2 Of a poor worm: Thy beft of reft is fleep, For what thou haft not, ftill thou ftriv'ft to get: Of a poor worm:] Worm is put for any creeping thing or Jerpent. Shakspeare fuppofes falfely, but according to the vulgar notion, that a ferpent wounds with his tongue, and that his tongue is forked. He confounds reality and fiction; a ferpent's tongue is Joft, but not forked nor hurtful. If it could hurt, it could not be foft. In A Midfummer Night's Dream he has the fame notion: With doubler tongue "Than thine, O ferpent, never adder flung." JOHNSON. Shakspeare mentions the "adder's fork" in Macbeth; and might have caught this idea from old tapeftries or paintings, in which the tongues of ferpents and dragons always appear barbed like the point of an arrow. STEEVENS. 3 Thy beft of reft is fleep, And that thou oft provok ft; yet grossly fear'ft Thy death, which is no more.] Evidently from the following paffage of Cicero: "Habes fomnum imaginem mortis, eamque quotidie induis, & dubitas quin fenfus in morte nullus fit, cum in ejus fimulacro videas effe nullum fenfum. But the Epicurean infinuation is, with great judgement, omitted in the imitation. WARBURTON. Here Dr. Warburton might have found a fentiment worthy of his animadverfion. I cannot without indignation find Shakspeare faying, that death is only fleep, lengthening out his exhortation by a fentence which in the friar is impious, in the reafoner is foolish, and in the poet trite and vulgar. JOHNSON. This was an overfight in Shakspeare; for in the fecond fcene of the fourth act, the Provoft, fpeaks of the defperate Barnardine, as one who regards death only as a drunken fleep. STEEVENS. I apprehend Shakspeare means to fay no more, than that the paffage from this life to another is as eafy as fleep; a pofition in which there is furely neither folly nor impiety. MALONE. 4 Thou art not thyself;] Thou art perpetually repaired and renovated by external affiftance, thou fubfifteft upon foreign matter, and haft no power of producing or continuing thy own being. JOHNSON. For thy complexion fhifts to ftrange effects, After the moon : If thou art rich, thou art poor; For, like an afs, whose back with ingots bows, Thou bear'ft thy heavy riches but a journey, And death unloads thee: Friend haft thou none; For thine own bowels, which do call thee fire, The mere effufion of thy proper loins, Do curfe the gout, ferpigo, and the rheum, But, as it were, an after-dinner's fleep, Of paified eld; and when thou art old, and rich, 5ftrange effects,] For effects read affects; that is, affections, paffions of mind, or disorders of body variously affected. So, in Othello: 6 "The young affects." JOHNSON. like an afs, whofe back with ingots bows, ] This fimile is far more ancient than Shakspeare's play. It occurs in T. Churchyard's Difcourfe of Rebellion, &c. 1570: 7 8 Rebellion thus, with paynted vizage brave, Leads out poore foules (that knowes not gold from glas) "Who beares the packe and burthen like the affe.' ferpigo,] The Serpigo is a kind of tetter. But, as it were, an after-dinner's fleep, STEEVENS. STEEVENS. Dreaming on both:] This is exquifitely imagined. When we are young, we bufy ourselves in forming fchemes for fucceeding time, and mifs the gratifications that are before us; when we are old, we amuse the languor of age with the recollection of youthful pleasures or performances; fo that our life, of which no part is filled with the bufinefs of the prefent time, refembles our dreams after dinner, when the events' of the morning are mingled with the defigns of the evening. JOHNSON. 9 palfied eld; ] Eld is generally used for old age, decrepitude. It is here put for old people, perfons worn with years. So, in Marlton's Dutch Courtefan, 1604: Let colder tid their ftrong objections move, Thou haft neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty,' To make thy riches pleafant. What's yet in this, Again, in our author's Merry Wives of Windfor: "The fuperftitious idle-headed eld.' Gower ufes it for age as oppofed to youth: De Confeffione Amantis, Lib. V. fol. 106. Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms Of palfied eld; and when thou art old, amd rich, STEEVENS. Thou haft neither heat, &c.] The drift of this period is to prove, that neither youth nor age can be faid 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 fenfe of pleasure. To prove that youth is not enjoyed, he ules thele words: for all thy bleffed youth Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms Out of which, he that can knack at logic than I have. deduce the conclufion, has a better I fuppofe the poet wrote, For pall'd, thy blazed youth Becomes affuaged; and doth beg the alms i. c. when thy youthful appetite becomes palled, as it will be ia the very enjoyment, the blaze of youth is at once affuaged, and thou immediately contracteft the infirmities of old age; as particularly the palfy and other nervous diforders, confequent on the inordinate use of fenfual pleafures. This is to the purpose; and proves youth is not enjoyed, by fhewing the fhort duration of it." WARBURTON. 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 wanis means to obtain what he could enjoy; he is dependent on palfed eld: must beg alms from the coffers of hoary avarice; and being very niggardly fupplied, becomes as aged, looks, like an old man, on happinefs which is beyond his reach. And, when he is old and rich, when he has wealth enough for the purchase of all that formerly excited his defires, he has no longer the powers of enjoyment; has neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty, To make his riches pleasant.. 1 That bears the name of life? Yet in this life Lie hid more thoufand deaths: yet death we fear, CLAUD. I humbly thank you. I have explained this paffage according to the prefent reading, which may ftand without much inconvenience; yet I am willing to perfuade, my reader, because I have almost persuaded myself, that our author wrote, for all thy blafted youth 1 Becomes as aged. JOHNSON. The fentiment contained in these lines, which Dr. Johnfon has explained with his ufual precifion, occurs again in the forged letter that Edmund delivers to his father, as written by Edgar; K. Lear, A& I. fc. ii: This policy, and reverence of age, makes the world bitter to the best of our times; keeps our fortunes from us till our oldness cannot relish them. The words above, printed in Italicks, fupport, I think, the reading of the old copy, youth," and fhew that any emendation is unneceffary. 3 blessed. MALONE. heat, affection, limb, nor beauty,] But how does beauty make riches pleafant? We fhould read bounty, which completes the fenfe, and is this; thou haft neither the pleasure of enjoying ches thyself, for thou wanteft vigour; nor of seeing it enjoyed by others, for thou wanteft bounty. Where the making the want of bounty as infeparable from old age as the want of health, is extremely satirical, though not altogether juft. WARBURTON. I am inclined to believe, that neither man nor woman will have much difficulty to tell how beauty makes riches pleafant. Surely this emendation, though it is elegant and ingenious, is not fuch as that an opportunity of inferting it fhould be purchafed by declaring ignorance of what every one knows, by confeffing infenfibility of what every one feels. JOHNSON. By heat" and "affe&ion" the poet meant to exprefs appetite, and by "limb" and "beauty" frength. EDWARDS. 4 more thousand deaths:] For this Sir T. Hanmer reads: The meaning is, not only a thoufand deaths, but a thousand deaths To fue to live, I find, I feek to die; And, feeking death, find life:] Had the Friar, in reconciling Enter ISABELLA. ISAB. What, ho! Peace here; grace and good company! : PROV. Who's there? come in the wifh deferves a welcome. DUKE. Dear fir, ere long I'll vifit you again. ISAB. My bufinefs is a word or two with Claudio. PROV. And very welcome. Look, fignior, here's your' fifter. DUKE. Provoft, a word with you. As many as you please. DUKE. Bring them to speak, where I may be con ceal'd, Yet hear thein." CLAUD. [Exeunt DUKE and Provost. Now, fifter, what's the comfort? Claudio to death, urged to him the certainty of happiness hereafter, this peech would have been introduced with more propriety; but the Fiar fays nothing of that subject, and argues more like a philofopher, than a Chriftian divine. M. MASON. Mr M. Mason seems to forget that no actual Friar was the speaker, but the Duke, who might reafonably be fuppofed to have more of the philofopher than the divine in his compofition. STEEVENS. Bring them to speak, where I may be conceal'd, Yet hear them. The firft copy, published by the players, gives the paffage thus: ་ Bring them to hear me speak, where I may be conceal'd. Perhaps we thould read: Bring me to hear them speak, where I, &c. STEEVENS. The fecond folio authorizes the reading in the text. TYRWHITT. The alterations made in that copy do not deferve the smallest credit. There are undoubted proofs that they were merely arbitrary; and in general they are alfo extremely injudicious. MALONE. I am of a different opinion, in which I am joined by Dr. Farmer; and consequently prefer the reading of the second folio to my own empi at emendation, though Mr. Malone has done me the honour to adopt it. STEEVENS. |