P. 27. L. 7. His tongue all impatient to speak and not fee.] That is, bis tongue being impatiently defirous to fee as well as fpeak. JOHNSON,

L. 10. To feel only looking.] Perhaps we may better read, to feed only by looking.

JOHNSON. HANMER, Here, in all the

Lines 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, rejected by L. 32. Boyet. You are too bard for me.] books, the fecond act is made to end: but in my opinion very mistakenly. I have ventured to vary the regulation of the four laft acts from the printed copies, for these reasons. Hitherto, the fecond act has been of the extent of feven pages; the third but of five; and the fifth of no less than twenty-nine. And this difproportion of length has crouded too many incidents into fome acts, and left the others quite barren. I have now reduced them into a much better equality; and diftributed the business likewise, (such as it is) into a more uniform caft.

THEOB.

Ibid.] Mr. Theobald has reafon enough to propofe this alteration, but he should not have made it in his book without better authority or more need. I have therefore preferved his observation, but continued the former divifion. JOHNSON. P. 28. A 3. Here the 2d fcene of A&t 2. begins in

CAPELL. Tbid.] Enter Armado and Moth.] In the folios the direction is, enter Braggart and Moth, and at the beginning of every fpeech of Armado ftands Brag. both in this and the foregoing fcene between him and his boy. The other perfonages of this play are likewife noted by their characters as often as by their names. All this confusion has been well regulated by the later editors. JOHNSON.

! you

win

your

L. 3. Concolinel.] Here is apparently a fong loft. JoHNS. L. 8. Moth. Mofter will love with a French brawl?] Mafter, not in folio 1632. A brawl, a kind of dance. Dr. GRAY. L. 11. Canary was the name of a spritely nimble dance.

THEOBALD.

L. 20. Dr. Warburton has here changed compliments to complishments for accomplishments, but unneceffarily. JOHNSON and REVISAL.

L. 20. The former editors: thefe betray nice wenches, that would be betray'd without thefe, and make them men of note.] But who will ever believe, that the odd attitudes and affectations of lovers, by which they betray young wenches, fhould have power to make thofe young wenches men of note? His meaning is, that they not only inveigle the young girls, but make the men taken notice of too, who affect them. THEOR.

L. 26. Arm. But 0, but O

Moth. The hobby-horfe is forgot.] In the celebration of May-day, befides the fports now used of hanging a pole with garlands, and dancing round it, formerly a boy was dreft up reprefenting maid Marian; another like a Fryar; and another rode on a hobby-horse, with bells jingling, and painted ftreamers. After the reformation took place, and Precifian's multiplied, thefe latter rites were looked upon to favour of paganifm; and then maid Marian, the fryar, and the poor bobby-borfe, were turned out of the games Some who were not fo wifely precife, but regretted the disuse of the bobby borfe, no doubt fatirized this fufpicion of idolatry, and archly wrote the epitaph above alluded to. Now Moth, hearing Armado groan ridiculously, and cry out, But ob! but ob! humourously pieces out his exclamation with

THEOF.

the fequel of this epitaph. P. 29. L. 2. Colt is a hot mad-brained unbroken young fellow, or fometimes an old fellow with youthful defires.

JOHNSON.

L. 11. For out of, read with the old copies, without.

CAPELL L. 31. You are too fwift, Sir, to fay fo.] How is he too fwift for faying that lead is flow? I fancy we should read, as well to fupply the rhime as the sense,

You are too fift, Sir, to say fo, fo foon

Is that lead flow, Sir, which is fir'd from a gun? JOHN. P. 30. L. 6. By thy favour, fweet welkin.] Welkin is the ky, to which Armado, with the falfe dignity of a Spaniard, makes an apology for fighing in its face. JOHNS. Scene II. From the beginning to page 32. Line 5. ending with- —“ loose.” rejected by HANMER. 糖

VOL. II.

L. 13. No falve in the male, Sir.] The old folio reads, o falve, in thee male, Sir, which in another folio, is, zo falve in the male, Sir. What it can mean is not eafily difcovered: if mail for a packet or bag was a word then in ufe, no falve in the mail, may mean no falve in the mounte bank's budget. Or fhall we read, no egma, no riddle, no l'engin the vale, Sir-0, Sir, plantain. The matter is not great, but one would wish for fome meaning or other.

Ibid.] Read, no falve in the matter.

L. 26.

JOHNSON.
CAPELL.

Now will I begin your moral, and do you
CAPELL.

follow with my l'envoy, omitted here by

P. 31. between Lines 6 and 7, infert as follows;

-Now will I begin your moral, and do you follow with
my l'envoy.

The fox, the ape, and the bumble bee,
Were ftill at odds, being but three.
Moth. Until a goofe came out of deor,
And flay'd the odds by adding four.

CAPELL.

L. 21. Cftard is the name of a fpecies of apple. JOHNS. L. 26. Read, I Coftard running out. POPE, REVI. CAP.❤ P. 32. L. 11. Like the fequel, I.] Sequele in French, signifies a great man's train. The joke is that a single page was all his train. WARBURTON

Ibid.] If we fhould grant Dr. W. his French word, I cannos difcover how this joke is intimated by it. I should rather think Shakespeare wrote

Like the fequel, I.

j. e. I follow you as clofe as the fequel doth the premises. This resembles Moth's fantastical language.

REVISAL.

L. 12. My in-cony JEW!] Incony or kony in the north, fignifies, fine, delicate-as a kony thing, a fine thing. It is plain therefore, we should read, my in-cony JEWEL. WARB.

Ibid.] Cony has the fignification here given it, but incony I never heard or read elsewhere. I know not whether it be right, however fpecious, to change Jew to jervel. Jer in our author's time, was, for whatever reafon, apparently s word of endearment. So in Midfummer Night's Dream,

Moft tender Juvenile, and the most lovely Jew. Jons.

L. 16. No, I'll give you a remuneration: Why? It carries its remuneration. Why? It is a fairer name than a French crown.] Thus this paffage has hitherto been writ, and pointed, without any regard to common fenfe, or meaning. The reform, that I have made, flight as it is, makes it both intelligible and humourous. THEOB.

P. 33. L 25. Whimpering, against old copies.

CAP.*

L. 26. This Signior Junio's giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid.] It was fome time ago ingenioufly hinted to me, (and I readily came into the opinion) that as there was a contraft of terms in giant-dwarf, fo, probably, there fhould be in the word immediately preceding them; and therefore that we fhould reftore,

This Senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid, i. e. This old, young man. And there is, indeed, afterwards in this play, a description of Cupid, which forts very aptly with fuch an emendation.

That was the way to make bis Godbead wax,

For be bath been five thousand years a boy.

The conjecture is exquifitely well imagined, and ought by all means to be embraced, unless there is reafon to think, that, in the former reading, there is an allufion to fome tale, or character in an old play. I have not, on this account, ventured to disturb the text, becaufe there feems to me some reason to suspect, that our author is here alluding to Beaumont and Fletcher's Bondúca. In that tragedy there is the character of one Junius, a Roman captain, who falls in love to distraction with one of Bonduta's daughters and becomes an arrant whining flave to this paffion. He is afterwards cured of his infirmity, and is as abfolute a tyrant against the fex. Now, with regard to thefe two extremes, Cupid might very probably be itiled Junius's giant-dwarf: a giant in his eye, while the dotage was upon him; but shrunk into a dwarf, so foon as he had got the better of it.

THEOBALD.

Ibid. Signior Junio's] By this is meant youth in general.

WARB.

Ibid.] I think Mr. Theobald's first conjecture not improbable. His fuppofed aliufion to the character in Bonduca, is not at all likely.

REVISAL.

Ibid.] Mr. Upton has made a very ingenious conjecture on this paffage. He reads, This Signior Julio's Giant-dwarf. Shakespeare, fays he, intended to compliment Julio Romano, who drew Cupid in the character of a giant-dwarf.

JOHNSON. P. 34. L. 2. An apparitor or paritor, is the officer of the bishop's court who carries out citations; as citations are most frequently iffued for fornication, the pariter is put under JOHNSON. Cupid's government.

L. 3. In former editions,

And I to be a corporal of his Field,

And wear his colours like a tumbler's hoop!] A corporal of a field is quite a new term: I therefore read of bis file. Neither did the tumblers ever adorn their boops with ribbands, that I could learn: for thofe were not carried in parade about with them, as the fencer carries his fword: nor, if they were, is the fimilitude at all pertinent to the cafe in hand. I read, like a tumbler floop. To stop like a tumbler, agrees not only with that profeffion, and the fervile condefcenfions of a lover; but with what follows in the context. The wife tranfcribers, when once the tumbler appear'd, thought his boop must not be far behind.

WARB.

Ibid.] The conceit feems to be very forced and remote, however it be understood. The notion is not that the boop wears colours, but that the colours are worn as a tumbler carries his boop, hanging on one shoulder, and falling under the oppofite arm.

JOHNSON.

L. 21. To this line, Mr. Theobald extends his fecond act, not injudiciously, but, as was before obferved, without fufficient authority.

JOHNSON. CAPELL.*

Act IV. Here the 3d act begins in P. 35. L. 5, &c. To the entry of Coftard, page 36, rejected by

HANMER.*

L. 15. Hre-good my glass-] To understand how the princefs has her glafs fo ready at hand in a cafual converfation, it must be remembered, that in thofe days it was the fashion among the French ladies to wear a looking-glass, as Mr. Bayle coarfely reprefents it, on their bellies; that is, to have a fall mirrour fet in gold hanging at the girdle, by which they occafionally viewed their faces, or adjusted JOHNSON. their hair.