O N

LOVE'S LABOUR's LOST.

The Reader, to find the Line referred to, muft reckon the Lines of the Text only, beginning at the Top of the Page, and omit all Lines relating to the Entry of Chara&ers, &c.

The NOTES not in Dr. JOHNSON's Edition are marked with an Afterifk [*] thus.

HE Fable of this Play does not feem to be a work

Tentirely of invention, and I am apt to believe, that

it owes its birth to fome novel or other, which may one day be difcovered. The character of Armado has fome resemblance to don Quixote; but the play is older than that work of CERVANTES: of Holofernes, another fingular character, there are fome faint traces in a mafque of Sir Philip SYDNEY's that was prefented before Queen Elizabeth at Wanted: this mafque called in catalogues-The Lady of May, is at the end of that author's works, Edit. 1627, folio. CAPELL

In a little book called Palladis Tamia, or the fecond part of Wit's Commonwealth, written by Ma fter, and printed in 1598, among the Comedies enumerated Shakespeare's is Love's Labour's Won.

OBS.and CONJ.

as

In this play are to be perceiv'd several strokes of Shakefpeare's pen, but the whole ought by no means to pajs for the work of it. HANMER.

In this play which all the editors have concurred to cenfure, and fome have rejected as unworthy of our Poet, it must be confeffed that there are many paffages mean, childish, and vulgar; and fome which ought not to have

A

been exhibited as we were told they were, to a maiden queen. But there are scattered through the whole, many fparks of genius; nor is there any play that has more evident marks of the hand of Shakespeare. JOHNSON.

P. 4. L. 27. With all these living in philofopby.] The stile of the rhyming fcenes in this play is often entangled and obfcure. I know not certainly to what all thefe is to be referred; I suppose he means that he finds love, pomp, and wealth in philofopby.

JOHNSON. L. 27. The copies all have, When I to fast expressly am forbid.] But if Biron ftudied where to get a good dinner, at a time when he was forbid to faft, how was this studying common fenfe, to know what he was forbid to know? and the whole tenour of the context require us to read, feaft, or to make a change in the last word of the verse : When I to fait expressly am fore-bid; i. e. when I am THEOBALD. enjoin'd beforehand to faft.

P. 5. L. 7. When I was wont to think no barm all night,] i. e. When I was used to sleep all night long, without once waking. The Latines have a proverbial expreffion very nigh to the sense of our author's thought here:

THEOB.*

Qui bene dormit, nibil mali cogitat. P. 6. L. 9. while truth the while Dotb falfly blind -] Fally is here, and in many other places, the fame as difhoneftly, or treacherously. The whole fenfe of this gingling declamation is only this, that a man by too clefe ftudy may read bimfelf blind, which might have been told with lefs obfcurity in fewer Words. JoHNS. L. 16. Who dazzling fo, that eye fhall be bis beed,

And give bim light, that it was blinded by.] This is another paffage unnecessarily obscure: the meaning is, that when he dazzles, that is, has his eye made weak, by fixing bis eye upon a fairer eye, that fairer eye fhall be bis beed, his direction or lode-ftar, (see Midsummer Night's Dream) and JOHNSON. give him light that was blinded by it.

L. 26. Too much to knew, is to know neught but FAME;

And every Godfather can give a name.] The first line in this reading is abfurd and impertinent. There are two ways of fetting it right. The firft is to read it thus: Too much to know, is to knezu nought but SHAME;

This makes a fine fenfe, and alludes to Adam's Fall, which came from the inordinate paffion of knowing too much. The other way is to read, and point it thus:

Too much to know, is to know nought: but FEIGN, i. e. to feign. As much as to fay, the affecting to know too much is the way to know nothing. The fenfe, in both thefe readings, is equally good: but with this difference; if we read the first way, the following line is impertinent; and to fave the correction we muft judge it fpurious. If we read it the fecond way, then the following line compleats the fenfe. Confequently the correction of feign is to be preferred. To know too much (fays the speaker) is to knowO nothing; it is only feigning to know what we do not giving names for things without knowing their natures; sub:ch is falfe knowledge: And this was the peculiar defect of the Peripatetic Philofophy then in vogue. The fe philofophers, the poet, with the highest humour and good fenfe, calls the Godfathers of Nature, who could only give things a name, but had no manner of acquaintance with their effences.

WARE.

Ibid.] Too much to know, is to know nought but fame; And every Godfather can give a name. That is, too much knowledge gives only fame, a name which every Godfather can give likewife. JOHNSON.

L. 29. Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding.] To proceed is an academical term, meaning to take a degree, as be proceeded bachelor in phyfick. The fenfe is, be bas taken bis degrees in the art of hindring the degrees of others. JOHNS. P. 7. L. 11. Why should I joy in an abortive Birth? At Christmas I no more defire a Rofe,

Than wifh a Snow in May's new fangled

Shows:

But like of each Thing that in Safon grows. As the greatest part of this Scene (both what precedes and follows;) is strictly in rhimes, either fucceffive, alternate, or triple; I am perfuaded, the copyifts have made a flip here, For by making a Triplet of the three laft lines quoted, Birth in the clofe of the first line is quite defti tute of any rhime to it. Befides, what a difpleafing

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identity of found recurs in the middle and close of this verse ?

Than wifh a Snow in May's new-fangled Shows: Again; new-fangled shows seems to have very little propriety. The flowers are not new-fangled; but the earth is new-fangled by the profufion and variety of the flowers, that spring on its bofom in May, I have therefore venture to fubftitute, Earth, in the clofe of the 3d line, which reftores the alternate meafure. It was very easy for a negligent tranfcriber to be deceived by the rhime immediately preceding; fo mittake the concluding word in the fequent line, and corrupt it into one that would chime with the other. THEOBALD and REVISAL.

P. 8. L. 4. A dangerous Law against Gentility !] I have ventured to prefix the name of Biron to this line, it being evident, for two reasons, that it, by fome accident or other, flipt out of the printed books. In the first place, Longue wille confeffes, he had devis'd the penalty and why he fhould immediately arraign it as a dangerous law, feems to be very inconfiftent. In the next place, it is much more natural for Biron to make this reflexion, who is cavilling at every thing; and then purfue his reading over the remaining articles.- As to the word Gentility, here it does not fignify that rank of people called, Gentry; but what the French exprefs by, gentileffe, i.e. elegantia, urbanitas. And then the meaning is this. Such a law for banishing women from the court, is dangerous or injurious, to Politeness, Urbanity, and the more refined pleasures of life. For men without women would turn brutal, and favage, in their natures and behaviour,

THEOB. and REV. &c. against the old CAPELL.

L. 24. Read, We must lye here, copies. L. 28. Not by might mafler'd, but by special grace.] Biron amidst his extravagancies, fpeaks with great juftness against the folly of vows. They are made without fufficient regard to the variations of life, and are therefore broken by fome unforeseen neceffity. They proceed commonly from a prefumptuous confidence, and a falfe eftimate of human power. JOHNSON. JOHNSON,

P. 9. L. 2. Suggestions.] Temptations.

-quick recreation] Lively sport, fpritely diverfion. JOHNSON.

bad

L. 5. L. 12. A man of complements, whom right and wring Have chofe as umpire of their mutiny] As very a play as this is, it was certainly Shakespeare's, as appears by many fine master-frokes scattered up and down. An exceffive complaifance is here admirably painted, in the perfon of one who was willing to make even right and wrong friends: and to perfuade the one to recede from the accustomed ftubbornness of her nature, and wink at the liberties of her oppofite, rather than he would incur the imputation of illbreeding in keeping up the quarre!. And as our author, and Jobnfon his contemporary, are, confeffedly the two greatest writers in the Drama that our nation could ever boast of, this may be no improper occafion to take notice of one material difference between Shakespeare's worst plays, and the other's. Our author owed all to his prodigious natural genius; and Johnson most to his acquired parts and learning. This, if attended to, will explain the difference we speak of. Which is this, that, in Johnson's bad pieces,. we do not discover the leaft traces of the author of the Fox and Alchemift; but, in the wildest and most extravagant notes of Shakespeare, you every now and then encounter ftrains that recognize their divine compofer, And the reafon is this, that Jobnfon owing his chief excellence to art, by which he fometimes ftrain'd himself to an uncommon pitch, when he unbent himself, had nothing to fupport him; but fell below all likeness of himfelf: while Shakespeare, indebted more largely to nature than the other to his acquired talents, could never, in his most negligent hours, fo totally diveft himself of his genius, but that it would frequently break out with amazing force and fplendour.

WARB.

Ibid.] This paffage I believe means no more than that Don Armado was a man nicely verfed in ceremonial diftinctions, one who could diftinguish in the moft delicate queftions of honour the exact boundaries of right and wrong. Compliment in Shakespeare's time, did not fignify, at leaft did not only fignify verbal civility, or phrafes of courtesy, but according to its original meaning, the trappings or orna