Yet, fince love's argument was first on foot,
Let not the cloud of forrow juftle it

From what it purpos'd; fince, to wail friends loft Is not by much fo wholefome, profitable,

As to rejoice at friends but newly found.

PRIN. I underfland you not; my griefs are double. 3

4

BIRON. Honeft plain words best pierce the ear

of grief;

So lady Macbeth declares," That he will convince the chamberlains with wine. JOHNSON.

If Johnfon was right with refped to the meaning of this paffage, I fhould think that the words, as they now ftand, would express it without the traniposition which he proposes to make. Place a comma after the word it, and fain it would convince, will fignify the fame as fain would convince it. In reading, it is certain that a proper emphalis will fupply the place of that tranfpofition. But I believe that the words which fain it would convince, mean only what it would wish to fucceed in obtaining. To concince is to Overcome; and to prevail in a fuit which was ftrongly denied, is a kind of conqueft. M. MASON.

3 I understand you not; my griefs are double.] I fuppofe, the means, 1. on account of the death of her father; 2. on account of not understanding the king's meaning. A modern editor, Mr. Capell, inftead of double, reads deaf; but the former is not at all likely to have been mistaken, either by the eye or the ear, for the

latter. MALONE.

4 Honeft plain words, &c.] As it seems not very proper for Biron to court the princefs for the king in the king's prefence at this critical moment, I believe the speech is given to a wrong perfon. I read thus:

Prin. I understand you not, my griefs are double:

Honeft plain words best pierce the ear of grief.

King. And by these badges, &c. JOHNSON.

Too many authors facrifice propriety to the confequence of their principal chara&er, into whofe mouth they are willing to put more than juftly belongs to him, or at least the best things they have to fay. The original actor of Biron, however, like Bottom in The Midfummer Night's Dream, might have wrefted this fpeech from an inferior performer. I have been affured, that Mercutio's rhapsody concerning the tricks of Queen Mab, was put into the mouth of Romeo by the late Mr. Sheridan, as often as he himself performed that character in Ireland. STEEVENS.

And by these badges understand the king.
For your fair fakes have we neglected time,
Play'd foul play with our oaths; your beauty, ladies,
Hath much deform'd us, fashioning our humours
Even to the oppofed end of our intents:
And what in us hath feem'd ridiculous,-
As love is full of unbefitting ftrains;

All wanton as a child, skipping, and vain;
Form'd by the eye, and, therefore, like the eye
Full of firange fhapes, of habits, and of forms,
Varying in fubjects as the eye doth roll
To every varied object in his glance:
Which party-coated prefence of loose love
Put on by us, if, in your heavenly eyes,
Have mifbecom'd our oaths and gravities,
Thofe heavenly eyes, that look into these faults,

In a former part of this fcene Biron speaks for the king and the other lords, and being at length exhaufted, tells them, they muft woo for themselves. I believe, therefore, the old copies are right in this respect; but think with Dr. Johnson that the line "Honeft," &c: belongs to the princefs. MALONE.

--

5 Full of ftrange shapes, of habits, and of forms,] The old copies read Full of straying shapes. Both the fenfe and the metre appear to me to require the emendation which I fuggefted fome time ago. "trange fhapes" might have been eafily confounded by the ear with the words that have been fubftituted in their room. In Coriolanus we meet with a corruption of the fame kind, which could only have arifen in this way:

Better to starve

"Than crave the higher [hire] which firft we do deserve." The following paffages of our author will,

fupport the correction that has been made:

"In him a plenitude of fubtle matter,

apprehend, fully

Applied to cautels, all frange forms receives.

Again, in The Rape of Lucrece:

the impreffion of strange kinds

Lover's Complaint.

"Is form'd in them, by force, by fraud, or skill."

In K. Henry V. 4to. 1600, we have - Forraging blood of French nobility, inftead of Forrage in blood, &c. Mr. Capell, I find, has made the fame emendation. MALONE.

Suggefted us 6 to make: Therefore, ladies,
Our love being yours, the error that love makes
Is likewife yours: we to ourselves prove false,
By being once false for ever to be true
To thofe that make us both,-fair ladies, you:
And even that falfehood, in itself a fin,
Thus purifies itfelf, and turns to grace.

PRIN. We have receiv'd your letters, full of love;
Your favours, the embaffadors of love ;
And, in our maiden council, rated them
At courthip, pleafant jeft, and courtefy,
As bombaft, and as lining to the time:

6 Suggefted us →→→→ -] That is, tempted us. JOHNSON. So, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona;

"Knowing that tender youth is foon fuggefted." STEEVENS. 7 As bombaft, and as lining to the time:] This line is obfcure. Bombaft was a kind of loose texture not unlike what is now called wadding, used to give the dresses of that time bulk and protuberance, without much increase of weight; whence the fame name is given to a tumour of words unfupported by folid fentiment. princess, therefore, fays, that they confidered this courtship as but bombaft, as fomething to fill out life, which not being closely united with it, might be thrown away at pleafure. JOHNSON. Prince Henry calls Falstaff, my fweet creature of bombaft."

،،

We have receiv'd your letters full of love;
Your favours the ambafadors of love;

And in our maiden council rated them
At courtship, pleafant jeft, and courtesy,

As bombaft and as lining to the time:

But more devout than these in our refpeds,

Have we not been, and therefore met your loves

In their own fashion, like a merriment.

The

STEEVENS.

The fixth verfe being evidently corrupted, Dr. Warburton prepofes to read :

But more devout than this (fave our respects)

Have we not been;

Dr. Johnson prefers the conjecture of Sir Thomas Hanmer:

But more devout than this, in our respects.

I would read, with lefs violence, I think, to the text, though. with the alteration of two words:

But more devout than this, in our refpects,
Have we not been; and therefore met your loves
In their own fafhion, like a merriment.

DUM. Our letters, madam, fhow'd much more. than jeft.

LONG. So did our looks.

Ros.

KING. Now, at the latest minute of the hour,

Grant us your loves.

PRIN.

We did not quote them fo. *

A time, methinks, too fhort

To make a world-without-end bargain in : 9
No, no, my lord, your grace is perjur'd much,

The difficulty I believe arifes only from Shakspeare's remarkable pofition of his words, which may be thus conftrued. · But we have not been more devout, or made a more ferious matter of your letters and favours than thefe our refpects, or confiderations and reckonings of them, are, and as we have juft before said, we rated them in our maiden council at courtship, picafant jeft, and courtesy. TOLLET. The quarto, 1598, reads,

But more devout than this our refpecs."

There can be no doubt therefore that Sir T. Hanmer's conjecture is right. The word in, which the compofitor inadvertently omited, completes both the fenfe and metre. MALONE.

We did not quote them fo.] The old copies read — coat.

STFEVENS. We should read-- quote, efteem, reckon; though our old writers Spelling by the ear, probably wrote cote, as it was pronounced. JOHNSON. Cote is only the old fpelling of quote. So again, in our poet's Rape of Lucrece, 1594:

Yea, the illiterate

--

"Will cote my loathed trefpafs in my looks MALONE. We did not quote 'em fo, is, we did not regard them as fuch. So, in Hamlet:

"I'm forry that with better heed and judgement

"I had not quoted him." See A& II. fc. i. STEEVENS. To make a world-without-end bargain in:] This fingular phrase, which Shakspeare borrowed probably from our liturgy, occurs again in bis 57th Sonnet:

"Nor dare I chide_the_world-without-end hour."

MALONE,

Full of dear guiltinefs; and, therefore, this,-
If for my love (as there is no fuch cause )
You will do aught, this fhall you do for me:
Your oath I will not truft; but go with speed
To fome forlorn and naked hermitage,
Remote from all the pleafures of the world;
There flay, until the twelve celeftial figns
Have brought about their annual reckoning:
If this auflere infociable life

Change not your offer made in heat of blood;
If frofts, and fafts, hard lodging, and thin weeds,
Nip not the gaudy bloffoms of your love,
But that it bear this trial, and laft love; 3
Then, at the expiration of the year,

Come challenge, challenge me by thefe deferts,
And, by this virgin palm, now killing thine,
I will be thine; and, till that inftant, flut
My woeful felf up in a mourning house;
Raining the tears of lamentation,

For the remembrance of my father's death.
If this thou do deny, let our han is part;
Neither intitled in the other's heart."

3

MALONE.

- lait

and laft love; I fufped that the compofitor caught this word from the preceding line, and that Shakspeare wrote fill. If the prefent reading be right, it muft mean, if it continue ftill to deferve the name of love. MALONE.

Laft is a verb. If it last love, means, if it continue to be love.

STEEVENS.

4 Come challenge, challenge me —] The old copies read (probably by the compofitor's eye glancing on a wrong part of the line) Come challenge me, challenge me, &c. Corrected by Sir T. Hanmer. MALONE.

-

Neither intitled in the other's heart.] The quarto, 1598, reads Neither intiled -; which may be right: neither of us having a dwelling in the heart of the other.

Our author has the fame kind of imagery in many other places. Thus, in The Comedy of Errors:

"Shall love in building grow fo ruinate?" VOL. VII.

B b