, &c." Or it may be taken from dress: So, in Every Man out of his Humour ; "I would have mine such a suit without a difference; such stuff, such a wing, such a sleeve, &c." Mr. Tollet observes, that a good wing signifies a strong wing in lord Bacon's Natural History, experiment 866: Certainly many birds of a good wing (as kites and the like) would bear up a good weight as they fly." STEEV.

"A virtue of a good wing, and I like the wear well," is nonsense. For "wing" we must read vigon, a sort of Spanish wool. The whole should run thus-The composition that your valour and fear makes in you, is a vigon of good virtue, and I like the wear well.-i. e. Your valour and fear is a stuff of good manufacture, and I like the wear well. Without such reading, where is the integrity of the metaphor? as Dr. Warburton would say. Vigon, written Vig'nthe contracting of words and the elision of a vowel being very common with our earlier writers, the mistake was easily made. Shakspeare has the same thought in All's Well. The web of our life is of a mingled yarn; good and ill together.' Or wing' may be a misprint for ming, i. e. mixture. The word is common with the earlier writers. Either reading (vig'n or ming) will do exceedingly well. The present wing' should by no means stand. B.

Hel. The mightiest space in fortune nature brings
To join like likes, and kiss like native things.
Impossible be strange attempts, to those

That weigh their pain in sense, and do suppose,
What hath been cannot be.

The mightiest space in fortune nature brings
To join like likes, and kiss like native things.
Impossible be strange attempts, to those

That weich their pain in sense: and do suppose,

What hath been,

All these four lines are obscure, and, I believe, corrupt; I shall propose an emendation, which those who can explain the present reading are at liberty to reject.

Through mightiest space in fortune nature brings

Likes to join likes, and kiss like native things.

That is, nature brings like qualities and dispositions to meet through any distance that fortune may set between them; she joins them and makes them kiss like things born together.

The next lines I read with Hanmer:

Impossible be strange attempts to those

That weigh their pain in sense, and do suppose

What ha'nt becn, cannot Le.

New attempts seem impossible to those who estimate their labour or enterprises by sense, and believe that nothing can be but what they see before them. Joux.

There is no necessity for alteration. The passage is sufficiently clear as it stands. New attempts, says Helena, appear so very difficult to most people, that they are apt to imagine it is impossible we should ever succeed in them, though it is well known that events or occurrences, equally strange with that on which I am meditating, have frequently been observed in the world. If any change is made, it should be as follows:

King.

Impossible be strange attempts, to those

"Who weigh their pain in sense; nor do suppose
"What hath been, can be." B.

His honour,

Clock to itself, knew the true minute when
Exception bid him speak, and, at that time,

His tongue obey'd his hand; who were below him
He us'd as creatures of another place;

And bow'd his eminent top to their low ranks,
Making them proud of his humility,

In their poor praise he humbled.

His tongue obeyed his hand;

His is put for its; so, in Othello :

"Blush'd at herself."- -instead of itself.

STEEV.

His tongue obey'd his hand,' &c. An Editor of Shakspeare should

not only be acquainted with the several meanings of a word, but also with the strength of expression, the beauty of diction, the justness of poetical images, &c. From the manner in which Mr. Steevens has spoken of its' and 'herself' we are to suppose that in his opinion the use of the personal pronoun in place of the neuter is to be considered as a fault. "His is put for its and herself instead of itself." But he must be told that the one is not put (at least not erroneously) instead of the other. To shew, however, the want of taste and judgment in Mr. Steevens, and I should be really weary of the subject were it not that the honour of Shakspeare is perhaps at stake with some of his readers-to shew, I say, the deficiency of Mr. Steevens in these particulars, in the qualities so essential to the annotator, I shall cite a passage or two from an admired author (together with the observation of Bishop Louth, in respect of them) in which nouns naturally neuter are changed into masculine or feminine, so that the personification becomes striking in an eminent degree. "At his command the uprooted hills retired "Each to his place." Milton's Paradise Lost. "Was I deceived: or did a sable cloud, "Turn forth her silver lining on the night?"

Milton's Comus.

"Of law no less can be acknowledged, than that her seat is the bosom of God: her voice the harmony of the world." HOOKER.

On these the learned prelate of whom I have spoken remarks— "Of these beautiful passages we may observe, that if you put it and its instead of his and her, you confound and destroy the images, and reduce, what was before highly poetical or rhetorical, to mere prose and common discourse." B.

Making them proud of his humility,

In their poor praise, he humbled~~]

But why were they proud of his hunnlity? It should be read and pointed

thus:

-Making them proud; and his humility,
In their poor praise, he humbled-

i. e. by condescending to stoop to his inferiors, he exalted them and made them proud; and, in the gracious receiving their poor praise, he humbled even his humility. The sentiment is fine. Warb.

Every man has seen the mean too often proud of the humility of the great and perhaps the great may sometimes be humbled in the praises of the mean, of those who commend them without conviction or discernment : this, however, is not so common; the mean are found mere frequently than the great. JOHN.

'Making them proud,' &c. The lines must be read as followsMaking them proud of his humility:

He, in their poor praise, humbled.

Of in this passage is by. The meaning of the whole is this. "He stooped to them and made them proud or considerable, by his condescension; while they, by their poor praise, were unable to do jus tice to his merits: and consequently humbled or lessened him in the public opinion." B.

King.

Whose judgments are,

Mere fathers of their garments; whose constancies
Expire before their fashions.

-whose judgments are

Mere fathers of their garments;

Who have no other use of their faculties, than to invent new modes of dress. JoAN.

I have a su-picion that Shakspeare wrote-meer feathers of their garments; i. c. whose judgments are meerly parts (and insignificant parts) of their dress, worn and laid aside, as feathers are, from the meer love of novelty and change. He goes on to say, that they are even less constant in their judgments than in their dress:

-their constancies

Expire before their fashions. TYRW.

The reading of the old copy is supported by a similar passage in Cymbe

line:

some jay of Italy

Whose mother was her painting

Again, by another in the same play :

66 -No, nor thy taylor, rascal,

"Who is thy grandfather; he made those cloaths,
"Which, as it seems, make thee."

Here the garment is said to be the father of the man:

-in the text,

the judgment, being employed solely in inventing new dresses, is called the father of the garment. MAL.

Whose judgments are,

Mere fathers of their garments.'

Judgments fathers of garments' is not the language of Shakspeare; for though his expression is frequently quaint and affected, it is never nonsensical, for fathers' I read 'faiters' (the old word for vagrant unsettled persons) transposing and pointing as follows: • Whose judgments are,

Mere faiters: whose constancies expire,

Before the fashions of their garments.'

i. e. whose judgments are always wandering: so unsettled that their constancy expires before the fashion of their clothes.' Thus the argument acquires clearness and cogency; which, with the present reading, we may look for in vain. Whose mother was her painting,' [and which Mr. Malone brings forward in illustration of fathers of their garments,] is a wrong reading. See note on Cymbeline, Act 3. Scene 4. B.

Count. The complaints, I have heard of you, I do not all believe: 'tis my slowness, that I do not: for, I know, you lack not folly to commit them, and have ability enough to make such knaveries yours.

you lack not fully to commit them, and have ability enough to make such knaveries yours.] Well, but if he had folly to commit them, he neither wanted kuavery, nor any thing else, sure, to make them his own? This nonsense should be read, To make such knaveries YABE; nimble, dextrous,