Sir To. Why then, build me thy fortunes upon the basis of valour. Challenge me the count's youth to fight with him; hurt him in eleven places; my niece shall take note of it: and assure thyself, there is no love-broker in the world can more prevail in man's commendation with woman, than report of valour. Fab. There is no way but this, sir Andrew. Sir And. Will either of you bear me a challenge to him? Sir To. Go, write it in a martial hand; be cursts and brief; it is no matter how witty, so it be eloquent, and full of invention: taunt him with the licence of ink: if thou thou'st him some thrice, it shall not be amiss; 9 The Brownists seem, in the time of our author, to have been the constant objects of popular satire. In the old comedy of Ram-Alley, 1611, is the following stroke at them: of a new sect, and the good professors will, like the Brownist, frequent gravel pits shortly, for they use woods and obscure holes already.' Again, in Love and Honour, by Sir W. D'Avenant: "Go kiss her:-by this hand, a Brownist is 8 in a martial band; be curst -] Martial band, seems to be a careless scrawl, such as shewed the writer to neglect ceremony. Curst, is petulant, crabbed. A curst cur, is a dog that with little provocation snarls and bites. Johnson. taunt him with the licence of ink: if thou thou'st him some thrice,] There is no doubt, I think, but this passage is one of those in which our author intended to shew his respect for Sir Walter Raleigh, and a detestation of the virulence of his prosecutors. The words quoted, seem to me directly levelled at the Attorney-General Coke, who, in the trial of Sir Walter, attacked him with all the following indecent expressions:"All that he did was by thy instigation, thou viper; for I thou thee, thou traytor!" (Here, by the way, are the poet's three thou's) "You are an odious man."" Is he base? I return it into thy throat, on his behalf.". "O damnable atheist.". "Thou art a monster; thou hast an English face, but a Spanish beart.""_" Thou hast a Spanish heart, and thyself art a spider of bell."-"Go to, I will lay thee on thy back for the confident'st traytor that ever came at a bar," &c. Is not here all the licence of tongue, which the poet satirically prescribes to Sir Andrew's ink? And how mean an opinion Shakspeare had of these petulant invectives, is pretty evident from his close of this speech: "Let there be gall enough in thy ink; though thou write it with a goose, pen, no matter? -A keener lash at the attorney for a fool, than and as many lies as will lie on thy sheet of paper, although the sheet were big enough for the bed of Ware in England, set 'em down; go, about it. Let there be gall enough in thy ink; though thou write with a goose-pen, no matter: About it. Sir And. Where shall I find you? Sir To. We'll call thee at the cubiculo:1 Go. [Exit Sir AND. Fab. This is a dear manakin to you, sir Toby. Sir To. I have been dear to him, lad; some two thousand strong, or so. Fab. We shall have a rare letter from him: but you'll not deliver it. all the contumelies the attorney threw at the prisoner, as a supposed traytor! Theobald. The same expression occurs in Shirley's Opportunity, 1640: "Does he thou me ? "How would he domineer, an he were duke!" The resentment of our author, as Dr. Farmer observes to me, might likewise have been excited by the contemptuous manner in which Lord Coke has spoken of players, and the severity he was always willing to exert against them. Thus, in his Speech and charge at Norwich, with a Discoverie of the Abuses and Corruption of Officers. Nath. Butter, 4to. 1607: "Because I must haste unto an end, I will request that you will carefully put in execution the statute against vagrants; since the making whereof I have found fewer theeves, and the gaole lesse pestered than before. "The abuse of stage-players wherewith I find the country much troubled, may easily be reformed; they having no com. mission to play in any place without leave: and therefore, if by your willingnesse they be not entertained, you may soone be rid of them." Steevens. Though I think it probable Lord Coke might have been in Shakspeare's mind when he wrote the above passage, yet it is by no means certain. It ought to be observed, that the conduct of that great lawyer, bad as it was on this occasion, received too much countenance from the practice of his predecessors, both at the bar and on the bench. The State Trials will shew, to the disgrace of the profession, that many other criminals were THOU'D by their prosecutors and judges, besides Sir Walter Raleigh. In Knox's History of the Reformation, are eighteen articles exhibited against Master George Wischarde, 1546, every one of which begins-THOU false beretick, and sometimes with the addition of thief, traitor, runagate, &c. Reed. 1 at the cubiculo:] I believe we should read-at thy cubiculo. Malone. Sir To. Never trust me then; and by all means stir on the youth to an answer. I think, oxen and wainropes cannot hale them together. For Andrew, if he were opened, and you find so much blood in his liver as will clog the foot of a flea, I'll eat the rest of the anatomy. 2 Fab. And his opposite, the youth, bears in his vi sage no great presage of cruelty. Enter MARIA. Sir To. Look, where the youngest wren of nine comes.3 Mar. If you desire the spleen, and will laugh yourselves into stitches, follow me: yon' gull Malvolio is turned heathen, a very renegado; for there is no Christian, that means to be saved by believing rightly, can ever believe such impossible passages of grossness. He's in yellow stockings. Sir To. And cross-gartered? Mar. Most villainously; like a pedant that keeps a school i' the church.-I have dogged him, like his murderer: He does obey every point of the letter that I dropped to betray him. He does smile his face into more lines, than are in the new map, with the augmentation of the Indies : 4 you have not seen such a thing 2 And his opposite,] Opposite in our author's time was used as a substantive, and synonymous to adversary. Malone. 3 Look, where the youngest wren of nine comes.] The women's parts were then acted by boys, sometimes so low in stature, that there was occasion to obviate the impropriety by such kind of oblique apologies. Warburton. The wren generally lays nine or ten eggs at a time, and the last hatched of all birds are usually the smallest and weakest of the whole brood. So, in A Dialogue of the Phenix, &c. by R. Chester, 1601: "The little wren that many young ones brings." Again, in Amery Play betwene Johan the Husband, Tyb his Wyfe, &c. fol. Rastel, 1533: 66 Syr, that is the lest care I have of nyne." The old copy, however, reads-" wren of mine." Steevens. Again, in Sir Philip Sidney's Ourania, a poem, by N. Breton, 1606: "The titmouse, and the multiplying wren." The correction was made by Mr. Theobald. Malone. as 'tis; I can hardly forbear hurling things at him. I know my lady will strike him;5 if she do, he 'll smile, and take 't for a great favour. Sir To. Come, bring us, bring us where he is. SCENE III. A Street. Enter ANTONIO and SEBASTIAN. [Exeunt. Seb. I would not, by my will, have troubled you; Ant. I could not stay behind you; my desire, Rough and unhospitable: My willing love, Seb. My kind Antonio, I can no other answer make, but, thanks, 4 He does smile his face into more lines, than are in the new map, with the augmentation of the Indies:] A clear allusion to a Map engraved for Linschoten's Voyages, an English translation of which was published in 1598. This Map is multilineal in the extreme, and is the first in which the Eastern Islands are included. Steevens. 5 I know, my lady will strike him;] We may suppose, that in an age when ladies struck their servants, the box on the ear which Queen Elizabeth is said to have given to the Earl of Essex, was not regarded as a transgression against the rules of common behaviour. Steevens. 6 And thanks, and ever thanks: Often good turns-] The old copy reads "And thankes: and euer oft good turnes." Steevens. The second line is too short by a whole foot. Then, who ever heard of this goodly double adverb, ever-oft, which seems to have as much propriety as always-sometimes? As I have restored the Are shuffled off with such uncurrent pay: Ant. To-morrow, sir; best, first, go see your lodging. Seb. I am not weary, and 'tis long to night; With the memorials, and the things of fame, Ant. 'Would you 'd pardon me: I do not without danger walk these streets: passage, it is very much in our author's manner and mode of expression. So, in Cymbeline: "Since when I have been debtor to you for courtesies, which I will be ever to pay, and yet pay still." Again, in All's well that ends well: "And let me buy your friendly help thus far, "Which I will over-pay, and pay again "When I have found it." Theobald. I have changed the punctuation. Such liberties every editor has occasionally taken. Theobald has completed the line, as follows: "And thanks and ever thanks, and oft good turns." Tollet. Steevens. I would read: And thanks again, and ever. Mr. Theobald added the word—and [and oft, &c.] unnecessarily. Turns was, I have no doubt, used as a dissyllable. Malone. I wish my ingenious coadjutor had produced some instance of the word-turns, used as a dissyllable. I am unable to do it; and therefore have not scrupled to read-often instead of oft, to complete the measure, Steevens. 1 But, were my worth,] Worth in this place means wealth or fortune. So, in The Winter's Tale: 66 and he boasts himself "To have a worthy feeding." Again, in Ben Jonson's Cynthia's Revels: 8 "Such as the satyrist paints truly forth, "That only to his crimes owes all his worth." M. Mason, the reliques of this town?] I suppose, Sebastian means the reliques of saints, or the remains of ancient fabricks. These words are explained by what follows: "With the memorials, and the things of fame, Steevens. |