Still, and contemplative, in living arts. Your oaths are paft, and now fubfcribe your names; Subfcribe to your deep oaths, and keep them too. Dum. My loving lord, Dumain is mortify'd : Biron. I can but fay their proteftation over, With all thefe, living in philosophy.] The file of the rhyming fcenes in this play is often entangled and obfcure. I know not certainly to what all thefe is to be referred; I fuppofe he means, that he finds love, pim, and wealth in philofophy. JOHNSON. By all these the poet feems to mean, all theje gentlemen who have fworn to profecute the fame ftudies with me. STEEVENS. I And And make a dark night too of half the day) King. Your oath is pafs'd to pafs away from thefe. Biron. Let me fay, no, my liege, an' if you pleafe; I only swore to study with your grace, And stay here in your court for three years' space. Long. You fwore to that, Biron, and to the reft. Biron. By yea and nay, fir, then I swore in jeft.What is the end of study? let me know? King. Why, that to know, which elfe we should not know. Biron. Things hid and barr'd (you mean) from King. Ay, that is ftudy's god-like recompence. 3 When I to feast exprefly am forbid ;] The copies all have, When I to faft exprefly am forbid. } But if Biron ftudied where to get a good dinner, at a time when he was forbid to fast, how was this ftudying to know what he was forbid to know? Common fenfe, 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 exprefly am fore-bid; i. e. when I am enjoined before-hand to faft. THEOBALD. King. These be the ftops that hinder ftudy quite, Biron. Why, all delights are vain, but that most Which, with pain purchas'd, doth inherit pain: To feek the light of truth; while truth the while✦ Light, feeking light, doth light of light beguile: Who dazzling fo, that eye fhall be his heed, " That will not be deep fearch'd with fawcy looks; while truth the while Doth falfly blind] Falfly is here, and in many other places, the fame as difboneftly or treacherously. The whole fenfe of this gingling declamation is only this, that a man by too close ftudy may read himself blind, which might have been told with lefs obfcurity in fewer words. Who dazzling fo, that eye shall be bis heed, And give him light that it was blinded by.] JOHNSON. This is another paffage unneceffarily obfcure: 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 fhall be his beed, his direction or lode-ftar, (See Midfummer-Night's Dream) and give him light that was blinded by it. JOHNSON. Too 1 Too much to know, is, to know nought but fame; And every godfather can give a name. King. How well he's read, to reason against reading! Dum. Proceeded well to ftop all good proceeding. • Too much to know, is to know nought but fame; And every godfather can give a name.] The first line in this reading is abfurd and impertinent. There are two ways of fetting it right. The firft is to read it thus, Too much to know, is to know nought but shame; This makes a fine sense, and alludes to Adam's fall, which came from the inordinate paffion of knowing too much. The other way is to read, and point it thus, Too much to know, is to know nought: but feign, i. e. to fign. As much as to fay, the affecting to know too much is the way to know nothing. The fenfe, in both thefe readings, is equally good: But with this difference; If we read the first way, the following line is impertinent; and to fave the correction, we must judge it spurious. If we read it the fecond way, then the following line completes the fenfe. Confequently the correction of feign is to be preferred. To know too much (fays the speaker) is to know nothing: it is only feigning to know what we do not giving names for things without knowing their natures; which is falfe knowledge: And this was the peculiar defect of the Peripatetic philofophy then in vogue. Thefe philofophers, the poet, with the higheft humour and good fenfe, calls the godfathers of nature, who Could only give things a name, but had no manner of acquaintance with their effences. WARBURTON. That there are two ways of fetting a paffage right gives reason to fufpect that there may be a third way better than either. The first of these emendations makes a fine fenfe, but will not unite with the next line; the other makes a fenfe lefs fine, and yet will not rhyme to the correfpondent word. I cannot fee why the paffage may not stand without disturbance, The confequence, fays Biron, of too much knowledge, is not any real folution of doubts, but mere empty reputation. That is, too much knowledge gives only fame, a name which every godfather can give like wife. JOHNSON. 7 Proceeded well, to flop all good proceeding.] To proceed is an academical term, meaning, to take a degree, as he proceeded backelor in phyfick. The fenfe is, he has taken his degrees on the art of bindering the degrees of others. JOHNSON. 2 Long. Long. He weeds the corn, and ftill lets grow the weeding. Biron. The fpring is near, when green geefe are abreeding. Dum. How follows that? Biron. Fit in his place and time. Biron. Something then in rhime. Long. Biron is like an envious fneaping froft, Before the birds have any cause to fing? Why should I joy in an abortive birth? 8 Why Should I joy in an abortive birth? At Christmas I no more defire a rofe, Than wifh a fnow in May's new-fangled shows : } As the greatest part of this fcene (both what precedes and follows) is ftrictly in rhimes, either fucceffive, alternate, or triple; I am perfuaded, that the copyifts have made a flip here. For by making a triplet of the three laft lines quoted, birth in the clofe of the first line is quite deftitute of any rhime to it. Befides, what a difpleafing identity of found recurs in the middle and clofe of this verfe? Than wish a fnow in May's new-fangled shows : Again; new fangled fhows feems to have very little propriety. The flowers are not new-fangled; but the earth is new-fangled by the profufion and variety of the flowers, that fpring on its bofom in May. I have therefore ventured to fubftitute, earth, in the clofe of the third line, which reftores the alternate meafure. It was very easy for a negligent tranfcriber to be deceived by the rhime immediately preceding; fo miftake the concluding word in the fequent line, and corrupt it into one that would chime with the other. THEOBALD. So |