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"I would have that drum or another, or hic jacet.”—Act III., Scene 6. "Hic jacet" (here lies) is a common commencement of epitaphs. Parolles means to say, that he would either recover the lost drum, or another belonging to the enemy, or die in the attempt.

“I will presently pen down mg dilemmas."— Act III., Scene 6. By "dilemmas" is meant his plans, on the one hand, and the probable obstructions he was to meet with, on the other.

"What is not holy, that we swear not by,

But take the Highest to witness. Then, pray you, tell me,
If I should swear by Jove's great attributes

I loved you dearly, would you believe my ouths,
When I did love you ill?"— Act IV., Scene 2.

though much less frequently than males. "Innocent" meant, in the good-natured language of our ancestors, an idiot, or natural fool. The following is the entry of a burial in the parish register of Charle wood, in Surrey:-"Thomas Sole, an innocent, about the age of fifty years and upwards, buried 19th September, 1605."

"Why does he ask him of me?"-Act IV., Scene 3.

This is nature. Every man is, on such occasions, more willing to hear his neighbor's character than his own.-JOHNSON.

"His grace is at Marseilles; to which place

We have convenient convoy.”—Act IV., Scene 4.

It appears from this line and others, in the present play and the "TAMING OF THE SHREW," that "Marseilles" was pronounced as a word of three syllables. The old copy has here Marcella, and in the last scene of this Act, Marcellus.

The sense is — We never swear by what is not holy, but swear by, doughy youth of a nation in his color."— Act IV., Scene 5.

"Whose villainous saffron would have made all the unbaked and

or take to witness, the Highest, the Divinity. The tenor of the reasoning contained in the following lines, perfectly corresponds with this:- If I should swear by Jove's great attributes that I loved you dearly, would you believe my oaths, when you found by experience that I loved you ill, and was endeavoring to gain credit with you in order to seduce you to your ruin? No, surely; you would conclude that I had no faith in Jove or his attributes, and that my oaths were mere words of course.

"I see that men make hopes, in such a war,

That we'll forsake ourselves,” — Act IV., Scene 2.

The old copy reads, "make ropes in such a scarre." Rowe changed it to "make hopes in such affairs; and Malone to "hopes in such a scene." But affairs and scene have no literal resemblance to the old word "scarre:" warre is always so written in the old copy; the change is therefore less violent, more probable, and, I think, makes better sense.- SINGER.

"Enter the two French Lords, and two or three Soldiers."
Act IV., Scene 3.

The latter editors have, with great liberality, bestowed lordship upon these interlocutors, who, in the original edition, are called with more propriety, Capt. E. and Capt. G.-JOHNSON.

These two personages may be supposed to be two young French lords, serving in the Florentine camp, where they now appear in their military capacity. In the first scene, where the two French lords are introduced taking leave of the King, they are called, in the original edition, Lord E. and Lord G.-G. and E. were, I believe, only put to denote the players who performed these characters. In the list of actors prefixed to the first folio, I find the names of Gilburne and Ecclestone, to whom these insignificant parts probably fell.-MALONE.

Parolles is the person here alluded to. The meaning is, that his evil qualities are of so deep a dye, as to be sufficient to corrupt the inexperienced, and to make them of the same disposition with himself. The general custom at that time, of coloring pastry with saffron, probably suggested the remark. In the "WINTER'S TALE, we find, “I must have saffron to color the warden-pies."

"I would give his wife my bauble, sir, to do her service.”

Act IV., Scene 5.

Part of the equipment of a professional fool, was a bauble, which was a kind of short stick, or truncheon, with a fool's head carved on it, or sometimes that of a doll or puppet. To this instrument was frequently annexed an inflated bladder, with which the fool belabored those with whom he was inclined to make sport. An ancient prov erb in Ray's collection, points out the material of which these baubles were made; " If every fool should wear a bauble, fuel would be dear."

"But it is your carbonadoed face."- Act IV., Scene 5. "Carbonadoed" means "slashed over the face in a manner that fetcheth the flesh with it." The term is derived from carbonado, a collop of meat. In "KING LEAR," Kent says to the steward, "I'll carbonado your shanks for you."

"Enter a Gentle Astringer."- Act V., Scene 1.

This term signifies a gentleman falconer. The word is derived from asturcus, or austurcus, a goshawk. Cowell, in his Law Dictionary, says, "We usually call a falconer who keeps that kind of hawk, an astringer." The "Gentle Astringer" in question was probably an

“I would gladly have him see his company anatomized; that he might officer of the court, and a noble. take a measure of his own judgments."— Act IV., Scene 3.

This is a very just and moral reason. Bertranı, by finding how erroneously he has judged, will be less confident, and more easily moved by admonition.-JoHNSON.

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"His heels have deserved it in usurping his spurs so long.” Act IV., Scene 3. The punishment of a recreant or coward was, to have his spurs hacked off.

"He was whipped for getting the sheriff's fool with child; a dumb innocent, that could not say him nay."-Act IV., Scene 3.

"I will come after you, with what good speed

Our means will make us means.”. -Act V., Scene 1. Helena intends to say, that they will follow with such speed as the means which they have will give them ability to exert.

"We lost a jewel of her, and our esteem

Was made much poorer by it.—Act V., Scene 3. "Esteem" is here reckoning or estimate.- Since the loss of Helena, with her virtues and qualifications, our account is sunk: what we have to reckon ourselves king of, is much poorer than before.

"Whose beauty did astonish the survey

Of richest eyes." Act V., Scene 3.

That is, her beauty astonished those who, having seen the greatest number of fair women, might be said to be the richest in ideas of beauty. So, in "AS YOU LIKE IT:"-" To have seen much and to

Female fools were sometimes retained in families for diversion, have nothing, is to have rich eyes and poor hands.”

"In Florence was it from a casement thrown me."-Act V., Scene 3. Bertram still continues to have too little virtue to deserve Helena. He did not know indeed that it was Helena's ring, but he knew that he had it not from a window.- JOHNSON.

"Plutus himself,

That knows the tinct and multiplying medicine."

Act V., Scene 3. Plutus is here spoken of as the grand alchemist, who knows the tincture which confers the properties of gold upon base metals. In the reign of Henry IV., a law was made to forbid all men henceforth to multiply gold, or use any crafts of multiplication. Of this law, Mr. Boyle, when he was warm with the hope of transmutation, procured a repeal.

"Then, if you know

That you are well acquainted with yourself,
Confess 't was hers."- Act V., Scene 3.

That is, if you have the proper consciousness of your own actions, and are able to recollect and relate what you have done, confess the truth.

"My forepast proofs, howe'er the matter fall,
Shall tax my fears of little vanity,

Having vainly feared too little."-Act V., Scene 3.

The meaning probably is- The proofs which I have already had, are sufficient to shew that my fears were not vain and irrational: I have rather been more easy than I ought, and have unreasonably had too little fear.

"Here's a petition from a Florentine,

Who hath, for four or five removes, come short
To tender it herself."-Act V., Scene 3.

"Removes" are stages or journeys. The petitioner had lost the opportunity of presenting the paper herself, either at Marseilles, or on the road from thence to Rousillon, in consequence of having been four or five removes behind the court.

“I will buy me a son-in-law in a fair, and toll for this."

Act V., Scene 6. The allusion is to the custom of paying toll for the liberty of selling in a fair. Lafeu means to say, he will buy a son-in-law in a fair, and sell his intended one; pay toll for the liberty of selling him. The practice is thus alluded to in "IIUDIBRAS:"

"Can I bring proof

Where, when, by whom, and what y' were sold for, And in the open market tolled for?"

"I wonder, sir since wives are monsters to you,
And that you fly them as you swear them lordship,
Yet you desire to marry."— Act V., Scene 3.

"Lordship" is probably intended for that protection which the husband, in the marriage ceremony, promises to the wife.

"But thou art too fine in thy evidence."― Act V., Scene 3. "Too fine" signifies too full of finesse. In Bacon's " APOPHTHEGMS," the term is used in its better sense:-"Your majesty was too fine for ny Lord Burleigh."

The following is a short abstract of the novel of "Giletta of Narbonne," in Painter's "PALACE OF PLEASURE" (1575), on which the present play is founded:

Isnardo, Count of Rossiglione, retains a famous physician, Gerardo of Narbona, whose daughter is in love with the Count's son, Bertram. Isnardo dies; his son becomes the King's ward, and is sent to Paris. The physician dying, Giletta makos a journey in pursuit of Bertram. The King languishes under a malady thought incurable; Giletta, fur

nished with a specific of her father's, promises to effect a cure in eight days: the penalty of failure is death; but if successful, she stipulates for permission to choose a husband, with reservation only of the royal blood. The King is cured; Giletta fixes on Bertram; and he, unable to disobey the King, consents to the marriage: disgusted, however, with the meanness of her family, he joins the Florentine army; and in reply to her submissive messages from Rossiglione, he coldly says, "Let her do what she list; for I do purpose to dwell with her when she shall have this ring upon her finger, and a son in her arms begotten by me."

Giletta provides herself with money, and travels to Florence: here she finds that Bertram is in love with the daughter of a poor but reputable lady, to whose house she repairs, and, explaining her situa tion, proposes that the young woman should agree to the Count's wishes, on his giving him the ring he wore. Preparations are made for Bertram's introduction at the dead of night, and Giletta, instead of the young lady, receives him in her arms. The ring is obtained, and Giletta, in due time, has the satisfaction of giving birth to two sons, both bearing a strong likeness to their father.

Bertram, informed of his wife's absence, determines to return home. He gives, when there, a great entertainment; and Giletta," with his ring on her finger, and twin sons, begotten by him, in her arms," prostrates herself before him, and supplicates to be acknowledged as his wife. The Count kisses her, and vows henceforth to love and honor her.

The story of" ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL," and of several others of Shakspeare's plays, is taken from Boccaccio. The poet has dramatised the original novel with great skill and comic spirit, and has preserved all the beauty of character and sentiment, without improving upon it, which was impossible. There are, indeed, in Boccaccio's serious pieces, a truth, a pathos, and an exquisite refinement of sentiment, which are hardly to be met with in any other prose writer whatever. Justice has not been done him by the world. He has in general passed for a mere narrator of lascivious tales or idle jests. This character probably originated in his obnoxious attacks on the monks, and has been kept up by the grossness of mankind, who revenged their own want of refinement on Boccaccio, and only saw in his writings what suited the coarseness of their own tastes. But the truth is, that he has carried sentiment of every kind to its very highest purity and perfection. By sentiment, we would here understand the habitual workings of some one powerful feeling, where the heart reposes almost entirely upon itself, without the violent excitement of opposing duties or untoward circumstances.

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The invention implied in his different tales, is immense: but we are not to infer that it is all his own. He probably availed himself of all the common traditions which were floating in his time, and which he was the first to appropriate. Homer appears the most original of all authors, probably for no other reason than that we can trace the plagiarism no further.- HAZLITT.

The comic parts of the plot of " ALL 'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL," and the characters of the Countess, Lafeu, &c., are of the poet's own crea tion; and, in the conduct of the fable, he has found it expedicnt to depart from his original more than it is his usual custom to do.

Johnson has expressed his dislike of the character of Bertram, and most fair readers have manifested their abhorrence of him, and havo thought, with Johnson, that he ought not to have gone unpunished, for the sake not only of poetical but of moral justice. Schlegel has remarked, that "Shakspeare never attempts to mitigate the impression of his unfeeling pride and giddy dissipation. He intended merely to give us a military portrait; and paints the true way of the world, according to which the injustice of men towards women is not considered in a very serious light, if they only maintain what is called the honor of the family."-The fact is, that the construction of his plot prevented him. Helena was to be rewarded for her heroic and persevering affection; and any more serious punishment than the temporary shame and remorse that awaits Bertram, would have been inconsistent with comedy. It should also be remembered that he was constrained to marry Helena against his will. Shakspeare was a good

natured moralist: and, like his own creation, old Lafeu, though he was delighted to strip off the mask of pretension, he thought that punishment might be carried too far.- SINGER.

Helena is the union of strength of passion with strength of character. "To be tremblingly alive to gentle impressions, and yet able to preserve, when the prosecution of a design requires it, an immovable heart, amidst even the most imperious causes of subduing emotion, is, perhaps, not an impossible constitution of mind; but it is the utmost and rarest endowment of humanity."- FOSTER'S ESSAYS. Such a character, almost as difficult to delineate in fiction as to find in real life, has Shakspeare given us in Helena, touched with the most soul-subduing pathos, and developed with the most consummate skill. ***

Although Helena tells herself that she loves in vain, a conviction stronger than reason tells her that she does not. Her love is like a religion, pure, holy, and deep: the blessedness to which she has lifted her thoughts, is ever before her:-to despair would be a crime, and would be to cast herself away, and die. The faith of her affection, combining with the natural energy of her character, believing all things possible, makes them so. It could say to the mountain of pride which stands between her and her hopes-"Be thou removed!" and it is removed. This is the solution of her behavior in the marriage scene, where Bertram, with obvious reluctance and disdain, accepts her hand, which the King, his feudal lord and guardian, forces on him.

Her maidenly shame is at first shocked. and shrinks bac

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But shall she weakly relinquish the golden opportunity, and dash the cup from her lips at the moment it is presented? Shall she cast away the treasure for which she has ventured life, honor, all — when it is just within her grasp? Shall she, after compromising her feminine delicacy by the public disclosure of her preference, be thrust back into shame, "to blush out the poor remainder of her life,” and die a poor, lost, scorned thing? This would be very pretty, and interesting, and characteristic in Viola or Ophelia; butnot at all consistent with that high determined spirit, that moral energy, with which Helena is portrayed. Pride is the only obstacle opposed to her. She is not despised and rejected as a woman, but as a poor physician's daughter; and this, to an understanding so clear, so trong, so just as Helena's, is not felt as an unpardonable insult. The mere pride of rank and birth, is a prejudice of which she cannot comprehend the force, because her mind towers so immeasurably above it; and, compared with the infinite love that swells in her own bosom, it sinks into nothing. She cannot conceive that he to whom she has devoted her heart and truth, her soul, her life, her service, must not one day love her in return; and, once her own, beyond the reach of fate, that her cares, her carresses, her unwearied, patient tenderness, will not, at last, "win her lord to look upon her."

串串

It is this fond faith which, hoping all things, enables her to endure all things;- - which hallows and dignifies the surrender of her woman's pride, making it a sacrifice on which virtue and love the a mingled essence.- MRS. JAMESON.

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