Ros. Shall I come upon thee with an old faying, that was a man when king Pepin of France was a little boy, as touching the hit it? BOYET. So I may answer thee with one as old, that was a woman when queen Guinever of Britain was a little wench, as touching the hit it. Ros. Thou can't not hit it, hit it, hit it, [finging. Thou can't not hit it, my good man. BOYET. An I cannot, cannot, cannot, An I cannot, another can. [Exeunt Ros. and KAT. Cosr. By my troth, most pleasant! how both did fit it! MAR. A mark marvellous well fhot; for they both did hit it. BOYET. A mark! O, mark but that mark; A mark, fays my lady! Let the mark have a prick in't, to mete at, if it may be. MAR. Wide o' the bow hand! I'faith, your hand is out. Cosr. Indeed, a' must shoot nearer, or he'll ne'er hit the clout.* ·queen Guinever—] This was king Arthur's queen, not over famous for fidelity to her husband. See the fong of The Boy and the Mantle, in Dr. Percy's Collection. In Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady, the elder Loveless addreffes Abigail, the old incontinent waiting-woman, by this name, STEEVENS 9 Wide o' the bow hand!] i. e. a good deal to the left of the mark; a term ftill retained in modern archery. Douce. 2 - the clout.] The clout was the white mark at which archers took their aim, The pin was the wooden nail that upheld it. STEEVENS, BOYET. An if my hand be out, then, belike your hand is in. COST. Then will fhe get the upfhot by cleaving the pin.❜ MAR. Come, come, you talk greafily, your lips grow foul. Cost. She's too hard for you at pricks, fir; challenge her to bowl. BOYET. I fear too much rubbing; * Good night, my good owl. [Exeunt BOYET and MARIA. COST. By my foul, a fwain! a moft fimple clown! Lord, lord! how the ladies and I have put him down! O' my troth, most sweet jests! most incony vulgar wit! When it comes so smoothly off, so obscenely, as it were, fo fit. Armatho o' the one fide,-O, a most dainty man! To fee him walk before a lady, and to bear her fan! To fee him kifs his hand! and how moft fweetly a' will fwear! 6 3 - by cleaving the pin.] Honest Coftard would have befriended Dean Milles, whofe note on a fong in the Pfeudo-Rowley's ELLA has expofed him to fo much ridicule. See his book, p. 213. The prefent application of the word pin, might have led the Dean to fufpect the qualities of the basket. But what has mirth to do with archæology? STEEVENS. 4 I fear too much rubbing;] To rub is one of the terms of the bowling green. Boyet's further meaning needs no comment. MALONE. to bear her fan!] See a note on Romeo and Juliet, A&t II. fc. iv. where Nurfe afks Peter for her fan. STEEVENS. 6 been loft. a' will fwear!] A line following this feems to have MALONE, And his page o' t' other fide, that handful of wit! Sola, fola! [Shouting within. [Exit COSTARD, running. SCENE II. The fame. Enter HOLOFERNES, Sir NATHANIEL, and DULL. NATH. Very reverent sport, truly; and done in the teftimony of a good confcience. 7 Enter Holofernes,] There is very little perfonal reflexion in Shakspeare. Either the virtue of thofe times, or the candour of our author, has fo effected, that his fatire is, for the most part, general, and, as himself fays, his taxing like a wild-goofe flies, "Unclaim'd of any man.' The place before us feems to be an exception. For by Holofernes is defigned a particular character, a pedant and fchoolmaster of our author's time, one John Florio, a teacher of the Italian tongue in London, who has given us a fmall dictionary of that language under the title of A World of Words, which in his epiftle dedicatory he tells us, is of little less value than Stephens's Treasure of the Greek Tongue, the moft complete work that was ever yet compiled of its kind. In his preface, he calls thofe who had criticifed his works, fea-dogs or land-critics; monfters of men, if not beafts rather than men ; whofe teeth are canibals, their toongs adders forks, their lips afpes poifon, their eyes bafilifkes, their breath the breath of a grave, their words like fwordes of Turks, that ftrive which shall dive deepest into a Chrif tian lying bound before them. Well therefore might the mild Nathaniel defire Holofernes to abrogate fcurrility. His profeffion too is the reafon that Holofernes deals fo much in Italian fentences. There is an edition of Love's Labour's Left, printed in 1598, and faid to be prefented before her highness this laft Chriftmas, 1597. The next year 1598, comes out our John Florio, with his World of Words, recentibus odiis; and in the preface, quoted above, falls the comic poet for bringing him on the ftage. There is another upon HOL. The deer was, as you know, in fanguis, blood; ripe as a pomewater, who now hangeth 8 fort of leering curs, that rather fnarle than bite, whereof I could inftance in one, who lighting on a good fonnet of a gentleman's, a friend of mine, that loved better to be a poet than to be counted fo, called the author a Rymer-Let Ariftophanes and his comedians make plaies, and fcowre their mouths on Socrates; thofe very mouths they make to vilifie, fhall be the means to amplifie his virtue, &c. Here Shakspeare is fo plainly marked out as not to be mistaken. As to the fonnet of the gentleman his friend, we may be affured it was no other than his own. And without doubt was parodied in the very fonnet beginning with The praifeful princess, &c. in which our author makes Holofernes fay, He will fomething affect the letter, for it argues facility. And how much John Florio thought this affectation argued facility, or quickness of wit, we fee in this preface where he falls upon his enemy, H. S. His name is H. S. Do not take it for the Roman H. S. unless it be as H. S. is twice as much and an half, as half an AS. With a great deal more to the fame purpofe; concluding his preface in thefe words, The refolute John Florio. From the ferocity of this man's temper it was, that Shakfpeare chofe for him the name which Rabelais gives to his pedant, of Thubal Holoferne. WARBURTON. I am not of the learned commentator's opinion, that the fatire of Shak fpeare is fo feldom perfonal. It is of the nature of perfonal invectives to be foon unintelligible; and the author that gratifies private malice, animam in vulnere ponit, destroys the future efficacy of his own writings, and facrifices the esteem of fucceeding times to the laughter of a day. It is no wonder, therefore, that the farcafms, which, perhaps, in the author's time, fet the playhouse in a roar, are now loft among general reflexions. Yet whether the character of Holofernes was pointed at any particular man, I am, notwithstanding the plaufibility of Dr. Warburton's conjecture, inclined to doubt. Every man adheres as long as he can to his own pre-conceptions. Before I read this note I confidered the character of Holofernes as borrowed from the Rhombus of Sir Philip Sidney, who, in a kind of paftoral entertainment, exhibited to Queen Elizabeth, has introduced a fchool-mafter fo called, fpeaking a leafh of languages at once, and puzzling himfelf and his auditors with a jargon like that of Holofernes in the prefent play. Sidney himself might bring the character from Italy; for, as Peacham obferves, the fchoolmafter has long been one of the ridiculous perfonages in the farces of that country. JOHNSON. like a jewel in the ear of calo, the sky, the welkin, the heaven; and anon falleth like a crab, Dr. Warburton is certainly right in his fuppofition that Florio is meant by the character of Holofernes. Florio had given the firft affront. The plaies, fays he, that they plaie in England, are heither right comedies, not right tragedies; but reprefentations of biftories without any decorum."-The fcraps of Latin and Italian are tranfcribed from his works, particularly the proverb about Venice, which has been corrupted fo much. The affectation of the letter, which argues facilitie, is likewife a copy of his manner. We meet with much of it in the fonnets to his patrons. "In Italie your lordship well hath feene Their manners, monuments, magnificence, To adde to fore-learn'd facultie, facilitie." We fee then, the character of the fchoolmafter might be written with lefs learning, than Mr. Colman conjectured: nor is the use of the word thrafonical, [See this play, Act V. fc. i.] any argument that the author had read Terence. It was introduced to our language long before Shakspeare's time. Stanyhurft writes, in a tranflation of one of Sir Thomas More's epigrams: "Lynckt was in wedlocke a loftye thrafonical hufsnuffe." It can fcarcely be neceffary to animadvert any further upon what Mr. Colman has advanced in the appendix to his Terence. If this gentleman, at his leifure from modern plays, will condescend to open a few old ones, he will foon be fatisfied, that Shakspeare was obliged to learn and repeat in the courfe of his profeffion, fuch Latin fragments, as are met with in his works. The formidable one, ira furor brevis eft, which is quoted from Timon, may be found, not in plays only, but in every tritical effay from that of king James to that of dean Swift inclufive. I will only add, that if Mr. Colman had previously looked at the panegyric on Cartwright, he could not fo ftrangely have mifreprefented my argument from it but thus it muft ever be with the moft ingenious men, when they talk without-book. Let me however take this opportunity of acknowledging the very genteel language which he has been pleased to ufe on this occafion. Mr. Warton informs us in his life of Sir Thomas Pope, that there was an old play of Holophernes acted before the princefs Elizabeth in the year 1556. FARMER. The verses above cited, are prefixed to Florio's DICT. 1598. MALONE. |