Rof. Well-liking wits they have; gross, grofs; fat, fat.

Prin. O poverty in wit-kingly-poor flout! Will they not (think you) hang themfelves to night? Or ever, but in vizors, fhew their faces ? This pert Biron was out of countenance quite, Rof. O they were all in lamentable cafes! The king was weeping-ripe for a good word. Prin. Biron did fwear himself out of all fuit. Mar. Dumain was at my service, and his fward: No, print, quoth I; my fervant strait was mute. Cath. Lord Longaville faid, I came o'er his heart; And, trow you, what he call'd me? Prin. Qualm, perhaps.

Cath. Yes, in good faith.

Prin. Go, fickness as thou art!

Rof. Well, better wits have worn plain ftatutecaps. ?

But

7 better wits bave worn plain ftatute-caps.] This line is not univerfally understood, becaufe every reader does not know that a ftatute cap is part of the academical habit. Lady Rosaline declares that her expectation was difappointed by these courtly ftudents, and that better wits might be found in the common places of education. JOHNSON.

Rof. Well, better wits have worn plain ftature-caps Woollen caps were enjoined by act of parliament, in the year 1571, 13th queen Elizabeth. "Befides the bills paffed into acts this parlia

ment, there was one which I judge not amifs to be taken notice "of-it concerned the queen's care for employment for her poor "fort of fubjects. It was for continuance of making and wear"ing woollen caps, in behalf of the trade of cappers; providing, "that all above the age of fix years, (except the nobility and fome others) fhould on fabbath days, and holy days, wear caps "of wool, knit, thicked, and drest in England, upon penalty of "ten groats." Dr. GRAY.

I think my own interpretation of this paffage right.

JOHNSON. Probably the meaning may be-better wits may be found among the citizens, who are not in general remarkable for fallies of imagination. In Marfion's Dutch Courtezan, 1605, Mrs. Mulligrub

lays,

But will you hear? the king is my love fworn. A Prin. And quick Biron hath plighted faith to

me.

Cath. And Longaville was for my service born. Mar. Dumain is mine, as fure as bark on tree. Boyet. Madam, and pretty miftreffes, give ear:. : Immediately they will again be here

In their own fhapes; for it can never be,
They will digeft this harsh indignity.

Prin. Will they return?

Boyet. They will, they will, God knows ; And leap for joy, though they are lame with blows: Therefore, change favours, and, when they repair, Blow, like fweet roses, in this fummer air..

Prin. How, blow? how blow? fpeak to be understood.

Boyet. Fair ladies, mafk'd, are rofes in their bud

Dif

fays, though my husband be a citizen, and his cap's made of "wool, yet I have wit." So in the Family of Love, 1608. ""Tis "a law enacted by the common-council of Batute-caps."

STEEVENS,

8 Fair ladies, mask'd, are roses in the bud; Difmafk'd, their damafk fweet commixture fhewn, Are angels veiling clouds, or roses blown.]

This ftrange nonsense, made worfe by the jumbling together and tranfpofing the lines, I directed Mr. Theobald to read thus. Fair ladies mafked are roses in the bud :

Or angels veil'd in clouds: are rifes blown,

Difmafk'd, their damafk fweet commixture fhewn,

But he, willing to fhew how well he could improve a thought, would print it,

Or angel-veiling clouds

i. e. clouds which veil angels: and by this means gave us, as the old proverb fays, a cloud for a Funo. It was Shakespeare's purpose to compare a fine lady to an angel; it was Mr. Theobald's chance to compare her to a cloud: and perhaps the ill-bred reader will fay a lucky one. However I fuppofed the poet could never be fo nonfenfical as to compare a masked lady to a cloud, though he might compare her mask to one. The Oxford editor, who had the

ad

Dismask'd, their damask sweet commixture fhewn, Are angels vailing clouds, or rofes blown.

Prin. Avaunt, perplexity! What fhall we do, If they return in their own fhapes to woo ?

Rof. Good madam, if by me you'll be advis'd,
Let's mock them ftill, as well known, as difgus'd:
Let us complain to them what fools were here,
Difguis'd, like Mufcovites, in fhapeless gear;9
And, wonder what they were; and to what end
Their fhallow fhows, and prologue vilely penn'd,
And their rough carriage fo ridiculous,
Should be presented at our tent to us.

Bayet. Ladies, withdraw, the gallants are at hand.
Prin. Whip to our tents, as roes run o'er the land.

[Exeunt ladies. Enter the King, Biron, Longaville, and Dumain in their own habits.

King. Fair Sir, God fave you! Where's the prin cefs?

Boyet. Gone to her tent: Please it your majefty Command me any fervice to her?

advantage both of this emendation and criticism, is a great deal more fubtile and refined, and fays it thould not be

but

-angels veil'd in clouds,

-angels vailing clouds,

i. e. capping the fun as they go by him, juft as a man vails his bonnet. WARBURTON.

I know not why fir T. Hanmer's explanation fhould be treated with fo much contempt, or why vailing clouds fhould be capping the fun. Ladies unmask'd, fays Boyet, are like a gets availing clouds, or letting thofe clouds which obfcured their brightness, fink from before them. What is there in this abfurd or contemptible? JOHNSON. -fhapeless gear ;] Shapeless, for uncouth, or what Shakespeare elsewhere calls diffufed. WARBURTON. Exeunt Ladies.] Mr. Theobald ends the fourth act here.

1

JOHNSON.
King.

King. That fhe vouchfafe me audience for one word. Bayet. I will and fo will fhe, I know, my lord. siliev alay [Exit. Biron. This fellow picks up wit, as pigeons peas; And utters it again, when Jove doth please He is wit's pedlar; and retails his wares At wakes and waffels, meetings, markets, fairs: And we that fell by grofs, the Lord doth know, Have not the grace to grace it with fuch fhow. This gallant pins the wenches on his fleeve; Had he been Adam, he had tempted Eve. He can carve too, and lifp: Why, this is he, That kifs'd away his hand in courtesy; This is the ape of form, Monfieur the nice, That, when he plays at tables, chides the dice In honourable terms: nay, he can fing, A mean most mainly, and, in ushering, Mend him who can: the ladies call him, fweet; The ftairs, as he treads on them, kifs his feet. This is the flower, that fmiles on every one, 3 To fhew his teeth, as white as whale his bone :

as pigeons peas ;] This expreffion is proverbial. "Children pick up words as pigeons peas,

And utter them again as God fhall please.”

See Ray's Collection. STEEVENS.

Y

And

A mean most mainly, &c.] The mean, in mufic, is the tenor. So Bacon: "The treble cutteth the air fo fharp, as it returneth "too fwift to make the found equal; and therefore a mean or tenor "is the fweeteft." STEEVENS.

3 This is the flower, that files on every one,] The broken dif jointed metapher is a fault in writing. But in order to pafs a true judgment on this fault, it is ftill to be obferved, that when a metaphor is grown fo common as to defert, as it were, the figurative, and to be received into the common ftile, then what may be affirmed of the thing reprefented, or the fubftance, may be af firmed of the thing reprefenting, or the image. To illuftrate this by the inftance before us, a very complaifant, finical, over gracious perfon, was fo commonly called the flower, or, as he elfewhere expreffes it, the pink of courtef, that in common talk, or in the lowest file, this metaphor might be ufed without keeping up

the

And confciences, that will not die in debt,
Pay him the due of honey-tongued Boyet.

King.

the image, but any thing affirmed of it as an agnomen hence it might be faid, without offence, to fmile, to flatter, &c. And the reason is this; in the more folemn, lefs-ufed metaphors, our mind is fo turned upon the image which the metaphor conveys, that it expects this image fhould be, for fome little time, continued by terms proper to keep it in view. And if, for want of these terms, the image be no fooner prefented than difmiffed, the mind fuffers a kind of violence by being drawn off abruptly and unexpectedly from its contemplation. Hence it is, that the broken, disjointed, and mixed metaphor fo much fhocks us. But when it is once be

come worn and hacknied by common ufe, then even the very first mention of it is not apt to excite in us the reprefentative image; but brings immediately before us the idea of the thing reprefented. And then to endeavour to keep up and continue the borrowed ideas, by right adapted terms, would have as ill an effect on the other hand: because the mind is already gone off from the image to the fubftance. Grammarians would do well to confider what has been here faid, when they fet upon amending Greek and Roman writings. For the much-ufed hacknied metaphors being now very imperfectly known, great care is required not to act in this cafe temerariously. WARBURTON.

This is the flower that fmiles on every one,

To fhew bis teeth as white as whale his bone.]

As white as whales bone is a proverbial comparison in the old poets.
In the Fairy Queen. b. iii. c. i. ft. 15.

"Whose face did feem as clear as crystal stone,

"Andeke, through feare, as white as whales bone." And in Turberville's Poems, printed in the year 1570, is an ode intitled, " In Praise of Lady P."

"Her mouth fo fmall, her teeth fo white,

"As any whale his bone;

"Her lips without fo lively red,

"That paffe the corall tone."

And in L. Surrey, fol. 14. edit. 1567.

"I might perceive a wolf, as white as whales bone,
"A fairer beaft of fresher hue, beheld I never none.'

Again, in the old romance of Syr Degore.

"The kyng had no chyldren but one,
"A daughter, as white as whales bone."

Skelton