Boyet. This Armado is a Spaniard that keeps here in Court,

A phantafme, a monarcho, and one that makes fport To the Prince, and his book-mates.

Prin. Thou, fellow, a word;

Who gave thee this letter?
Coff. I told you; my lord.

Prin. To whom fhouldst thou give it?
Caft. From my lord to my lady.

Prin. From which lord to which lady?

Coft. From my lord Biron, a good mafter of mine, To a lady of France, that he call'd Rofaline.

Prin. Thou haft mistaken this letter, Come, lords,
away".

Here, fweet, put up this; 'twill be thine another day.
[Exit Princefs attended.
Boyet. Who is the fhooter? who is the fhooter?
Ref. Shall I teach you to know?

Boyet. Ay, my continent of beauty.

Rof. Why, the that bears the bow. Finely put off. Boyet. My lady goes to kill horns: but if thou

marry,

Hang me by the neck, if horns that year mifcarry.
Finely put on.-

Rof. Well then, I am the fhooter.

Boyet. And who is your Deer?

Rof. If we chufe by horns, yourfelf; come not near. Finely put on indeed.-

Mar. You will wrangle with her, Boyet, and fhe ftrikes at the brow.

Boyet. But the herfelf is hit lower.. Have I hit her now?

Rof. Shall I come upon thee with an old faying, that was a man when King Pippin of France was a little boy, as touching the hit it?

Boyet. So I may anfwer thee with one as old, that was a woman when Queen Quinover of Britain was a little wench, as touching the hit it.

Rof. Thou can't not hit it, hit it, hit it. [Singing. Thou can't not hit it, my good man.

Boyet. An' I cannot, cannot, cannot ;

An' I cannot, another can.

[Exit Rof. Coft. By my troth, moft pleasant; how both did

fit it.

Mar. A mark marvellous well fhot; for they both I 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 meet at, if it may

be.

Mar. Wide o'th❜bow-hand; i'faith, your hand is

out.

Coft. Indeed, a'muft fhoot nearer, or he'll ne'er hit the clout.

Boyet. An' if my hand be out, then, belike, your

hand is in.

Coft. Then will the get the upshot by cleaving the pin.

Mar. Come, come, you talk greafily; your lips grow foul.

Coft. She's too hard for you at pricks, Sir, challenge her to bowl.

Boyet. I fear too much rubbing; good night my good owl. [Exeunt all but Coftard. Coft. By my foul, a fwain; a moft fimple clown! Lord, Lord! how the ladies and I have put him down! O' my troth, moft fweet jefts, moft incony vulgar wit, When it comes fo fmoothly off, fo obfcenely; as it were, fo fit.

Armado o' th' one fide-O, a most dainty man;
To feek him walk before a lady, and to bear her fan.
To fee him kifs his hand, and how most fweetly he
will fwear :

And

And his Page o' t'other fide, that handful of Wit;
Ah, heaven's! it is a moft pathetical Nit.

SCENE II.

[Exit Coftard, [Shouting within,

Enter Dull, Holofernes, and Sir Nathanael. Nath. Very reverend fport, truly; and done in the teftimony of a good Confcience.

Hol. The deer was (as you know) fanguis, in blood; ripe as a pomwater, who now hangeth like a jewel in

Enter-Holofernes,] There is very little perfonal reflexion in Shakespeare. Either the virtue of thofe times, or the candour of our author, has fo effected, that his fatire is, for the moft part, general, and as himself fays, bis taxing like a wild

gcafe 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 schoolmaster of our author's time, one John Florio, a teacher of the Italian tongue in London, who has given us a small dictionary of that language under the title of A world of words, which in his Epiftle Dedicatory he tells us, is of little lefs value than Stephens's treaJure of the Greek tongue, the most compleat work that was ever yet compiled of its kind. In his preface, he calls thofe who had criticized his works Sea dogs or Land-critics; Monsters of men, if not beafts rather than men; whofe treth are canibals, their toongs addars-forks, their lips afpes poifon, their eyes bafilifkes, their breath

the

the breath of a grave, their words like fwordes of Turks that frive which shall dive deepest into a Chriftian lying bound before them. Well therefore might the mild Nathanael defire Holofernes to abrogate fcurrility. His profeffion too is the reason that Holofernes deals fo much in Italian fentences. There is an edition of Love's Labour's loft, printed 1598, and faid to be prefented before her Highness this laft Christmas 1597. The next year 1598, comes out our John Florio with his World of Words, recentibus odiis; and in the preface, quoted above, falls upon the comic poet for bringing him on the ftage. There is another 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 come dians make plaies, and fervore their mouths on Socrates; those very mouths they make to vilifie fall be the means to amplifie his virtue, &c. Here Shakespeare is fo plain

ly

1

the ear of Calo, the fky, the welkin, the heav'n; and anon falleth like a crab on the face of Terra, the foil, the land, the earth.

Nath. Truly, mafter Holofernes, the epithets are fweetly varied, like a fcholar at the leaft; but, Sir, I affure ye, it was a buck of the firft head.

Hol. Sir Nathanael, haud credo.

Dull. 'Twas not a haud credo, 'twas a pricket.

Hol. Moft barbarous intimation; yet a kind of infinuation, as it were in via, in way of explication;

ly marked out as not to be mif. taken. 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 Princefs, &c. in which our author makes Holophernes fay, He will Something affect the letter; for it argues facility. And how much John Florio thought this affecta. tion argued facility, or quicknefs 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 B. 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 Shakespeare chofe for him the name which Rablais gives to his Pedant of Thubal Holoferne. WARBURTON.

I am not of the learned commentator's opinion, that the fatire of Shakespeare is fo feldom perfonal. It is of the nature of perfonal invectives to be foon un intelligible; 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 foft among general reflections, 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 Halofernes as borrowed from the Rhombus of Sir Philip Sidney, who, in a kind of paftoral entertainment exhibited to Queen Elizabeth, has introduced a (choolmafter fo called, fpeaking a leash 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 Schoolmafter has long been one of the ridiculous perfonages in the farces of that country.

facere,

facere, as it were, replication; or rather, oftentare, to fhow, as it were, his inclination; after his undreffed, unpolished, uneducated, unpruned, untrained, or rather unlettered, or rathereft unconfirmed fashion, to infert again my haud credo for a deer.

Dull. I faid, the deer was not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket.

Hol. Twice fod fimplicity, bis cactus; O thou monfter ignorance, how deformed doft thou look?

Nath. Sir, he hath never fed on the dainties that are bred in a book. He hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink. His intellect is not replenished. He is only an animal, only fenfible in the duller parts; 'And fuch barren plants are fet before us, that we thankful fhould be,

Which we taste and feeling are for thofe parts that do fructify in us, more than He.

8

- and fuch barren plants are fet before us, that we thankful fhould be; which we tafte, and feeling are for thefe parts that do fructify in us more than he.] The Words have been ridiculously, and ftupidly, tranfpos'd and corrupted. I read, we thankful fhould be for thofe parts (which we tafle and feel ingradare) that do fructify, &c, The emendation I have offer'd, I hope, reftores the author: At least, it gives him fenfe and grammar: and answers extremely well to his metaphors taken from planting. Ingradare, with the Italians, fignifies, to rife higher and higher; andare di gra. do in grado, to make a progreffion; and fo at length come to frutify, as the poet expreffes it.

WARBURTON.