play of Touchstone's humour, is evidently a part of the intention. (37) the noblest deer hath them [horns] as huge as the rascal] Rascal, is mean, or worthless. "Raskall knave is a catachresis, or a figure of abuse; where raskall is properly the hunter's terme given to young deere, leane and out of season, and not to people." Puttenham's Arte of Engl. Poesie, 4to. 1589, p. 150. "Raskaly, or refuse whereof it be. Caducum." Promptuar. parvulor. The number of toes maketh the difference between the nobler and the rascaller sorte (inter nobiles et plebeios discretionem)." Arth. Golding's Jul. Solin. 4to. 1587, signat. E e 1, b. "Of popinjiyes. "The bucks and lusty stags amongst the rascalls strew'd; "Custom. 5. Ha you any forest-newes? "For a new pathe is making there, to sever Jonson's Staple of Newes, III. 1. 1631. Mr. Todd says, racaille, Fr. is the scum of the people; and hence Chaucer uses raskaile for a mob. He instances" the raskall many." Spens. "The rascall and vile sort of men, the Baret's Alv. Tr. of Cic. and " a raskall Golding's Pomp. Mela. 1590, p. 54. sink of the city.' banke," littus ignobile. "The (38) God'ild you] Requite, yield you recompence. king of his gracious lordshippe, God geld him, hafe chosen me to be owne of his brethrene of the knyghtes of the garter." Ashmole's Append. to his Account of the Garter, No. 46. (39) Not-0 sweet Oliver, O brave Oliver,— THEOBALD. I will not to wedding with thee] Touchstone seems to the full as 66 capricious" as his poet, Ovid; for in the very breath almost in which he discloses a wise reason for yielding to Jaques's suggestion, he declares against it. Mr. Steevens points out O brave Oliver, leave me not behind you, as a quotation at the beginning of one of N. Breton's Letters, in his Packet, &c. 1600. O sweet Oliver. The epithet of sweet seems to have been peculiarly appropriated to Oliver, for which, perhaps, he was originally obliged to the old song before us. No more of it, however, than these two lines have as yet been produced. "All the mad Rolands and sweet Olivers." "Do not stink, sweet Oliver." Jonson's Underw. Every man in, &c. TYRWHITT. In the books of the Stationers' Company, Aug. 6, 1584, was entered, by Richard Jones, the ballad of, "O sweete Olyver, "Leave me not behinde thee." Again, "The answere of O sweete Olyver." Again, in 1586: "O sweete Olyver altered to the Scriptures." STEEVENS. I often find a part of this song applied to Cromwell. In a paper called, A Man in the Moon, discovering a World of Knavery under the Sun," the juncto will go near to give us the bagge, if O brave Oliver come not suddenly to relieve them." The same allusion is met with in Cleveland. Wind away, and wind off, are still used provincially. FARMER. Wind is used for wend in Cæsar and Pompey, 1607: "Winde we then, Antony, with this royal queen." Again, in the MS. romance of the Sowdon of Babyloyne, p. 63: "And we shalle to-morrowe as still as stoon, "The Saresyns awake e'r ye wynde." STEEVENS. (40) I'faith, his hair is of a good colour] There is much of nature in this petty perverseness of Rosalind: she finds fault in her lover, in hope to be contradicted, and when Celia in sportive malice too readily seconds her accusations, she contradicts herself rather than suffer her favourite to want a vindication. JOHNSON.. "At the be (41) had much question with him] Discourse. ginning of this summers progresse, it pleased his sacred majestie to take notice of this sorrie libell, and to question with mee concerning it." Jos. Hall's Honour of the married Clergy, 12mo 1620, dedic. to Archb. Laud. See V. 4. Jaq. de B. (42) Quite traverse, athwart the heart of his lover] Across, injuriously; a metaphor from tilting. See M. ado, &c. V. 1. Claudio, and All's Well, &c. II. 1. King. As to lover, see friend. M. for M. I. 5. Lucio. (43) as a puny tilter-breaks his staff like a noble goose] By this phrase is perhaps meant " a magnanimous simpleton of an adventurer." (44) If you will see a pageant Between the pale complexion of true love, &c.] Pageant is scenic representation, show, or procession. (45) "Ober. All fancy sick she is, and pale of cheer, What though you have no beauty, As by my faith, I see no more M. N. Dr. III. 2. Must you be therefore proud, &c.] The modern editors give more instead of no, the reading of the old copies. Mr. Malone says, that it" appears clearly" from Lodge's Rosalynde, which Shakespeare imitated, viz. " because thou art beautiful, be not so coy," that it is a misprint in the folios; and it may also be said, that the argument plainly points that way. On the other hand it may be said, that Shakespeare does not follow the course of the argument in every speech that he imitates, but adapts it to his occasions; that in point of argument more does not so well consist with the next line; and further, that the course of argument is both in our author's manner, and in such a bantering dialogue sufficiently good. And Rosalind presently says, "Though all the world could see, "None could be so abus'd in sight as he:" viz. her suitor. In the same spirit of banter, and ironical character of argu ment, Touchstone tells the pages: "Truly, young gentlemen, though there was no great matter in the ditty, yet the note was very untuneable." V. 3. The sense of the passage is," what, must you add one species of deformity to another? and, because there is no beauty in your person, must you to this defect add deformities of mind?" (46) your bugle eyeballs] "Stibium. Tuvaixelov nonnullis dictum, quod tingendis nigrore ciliis mulierum expetatur. A kind of colouring stuffe, which women covet to make them blackebrowd." Fleming's Junius, 12mo. 1585, p. 406. Bugle is a bead of bright black glass. (47) Entame my spirits to your worship] Humble. "Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand." Much ado, &c. III. 1. Beatr. Though the above enumeration does not at all consist with the general depreciation of her personal qualities, made in the opening of this address, it is not under the circumstances the less natural. (48) Like foggy south, puffing with wind and rain] "Puffs away from thence, "Turning his face to the dew-dropping south." "The noisome gales "The humorous south breathes." Rom. and Jul. I. 4. G. Chapman's Hesiod's Opera et Dies, 4to. 1629, p. 31. (49) Who ever lov'd, that lov'd not at first sight] Such was the doctrine in old books. "But whan his mooste gentyll harte perceyved that my love was in a moche hygher degree than his toward that lady, and that it proceded neither of wantonness, neyther of long conversation, nor of any other corrupte desyre or fantasie, but in an instant, by the onely looke, and with such fervence that immediatly I was so cruciate, that I desired, and in all that I mought, provoked deth to take me." Sir Tho. Elyot's Governour, 12mo. 1534, fo. 145. "The spark, which but by slow degrees "Is habit, friendship, what you please : "To write, to sigh, and to converse, "Ah, no! the love that kills indeed Lord Holland's Life of Lope de Vega, 1806, p. 215. But Dr. Gregory, in his Legacy to his Daughters, gives a different lesson. "Love is very seldom produced at first sight; at least it must have in that case a very unjustifiable foundation. True love is founded on esteem, in a correspondence of tastes and sentiments, and steals on the heart imperceptibly.' 12mo. 1776, p. 113. Mr. Steevens observes, that the second of these lines is from Marlowe's Hero and Leander, 1637, sign. B b. where it stands thus: "Where both deliberate the love is slight: This line is likewise quoted in Belvidere, or the Garden of the Muses, 1610, p. 29, and in England's Parnassus, printed in 1600, p. 261. Malone this says, poem of Marlowe's was so popular, (as appears from many of the contemporary writers,) that a quotation from it must have been known at once, at least by the more en lightened part of the audience. Our author has again alluded to it in the Two Gentlemen of Verona.-The "dead shepherd," Marlowe, was killed in a brothel, in 1593. Two editions of Hero and Leander, I believe, had been published before the year 1600; it being entered in the Stationers' Books, Sept. 28, 1593, and again in 1597. (50) the constant red, and mingled damask] "Constant red" is uniform red. "Mingled damask" is the silk of that name, in which, by a various direction of the threads, many lighter shades of the same colour are exhibited. STEEVENS. "The devil a Puritan that he is, or any thing constantly, but” &c. Tw. N. II. 3. Maria. ACT IV. (1) it is the sundry contemplation of my travels, in which my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous sadness] It is the diversified consideration or view of my travels, in which process my frequent reflection, and continued interest that I take, wraps me in a most whimsical sadness. In his Apology for Smectymnuus, Milton says of his own ear for numbers, that it was "rather nice and humorous in what was tolerable, than patient to read every drawling versifier." Warton's Milton, 8vo. 1785, p. 207. Here it may be rendered "exceptious:" and we have the humorous Duke, in I. 2. and II. 3. (2) swam in a gondola] That is, been at Venice, the seat at that time of all licentiousness; where the young English gentlemen wasted their fortunes, debased their morals, and sometimes lost their religion. The fashion of travelling, which prevailed very much in our author's time, was considered by the wiser men as one of the principal causes of corrupt manners. It was, therefore, gravely censured by Ascham, in his Schoolmaster, and by Bishop Hall, in his Quo Vadis; and is here, and in other passages, ridiculed by Shakespeare. JOHNSON. |
