is like one of our French wither'd pears: it looks ill, it eats dryly; marry, 'tis a wither'd pear: it was formerly better; marry, yet, 'tis a wither'd pear: Will you any thing with it? I 9 Hel. Not my virginity yet. There shall your mafter have a thousand loves, For yet, as it stood before, fir Thomas Hanmer reads yes. JOHNSON. Not my virginity yet.] This whole fpeech is abrupt, unconnected, and obfcure. Dr. Warburton thinks much of it fuppofititious. I would be glad to think fo of the whole, for a commentator naturally wishes to reject what he cannot understand. Something, which should connect Helena's words with those of Parolles, feems to be wanting. Hanmer has made a fair attempt by reading: Not my virginity yet-You're for the court, There hall your mafter, &c. Some fuch claufe has, I think, dropped out, but ftill the first words want connection. Perhaps Parolles, going away after his harangue, faid, will you any thing with me? to which Helen may reply. I know not what to do with the paffage. JOHNSON. I do not perceive fo great a want of connection as my predeceffors have apprehended; nor is that connection always to be fought for, in fo careless a writer as ours, from the thought immediately preceding the reply of the fpeaker. Parolles has been laughing at the unprofitablenefs of virginity, especially when it grows ancient, and compares it to withered fruit. Helena, properly enough replies, that hers is not yet in that state; but that in the enjoyment of her, his master should find the gratification of all his most romantic wishes. What Dr. Warburton fays afterwards, is faid at random, as all pofitive declarations of the fame kind muft of neceffity be. Were I to propose any change, I would read should inftead of ball. It does not however appear that this rapturous effufion of Helena was defigned to be intelligible to Parolles. Its obfcurity, therefore, may be its merit. It fufficiently explains what is paffing in the mind of the speaker, to every one but him to whom she does not mean to explain it. STEEVENS. Perhaps we fhould read: Will you any thing with us?” i. e. will you fend any thing with us to court? to which Helena's anfwer would be proper enough "Not my virginity yet." A fimilar phrafe occurs in Twelfth Night, act III. fc. i: "You'll nothing, madam, to my lord by me?" TYRWHITT. A pho 2 3 A phoenix, captain, and an enemy, A guide, a goddess, and a fovereign, A counsellor, a 3 traitress, and a dear; His humble ambition, proud humility, His jarring concord, and his difcord dulcet, His faith, his fweet difafter; with a world Of pretty, fond, adoptious chriftendoms 4, That blinking Cupid goffips. Now fhall he I know not what he fhall :-God fend him well!The court's a learning place ;-and he is one 2 A phoenix, captain, &c.] The eight lines following friend, I am perfuaded is the nonfenfe of fome foolish conceited player. What put it into his head was Helen's faying, as it fhould be read for the future: There hall your master have a thousand loves; A mother, and a mistress, and a friend. I know not what he ball- God fend him well. Where the fellow, finding a thousand loves fpoken of, and only three reckoned up, namely, a mother's, a miftrefs's, and a friend's, (which, by the way, were all a judicious writer could mention; for there are but these three fpecies of love in nature) he would help out the number, by the intermediate nonfenfe: and, because they were yet too few, he pieces out his loves with enmities, and1 makes of the whole fuch finished nonsense as is never heard out of Bedlam. WARBURTON. 3 a traitress,] It feems 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 fuch traytors his majefty does not much fear. JOHNSON. I cannot conceive that traitrefs (fpoken feriously) was in any age a term of endearment. From the prefent paffage, we might as well fuppofe enemy (in the last line but one) to be a term of endearment. In the other paffage quoted, Lafeu is plainly speaking ironically. TYRWHITT. Traditora, a traitress, in the Italian language, is generally used as a term of endearment. The meaning of Helen is, that the fhall prove every thing to Bertram. Our ancient writers delighted in catalogues, and always characterize love by contrarieties. STEEVENS. -chriftendoms,] This word, which fignifies the collective body of christianity, every place where the chriftian religion is embraced, is furely used with much licence on this occafion. STEEVENS. Par. Par. What's pity? Hel. That wishing well had not a body in't, Which might be felt: that we, the poorer born, Whose bafer ftars do fhut us up in wishes, Might with effects of them follow our friends, And fhew what we alone muft think; which never Returns us thanks. Enter Page. Page. Monfieur Parolles, my lord calls for you. [Exit page Par. Little Helen, farewel: if I can remember thee, I will think of thee at court. Hel. Monfieur Parolles, you were born under a charitable ftar.. Par. Under Mars, I. Hel. I efpecially think, under Mars. Par. Why under Mars ? Hel. The wars have kept you fo under, that you muft needs be born under Mars. Par. When he was predominant. Hel. When he was retrograde, I think, rather. Par. Why think you fo? Hel. You go fo much backward, when you fight. Par. That's for advantage. Hel. So is running away, when fear propofes the fafety: But the compofition, that your valour and fear makes in you, is a virtue of a good wing, and I like the wear well. Par. 5 And Thew what we alone muft think;-] And Shew by realities what we now muft only think. JOHNSON. 6 is a virtue of a good wing, and I like the wear well.] The integrity of the metaphor directs us to Shakespeare's true reading; which, doubtlefs, was a good ming, i. e. mixture, compofition; a word common to Shakespeare and the writers of this age, ånd taken: Par. I am fo full of bufineffes, I cannot anfwer thee acutely I will return perfect courtier; in the which, my inftruction shall serve to naturalize thee, fo thou wilt be capable of courtier's counfel, and understand what advice fhall thruft upon thee; elfe thou dieft in thine unthankfulness, and thine ignorance makes thee away; farewel. When thou haft leifure, fay thy prayers; when thou haft none, remember taken from the texture of cloth. The M was turned the wrong way at prefs, and from thence came the blunder. WARBURTON. This conjecture I could wish to fee better proved. This common word ming I have never found. The first edition of this play exhibits wing without a capital: yet, I confefs, that a virtue of a good wing is an expreffion that I cannot understand, unless by a metaphor taken from falconry, it may mean, a virtue that will fly high, and in the stile of Hotspur, "Pluck honour from the moon.' JOHNSON. Mr. Edwards is of opinion, that a virtue of a good wing refers to his nimbleness or fleetness in running away. The phrafe, however, is taken from falconry, as may appear from the following paffage in Marston's Fawne, 1606: I love my horse after a journeying eafinefs, as he is eafy 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 fuch a fuit without a difference; fuch stuff, fuch a ring, fuch a fleeve, &c." Mr. Tollet obferves, that a good wing fignifies a ftrong wing in lord Bacon's Natural Hiftory, experiment 886: "Certainly many birds of a good wing (as kites and the like) would bear up a good weight as they fly." There is, however, fuch a verb as ming. It is used by Tho. Drant, in his Translation of one of the Epifiles of Horace : He beares the bell in all refpects who good with sweete doth minge." Again, ibid: "She carves it fyne, and mings it thicke, &c." And again, by fir A. Gorges, in his Tranflation of Lucan, 1614: -which never mings "With other ftream, &c." and often by Chaucer. STEEVENS. The reading of the old copy is fupported by a passage in K. Hen. V. in which we meet with a fimilar expreffion: "Though his affections are higher mounted than ours, yet when they stoop, they stoop with the like wing." MALONE. thy thy friends get thee a good husband, and use him as he uses thee: fo farewel. [Exit. Hel. Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, Which we afcribe to heaven: the fated sky Gives us free scope; only, doth backward pull Our flow defigns, when we ourselves are dull. ? What power is it, which mounts my love fo high; That makes me fee, and cannot feed mine eye? The mightieft space in fortune nature brings To join like likes, and kiss like native things. 7 What power is it, which mounts my love fo high; That makes me fee, and cannot feed mine eye?] She means, by what influence is my love directed to a perfon fo much above me? why am I made to difcern excellence, and left to long after it, without the food of hope? JOHNSON. The mightieft fpace in fortune nature brings That weigh their pain in fenfe; and do suppose, What hath been, All these four lines are obfcure, and, I believe, corrupt; I shall propose an emendation, which those who can explain the present reading, are at liberty to reject: Through mightief space in fortune nature brings Likes to join likes, and kifs like native things. That is, nature brings like qualities and difpofitions to meet through any diftance that fortune may have fet between them; the joins them and makes them kifs like things born together. The next lines I read with Hanmer: New Impoffible be frange attempts to those That weigh their pain in fenfe, and do fuppofe What ha'n't been,. cannot be. attempts feem impoffible to those who eftimate their labour or enterprifes by fenfe, and believe that nothing can be but what they fee before them. JOHNSON. Shakespeare ufes one of these contested phrases in a different. fenfe, in Julius Cæfar: "And fell the mighty space of our large honours Part of the I have offered this instance for the ufe of any fucceeding commentator who can apply it to the paffage before us. fame thought is lefs ambiguoufly exprefs'd in Timon: "That folder'ft clofe impoffibilities, "And mak'st them kiss. STEEVENS. VOL. IV. |