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LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. I have not hitherto discovered any novel on which this comedy appears to have been founded; and yet the story of it has most of the features of an ancient romance. STLEVENS.

I suspect that there is an error in the title of this play, which, I believe, should be Labours lost." M. MASON.

Love's

Love's Labour's lost I conjecture to have been written in 1594. See, An Attempt to ascertain the order of Shakspeare's plays. MALONE.

Page 1. This enumeration of the persons was made by Mr. Rowe. JOHNSON.

Page 5 line 13. 14. To, love, to wealth, to pomp, I pine and die;

With all these living in philosophy. The style of the rhyming scenes in this play is often entangled and obscure. I know not certainly to what all these is to be referred; L sup

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pose he means that he finds love, pomp, and wealth in philosophy. JOHNSON.

By all these, Dumain means the King, Birou, etc. to whom he may be supposed to point, and with whom he is going to live in philosophical retirement. A. C.

P. 3, 1. 30. Not to see ladies, study, fast, not sleep.] The words as they stand, will express the meaning intended, if pointed thus:

Not to see ladies study

fast not sleep.

Biron is recapitulating the several tasks imposed upon him viz. not to see ladies, to study, to fast, and not to sleep: but Shakspeare, by a common poetical license, though in this passage injudiciously exercised, omits the article to, before the three last verbs, and from hence the obscurity arises. M. MASON.

P. 4, 1. 14, When I to feast expressly am forbid;] The copies all have:

When I to fast expressly am forbid;

But if Biron studied where to get a good dinner, at a time when he was forbid to fast, how was this studying to know what he was forbid to know? Common sense, and the whole tenour of the context require us to read - feast, or to make a change in the last word of the verse: "When I to fast expressly am fore-bid;" i. e. when I am enjoined before-hand to fast. THEOBALD.

P. 4, 1. 19. If study's gain be thus, and this be so,] Read:

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,,If study's gain be this" RITSON.

P. 4, 1. 31. Falsely is here, and in many other places, the same as dishonestly or treacherously.

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The whole sense of this gingling declamation is only this, that a man by too close study may read himself blind, which might have been told with less obscurity in fewer words. JOHNSON.

|· P. 4. last I. and P. 5, 1. 1-8. Study me etc. etc.] This is another passage unnecessarily obscure the meaning is, that when he dazzles, that is, has his eye made weak, by fixing his eye upon a fairer eye, that fairer eye shall be his heed, his direc tion or lode star, (See Midsummer Night's Dream) and give him light that was blinded by it...

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JOHNSON P. 5. 1. 14-16. Too much to know, is, to know nought but fame;

And every godfather can give a name.] The consequence, says Biron, of too much know. ledge, is not any real solution of doubts, but mere empty reputation. This is, too much knowledge gives only fame, a name which every godfather can give likewise, JOHNSON.

.P. 6, l. 19. To proceed is an academical term, meaning, to take a degree, as he proceeded bachelor in physick. The sense is, he has taken his degrees in the art of hindering the degrees of others. JOHNSON.

I don't suspect thas Shakspeare had any académical term in contemplation, when he wrote this line. He has proceeded well, means only, he has gone on well. M. MASON.

P. 5, 1. 29. Só sneaping winds in The Winter's Tale: To sheap is to check, to rebuke. Thus also, Falstaff, in K. Henry IV. P. II: ,,I will not undergo this sneap, without reply."

STEEVENS.

P. 6, 1. 13. At Chrismas I no more desire)

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As the greatest part of this scene (both what precedes and follows) is strickly in rhimes, either successive, alternate, or triple, I am persuaded, that the copyists have made a slip here. For by making a triplat of the three last lines quoted, birth in the close of the first line is quite destitute of any rhime to it. Besides, what a displeasing identity of sound recurs in the middle and close of this verse?..

Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled

shows.

Again; new-fangled shows seems to have very little propriety. The flowers are not new fangled; but the earth is new-fungled by the profusion and variety of the flowers, that spring on its bosom in May. I have therefore ventured to substitute earth, in the close of the third line, which restores the alternate measure. It was very easy for a negligent transcriber to be decei yed by the rhime immediately preceding; so mistake the concluding word in the sequent line, and corrupt it into one that would chime with the other. THEOBALD.

I rather suspect a line to have been lost after ,,an abortive birth." For an in that line the old copies have any. Corrected by Mr. Pope.

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MALONE.

By these shows the poet means Maygames, at

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a snow would be very unwelcome and unexpected. It is only a periphrasis for May. T. WARTON

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I have no doubt that the more obvious inter pretation is the true one. MALONE.;

I concur with Mr. Warton: for with what propriety can the flowers which every year pro. duces with the same identical shape and colours, be called new-fangled? The sports of May might be annually diversified, but its natural productions would be, invariably the same.

STEEVENS. P. 6, 1. 6. Well, sit you out:] This may mean, hold you out, continue refractory. But I suspect, we should readset you out. MALONE.

To sit out, is a term from the card table. Thus

Bishop Sanderson: ,,They are glad, rather than sit out, to play very small game."

The person wo cuts out at a rubber of whista is still said to sit out; i. e. to be no longer engaged in the party. STEEVENS.

P. 6, 1. 30. Biron. A dangerous law against gentility! I have ventured to prefix the name of Biron to this line, it being evident, for two reasons, that it, by some accident or other, slipt out of the printed books. In the first place, Longaville confesses, he had devised the penalty: and why he should immediately arraign it as a dan gerous law, seems to be very inconsistent. In the next place, it is much more natural for Biron to make this reflexion, who is cavilling at every thing; and then for him to pursue his reading over the remaining articles. → As to the word gentility, here, it does not signify that rank of

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