migrate from one animal to another, and relates that in his time she was an Irish rat, and by some metrical charm was rhymed to death. The power of killing rats with rhymes Donne mentions in his Satires, and Temple in his Treatises. Dr. Gray has produced a similar passage from Randolph.

-My poets

Shall with a saytire steeped in vinegar

Rhyme them to death as they do rats in Ireland.

So in Dr. Dodypoll, a comedy, 1600:

sense.

JOHNSON.

-he rhyme de grand rats from my house."

STEEVENS.

40 Good my complexion !]This is a mode of expression, Mr. Theobald says, which he cannot reconcile to common Like enough and so too the Oxford editor. But the meaning is, Hold good my complexion, i. e. let me not blush. I believe, good my complexion is only an ejaculation, like, good gracious, or bless me.

WARBURTON.

41-a South-sea-off discovery.] I read thus: One inch of delay more is a South sea. Discover, I pr'ythee; tell me who is it quickly! -When the transcriber had once made discovery from discover, I, he easily put an article after South-sea. But it may be read with still less change, and with equal probability, Every inch of delay more is a South-sea discovery: Every delay, however short, is to me tedious and irksome as the longest voyage, as a voyage of discovery on the South

sea.

How much voyages to the South-sea, on which

the English had then first ventured, engaged the conversation of that time, may be easily imagined.

JOHNSON.

42 -Garagantua's mouth-] Rosalind requires nine questions to be answered in one word. Celia tells her that a word of such magnitude is too big for any mouth but that of Garagantua the giant of Rabelais.

49

JOHNSON..

-I answer you right painted cloth,] This alludes to the fashion, in old tapestry hangings, of mottos and moral sentences from the mouths of the figures worked or printed in them. The poet again hints at this custom in his poem, called, Tarquin and Lucrece :

Who fears a sentence, or an old man's saw,
Shall by a painted cloth be kept in awe.

THEOBALD.

44 -in-land man ;] is used in this play for one civilised, in opposition to the rustick of the priest. So Orlando before-Yet am I in-land bred, and know some nurture.

JOHNSON.

45 —from his mad humour of love, to a living humour of madness;] If this be the true reading, we must by living understand lasting, or permanent, but I cannot forbear to think that some antithesis was intended which is now lost; perhaps the passage stood thus, I drove my suitor from a dying humour of love to a living humour of madness. Or rather thus, from a mad humour of love to a loving humour of madness; that is, from a madness that was love, to a love that was madness. This

seems somewhat harsh and strained, but such modes of speech are not unusual in our poet: and this harshness was probably the cause of the corruption.

JOHNSON.

46 it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room:] Nothing was ever wrote in higher humour than this simile. A great reckoning, in a little room, implies that the entertainment was mean, and the bill extravagant. The poet here alluded to the French proverbial phrase of the quarter of hour of Rabelais: who said, there was only one quarter of an hour in human life passed ill, and that was between the calling for the reckoning and paying it. Yet the delicacy of our Oxford editor would correct this into, It strikes a man more dead than a great reeking in a little room. This is amending with a vengeWhen men are joking together in a merry humour, all are disposed to laugh. One of the company says a good thing; the jest is not taken; all are silent, and he who said it, quite confounded. This is compared to a tavern jollity interrupted by the coming in of a great reckoning. Had not Shakspeare reason now in this case to apply his simile to his own case, against his critical editor? Who, 'tis plain, taking the phrase to strike dead in a literal sense, concluded, from his knowledge in philosophy, that it could not be so effectually done by a reckoning as by a reeking.

ance.

WARBURTON.

* A material fool!] A fool with matter in him; a fool stocked with notions.

JOHNSON.

48-I am foul.] Foul is here put in opposition to fair, and means homely in person.

49 Sir Oliver Mar-text,] He that has taken his first degree at the university, is in the academical style called Dominus, and in common language was heretofore termed Sir. This was not always a word of contempt; the graduates assumed it in their own writings; so Trevisa the historian writes himself Syr John de Trevisa.

JOHNSON.

50 O sweet Oliver, &c.] Some words of an old ballad.

WARBURTON.

Of this speech, as it now appears, I can make nothing, and think nothing can be made. In the same breath he calls his mistress to be married, and sends away the man that should marry them. Dr. Warburton has very happily observed, that O sweet Oliver is a quotation from an old song; I believe there are two quotations put in opposition to each other. For wind I read wend, the old word for go. Perhaps the whole passage may be regulated thus,

Clo. I am not in the mind, but it were better for me to be married of him than of another, for he is not like to marry me well, and not being well married, it will be a good excuse for me hereafter to leave my wife-Come, sweet Audrey, we must be married, or we must live in bawdry.

Jaq. Go thou with me, and let me counsel thee.

[they whisper: Clo. Farewel, good sir Oliver, not O sweet Oliver, O brave Oliver, leave me not behind thee,- but

Wend away,
Begone, I say,

I will not to wedding with thee to-day.

Of this conjecture the reader may take as much as shall appear necessary to the sense, or conducive to the humour. I have received all but the additional words. The song seems to be complete without them.

JOHNSON.

The Clown dismisses sir Oliver only because Jaques had put him out of conceit with him, by alarming his pride, and raising doubts touching the validity of a marriage solemnized by one who appears only in the character of an itinerant preacher; though he intends to have recourse to some other of more dignity in the same profession. Dr. Johnson's supposition, that the latter part of the Clown's speech is only a repetition from some other, or perhaps a different part of the same ballad, is I believe right.

STEEVENS.

51 I'faith, his hair is of a good colour.] There is much of nature in this petty perverseness of Rosalind; she finds faults in her lover, in hope to be contradicted, and when Celia in sportive malice too readily seconds her accusations, she contradicts herself rather than suffer her favourite to want a vindication. JOHNSON.

52

-as the touch of holy bread.] We should read beard, that is, as the kiss of an holy saint or hermit, called the kiss of charity: This makes the comparison just and decent; the other is impious and absurd.

WARBURTON.