Never durft poet touch a pen to write,
Until his ink were temper'd with love's fighs;
O, then his lines would ravish favage ears,
And plant in tyrants mild humility.-

From womens' eyes this doctrine I derive:

A very ingenious friend obferves, that the meaning of the paffage may be this. That the voice of all the Gods united, coul | inspire only drowfin fs, when compared with the chearful effects of the voice of Love. That fenfe is fufficiently congruous with the rest of the fpeech.

Dr. Warburton has raifed the idea of his author, by imputing to him a knowledge, of which, I believe, he was not poffeffed; but should either of thefe explanations prove the true one, I fhall offer no apology for having made him ftoop from the critic's ele vation. I would, however, read,

Makes beaven drowsy with its harmony.

Though the words mark and bebol are alike used to befpeak or fummon attention, yet the former of them appears fo harsh in Dr. Warburton's emendation, that I read the line feveral times over before I perceived its meaning. To speak the voice of the Gods appears to me as defective in the fame way. Dr. Warburton, in a note on All's well that Ends well, obferves, that to speak a found is a barbarifm. To speak a voice is, I think, not lefs reprehenfible. STEEVENS.

Few paffages have been more canvaffed than this. I believe, it wants no alteration of the words, but only of the pointing.

And when love speaks (the voice of all) the Gods
Make heaven drowsy with the harmony.

Love, I apprehend, is called the voice of all, as gold, in Timon, is faid to speak with every tongue; and the Gods (being drowfy themfelves with the harmony) are supposed to make heaven drowsy. If one could poffibly fufpect Shakespeare of having read Pindar, one fhould fay, that the idea of mufic making the hearers drowsy, was borrowed from the first Pythian. T. T.

8

From womens' eyes this doctrine I derive :] In this fpeech I fufpect a more than common inftance of the inaccuracy of the first publishers.

From womens' eyes this doctrine I derive,

and feveral other lines are as unneceffarily repeated. Dr. Warbur ton was aware of this, and omitted two ve fes, which Dr. Johnfon has fince inferted. Perhaps the players printed it from piece-meal parts, or retained what the author had rejected, as well as what had undergone his revifal. It is here given according to the regulation of the old copies. STEEVI NS.

Ee 3

They

They sparkle ftill the right Promethean fire,
They are the books, the arts, the academes,
That fhew, contain, and nourish all the world;
Elfe none at all in aught proves excellent.
Then fools you were, these women to forswear:
Or, keeping what is fworn, you will prove fools.
For wisdom's fake, a word, that all men love;
Or for love's fake, a word, that loves all men ; ?
Or for men's fake, the author of these women;
Or women's fake, by whom we men are men ;
Let us once lofe our oaths, to find ourselves,
Or else we lofe ourselves, to keep our oaths.
It is religion, to be thus forfworn:

For charity itself fulfils the law;

And who can fever love from charity?

King. Saint Cupid, then! and, foldiers, to the field!

Biron. Advance your standards, and upon them, lords;

Pell-mell, down with them! but be first advis'd,
In conflict that you get the fun of them.

Long. Now to plain-dealing ;-lay these glozes by

Shall we refolve to woo these girls of France?
King. And win them too: therefore let us devife
Some entertainment for them in their tents.

9

-a word, that loves all men ;] We should read,

The following line,

a word all women love.

Or for men's fake (the author of these rvomen ;) which refers to this reading, puts it out of all question.

WARBURTON.

Perhaps we might read thus, tranfpofing the lines,
Or for love's fake, a word that loves all men ;
For women's fake, by whom we men are men;
Or for men's fake, the authours of these women.

The antithefis of a word that all men love, and a word which loves all men, though in itself worth little, has much of the fpirit of this play. JOHNSON.

Biron. First, from the park let us conduct them thither;

Then, homeward, every man attach the hand
Of his fair miftrefs: in the afternoon

We will with fome ftrange paftime folace them,
Such as the fhortnefs of the time can shape:
For revels, dances, masks, and merry hours,
Forerun fair love, ftrewing her way with flowers.
King. Away, away! no time fhall be omitted,
That will be time, and may by us be fitted.
Biron. Allons! allons!-Sow'd cockle reap'd no
corn; 1

And juftice always whirls in equal measure: Light wenches may prove plagues to men forfworn; If so, our copper buys no better treasure.[Exeunt.

ACT V. SCENE I.

THE STREET.

Enter Holofernes, Nathaniel, and Dull.

HOLOFERNES.

SATIS quod fufficit.

Nath. I praife God for you, Sir: your reasons at dinner have been fharp and fententious; pleasant

I

with

-fown cockle reap'd no corn ;] This proverbial expreffion intimates, that beginning with perjury, they can expect to reap nothing but falfhood. The following lines lead us to this fense. WARBURTON.

2.

2 If fo, our copper buys no better treasure.] Here Mr. Theobald ends the third act. JOHNSON.

3 Your reafons at dinner have been, &c.] I know not well what degree of refpect Shakespeare intends to obtain for this vicar, but he has here put into his mouth a finished reprefentation of colloquial excellence. It is very difficult to add any thing to this character of the school-mafter's table-talk, and perhaps all the pre

E e 4

cep.s

without fcurrility, witty without affection*, audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange without herefy. I did converfe this quondam day with a companion of the king's, who is intituled, nominated, or called, Don Adriano de Armado.

Hol. Novi hominem tanquam te. His humour is lofty, his difcourfe peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, his gait majeftical, and his general behaviour vain, ridiculous, and thrafonical. 3 He is too picked, too fpruce, too affected, too odd, as it were; too peregrinate, as I may call it. Nath. A moft fingular and choice epithet.

[Draws out his table book. Hol. He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument. I abhor fuch

cepts of Caftiglione will scarcely be found to comprehend a rule for converfation fo juftly delineated, fo widely dilated, and fo nicely limited.

It may be proper juft to note, that reafon here, and in many other places, fignifies difcourfe; and that audacious is used in a good fenfe for fpirited, animated, confident. Opinion is the fame with obftinacy or opiniatreté. JOHNSON.

without affection,] i. e. without affectation. So in Hamlet,"No matter that might indite the author of affection." So in Twelfth Night, Malvolio is call'd "an affection'dals." STEEVENS.

He is too piqued,] To have the beard piqued or fhorn so as to end in a point, was, in our authour's time, a mark of a traveller affecting foreign fashions: fo fays the Bastard in K. John,

See the note on King John, where the reader will find the epithet piqued differently interpreted.

Piqued may allude to the length of the fhoes then worn. Bulwer, in his Artificial Changeling, fays, "We weare our

forked fhoes almoft as long again as our feete, not a little to the hindrance of the action of the foote, and not only fo, but they prove an impediment to reverentiall devotions, for our bootes and hooes are fo long fnouted, that we can hardly kneele in God's house. STEEVENS.

See B. Jonfon's Discoveries, vol. vii. p. 116.

phanatical phantafms, fuch infociable and point-devife companions; fuch rackers of orthography, as to fpeak dout fine, when he fhould fay doubt; det, when he fhould pronounce debt; d, e, b, t; not, d, e, t: he clepeth a calf, cauf: half, hauf: neighbour vocatur nebour; neigh abbreviated ne: This is abominable, which we would call abhominable: • it infinuateth me of infanie: (Ne intelligis, Domine.) to make frantick, lunatick?

Nath.

5 This is abominable, &c.] He has here well imitated the language of the moft redoubtable pedants of that time. On fuch fort of occafions, Jofeph Scaliger used to break out, Abominor, execrer. Afinitas mera eft, impi-tas, &c. and calls his adversary, Lutum ftercore maceratum, dæmoniacum recrimentum infcitiæ, fierquilinium, fter- . cus diaboli, fcarabæum, larvam, pecus poftremum beftiarum, infame propudium, nádagua. WARBURTON.

Shakespeare knew nothing of this language; and the refemblance which Dr. Warburton finds, if it deferves that title, is quite accidental. It is far more probable, that he means to ridicule the foppifh manner of fpeaking, and affected pronunciation, introduced at court by Lilly and his imitators. STEEVENS.

it infinuateth me of infanie :] In former editions, it infinuateth me of infamy: Ne intelligis, domine, to make frantick, lunatick? Nath. Laus Deo, bene intelligo.

Hel. Bome, boon for boon Prefcian; a little fcratch, 'twill ferve.

This play is certainly none of the beft in itself, but the editors have been fo very happy in making it worfe by their indolence, that they have left me Augeas's ftable to cleanfe: and a man had need to have the ftrength of a Hercules to heave out all their rub. bish. But to bufinefs: Why fhould infamy be explained by making frantick, lunatick? It is plain and obvious that the poet intended, the pedant fhould coin an uncouth affected word here, infanie, from infania of the Latins. Then, what a piece of unintelligible jargon have thefe learned criticks given us for Latin? I think, I may venture to affirm, I have restored the paffage to its true purity.

Nath. Laus Deo, bone, intelligo.

The Curate, addreffing with complaifance his brother pedant, fays, bone, to him, as we frequently in Terence find tone vir; but the pedant, thinking he had miftaken the adverb, thus defcants on it.

Bone?