were transcribed for the press, the copies were made MALONE. out by the ear. 131. -queen Guinever -] This was king Arthur's queen, not over famous for fidelity to her husband. See the song of the Boy and the Mantle in Dr. Percy's Collection. In Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady, the elder Loveless addresses Abigail, the old incontinent waiting-woman, by this name. 142. -the clout.] The clout mark at which archers took their aim. the wooden nail that upheld it. STEEVENS. was the white The pin was 147. I fear too much rubbing:] To rub is one of the terms of the bowling-green. MALONE. 153. -to bear her fan!] See a note on Romeo and Juliet, act ii, sc. 4. where Nurse asks Peter for her fan. STEEVENS. See also the representations of them. 158. Enter Holofernes,] There is very little personal reflexion in Shakspere; either the virtue of those times, or the candour of our author, has so effected, that his satire is, for the most part, general, and, as himself says: -his taxing like a wild goose, flies, Unclaim'd of any man.---- . The place before us seems to be an exception. For by Holofernes is designed a particular character, a pedant and school-master of our author's time, one John Florio, a teacher of the Italian tongue in London, who has given us a small dictionary of that lan guage guage under the title of A World of Words, which, in his epistle dedicatory, he tells us, is of little less value than Stephens's Treasure of the Greek Tongue, the most complete work that was ever yet compiled of its kind. In his preface, he calls those who had criticised his works, sea-dogs or land-criticks; monsters of men, if not beasts rather than men; whose teeth are canibals, their toongs adders forks, their lips aspes poison, their eyes basiliskes, their breath the breath of a grave, their words like swordes of Turks, that strive which shall dive deepest into a Christian lying bound before them. Well therefore might the mild Nathaniel desire Holofernes to abrogate scurrility. His profession too is the reason that Holofernes deals so much in Italian sentences. There is an edition of Love's Labour's Lost, printed 1598, and said to be presented before her highness this last Christmas, 1597. The next year, 1598, comes out our John Florio, with his World of Words, recentibus odiis; and in the preface, quoted above, falls upon the comic poet for bringing him on the stage. There is another sort of leering curs, that rather snarle than bite, whereof I could instance in one, who lighting on a good sonnet of a gentleman's, a friend of mine, that loved better to be a poet than to be counted so, called the author a rymer--Let Aristophanes and his comedians make plaies, and scoure their mouths on Socrates; those very mouths they make to vilifie, shall be the means to amplifie his virtue, &c. Here Shakspere is so plainly marked out, as not to be mistaken. As to the sonnet of the gentleman his friend, we may be assured it was no ather other than his own; and without doubt was parodied in the very sonnet beginning with The praiseful princess, &c. in which our author makes Holofernes say, He will something affect the letter, for it argues facility. And how much John Florio thought this affectation argued facility, or quickness of wit, we see in this preface, where he falls upon his enemy, H. S, His name is H. S. Do not take it for the Roman H. S. unless it be as H. S. is twice as much and an half, as half an AS. With a great deal more to the same purpose; concluding his preface in these words, The resolute John Florio. From the ferocity of this man's temper it was, that Shakspere chose for him the name which Rabelais gives to his pedant of Thubal Holoferne. WARBURTON. Dr. Warburton is certainly right in his supposition that Florio is meant by the character of Holofernes. Fiorio had given the first affront. "The plaies, says he, that they plaie in England, are neither right comedies, nor right tragedies; but representations of histories without any decorum."-The scraps of Latin and Italian are transcribed from his works, particularly the proverb about Venice, which has been corrupted. so much. The affectation of the letter, which argues facilitie, is likewise a copy of his manner. We meet with inuch of it in the sonnets to his patrons. "In Italie your lordship well hath scene "Their manners, monuments, magnificence, Their language learnt, in sound, in style, in sense "Prooving "Prooving by profiting, where you have beene. To adde to fore-learn'd facultie, facilitie." Mr. Warton informs us in his Life of Sir Tho. Pope, that there was an old play of Holophernes acted before the princess Elizabeth in the year 1556. FARMER. Florio pointed his ridicule not only at dramatick performances, but even at performers. Thus, in his preface to this work, “—as if an owle should represent an eagle, or some tara-rag player should act the princely Telephus with a voyce as rag'd as his clothes, a grace as bad as his voyce.” STEEVENS. -] A species of 161. ripe as a pomewater,apple formerly much esteemed. Malus Carbonaria. See Gerard's Herbal, edit. 1597, p. 1273.1 Again, in the old ballad of Blew Cap for Me: "Whose cheeks did resemble two rosting pome STEEVENS, waters." 162. in the ear of Cælo,-] In Florio's dictionary, 1595, Cielo is defined "heaven, the skie, firmament, or welkin;" and terra is explained thus: "The element called earth; anie ground, earth, countrie, land, soile," &c. MALONE. 177. -'twas a pricket.] In a play called The Return from Parnassus, 1606, I find the following account of the different appellations of deer, at their different ages: "Amoretto. I caused the keeper to sever the rascal deer from the bucks of the first head. Now, sir, a buck is, the first year, a fawn; the second year, a pricket; the the third year, a sorrell; the fourth year, a soare; the fifth, a buck of the first head; the sixth year, a compleat buck. Likewise your hart is the first year, a calfe; the second year, a brocket; the third year, a spade; the fourth year, a stag; the sixth year, a hart. A roe buck is the first year, a kid; the second year, a girl; the third year, a hemuse; and these are your special beasts for chase." Again, in A Christian turn'd Turk, 1612 :—“ I am but a pricket, a mere sorell; my head's not harden'd yet." STEEVENS. And such barren plants are set before us, that we thankful should be 186. (Which we of taste and feeling are) for those parts that do fructify in us more than he.] This stubborn piece of nonsense, as somebody has called it, wants only a particle, I think, to make it I would read, sense. (Which we of taste and feeling are), &c. Which, in this passage, has the force of as, according to an idiom of our language, not uncommon, though not strictly grammatical. What follows is stil more irregular; for I am afraid our poet, for the sake of his rhime, has put he for him, or rather in him. If he had been writing prose, he would have expressed his meaning, I believe, more clearly, thus-that do fructify in us more than in him. TYRWHITT. I have followed Mr. Tyrwhitt's reading. STEEVENS. |