crackers cannot flout me out of my humour: Doft think, I care for a fatire, or an epigram? No : if a man will be beaten with brains, he fhall wear nothing handfome about him: In brief, fince I do purpose to marry, I will think nothing to any purpose that the world can fay it against and therefore never flout at me, for what I have faid against it; for man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclufion. For thy part, Claudio, I did think to have beaten thee; but in that thou art like to be my kinfman, live unbruis'd, and love my coufin. Claud. I had well hoped, thou wouldst have denied Beatrice, that I might have cudgell'd thee out of thy fingle life, to make thee a double-dealer; which, out of queftion, thou wilt be, if my cousin do not look exceeding narrowly to thee. Bene. Come, come, we are friends :-let's have a dance ere we are marry'd, that we may lighten our own hearts, and our wives' heels. Leon. We'll have dancing afterwards. Bene. Firft, o' my word; therefore, play, mufic.Prince, thou art fad; get thee a wife, get thee a wife : there is no staff more reverend than one tipt with horn. Enter a Messenger. Meff. My lord, your brother John is ta'en in flight, And brought with armed men back to Meffina. Bene. Think not on him till to-morrow; I'll devise thee brave punishments for him.-Strike up, pipers. [Dance. [Exeunt omnes. I HAVE not been hitherto fo lucky as to difcover any novel on which this comedy feems to have been founded, and yet the ftory of it has moft the features of an ancient romance. STEEVENS. As very bad a play as this is, it was certainly Shakefpeare's, as appears by many fine mafter-strokes scattered up and down. And as our author, and Jonfon 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 worft plays, and the other's. Our author owed all to his prodigious natural genius; and Jonfon moft to his acquired parts and learning. This, if attended to, will explain the difference we fpeak of. Which is this, that in Jonfon's bad pieces, we do not discover the leaft traces of the author of the Fox and Alchemift; but, in the wildeft and most extravagant notes of Shakespeare, you every now and then encounter ftrains that recognize their divine compofer. And the reafon is this, that Jonfon owing his chief excellence to art, by which he fometimes ftrained himself to an uncommon pitch, when he unbent himfelf had nothing to fupport him, but fell below all likeness of himself; 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 splendour. WARBURTON. In this play, which all the editors have concurred to eenfure, and fome have rejected as unworthy of our poet, it muft be confeffed, that there are many paffages mean, childish, and vulgar; and fome which ought not to have been exhibited, as we are 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 Lords, attending upon the Princess of France. Don ADRIANO DE ARMADO, a fantastical Spaniard. NATHANIEL, a Curate. DULL, a Conflable. HOLOFERNES, a Schoolmaster. COSTARD, a Clown. MOTH, Page to Don Adriano de Armado A Forefter. Officers, and others, Attendants upon the King and Princefs. SCENE -The King of Navarre's Palace, and the Country near it. This enumeration of the perfons was made by Mr. Rowe. JOHNS. |