Enter Musicians.

Come, ho, and wake Diana with a hymn*;
With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear,
And draw her home with musick ".

JES. I am never merry, when I hear sweet musick ".

"And with these raptures moves the vocal air

"To testify his hidden residence." HENLEY.

[Musick.

The old reading in immortal souls is certainly right, and the whole line may be well explained by Hooker, in his Ecclesiastical Polity, b. v. Touching musical harmony, whether by instrument or by voice, it being but of high and low sounds in a due proportionable disposition, such, notwithstanding is the force thereof, and so pleasing effects it hath in that very part of man which is most divine, that some have been thereby induced to think, that the soul itself by nature is or hath in it harmony." For this quotation I am indebted to Dr. Farmer.

Mr. Malone observes that "the fifth Book of the E. P. was published singly, in 1597." STEEVENS.

wake DIANA with a hymn;] Diana is the moon, who is in the next scene represented as sleeping. JOHNSON.

5 And draw her home with musick.] Shakspeare was, I believe, here thinking of the custom of accompanying the last waggonload, at the end of harvest, with rustick musick. He again alludes to this yet common practice, in As You Like It. MALONE.

of

I am never merry, when I hear sWEET musick.] In the age Shakspeare it is probable that some shade of meaning (at present undeterminable,) was occasionally affixed to the words sweet and sweetness. Thus, in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, [See Act III. Sc. I.] we have "a sweet mouth;" and in Measure for Measure, [Act II. Sc. IV.] we are told of —

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Their saucy sweetness that do coin heaven's image,
In stamps that are forbid.”

If, in the speech under consideration, Jessica only employs the term sweet in one of its common senses, it seems inadequate to the effects assigned to it; and the following passage in Horace's Art of Poetry, is as liable to the same objection, unless dulcia be supposed to mean interesting, or having such command over our passions as musick merely sweet can never obtain:

Non satis est pulchra esse poemata, dulcia sunto, "Et, quocunque volunt, animum auditoris agunto." STEEVENS.

Sweet is pleasing, delightful, and such is the meaning of dulcis in Horace.

MALONE.

LOR. The reason is, your spirits are attentive: For do but note a wild and wanton herd,

Or race of youthful and unhandled colts,
Fetching mad bounds, bellowing, and neighing loud,
Which is the hot condition of their blood;
If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound,
Or any air of musick touch their ears,

You shall perceive them make a mutual stand",
Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest gaze,

By the sweet power of musick: Therefore, the poet Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods;

Since nought so stockish, hard, and full of rage,
But musick for the time doth change his nature:
The man that hath no musick in himself,
Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,

Or race of youthful and UNHANDLED COLTS,

Fetching mad bounds, bellowing, and neighing loud,
Which is the hot condition of their blood;

If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound,

Or any air of musick touch their ears,

You shall perceive them make a mutual stand, &c.] We find the same thought in The Tempest :

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Then I beat my tabor,

"At which, like unback'd colts, they prick'd their ears,
"Advanc'd their eye-lids, lifted up their noses,

"As they smelt musick." MALONE.

The man that hath no musick in himself,

Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,] The thought here is extremely fine; as if the being affected with musick was only the harmony between the internal [musick in himself] and the external musick [concord of sweet sounds;] which were mutually affected like unison strings. This whole speech could not choose but please an English audience, whose great passion, as well then as now, was love of musick. "Jam verò video naturam (says Erasmus in praise of Folly,) ut singulis nationibus, ac pene civitatibus, communem quandam insevisse Philautiam : atque hinc fieri, ut Britanni, præter alia, Formam, Musicam, & lautas Mensas propriè sibi vindicent." WARBURTON.

This passage, which is neither pregnant with physical and mo

Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus:

Let no such man be trusted.-Mark the musick.

ral truth, nor poetically beautiful in an eminent degree, has constantly enjoyed the good fortune to be repeated by those whose inhospitable memories would have refused to admit or retain any other sentiment or description of the same author, however exalted or just. The truth is, that it furnishes the vacant fiddler with something to say in defence of his profession, and supplies the coxcomb in musick with an invective against such as do not pretend to discover all the various powers of language in inarticulate sounds.

Our ancient statutes have often received the best comment by means of reference to the particular occasion on which they were framed. Dr. Warburton has therefore properly accounted for Shakspeare's seeming partiality to this amusement. He might have added, that Peacham requires of his Gentleman only to be able to sing his part sure, and at first sight, and withal to play the same on a viol or lute."

Let not, however, this capricious sentiment of Shakspeare descend to posterity, unattended by the opinion of the late Lord Chesterfield on the same subject. In his 148th letter to his son, who was then at Venice, his lordship, after having enumerated musick among the illiberal pleasures, adds-" if you love musick, hear it; go to operas, concerts, and pay fiddlers to play to you; but I must insist upon your neither piping nor fiddling yourself. It puts a gentleman in a very frivolous and contemptible light; brings him into a great deal of bad company, and takes up a great deal of time, which might be much better employed. Few things would mortify me more, than to see you bearing a part in a concert, with a fiddle under your chin, or a pipe in your mouth." Again, Letter 153: "A taste of sculpture and painting is, in my mind, as becoming as a taste of fiddling and piping is unbecoming a man of fashion. The former is connected with history and poetry, the latter with nothing but bad company." Again:Painting and sculpture are very justly called liberal arts; a lively and strong imagination, together with a just observation, being absolutely necessary to excel in either; which, in my opinion, is by no means the case of musick, though called a liberal art, and now in Italy placed above the other two; a proof of the decline of that country." Ibidem. STEEVENS.

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The lovers of musick may submit to have the opinion of Lord Chesterfield quoted against them, while they have that of Shakspeare in their favour. BoswELL.

Enter PORTIA and NERISSA, at a distance.

POR. That light we see, is burning in my hall. How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

NER. When the moon shone, we did not see the candle.

POR. So doth the greater glory dim the less:
A substitute shines brightly as a king,
Until a king be by; and then his state
Empties itself, as doth an inland brook
Into the main of waters. Musick! hark!

NER. It is your musick, madam, of the house.
POR. Nothing is good, I see, without respect;
Methinks, it sounds much sweeter than by day.
NER. Silence bestows that virtue on it, madam.
POR. The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark,
When neither is attended; and, I think,
The nightingale', if she should sing by day,
When every goose is cackling, would be thought
No better a mucician than the wren.

How many things by season season'd are
To their right praise, and true perfection!-
Peace, hoa! the moon sleeps with Endymion,
And would not be awak'd 2!

[Musick ceases.

9without respect;] Not absolutely good, but relatively

good as it is modified by circumstances. JOHNSON.

I

The nightingale, &c.] So, in our author's 102d Sonnet :

"Our love was new, and then but in the spring,
"When I was wont to greet it with my lays;

"As Philomel in summer's front doth sing,

"And stops his pipe in growth of riper days; "Not that the summer is less pleasant now,

"Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night;

"But that wild musick burdens every bough,

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And sweets grown common lose their dear delight."
MALONE.

2 Peace, HOA! .the moon sleeps with Endymion,

And would not be awak'd!] The old copies read-Peace!

LOR.

Or I am much deceiv'd, of Portia.

That is the voice,

POR. He knows me, as the blind man knows the

cuckoo,

By the bad voice.

LOR.

Dear lady, welcome home.

POR. We have been praying for our husbands'

welfare *,

Which speed, we hope, the better for our words.
Are they return'd?

Give order to my servants, that they take
No note at all of our being absent hence ;-
Nor you, Lorenzo;-Jessica, nor you.

3

[A tucket sounds.

*So folio, and quarto H.; quarto R. health.

how, &c. For the emendation now made I am answerable. The oddness of the phrase : "How the moon would not be awak'd!" first made me suspect the passage to be corrupt; and the following lines in Romeo and Juliet suggested the emendation, and appear to me to put it beyond a doubt:

"Peace, hoa, for shame! confusion's cure lives not
"In these confusions."

Again, in As You Like It, Act I. :

Peace, hoa! I bar confusion."

Again, in Measure for Measure:

"Hoa! peace be in this place!"

Again, ibid. :

Portia

In Antony and Cleopatra the same mistake, I think, has happened. In the passage before us, as exhibited in the old copies, there is not a note of admiration after the word awak'd. first enjoins the musick to cease: "Peace, hoa!" and then subjoins the reason for her injunction: "The moon," &c.

Mr. Tyrwhitt seems to be of opinion that the interjection Ho was formerly used to command a cessation of noise, as well as of fighting. See Cant. Tales of Chaucer, vol. iv. p. 230. MALONE.

The old reading, I think, is right: How, as Johnson observes, is someiimes used as a mere affirmation. BOSWELL.