KING. Methinks, in thee fome bleffed fpirit doth speak; His powerful found, within an organ weak: In common fenfe, fenfe faves another way," 8 i. e. Let me be otherwife branded ;-and (what is the worst of worst, the confummation of mifery,) my body being extended on the rack by the most cruel torture, let my life pay. the forfeit of my prefumption. So, in Daniel's Cleopatra, 1594: the worst of worst of ills." No was introduced by the editor of the fecond folio. Again, in The Remedie of Love, 4to. 1600: "If fhe be fat, then fhe is fwollen, fay, "If browne, then tawny as the Africk Moore; "If courtly, wanton, worst of worst before." MALONE. 5 Methinks, in thee fome bleffed fpirit doth peak; His powerful found, within an organ weak:] The verb, doth Speak, in the first line, fhould be understood to be repeated in the conftruction of the fecond, thus: His powerful found speaks within a weak organ. HEATH, This, in my opinion, is a very juft and happy explanation. And what impoffibility would flay STEEVENS. In common fenfe, fenfe faves another way.] i. e. and that which, if I trufted to my reafon, I fhould think impoflible, I yet, perceiving thee to be actuated by fome bleffed fpirit, think thee capable of effecting, MALONE. 7 in thee hath estimate;] May be counted among the gifts enjoyed by thee. JOHNSON. Youth, beauty, wisdom, courage, virtue, all-] The old copy omits virtue. It was fupplied by Dr. Warburton, to remedy a defect in the measure. STEEVENS. 9-prime-] Youth; the fpring or morning of life. JOHNSON. Should we not read-pride? Dr. Johnfon explains prime to mean youth; and indeed I do not fee any other plaufible interpre Thou this to hazard, needs must intimate HEL. If I break time, or flinch in property* Of what I fpoke, unpitied let me die ; And well deferv'd: Not helping, death's my fee.; KING. Make thy demand. HEL. But will you make it even? KING. Ay, by my fceptre, and my hopes of hea ven.3 tation that can be given of it. But how does that fuit with the context?" You have all that is worth the name of life; youth, beauty, &c. all, That happiness and youth can happy call.". Happiness and pride may fignify, I think, the pride of happiness; the proudeft ftate of happinefs. So, in The Second Part of Henry IV. Act III. fc. i. the voice and echo, is put for the voice of echo, or, the echoing voice. TYRWHITT. I think, with Dr. Johnson, that prime is here used as a substantive, but that it means, that sprightly vigour which ufually accompanies us in the prime of life. So, in Montaigne's Effaies, tranflated by Florio, 1603, B. II. c. 6: " Many things feeme greater by imagination, than by effect. I have paffed over a good part of my age in found and perfect health. I fay, not only found, but blithe and wantonly-luftful. That ftate, full of luft, of prime and mirth, made me deeme the confideration of fickneffes fo yrkfome, that when I came to the experience of them, I have found their fits but weak." MALONE. 2 in property-] In property feems to be here ufed, with much laxity, for-in the due performance. In a fubfequent paffage it seems to mean either a thing poffeffed, or a subject discriminated by peculiar qualities: "The property by what it is fhould go, "Not by the title." MALONE. 3 Ay, by my fceptre, and my hopes of heaven.] The old copy reads: my hopes of help. STEEVENS. The King could have but a very flight hope of help from her, fcarce enough to fwear by: and therefore Helen might fufpect he HEL. Then shalt thou give me, with thy kingly hand, What husband in thy power I will command: To choose from forth the royal blood of France; KING. Here is my hand; the premises obferv'd, More fhould I question thee, and more I must; reft Unqueftion'd welcome, and undoubted bleft. meant to equivocate with her. Befides, obferve, the greatest part of the scene is ftrictly in rhyme: and there is no fhadow of reafon why it should be interrupted here. I rather imagine the poet wrote: Ay, by my fceptre, and my hopes of heaven. THIRLBY. 4 With any branch or image of thy ftate:] Shakspeare unqueftionably wrote impage, grafting. Impe, a graff, or flip, or fucker: by which the means one of the fons of France, Caxton calls our Prince Arthur, that noble impe of fame. WARBURTON. Image is furely the true reading, and may mean any reprefentative of thine; i. e. any one who refembles you as being related to your family, or as a prince reflects any part of your ftate and majefty. There is no fuch word as impage; and, as Mr. M. Mason obferves, were fuch a one coined, it would mean nothing but the art of grafting. Mr. Henley adds, that branch refers to the collateral defcendants of the royal blood, and image to the direct and immediate line. STEEVENS. Our author again uses the word image in the fame sense as here, in his Rape of Lucrece: "O, from thy cheeks my image thou haft torn." MALONE. Give me some help here, ho!-If thou proceed As high as word, my deed shall match thy deed. [Flourib. Exeunt. SCENE II. Roufillon. A Room in the Countess's Palace. Enter Countefs and Clown. COUNT. Come on, fir; I fhall now put you to the height of your breeding. CLO. I will fhow myfelf highly fed, and lowly taught: I know my business is but to the court. COUNT. To the court! why, what place make you fpecial, when you put off that with fuch contempt? But to the court! CLO. Truly, madam, if God have lent a man any manners, he may eafily put it off at court: he that cannot make a leg, put off's cap, kifs his hand, and say nothing, has neither leg, hands, lip, nor cap; and, indeed, fuch a fellow, to fay precifely, were not for the court: but, for me, I have an anfwer will ferve all men. COUNT. Marry, that's a bountiful anfwer, that fits all queftions. CLO. It is like a barber's chair, that fits all buttocks; the pin-buttock, the quatch-buttock, the brawn-buttock, or any buttock. 5 It is like a barber's chair, &c.] This expreffion is proverbial. See Ray's Proverbs. So, in More Fooles Yet, by R. S. a collection of Epigrams. 4to. 1610: COUNT. Will your anfwer ferve fit to all queftions? CLO. As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney, as your French crown for your taffata punk, as Tib's rush for Tom's fore-finger," as 6 "Moreover fattin futes he doth compare "As for a knight or worthy gentleman." STEEVENS. Tib's rufh for Tom's fore-finger,] Tom is the man, and by Tib we are to understand the woman, and therefore, more properly we might read-Tom's rush for, &c. The allufion is to an ancient practice of marrying with a rush ring, as well in other countries as in England. Breval, in his Antiquities of Paris, mentions it as a kind of efpoufal used in France, by fuch perfons as meant to live together in a flate of concubinage: but in England it was scarce ever practifed except by defigning men, for the purpose of corrupting those young women to whom they pretended love. Richard Poore, bishop of Salisbury, in his Conftitutions, anni, 1217, forbids the putting of rub rings, or any the like matter, on women's fingers, in order to the debauching them more readily: and he infinuates as the reafon of the prohibition, that there were fome people weak enough to believe, that what was thus done in jeft, was a real marriage. But notwithstanding this cenfure on it, the practice was not abolished; for it is alluded to in a fong in a play written by fir William D'Avenant, called The Rivals: "I'll crown thee with a garland of straw then, "And I'll marry thee with a rush ring." which fong, by the way, was firft fung by Mifs Davis; she acted the part of Celania in the play; and King Charles II. upon hearing it, was fo pleafed with her voice and action, that he took her from the ftage, and made her his mistress. Again, in the fong called The Winchester Wedding, in D'Urfey's Pills to purge Melancholy, Vol. I. p. 276: "Pert Strephon was kind to Betty, "And blithe as a bird in the spring; "And Tommy was fo to Katy, "And wedded her with a rush ring." SIR J. HAWKINS. Tib and Tom, in plain English, I believe, ftand for wanton and rogue, So, in Churchyard's Choife: "Tufhe, that's a toye; let Tomkin talke of Tibb." |