sweet guerdon!-I will do it, fir, in print. Guerdon-remuneration. [Exit. BIRON. O! And I, forsooth, in love! I, that have been love's whip; A very beadle to a humorous figh; Than whom no mortal so magnificent!* This wimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy; goes. Now an other coming to the fayd gentleman's house, it was the forefayd servant's good hap to be neare him at his going away, who calling the servant unto him, fayd, Holde thee, here is a guerdon for thy deferts: now the fervant payd no deerer for the guerdon, than he did for the remuneration; though the guerdon was xid. farthing better; for it was a spilling, and the other but a threefarthinges." Shakspeare was certainly indebted to this performance for his present vein of jocularity, the earliest edition of Love's Labour's Loft, being printed in 1598. STEEVENS. 9 in print.] i. e. exactly, with the utmost nicety. It has been propofed to me to read in point, but I think, without neceffity, the former expression being still in use. So, in Blurt Master Constable, 1602: "Next, your ruff must stand in print." Again, in Decker's Honest Whore, 1635: "I am fure my husband is a man in print, in all things else." Again, in Woman is a Weathercock, 1612: "- this doublet fits in print, my lord." STEEVENS. 2 Than whom no mortal so magnificent!) Magnificent here means, glorying, boasting. M. MASON. Terence also uses magnifica verba, for vaunting, vainglorious words. Ufque adeo illius ferre poffum ineptias & magnifica verba. Eunuch, Act IV. fc. vi. STEEVENS. 3 This wimpled,] The wimple was a hood or veil which fell over the face. Had Shakspeare been acquainted with the flammeum of the Romans, or the gem which represents the marriage of Cupid and Psyche, his choice of the epithet would have been much plauded by all the advocates in favour of his learning. In İfaiah, iii. 22. we find: the mantles, and the wimples, and This fenior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid; the crifping-pins;" and, in The Devil's Charter, 1607, to wimple is ufed as a verb: 4 This fenior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid;] The old reading is This fignior Junio's, &c. STEEVENS. It was some time ago ingenioufly hinted to me, (and I readily came into the opinion) that as there was a contraft of terms in giant-dwarf, fo, probably, there should be in the word immediately preceding them; and therefore that we should reftore : "This fenior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid." i. e. this old young man. And there is, indeed, afterwards, in this play, a defcription of Cupid which forts very aptly with fuch an emendation: "That was the way to make his godhead wax, The conjecture is exquisitely well imagined, and ought by all means to be embraced, unless there is reason to think, that, in the former reading, there is an allusion to fome tale, or character in an old play. I have not, on this account, ventured to disturb the text, because there feems to me some reason to fufpect, that our author is here alluding to Beaumont and Fletcher's Bonduca. In that tragedy there is a character of one Junius, a Roman captain, who falls in love to diftraction with one of Bonduca's daughters; and becomes an arrant whining flave to this paffion. He is afterwards cured of his infirmity, and is as abfolute a tyrant against the sex. Now, with regard to these two extremes, Cupid might very probably be styled Junius's giant-dwarf: a giant in his eye, while the dotage was upon him; but shrunk into a dwarf, so soon as he had got the better of it. THEOBALD. Mr. Upton has made a very ingenious conjecture on this passage. He reads: "This fignior Julio's giant-dwarf" Shakspeare, says he, intended to compliment Julio Romano, who drew Cupid in the character of a giant-dwarf. Dr. Warbur ton thinks, that by Junio is meant youth in general. JOHNSON. There is no reason to fuppofe that Beaumont and Fletcher's Bonduca was written fo early as the year 1598, when this play appeared. Even if it was then published, the supposed allution to The anointed sovereign of fighs and groans, the character of Junius is forced and improbable; and who, in support of Upton's conjecture will ascertain, that Julio Romano ever drew Cupid as a giant-dwarf? Shakspeare, in K. Richard III. Act IV. fc. iv. uses fignory for feniority; and Stowe's Chronicle, p. 149. Edit. 1614. fpeaks of Edward the fignior, i. e. the elder. I can therefore suppose that fignior here means fenior, and not the Italian title of honour. Thus, in the first folio, at the end of The Comedy of Errors: "S. Dro. Not I, fir; you are my elder. "E. Dro. That's a question: how shall we try it? In the exaggeration of poetry we might call Cupid a giant-dwarf; but how a giant-dwarf should be represented in painting, I cannot well conceive. M. MASON. If the old copies had exhibited Junior, I should have had no doubt that the fecond word in the line was only the old spelling of fenior, as in a former passage, [Act I. fc. ii.] and in one in The Comedy of Errors quoted by Mr. Tollet; but as the text appears both in the quarto 1598, and the folio, Cupid is not himself called fignior, or fenior Junio, but a giant-dwarf to [that is, attending upon] fignior Junio, and therefore we must endeavour to explain the words as they ftand. In both these copies Junio's is printed in Italicks as a proper name. For the reafons already mentioned, I suppose fignior here to have been the Italian title of honour, and Cupid to be defcribed as uniting in his person the characters of both a giant, and a dwarf; a giant on account of his power over mankind, and a dwarf on account of his fize; [So afterwards: "Of his (Cupid's) almighty, dreadful, little might."] and as attending in this double capacity on youth, (perfonified under the name of Signior Junio,) the age in which the passion of love has most dominion over the heart. In characterizing youth by the name of Junio, our author may be countenanced by Ovid, who ascribes to the month of June a fimilar etymology: " Junius a juvenum nomine dictus adeft." MALONE. I have not the smallest doubt that fenior-junior is the true reading. Love among our ancient English poets, (as Dr. Farmer has observed on fuch another occafion,) is always characterized by contrarieties. STEEVENS. 5 Dread prince of plackets,] A placket is a petticoat. Douce. Sole imperator, and great general 6 Of trotting paritors, -O my little heart!- And wear his colours like a tumbler's hoop! 8 6 Of trotting paritors,] An apparitor or paritor, is an officer of the bishop's court, who carries out citations; as citations are moft frequently issued for fornication, the paritor is put under Cupid's government. JOHNSON. And I to be a corporal of his field,] Corporals of the field are mentioned in Carew's Survey of Cornwall; and Raleigh speaks of them twice, Vol. I. p. 103, Vol. II. p. 367, edit. 1751. TOLLET. This officer is likewife mentioned in Ben Jonfon's New Inn: "As corporal of the field, maestro del campo." Giles Clayton, in his Martial Difcipline, 1591, has a chapter on the office and duty of a corporal of the field. In one of Drake's Voyages, it appears that the captains Morgan and Sampson, by this name, " had commandement over the rest of the land-captaines." Brookesby tells us, that "Mr. Dodwell's father was in an office then known by the name of corporal of the field, which he said was equal to that of a captain of horse." FARMER. It appears from Lord Strafford's Letters, Vol. II. p. 199, that a corporal of the field was employed as an aid-de-camp is now, "in taking and carrying too and fro the directions of the general, or other the higher officers of the field." TYRWHITT. 8 And wear his colours like a tumbler's hoop!] The conceit seems to be very forced and remote, however it be understood. The notion is not that the hoop wears colours, but that the colours are worn as a tumbler carries his hoop, hanging on one shoulder and falling under the opposite arm. JOHNSON. Perhaps the tumblers' hoops were adorned with their master's colours, or with ribbands. To wear his colours, means to wear his badge or cognisance, or to be his servant or retainer. So, in Holinshed's Hift. of Scotland, p. 301: "The earle of Surrie gave to his servants this cognisance (to wear on their left arm) which was a white lyon," &c. So, in Stowe's Annals, p. 274: "All that ware the dukes sign, or colours, were faine to hide them, conveying them from their necks into their bosome." Again, in Selden's Duello, chap. ii: "his esquires cloathed in his colours." Biron banters himself upon being a corporal of Cupid's field, and a fervant of that great general and imperator. TOLLET. What? I! I love! I fue! I seek a wife! It was once a mark of gallantry to wear a lady's colours. So, in Cynthia's Revels, by Ben Jonfon: " - dispatches his lacquey to her chamber early, to know what her colours are for the day, with purpose to apply his wear that day accordingly," &c. I am informed by a lady who remembers morris-dancing, that the character who tumbled, always carried his hoop dressed out with ribbands, and in the position described by Dr. Johnson. STEEVENS. 8 What? I! I love!] A second what had been fupplied by the editors. I should like better to read - What? I! I love! TYRWHITт. Mr. Tyrwhitt's emendation is supported by the first line of the present speech: "And I, forsooth, in love! I, that have been love's whip-." Sir T. Hanmer fsupplied the metre by repeating the word What. 9 -like a German clock, MALONE. Still a repairing;) The fame allusion occurs in Westward-Hoe, by Decker and Webster, 1607 :" no German clock, no mathematical engine whatsoever, requires so much reparation," &c. Again, in A Mad World my Masters, 1608: the confifts of a hundred pieces, "Much like your German clock, and near allied: They'll ftrike to ten, when they should stop at one." Ben Jonfon has the fame thought in his Silent Woman, and Beaumont and Fletcher in Wit without Money. Again, in Decker's News from Hell, &c. 1606," their wits (like wheels of Brunswick clocks) being all wound up as far as they could stretch, were all going, but not one going truly." The following extract is taken from a book called The Artificial Clock-Maker, 3d edit. 1714:-"Clock-making was supposed to have had its beginning in Germany within less than these two hundred years. It is very probable that our balance-clocks or watches, and fome other automata, might have had their beginning there;" &c. Again, p. 91.-" Little worth remark is to be found till towards the 16th century; and then clockwork was revived or wholly invented anew in Germany, as is generally thought, because the ancient pieces are of German work." |