I.i.174 (350,6) [in the world’s debate] The world seems to be used in a monastick sense by the king, now devoted for a time to a monastic life. In the world, in seculo, in the bustle of human affairs, from which we are now happily sequestred, in the world, to which the votaries of solitude have no relation.
I.i.252 (353,1) [base minow of thy mirth] A minnow is a little fish which cannot be intended here. We may read, the base minion of thy mirth.
I.ii.5 (355,2) [dear imp] Imp was anciently a term of dignity. Lord Cromwell in his last letter to Henry VIII. prays for the imp his son. It is now used only in contempt or abhorrence; perhaps in our authour’s time it was ambiguous, in which state it suits well with this dialogue.
I.ii.36 (356,3) [crosses love not him] By crosses he means money. So in As you like it, the Clown says to Celia, if I should bear you, I should bear no cross.
I.ii.150 (360,7) [Jaq. Fair weather after you! Dull. Come, Jaquenetta, away]
[Theobald had reassigned two speeches] Mr. Theobald has endeavoured here to dignify his own industry by a very slight performance. The folios all read as he reads, except that instead of naming the persons they give their characters, enter Clown, Constable, and Wench.
I.ii.168 (361,8) [It is not for prisoners to be silent in their words] I suppose we should read, it is not for prisoners to be silent in their wards, that is, in custody, in the holds.
I.ii.183 (361,9) [The first and second cause will not serve my turn]
See the last act of As you like it, with the notes.
II.i.15 (362,1)
[Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye,
Not utter’d by base sale of chapmen’s tongues]
Chapman here seems to signify the seller, not, as now commonly, the buyer. Cheap or cheping was anciently the market, chapman therefore is marketman. The meaning is, that that the estimation of beauty depends not on the uttering or proclamation of the seller, but on the eye of the buyer.
II.i.45 (363,2) [Well fitted] is well qualified.
II.i.49 (363,3) [match’d with] is combined or joined with.
II.i.105 (365,4) [’Tis deadly sin to keep that oath, my lord; And sin to break it] Sir T. Hammer reads,
Not sin to break it.
I believe erroneously. The Princess shews an inconvenience very frequently attending rash oaths, which, whether kept or broken, produce guilt.
II.i.203 (369,6) [God’s blessing on your beard!] That is, mayst thou have sense and seriousness more proportionate to thy beard, the length of which suits ill with such idle catches of wit.
II.i.223 (370,7) [My lips are no common, though several they be] Several, is an inclosed field of a private proprietor, so Maria says, her lips are private property. Of a lord that was newly married one observed that he grew fat; Yes, said sir Walter Raleigh, any beast will grow fat, if you take him from the common and graze him in the several.
II.i.238 (370,8) [His tongue, all impatient to speak and not see] That is, his tongue being impatiently desirous to see as well as speak.
II. i. 241 (370,9) [To feel only looking] Perhaps we may better read, To feed only by looking.
II. i. 262 (371,1) [Boyet. You are too hard for me] [Theobald did not end Act II here] Mr. Theobald has reason enough to propose this alteration, but he should not have made it in his book without better authority or more need. I have therefore preserved his observation, but continued the former division.
III.i (372,2) [Enter Armado, and Moth.] In the folios the direction is, enter Braggart and Moth, and at the beginning of every speech of Armado stands Brag, both in this and the foregoing scene between him and his boy. The other personages of this play are likewise noted by their characters as often as by their names. All this confusion has been well regulated by the later editors.
III.i.3 (372,3) [Concolinel] Here is apparently a song lost.
III. i. 22 (373,5) [These are complements] Dr. Warburton has here changed complements to ‘complishments, for accomplishments, but unnecessarily.
III. i. 32 (374,8) [but a colt] Colt is a hot, mad-brained, unbroken young fellow; or sometimes an old fellow with youthful desires.
III. i. 62 (375,9) [You are too swift, Sir, to say so] How is he too swift for saying that lead is slow? I fancy we should read, as well to supply the rhyme as the sense,
You are too swift, sir, to say so, so soon Is that lead slow, sir, which is fir’d from a gun?
III. i. 68 (375,1) [By thy favour, sweet welkin] Welkin is the sky, to which Armado, with the false dignity of a Spaniard, makes an apology for sighing in its face.
III. i. 73 (376,3) [no salve in the male, Sir] The old folio reads, no salve in thee male, sir, which, in another folio, is, no salve, in the male, sir. What it can mean is not easily discovered: if mail for a packet or bag was a word then in use, no salve in the mail may mean, no salve in the mountebank’s budget. Or shall we read, no enigma, no riddle, no l’envoy — in the vale, sir — O, sir. plantain. The matter is not great, but one would wish for some meaning or other.
III. i.112 (377,5) [how was there a Costard broken in a shin?] Costard is the name of a species of apple.
III. i.136 (378,7) [my in-cony Jew] [W. jewel] I know not whether it be fit, however specious, to change Jew to jewel. Jew, in our author’s time, was, for whatever reason, apparently a word of endearment. So in Midsummer-Night’s Dream,
Most tender Juvenile, and eke most lovely Jew. (see 1765, II,144,9)
III.i.182 (381,2) [This signior Junto’s giant-dwarf. Don Cupid] Mr. Upton has made a very ingenious conjecture on this passage. He reads,
This signior Julio’s giant-dwarf —
Shakespeare, says he, intended to compliment Julio Romano, who drew Cupid in the character of a giant-dwarf. Dr. Warburton thinks, that by Junio is meant youth in general.
III.i.188 (382,3) [Of trotting paritors] An apparitor, or paritor. is an officer of the bishop’s court who carries out citations; as citations are most frequently issued for fornication, the paritor is put under Cupid’s government.
III.i.189 (382,4)
[And I to be a corporal of his field,
And wear his colours! like a tumbler’s hoop!]
The conceit seems to be very forced and remote, however it be understood. The notion is not that the hoop wears colours, but that the colours are worn as a tumbler carries his hoop, hanging on one shoulder and falling under the opposite arm.
III.i.207 (383,5) [Some men must love my lady, and some Joan] To this line Mr. Theobald extends his second act, not injudiciously, but, as was before observed, without sufficient authority.
IV.i.19 (384,6) [Here, — good my glass] To understand how the princess has her glass so ready at hand in a casual conversation, it must be remembered that in those days it was the fashion among the French ladies to wear a looking-glass,’ as Mr. Bayle coarsely represents it, on their bellies; that is, to have a small mirrour set in gold hanging at the girdle, by which they occasionally viewed their faces or adjusted their hair.
IV.i.35 (385,8) [that my heart means no ill] [W: tho’] That my heart means no ill, is the same with to whom my heart means no ill; the common phrase suppresses the particle, as I mean him [not to him] no harm.
IV.i.41 (386,9) [a member of the commonwealth] Here, I believe, is a kind of jest intended; a member of the common-wealth is put for one of the common people, one of the meanest.
IV.i.49 (386,1)
[An’ your waist, mistress, were as slender as my wit,
One o’ these maids girdles for your waist should be fit]
[W: my waste … your wit … my waste] This conjecture is ingenious enough, but not well considered. It is plain that the ladies girdles would not fit the princess. For when she has referred the clown to the thickest and the tallest, he turns immediately to her with the blunt apology, truth is truth; and again tells her, you are the thickest here. If any alteration is to be made, I should propose,
An’ your waist, mistress, were as slender as your wit.
This would
point the reply; but perhaps he mentions the slenderness of his own wit to excuse his bluntness.
IV.i.59 (387,3) [Break the neck of the wax] Still alluding to the capon.
IV.i.65 (388,5) [king Cophetua] This story is again alluded to in
Henry IV.
Let king Cophetua know the truth thereof.
But of this king and beggar, the story, then doubtless well known, is, I am afraid, lost. Zenelophon has not appearance of a female name, but since I know not the true none, it is idle to guess.
IV.i.99 (389,7) [ere while] Just now; a little while ago. So
Raleigh,
Here lies Hobbinol our shepherd, while e’er.
IV.i.108 (390,9) [Come, lords, away] Perhaps the Princess said rather,
— Come, ladies, away.
The rest of the scene deserves no care.
IV.ii (392,2) [Enter Dull, Holofernes, and Sir Nathaniel] I am not of the learned commentator’s [Wurburton] opinion, that the satire of Shakespeare is so seldom personal. It is of the nature of personal invectives to be soon unintelligible; and the authour that gratifies private malice, aniuam in vulnere ponit, destroys the future efficacy of his own writings, and sacrifices the esteem of succeeding times to the laughter of a day. It is no wonder, therefore, that the sarcasms, which, perhaps, in the authour’s time, set the playhouse in a roar, are now lost among general reflections. Yet whether the character of Holofernes was pointed at any particular man, I am, notwithstanding the plausibility 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 considered the character of Holofernes as borrowed from the Rhombus of sir Philip Sidney, who, in a kind of pastoral entertainment, exhibited to queen Elizabeth, has introduced a school-master so called, speaking a leash of languages at once, and puzzling himself and his auditors with a jargon like that of Holofernes in the present play. Sidney himself might bring the character from Italy; for, as Peacham observes, the school-master has long been one of the ridiculous personages in the farces of that country.
IV.ii.29 (395,4)
[And such barren plants are set before us, that we
thankful should be,
Which we taste and feeling are for those parts that do fructify
in us, more than he]
Sir T. Hammer reads thus,
And such barren plants are set before us, that we
thankful should be,
For those parts which we taste and feel do fructify
in us more than he.
And Mr. Edwards, in his animadversions on Dr. Warburton’s notes, applauds the emendation. I think both the editors mistaken, except that sir T. Hammer found the metre, though he missed the sense. I read, with a slight change,
And such barren plants are set before us, that we
thankful should be,
When we taste and feeling are for those parts that
do fructify in us more than he.
That is, such barren plants are exhibited in the creation, to make us thankful when we have more taste and feeling than he, of those parts or qualities which produce fruit in us, and preserve as from being likewise barren plants. Such is the sense, just in itself and pious, but a little clouded by the diction of sir Nathaniel. The length of these lines was no novelty on the English stage. The moralities afford scenes of the like measure. (1773)
IV.ii.32 (396,5)
[For as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet,
or a fool;
So were there a patch set on learning, to see
him in a school]
The meaning is, to be in a school would as ill become a patch, or low fellow, as folly would become me.
IV.ii.99 (399,2) [Vinegia. Vinegia, Chi non te vedi, ei non te pregia] [This reading is an emendation by Theobald] The proverb, as I am informed, is this; He that sees Venice little, values it much; he that sees it much, values it little. But I suppose Mr. Theobald is right, for the true proverb would hot serve the speaker’s purpose.
IV.ii.156 (403,6) [colourable colours] That is specious, or fair seeming appearances.
IV.iii.3 (403,7) [I am toiling in a pitch] Alluding to lady Rosaline’s complexion, who is through the whole play represented as a black beauty.
IV.iii.29 (404,8) [The night of dew, that on my cheeks down flows] I cannot think the night of dew the true reading, but know not what to offer.
IV.iii.47 (405,9) [he comes in like a perjure, wearing papers] The punishment of perjury is to wear on the breast a paper expressing the crime.
IV.iii.74 (406,2) [the liver-vein] The liver was anciently supposed to be the seat of love.
IV.iii.110 (408,5) [Air, would I might triumph so!] Perhaps we may better read,
Ah! would I might triumph so!
IV.iii.117 (409,7) [ay true love’s fasting pain] [W: festring] There is no need of any alteration. Fasting is longing, hungry, wanting.
IV.iii.148 (410,8) [How will he triumph, leap, and laugh at it?]
[W: geap] To leap is to exult, to skip for joy. It must stand.
IV.iii.166 (410,9) [To see a king transformed to a knot!] Knot has no sense that can suit this place. We may read sot. The rhimes in this play are such, as that sat and sot may be well enough admitted.
IV.iii.180 (412,2) [With men like men] [W: vane-like] This is well imagined, but perhaps the poet may mean, with men like common men.
IV.iii.231 (414,3) [She (an attending star)] Something like this is a stanza of sir Henry Wotton, of which the poetical reader will forgive the insertion.
— Ye stars, the train of night,
That poorly satisfy our eyes
More by your number than your light:
Ye common people of the skies,
What are ye when the sun shall rise.
IV.iii.256 (415,6) [And beauty’s crest becomes the heavens well] [W: crete] This emendation cannot be received till its authour can prove that crete is an English word. Besides, crest is here properly opposed to badge. Black, says the King, is the badge of hell, but that which graces the heaven is the crest of beauty. Black darkens hell, and is therefore hateful; white adorns heaven, and is therefore lovely.
IV.iii.290 (417,8) [affection’s men at arms] A man at arms, is a soldier armed at all points both offensively and defensively. It is no more than, Ye soldiers of affection.
IV.iii.313 (418,2) [Teaches such beauty as a woman’s eye] i.e. a lady’s eyes gives a fuller notion of beauty than any authour.
IV.iii.321 (418.3) [In leaden contemplation have found out Such fiery numbers] Numbers are, in this passage, nothing more than poetical measures. Could you, says Biron, by solitary contemplation, have attained such poetical fire, such spritely numbers, as have been prompted by the eyes of beauty? The astronomer, by looking too much aloft, falls into a ditch.
IV.iii.358 (422,9)
[Or for love’s sake, a word, that loves all men;
Or for men’s sake, the author of these women;
Or women’s sake, by whom we men are men]
Perhaps we might read thus, transposing the lines,
Or for love’s sake, a word that loves all men;
For women’s sake, by whom we men are men;
Or for men’s sake, the authours of these women.
The antithesis of a word that all men love, and a word which loves all men, though in itself worth little, has much of the spirit of this play.
IV.iii.386 (423,2) [If so, our copper buys no better treasure] Here
Mr. Theobald ends the third act.
V.i.3 (423,3) [your reasons at dinner have been sharp and sententious] I know not well what degree of respect Shakespeare intends to obtain for this vicar, but he has here put into his mouth a finished representation of colloquial excellence. It is very difficult to add any thing to this character of the school-master’s table-talk, and perhaps all the precepts of Castiglione will scarcely be found to comprehend a rule for conversation so justly delineated, so widely dilated, and so nicely limi
ted.
It may be proper just to note, that reason here, and in many other places, signifies discourse; and that audacious is used in a good sense for spirited, animated, confident. Opinion is the same with obstinacy or opinionated.
V.i.14 (424,4) [He is too picked] To have the beard piqued or shorn so as to end in a point, was, in our authour’s time, a mark of a traveller affecting foreign fashions: so says the Bastard in K. John, — I catechise My piqued man of countries.
V.i.29 (425,6) [(Ne intelligis, Domine.) to make frantick, lunatick?] There seems yet something wanting to the integrity of this passage, 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.
V.i.44 (427,6) [honorificabilitudinitatibus] This word, whencesoever it comes, is often mentioned as the longest word known. (1773)
V.i.110 (429,6) [dally with my excrement] The authour has before called the beard valour’s excrement in the Merchant of Venice.
V.ii.43 (432,5) [‘Ware pencils!] The former editions read,
Were pencils ——
Sir T. Hammer here rightly restored,
‘Ware pencils ——
Rosaline, a black beauty, reproaches the fair Catherine for painting.
V.ii.69 (434,9) [None are so surely caught when they are catch’d, As wit turn’d fool] These are observation worthy of a man who has surveyed human nature with the closest attention.
V.ii.87 (434,1) [Saint Dennis to St. Cupid!] The Princess of France invokes, with too much levity, the patron of her country, to oppose his power to that of Cupid.
V.ii.117 (435,2) [spleen ridiculous] is, a ridiculous fit.
V.ii.205 (439,5) [Vouchsafe, bright moon, and these thy stars] When queen Elizabeth asked an ambassadour how he liked her ladies, It is hard, said he, to judge of stars in the presence of the sun.
V.ii.235 (440,6) [Since you can cog] To cog signifies to falsify the dice, and to falsify a narrative, or to lye.
Complete Works of Samuel Johnson Page 584
