Cor. Sir, I am a true labourer; I earn that I eat, get that I wear; owe no man hate, envy no man's happiness; glad of other men's good, content with my harm and the greatest of my pride is, to see my ewes graze, and my lambs fuck. Clo. That is another fimple fin in you; to bring the ewes and rams together, and to offer to get your living by the copulation of cattle: to be bawd to a bell-wether; and to betray a fhe-lamb of a twelvemonth to a crooked-pated, old, cuckoldly ram, out of all reasonable match. If thou be'ft not damn'd for this, the devil himself will have no fhepherds; I cannot fee else how thou fhouldft 'fcape. Cor. Here comes young Mr. Ganimed, my new miftrefs's brother. Enter Rofalind with a paper. Rof. From the east to western Inde, Her worth, being mounted on the wind, Let no face be kept in mind, But the fair of Rofalinds. Clo. I'll rhime you fo, eight years together; din 7 Bard to a bell-wether ;] Wether and ram had anciently the fame meaning. JOHNSON. But the fair of Rofalind.] Thus the old copy. Fair is beauty, complexion. See the notes on a paffage in the Midfummer Night's Dream, act i. fc. 1. and the Comedy of Errors, act ii. fc. 1. The modern editors read-the face of Rofalind. Lodge's Novel will likewife fupport the ancient reading: "Then muse not nymphes though I bemone "Since for her faire there is fairer none, &c." and other places. STEEVENS. VOL. III. ners, ners, and fuppers, and fleeping hours excepted: itis the right butter-woman's rate to market. Rof. Out, fool! If a hart do lack a bind, They that reap, must sheaf and bind Such a nut is Rojalind. He that fweetest rofe will find, rate to market.] So fir T. Hanmer. In the former editions rank to market. JOHNSON. Dr. Grey, as plaufibly, proposes to read-rant. Gyll brawled like a butter-whore is a line in an ancient medley. The fenfe defigned, however, might have been-" it is fuch wretched rhime as the butter-woman fings as fhe is riding to market." STEEVENS. There can be no reafon fufficient for changing rate to rant. The Clown is here fpeaking in reference to the ambling pace of the metre, which, after giving a fpecimen of, to prove his affer tion, he affirms to be "the very false gallop of verses." HENLEY. A paffage in All's well that end's well," tongue, I must put you into a butter-swoman's mouth, and buy myself another of Bajazet's mule, if you prattle me into thefe perils, once induced me to think that the volubility of the butter-woman felling her wares, was here alone in our author's contemplation, and that he wrote-rate at market. But I am now perfuaded that fir T. Hanmer's emendation is right. The hobling metre of these verfes (fays Touchstone) is like the ambling, shuffling, pace of a butter-woman's horfe, going to market. The fame kind of ima gery is found in the first part of King Henry IV: "And that would fet my teeth nothing on edge, "Nothing fo much, as mincing poetry; "'s like the forc'd gait of a shuffling nag." MALONE. This is the very falfe gallop of verfes; Why do you infect yourself with them? Rof. Peace, you dull fool: I found them on a tree. Rof. I'll graff it with you, and then I fhall graff it with a medler: then it will be the earliest fruit i'the country for you'll be rotten ere you be half ripe, and that's the right virtue of the medler. Clo. You have faid; but whether wifely or no, let the foreft judge. Enter Celia, with a writing. Rof. Peace! Here comes my fister, reading; stand aside. Cel. Why fhould this defert filent be? 'Twixt the fouls of friend and friend: But upon the fairest boughs, Or at every fentence' end, Why Should this defert be?] This is commonly printed: Why fhould this a defert be? but although the metre may be affifted by this correction, the fense is still defective; for how will the hanging of tongues on every tree, make it less a defert? I am perfuaded we ought to read: Why should this defert filent be? TYRWHITT. The notice which this emendation deferves, I have paid to it, by inferting it in the text, STEEVENS. That shall civil fayings Show.] Civil is here used in the fame fenfe as when we fay civil wifdom or civil life, in oppofition to a folitary flate, or to the ftate of nature. This defert shall not appear unpeopled, for every tree fhall teach the maxims or incidents of focial life, JOHNSON. Will I Rofalinda write; Teaching all that read, to know Helen's cheek, but not her heart; Atalanta's better part3; * Sad Lucretia's modefty. Thus Therefore heaven nature charg'd] From the picture of Apelles, or the accomplishments of Pandora. Πανδώρην, ὅτι πάλλει Ολύμπια δώματ' ἔχοντες So, before: 66 But thou "So perfect, and fo peerless, art created Perhaps from this paffage Swift had his hint of Biddy Floyd. 3 Atalanta's better part;] I know not well what could be the better part of Atalanta here aferibed to Rofalind. Of the Atalanta most celebrated, and who therefore must be intended here where fhe has no epithet of difcrimination, the better part seems to have been her heels, and the worfe part was fo bad that Rofalind would not thank her lover for the comparison. There is a more obfcure Atalanta, a huntress and a heroine, but of her nothing bad is recorded, and therefore I know not which was her better part. Shakspeare was no defpicable mythologist, yet he feems here to have mistaken fome other character for that of Atalanta. JOHNSON. Perhaps the poet means her beauty and graceful elegance of fhape, which he would prefer to her fwiftnefs. Thus Ovid: 66 -nec dicere poffes, "Laude pedum, formæne bono præftantior effet. "Ut faciem, et pofito corpus velamine videt, But cannot Atalanta's better part mean her virtue or virgin chaf tity, with which nature had graced Rofalind, together with Helen's beauty without her heart or lewdnefs, with Cleopatra's dignity of behaviour, and with Lucretia's modefty, that fcorned to furvive Thus Rosalind of many parts By heavenly fynod was devis'd; Rof. O moft gentle Jupiter!-what tedious homily of love have you wearied your parishioners withal, and never cry'd, Have patience, good people! furvive the lofs of honour? Pliny's Nat. Hift. b xxxv. c. 3. mentions the portraits of Atalanta and Helen, utraque excellentif fima forma, fed altera ut virgo. That is, both of them for beauty, incomparable, and yet a man may difcerne the one [Ata. lanta] of them to be a maiden, for her modest and chaste countenance," as Dr. P. Holland tranflated the paffage, of which probably our poet had taken notice, for furely he had judgment in painting. TOLLET. I fuppofe Atalanta's better part is her wit, i. e. tbe fwiftness of her mind. FARMER. 66 Shakspeare might have taken part of this enumeration of distin guished females from John Grange's Golden Aphroditis, 1577. who feemeft in my fight faire Helen of Troy, Polixene, Calliope, yea Atlanta hir felfe in beauty to furpaffe, Pandora in qualities, Penelope and Lucretia in chastenesse to deface." Again, Ibid: "Polixene, fayre, Caliop, and "She doth them both deface." Again ibid: "Atlanta who fometyme bore the bell of beauties price in that hyr native foyle.' It may be observed, that Statius alfo in his fixth Thebaid, has confounded Atalanta the wife of Hippomenes, and daughter of Siconeus, with Atalanta the daughter of Oenomaus, and wife of Pelops. See v. 564. STEEVENS. I think this ftanza was formed on an old tetrastick epitaph, which, as I have done, Mr. Steevens may possibly have read in a country church-yard: "She who is dead and fleepeth in this tomb, "Had Rachel's comely face, and Leah's fruitful womb; "Sarah's obedience, Lydia's open heart, "And Martha's care, and Mary's better part." Sad] is grave, fober not. light. JOHNSON. WHALLEY. VOL. III Z 3 Ceb. Cel |