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NATH. Truly, master Holofernes, the epithets are sweetly varied, like a scholar at the leaft: But, fir, I affure ye, it was a buck of the first head.3 HOL. Sir Nathaniel, haud credo.

DULL. 'Twas not a haud credo, 'twas a pricket.

HOL. Moft barbarous intimation! yet a kind of infinuation, as it were, in via, in way, of explication; facere, as it were, replication, or, rather, oftentare, to fhow, as it were, his inclination,-after his undreffed, unpolifhed, uneducated, unpruned, untrained, or rather unlettered, or, rathereft, unconfirmed fashion,-to insert again my haud credo for a deer.

DULL. I faid, the deer was not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket.

HOL. Twice fod fimplicity, bis coclus!—O thou monfter ignorance, how deformed doft thou look!

NATH. Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties - that are bred in a book; he hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink: his intellect is not

3 But, fir, I affure ye, it was a buck of the first head

'twas a pricket.] In a play called The Return from Parnaffus, 1666, I find the following account of the different appellations of deer, at their different ages:

"Amoretto. I caufed the keeper to fever the rascal deer from the bucks of the first head. Now, fir, a buck is the first year, a fawn; the fecond year, a PRICKET; the third year, a SORRELL; the fourth year, a foare; the fifth, a buck of the FIRST HEAD; the fixth year, a compleat buck. Likewife your hart is the first year, a calfe; the fecond year, a brocket; the third year, a Spade; the fourth year, a flag; the fixth year, a hart. A roe-buck is the first year, a kid; the second year, a gird; the third year, a hemuse; and these are your fpecial beafts for chafe."

Again, in A Chriftian turn'd Turk, 1612: :-"I am but a pricket, a mere forell; my head's not harden'd yet. ' STEEVANG.

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replenished; he is only an animal, only fenfible in the duller parts;

And fuch barren plants are fet before us, that we thankful should be

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(Which we of tafte and feeling are) for those parts
that do fructify in us more than he.
For as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet,
or a fool,

So, were there a patch fet on learning, to fee him
in a fchool:"

And fuch barren plants are fet before us, that we thankful should be (Which we of taste and feeling are) for those parts that do fructify in us more than he.] The length of thefe lines was no novelty on the English ftage. The Moralities afford scenes of the like measure. JOHNSON.

This ftubborn piece of nonfenfe, as fomebody has called it, wants only a particle, I think, to make it fenfe. I would read: 、 66 And such barren plants are set before us, that we thankful fhould be,

(Which we of taste and feeling are,) for those parts, that do
fructify in us more than he.

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Which in this paffage has the force of as, according to an idiom of our language, not uncommon, though not fridly grammatical, What follows is fill more irregular; for I am afraid our poet, for the fake of his rhyme, has, put he for him, or rather in him. If he had been writing profe, he would have expreffed his meaning, I be, lieve, more clearly thus—that do frucify in us more than in him.

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TYRWHITT.

The old copies read "which we tafte and feeling-" &c. I have placed Mr. Tyrwhitt's emendation in the text. STEEVENS. Some examples confirming Dr. Johnson's obfervation may be found at the end of The Comedy of Errors.

Mr. Tyrwhitt's laft obfervation is fully fupported by a fubfequent paffage:

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and then we,

Following the figns, woo'd but the figu of She.

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6 For as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet, or a fool, So, were there a patch fet on learning, to fee him in a fchool: The meaning is, to be in a school would as ill become a patch, or low fellow, as folly would become me. JOHNSON.

!

But, omne bene, fay I; being of an old father's mind, Many can brook the weather, that love not the wind. DULL. You two are book-men: Can you tell by

your wit,

What was a month old at Cain's birth, that's not five weeks old as yet?

HOL. Dictynna, good man Dull; Dictynna, good man Dull.

DULL. What is Dictynna?

NATH. A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon. HOL. The moon was a month old, when Adam

was no more;

And raught not to five weeks, when he came to fivelcore.

The allufion holds in the exchange."

DULL. 'Tis true indeed; the collufion holds in the exchange.

HOL. God comfort thy capacity! I fay, the allufion holds in the exchange.

DULL. And I fay the pollufion holds in the exchange; for the moon is never but a month old: and I fay befide, that 'twas a pricket that the princefs kill'd.

Didynna,] Old Copies-Didifima.

Corrected by Mr. Rowe.
MALONE.

Shakspeare might have found this uncommon title for Diana, in the second book of Golding's tranflation of Ovid's Metamorphofis: "Didynna garded with her traine, and proud of killing deere." STEEVENS.

And raught not-] i. e. reach'd not. So, in The Arraignment of Paris, 1584:

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-the fatal fruit

Raught from the golden tree of Proferpine."

STEEVENS.

The allufion holds in the exchange, ] i. c. the riddle is as good when I ufe the name of Adam, as when you use the name of Cain. WARBURTON.

HOL. Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph on the death of the deer? and, to humour the ignorant, I have' call'd the deer the princess kill'd' a pricket.

NATH. Perge, good mafter Holofernes, perge; fa it fhall please you to abrogate fcurrility.

HOL. I will fomething affect the letter; for it argues facility.

The praifeful princefs pierc'd and prick'd a pretty pleafing pricket;

Some fay, a fore; but not a fore, till now made fore ' with fhooting.

The dogs did yell; put to fore, then forel jumps from thicket,

Or pricket, fore, or elfe forel; the people fall a-hoot

ing.

If fore be fore, then L to fore makes fifty fores; O fore L!S

Of one fore I an hundred make, by adding but one more L.

2

I have-] Thefe words were inferted by Mr. Rowe.

MALONE.

3

affe& the letter ;] That is, I will practice alliteration. M. MASON,

66

To affect is thus ufed by Ben Jonfon in his Discoveries: Spenfer in affecting the ancients. writ no language; yet I would have him read for his matter; but as Virgil read Enuius.”. STEEVENS.

4 The praifeful princess-] This emendation was made by the editor of the fecond folio. The quarto, 1598, and folio, 1623, read corruptly-prayful. MALONE.

The ridicule defiged in this paffage may not be unhappily illuftrated by the alliteration in the following lines of Ulpian Fallwell, in his Commemoration of queen Anne Bullayne, which makes part of a collection called The Flower of Fame, printed, 1575:

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"Whofe princely praife hath peart the pricke,

O forell. The necefThe allufion (as he ob

"And price of endless fame," &c. STEEVENS. O fore L! The old copies read fary change was made by Dr. Warburton. ferves) is to L being the numeral for fifty.

NATH. A rare talent!

DULL. If a talent be a claw,' look how he claws him with a talent. "

6

HOL. This is a gift that I have, fimple, fimple; a foolish extravagant fpirit, full of forms, figures, fhapes, objects, ideas, apprehenfions, motions, rẻ volutions: these are begot in the ventricle of memory, nourished in the womb of pia mater, and "deliver'd upon the mellowing of occafion: But the gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and I am thankful for it.

NATH. Sir, I praise the Lord for you; and fo may my parishioners; for their fons are well tutor'd by you, and their daughters profit very greatly under you: you are a good member of the commonwealth.

HOL. Mehercle, if their fons be ingenious, they fhall want no inftruction: if their daughters be capable, I will put it to them: But, vir fapit, qui pauca loquitur: a foul feminine faluteth us.

7

This correction (fays Mr. Malone) is confirmed by the rhyme: "A deer (he adds) during his third year is called a forell.

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STEEVENS.

If a talent be a claw, &c.] In our author's time the talon of a bird was frequently written talent. Hence the quibble here, and in Twelfth Night, let them ufe their talents. So, in The First Part of the Contention between the houfes of York and Lancaster, 1600: "Are you the kite, Beaufort? where's your talents?"

Again, in Marlowe's Tamberlaine, 1590:

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- and now doth ghaftly death

"With greedy tallents gripe my bleeding heart."

MALONE.

claws hem with a talent.] Honeft Dull quibbles. One of the fenfes of to claw, is to flatter. So, in Much ado about nothing: -laugh when I am merry, and claw no man in his humour. STEEVENS.

7 if their daughters be capable, &c.] Of this double entendre, defpicable as it is, Mr. Pope and his coadjutors availed themselves, in their unfuccefsful comedy called Three Hours after Marriage.

STEEVENS.

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