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, thefe women to forfwear:
Or, keeping what is fworn, you will prove fools.
For wifdom'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 lose ourselves, to keep our oaths.
It is religion, to be thus forfworn:

For charity itfelf 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 thefe 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 thefe vomen ;) 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 werd 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.

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 fhortness of the time can fhape:
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; '

And juftice always whirls in equal measure : Light wenches may prove plagues to men forfworn; If fo, 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; pleafant with

1fown 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 If fo, our copper buys no better treafure.] 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

without fcurrility, witty without affection, audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and ftrange 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 kominem 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 spruce, 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 fcarcely 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'd afs." STEEVENS.

* He is too piqued,] To have the beard piqued or fhorn fo as to end in a point, was, in our authour's time, a mark of a traveller affecting foreign fashions: fo fays the Baftard 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. Bul. wer, in his Artificial Changeling, fays,

We weare our

forked fhoes almost 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 fhooes are for long fnouted, that we can hardly kneele in God's houfe. STEEVENS.

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

too much pickedness is not manly." T.T.

pha

phanatical phantafms, fuch infociable and point-devise companions; fuch rackers of orthography, as to speak dout fine, when he fhould fay doubt; det, when he should 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 ufed to break out, Abominor, execrer. Afinitas mera eft, impietas, &c. and calls his adverfary, Lutum fercore maceratum, dæmoniacum recrimentum infcitiæ, fterquilinium, ftercus diaboli, fearabæum, larvam, pecus poftremum befliarum, infame propudium, nálagua. 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 speaking, 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.

Hul. Bome, boon for boon Prescian; a little scratch, '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 cleanse: 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 these 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 bone vir; but the pedant, thinking he had mistaken the adverb, thus defcants on it.

Bone?

Nath. Laus deo,, bone; intelligo.

Hol. Bone?-bone, for benè: Prifcian a little fcratch'd; 'twill ferve.

Enter Armado, Moth, and Coftard.

Nath. Videfne quis venit ?

Hol.. Video, & gaudeo.

Arm. Chirra !

Hol. Quare Chirra, not Sirrah?

Arm. Men of peace, well encountred.

Hol. Moft military Sir, falutation.

Moth. They have been at a great feaft of languages, and stoln the scraps. [To Coftard afide. Coft. O, they have liv'd long on the alms-basket of words! I marvel, thy mafter hath not eaten thee for a word; for thou art not fo long by the head as

Bone?-bone for bene. Prifcian a little feratched: 'twill farve. Alluding to the common phrafe, Diminuis Prifciani caput, applied to such as speak falfe Latin. THEOBALD.

It infinuateth me of infamy. There is no need to make the pedant worse than Shakespeare made him; who, without doubt, wrote infanity. WARBURTON.

There feems yet fomething wanting to the integrity of this paffage, which Mr. Theobald has in the most corrupt and difficult places very happily restored. For ne intelligis domine, to make frantick, lunatick, I read, (nonne intelligis, domine?) to be mad, frantick, lunatick. JOHNSON.

Infanie appears to have been a word anciently used. In a book entitled, The Fall and evil Succeffe of Rebellion from time to time, &c. written in old English Verse by Wilfride Holme, imprinted at London by Henry Bynneman; without date, (though, from the concluding ftanza, it appears to have been produced in the 8th year of the reign of Henry VIII. i. e. 1537) I find the word used.

"In the days of fixth Henry, Jack Cade made a brag, "With a multitude of people, but in the confequence, "After a little infanie, they fled tag and rag, "For Alexander Iden he did his diligence," STEEVENS.

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