was not so easy to set it right. That I have falien on the true reading, many circumstances, I think, will tend to confirm. B.

Sir To. My lady's a Cataian, we are politicians.

A Cataian.] It is in vain to seek the precise meaning of this term of reproach. I have attempted already to explain it in a note on the Merry Wives of Windsor. I find it used again in Love and Honer, bySir W. Davenant, 1649:

"Hang him, bold Cataian."

STEEV.

"My Lady's a Cataian." Nothing can here be understood of "Cataian." Mr. Steevens observes that it is used in other plays. I believe, however, that it is there printed in mistake for Catanian— The people of Catania, and of former days, being remarkable for their irregularities and vices. The epithet "base Cataian," as I elsewhere find it, inclines me the more to this opinion. With respect to the word which Sir Toby means to employ, it would appear to be the Catin (baby, puppet) of the French. The knight, it should be remembered, is in his cups. We may therefore read: "My Lady's a Catin-a-a (stammering as if in search of some other scornful term.) My Lady's a baby, a puppet, a nobody." This agrees with his affected contempt of Olivia as shown in other parts of the comedy. In fine, this reading conveys to us a meaning, and even a good one, which the word in the text does not.

It should be noted that in "Catin-a-a" all the letters which compose Cataian are found, and no others. B.

Sir To. We did keep time, sir, in our catches. Sneck up!

Sneck up!] The modern editors seem to have regarded this unintelligible expression as the designation of a hiccup.

In Hen. IV. p. 1. Falstaff says: "The Prince is a Jack, a Sneak-cup,” i. e. one who takes his glass in a sneaking manner. I think we might safely read sneak-cup, at least in Sir Toby's reply to Malvolio. STEEV. "Sneck up!" I think, should be written sneb-up. Sneb is an old word for check, or rebuke. See Spenser.

We now say snub, and snap-up. When it is remembered that Malvolio has taken upon him to admonish Sir Toby, the knight may very naturally call him sneb-up, i. e. reprover. They have not been talking of drinking, so that sneak-cup is hardly the word. B.

Mar. The devil a puritan that he is, or any thing constantly but a time-pleaser; an affected ass, that cons state without book, and utters it by great swarths.

An affection'd ass.] Affection'd means affected. In this sense, I he lieve, it is used in Hamlet: "No matter in it that could indite the author of affection." i. e. affectation. STEEV.

66

An affection'd ass." It is wrong to put affected in the place of affectioned. The latter expression includes the sense of affected and something more. It means, a foolish fellow who is in love with him

self, at the same time believing that every one is in love with him too. The context will show, that I interpret the expression rightly. "Affection," in Hamlet, is not affectation. See my note on the passage. Ham. A. I. S. 1. `B.

Mar. My purpose is, indeed, a horse of that color. Sir And. And your horse now would make him an

ass.

Sir And. And your horse now, &c.] This conceit, though bad enough, shows too quick an apprehension for Sir Andrew. It should be given, I believe, to Sir Toby; as well as the next short speech: 0, 'twill be admirable. Sir Andrew does not usually give his own judgment on any thing, till he has heard that of some other person. TYRWH.

"

"And your horse now," &c. Mr. Tyrwhitt seems to forget that fools have frequently happy hits. He says, however, that "Sir Andrew does not usually give his own judgment on any thing till he has heard that of some other person." But Mr. Tyrrwhitt should be told that in such case (that is, if the knight's opinion is to be directed by another) the judgment which he may deliver is not his own, it is the judgment of the other B. person.

Sir To. Send for money, knight; if thou hast her not i' the end, call me Cut.

Call me Cut.] So, in a Woman's a Weathercock, 1612: "If I help you not to that as cheap as any man in England, call me Cut." This contemptuous distinction is likewise preserved in the Merry Wives of Wind

sor :

"He will maintain you like a gentlewoman

"Ay, that I will, come cut and long-tail, under the degree of a 'squire.'

STEEV.

"Call me cut," i. e. Call me wine-bibber-call me drunkard. This is highly natural. Men are very apt to rail against the vices that themselves are addicted to. We now say of a man who has been drinking to excess, that he is cut. That Sir Toby means to stigmatize the drunkard, is evident from a scene in the first act of this play, in which he says to an attendant-half drunk himself— "how now, sot?" The meaning of "come cut and long tail," is, totally different. It should, however, be printed, come curt and long taille. (Curtus, latin and taille french.) that is, "of high or low stature." vulg. long tail or short tail. i. e. Whatever description of men it may be: whichever may chance to come, of whatever size or degree. B.

Vio.

:

She never told her love,

But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,

Feed on her damask cheek; she pin'd in thought;

And, with a green and yellow melancholy,

She sat like patience on a monument,

Smiling at grief.

SHAK.

I.

Y

She sat like patience on a monument,

Smiling at grief.]

Mr. Theobald supposes this might possibly be borrowed from Chau

cer:

"And her besidis wonder discretlie

"Dame pacience ysittinge there I fonde

"With facé pale, upon a hill of sonde."

And adds: "If he was indebted, however, for the first rude draught, how amply has he repaid that debt, in heightening the picture! How much does the green and yellow melancholy transcend the old bard's pale face; the monument his hill of sand."-I hope this critic does not imagine Shakspeare meant to give us a picture of the face of patience, by his green and yellow melancholy; because, he says, it transcends 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 sat like patience. To give patience a pale face was proper: and had Shakspeare described her, he had done it as Chaucer did. But Shakspeare is speaking of a marble statue of patience; Chaucer, of patience herself. And the two represen tations of her, are in quite different views. Our poet, speaking of a despairing lover, judiciously compares her to patience exercised on the death of friends and relations; which affords him the beautiful picture of patience on a monument. The old bard speaking of patience herself, directly, and not by comparison, as judiciously draws her in that circumstance where she is most exercised, and has occasion for all her virtue; that is to say, under the losses of shipwreck. And now we see why she is represented as sitting on a hill of sand, to design the scene to be the sea-shore. It is finely imagined; and one of the noble simplicities of that admirable poet. But the critic thought, in good earnest, that Chaucer's invention was so barren, and his imagination 90 beggarly, that he was not able to be at the charge of a monument for his goddess, but left, her, like a stroller, sunning herself upon a heap of sand. WARB.

She sat like patience on a monument,

Smiling at grief.] So in our author's Rape of Lucrece.

"So mild, that Patience seem'd to scorn his woes."

In the passage in the text, our author, I believe, meant to personify Grief as well as Patience; for we can scarcely understand "at grief to mean "in grief: " as no statuary could, I imagine, form a countenance in which smiles and grief should be at once expressed. Perhaps Shakspeare borrowed his imagery from some ancient monument, on which these two figures were represented. MAL.

"And with a green and yellow melancholy,” &c. '

This is a generally admired passage. I yet suspect that it is corrupted. The epithet descriptive of the hue of melancholy, should be either pale or black. "Green and yellow" are very inapplicable. But it is not of color: it is not of bodily appearance, but mental affection that Viola speaks. The first is sufficiently marked by

"She let concealment like a worm i'the bud,

"Feed on her damask cheek."

Instead of "a green and yellow," then I would read agrein and hallow, not only as being highly significant in themselves, but appropriate and nicely suiting with the context. Agrein (in old

language) is contented; resigned to; pleased.-Hallow is here use for pure, saint-like. [paliz Sax. holy.] The h in the latter word, will, when turned, appear like y, and the e in yellow having a hard sound, the mistake was easily made. It may be proper to observe, however, that hallow with the earlier writers is a substantive and made use of to signify a saint. But "hallow" should not here be objected to by reason that there is no example of it, as an epithet. Shakspeare frequently employs a substantive adjectively, and vice versa; and that too, with a happiness peculiar to himself. Read:

"She never told her love,

But let concealment like a worm i' th' bud,

Feed on her damask cheek: she pin'd in thought;
And with agrein and hallow melancholy,

She sat like Patience on a monument,

Smiling at grief."

The sense is: 66 She evinced perfect calmness. A contented, pure, religious kind of melancholy (and not a morbid affection) had possession of her." This is eminently beautiful: a just and striking picture of that mind which has cause for sorrow, but which, from not being altogether hopeless, is consequently without tumult and this the more especially, as it is influenced by virtue. With respect to "patience on a monument," I do not consider it as spoken of a marble statue, but of Patience' self." She (Viola) sat as Patience would sit on a monument:" for strengthened by religion and philosophy, it is presumed of patience, that she would appear smiling at sight of the tomb at that, in short, which ordinarily is seen to occasion dejection, and when visiting the mansions of the dead. It is remarkable that Rowe, when citing this passage, and when speaking of the beauty of Shakspeare's imagery, has omitted

"And with a green and yellow melancholy."

He saw, as we may suppose, (coloring still understood by him) that the representation was not in nature; and though he must have known that the epithet pale or black was, as I have just remarked, sufficiently suited to melancholy: yet as these epithets were every way unlike to those in the text, he did not venture to make use of them. None other, however, occurred to him, and the line was accordingly struck out.

Let us suppose, however, for a moment, that it is really the tincts of melancholy that are intended to be shown. This admitted, we may fairly and properly try the expression of the poet, by the expression of the painter: for that the latter is able to seize or represent on his canvas every thing that is tangible, with every thing that is perceptible by the eye is certain; all delineations of visible nature being common to both. I say visible, for it must be remembered of the painter that it is materiate, and not intellectual properties that he has power to show. He cannot, like the poet, call forth the soul, the immortal spirit (if the language be permitted me) at once to our view he can only so far express a passion or

way

affection as to enable us to form some idea, some conception of his design. In a word, to bring us acquainted with universal nature is impossible to his art: and even with respect to particular nature, he can in many instances only make her known to us by signs imperfect; Imperfect, as falling infinitely short of those which we distinguish by the name of words. For example: if the painter's intention be to represent melancholy, he has no other of doing it but by a dejected air. Mixed melancholy, or such as I have already spoken of, he is unable to depict. It is true, indeed, that from the beauty or excellence of his pencil, we may figure these qualities to ourselves: but it is the Poet, I repeat, who alone can give them reality, or as I would call it, life: and thus it is that his exhibitions have so great a superiority over all other imitative arts. But, as before proposed, let us see if the poet's coloring be true: that is, as it at present stands. Let us try it, by the practice of the painter: and this, as it is of appearance that we speak, is surely a clear and determinate mode. Nature and Shakspeare are confessedly the same. The artist, then, is to copy the poet; and he accordingly in his picture of melancholy depaints her by green and yellow tints. Risum teneatis? or will it be acknowledged that these tints are suitable to the character? In fine, will it be said that they convey to us a just and faithful idea of the object he means to pourtray? B.

Mal. There is an example for't; the lady of the strachy married the yeoman of the wardrobe.

The lady of the Strachy.] We should read Trachy, i. e. Thrace; for so the old English writers called it. Mandeville says: "As Trachye and Macedoigne, of the which Alisandre was kyng." It was common to use the article the before names of places: and this was no improper instance, where the scene was in Illyria. WARB.

What we should read is hard to say. Here is an allusion to some old story which I have not yet discovered. JoHN.

Perhaps a letter has been misplaced, and we ought to read—starchy; i. e. the room in which linen underwent the once most complicated operation of starching. I do not know that such a word exists; and yet it would not be unanalogically formed from the substantive starch. In Harsnett's Declaration, 1603, we meet with "a yeoman of the sprucery ; i. e. wardrobe; and in the Northumberland Household Book, nursery is spelt, nurcy. Starchy, therefore, for starchery may be admitted. In Romeo and Juliet, the place where paste was made, is called the pastry. The lady who had the care of the linen may be significantly opposed to the yeoman, i. e. an inferior officer of the wardrobe. While the five different colored starches were worn, such a term might have been current. In the year 1564, a Dutch woman professed to teach this art to our fair Country-women. "Her usual price (says Stowe) was four or five pounds to teach them how to starch, and twenty shillings how to seeth starch." The alteration was suggested to me by a typographical error in The World toss'd at Tennis, 1620, by Middleton and Rowley, where straches is printed for starches. I cannot fairly be accused of having dealt much in conjectural emendation, and therefore feel the less reluctance to hazard a guess on this desperate passage. STEEV.