are mightily misplaced: and the bountiful blind woman doth most mistake in her gifts to women. CEL. "Tis true: for those, that fhe makes fair, she scarce makes honeft; and those, that she makes honeft, fhe makes very ill-favour'dly. Ros. Nay, now thou goeft from fortune's office to nature's fortune reigns in gifts of the world, not in the lineaments of nature. Enter TOUCHSTONE. CEL. No? When nature hath made a fair creature, may the not by fortune fall into the fire ?— Though nature hath given us wit to flout at fortune, hath not fortune fent in this fool to cut off the argument? Ros. Indeed, there is fortune too hard for nature; when fortune makes nature's natural the cutter off of nature's wit. CEL. Peradventure, this is not fortune's work neither, but nature's; who perceiving our natural wits too dull to reafon of fuch goddeffes, hath fent this natural for our whetstone:9 for always the dulnefs of the fool is the whetstone of his wits.-How now, wit? whither wander you? TOUCH. Miftrefs, you must come away to your father. CEL. Were you made the meffenger? TOUCH. No, by mine honour; but I was bid to come for you. 9 who perceiving our natural wits too dull to reafon of fuch goddeffes, hath fent &c.] The old copy reads " perMr. Malone retains the old reading, but adds"and hath fent," &c. ceiveth VOL. VIII. STEEVENS. Ros. Where learned you that oath, fool? TOUCH. Of a certain knight, that fwore by his honour they were good pancakes, and fwore by his honour the muftard was naught: now, I'll stand to it, the pancakes were naught, and the mustard was good; and yet was not the knight forfworn. CEL. How prove you that, in the great heap of your knowledge? Ros. Ay, marry; now unmuzzle your wisdom. TOUCH. Stand you both forth now: ftroke your chins, and fwear by your beards that I am a knave. CEL. By our beards, if we had them, thou art. TOUCH. By my knavery, if I had it, then I were: but if you fwear by that that is not, you are not forfworn: no more was this knight, fwearing by his honour, for he never had any; or if he had, he had fworn it away, before ever he faw thofe pancakes or that mustard. CEL. Pr'ythee, who is't that thou mean'st? TOUCH. One that old Frederick, your father, loves. CEL. My father's love is enough to honour him.' 1 Touch. One that old Frederick, your father, loves. Rof. My father's love is enough to honour him.] This reply to the Clown is in all the books placed to Rofalind; but Frederick was not her father, but Celia's: I have therefore ventured to prefix the name of Celia There is no countenance from any paffage in this play, or from the Dramatis Perfonæ, to imagine, that both the Brother-Dukes were namefakes; and one called the Old, and the other the Younger-Frederick; and without fome fuch authority, it would make confufion to suppose it. THEOBALD. Mr. Theobald seems not to know that the Dramatis Perfonæ were first enumerated by Rowe. JOHNSON. Frederick is here clearly a mistake, as appears by the answer of Rofalind, to whom Touchftone addreffes himself, though the Enough! fpeak no more of him; you'll be whip'd for taxation, one of these days. 2 TOUCH. The more pity, that fools may not speak wisely, what wife men do foolishly. CEL. By my troth, thou fay'ft true: for fince the little wit, that fools have, was filenced,3 the little question was put to him by Celia. I fuppofe fome abbreviation was used in the MS. for the name of the rightful, or old duke, as he is called, [perhaps Fer. for Ferdinand,] which the transcriber or printer converted into Frederick. Fernardyne is one of the perfons introduced in the novel on which this comedy is founded. Mr. Theobald folves the difficulty by giving the next fpeech to Celia, inftead of Rofalind; but there is too much of filial warmth in it for Celia :-befides, why should her father be called old Frederick? It appears from the last scene of this play that this was the name of the younger brother. MALone. Mr. Malone's remark may be juft; and yet I think the speech which is ftill left in the mouth of Celia, exhibits as much tenderness for the fool, as refpect for her own father. She stops Touchstone, who might otherwise have proceeded to say what she could not hear without inflicting punishment on the speaker. Old is an unmeaning term of familiarity. It is ftill in use, and has no reference to age. The Duke in Measure for Measure is called by Lucio" the old fantastical Duke," &c. STEEVENS. 2 you'll be whip'd for taxation,] This was the difcipline ufually inflicted upon fools. Brantome informs us that Legar, fool to Elizabeth of France, having offended her with some indelicate fpeech, "fut bien fouetté à la cuifine pour ces paroles." A representation of this ceremony may be seen in a cut prefixed to B. II. ch. c. of the German Petrarch already mentioned in Vol. IV. p. 359. Douce. Taxation is cenfure, or fatire. So, in Much Ado about Nothing: "Niece, you tax Signior Benedick too much; but he'll be meet with you." Again, in the play before us : my taxing like a wildgoofe flies-." MALONE. 3-fince the little wit, that fools have, was filenced,] Shakspeare probably alludes to the ufe of fools or jefters, who for fome ages had been allowed in all courts an unbridled liberty of cenfure and mockery, and about this time began to be less tolerated. JOHNSON, foolery, that wife men have, makes a great fhow. Here comes Monfieur Le Beau. Enter LE BEAU. Ros. With his mouth full of news. CEL. Which he will put on us, as pigeons feed their young. Ros. Then fhall we be news-cramm'd. CEL. All the better; we fhall be the more mar, ketable. Bon jour, Monfieur Le Beau: What's the news? LE BEAU. Fair princess, you have lost much good sport. CEL. Sport? Of what colour? LE BEAU. What colour, madam? How fhall I answer you? Ros. As wit and fortune will. TOUCH. Or as the deftinies decree. CEL. Well faid; that was laid on with a trowel.4 Ros. Thou losest thy old smell. 4- laid on with a trowel.] I fuppofe the meaning is, that there is too heavy a mafs of big words laid upon a flight fubject. JOHNSON. This is a proverbial expreffion, which is generally used to fignify a glaring falfhood. See Ray's Proverbs. STEEVENS. It means a good round hit, thrown in without judgment or defign. RITSON. To lay on with a trowel, is, to do any thing ftrongly, and without delicacy. If a man flatters grofsly, it is a common expreffion to fay, that he lays it on with a trowel. M. MASON. LE BEAU. You amaze me, ladies: 5 I would have of good wrestling, which you have loft the told you fight of. Ros. Yet tell us the manner of the wrestling. LE BEAU. I will tell you the beginning, and, if it please your ladyships, you may fee the end; for the beft is yet to do; and here, where you are, they are coming to perform it. CEL. Well, the beginning, that is dead and buried. LE BEAU. There comes an old man, and his three fons, CEL. I could match this beginning with an old tale. LE BEAU. Three proper young men, of excellent growth and prefence;- Ros. With bills on their necks,-Be it known unto all men by thefe prefents,6 5 You amaze me, ladies :] To amaze, here, is not to astonish or ftrike with wonder, but to perplex; to confuse, so as to put out of the intended narrative. JOHNSON. So, in Cymbeline, A& IV. fc. iii: "I am amazed with matter," STEEVENS, • With bills on their necks,—Be it known unto all men by thefe prefents,] The ladies and the fool, according to the mode of wit at that time, are at a kind of cross purposes. Where the words of one speaker are wrested by another, in a repartee, to a different meaning. As where the Clown fays just beforeNay, if I keep not my rank. Rofalind replies-Thou lofeft thy old fmell. So here when Rofalind had faid-With bills on their necks, the Clown, to be quits with her, puts in-Know all men by thefe prefents. She spoke of an inftrument of war, and he turns it to an inftrument of law of the fame name, beginning with these words: So that they must be given to him. WARBURTON. This conjecture is ingenious. Where meaning is so very thin, |