I am persuaded, is the nonsense of some foolish conceited player. What put it into his head was Helen's saying, as it should be read for the future: There shall your master have a thousand loves; I know not what he shall-God send him well. Where the fellow, finding a thousand loves spoken of, and only three reckoned up, namely, a mother's, a mistress's, and a friend's, (which, by the way, were all a judicious writer could mention; for there are but these three species of love in nature) he would help out the number, by the intermediate nonsense; and, because they were yet too few, he pieces out his loves with enmities, and makes of the whole such finished nonsense, as is never heard out of Bedlam. 10 WARBURTON. See Senoys] are the inhabitants of Sienna. part of note 21 on this play, quoted from sir T. Hanmer. 11 He had the wit, which I can well observe To-day in our young lords; &c.] Your father, says the king, had the same airy flights of satirical wit with the young lords of the present time, but they do not what he did, hide their unnoted levity in honour, cover petty faults with great merit. This is an excellent observation. Jocose follies, and slight offences, are only allowed by mankind in him that over-powers them by great qualities. JOHNSON. 12 His tongue obey'd his hand:] We should readHis tongue obey'd the hand. That is, the hand of his honour's clock, showing the true minute when exceptions bad him speak. JOHNSON. 13 So in approof lives not his epitaph,] We might, by a slight transposition, read, So his approof lives not in epitaph. STEEVENS. 14 Enter Countess, Steward, and Clown.] A Clown in Shakspeare is commonly taken for a licensed jester, or domestick fool. We are not to wonder that we find this character often in his plays, since fools were at that time maintained in all great families, to keep up merriment in the house. In the picture of Sir Thomas More's family, by Hans Holbein, the only servant represented is Patison the fool. This is a proof of the familiarity to which they were admitted, not by the great only, but the wise. In some plays, a servant, or a rustic, of a remarkable petulance and freedom of speech, is likewise called a clown. JOHNSON. 15 -to go to the world,] i. e. to marry. 16 A prophet I, madam; and I speak the truth the next way] It is a superstition, which has run through all ages and people, that natural fools have something in them of divinity. On which account they were esteemed sacred: Travellers tell us in what esteem the Turks now hold them; nor had they less honour paid them heretofore in France, as appears from the old word benet, for a natural fool. Hence it was that Pantagruel, in Rabelais, advised Panurge to go and consult the fool Triboulet as an oracle; which gives occasion to a satirical stroke upon the privy council of Francis the First-Par l'avis, conseil, prediction des fols vos sçavez quants princes, &c. ont esté conservez, &c. -The phrase-speak the truth the next way, means directly; as they do who are only the instruments or canals of others; such as inspired persons were supposed to be. WARBURTON. 17 Fond done,] i. e. foolishly done. 18 There's yet one good in ten.] This second stanzą of the ballad is turned to a joke upon the women: a confession, that there was one good in ten. Whereon the Countess observed, that he corrupted the song; which shows the song said-nine good in ten. If one be bad amongst nine good, There's but one bad in ten. This relates to the ten sons of Priam, who all behaved themselves well but Paris. For though he once had fifty, yet at this unfortunate period of his reign he had but ten; Agathon, Antiphon, Deiphobus, Dius, Hector, Helenus, Hippot hous, Pammon, Paris, and Polites. WARBURTON. 19 Though honesty be no puritan, &c.] The aversion of the puritans to a surplice is alluded to in many of the old comedies. So in the following instances: -"She loves to act in as clean linen as any gen"woman of her function about the town; and truly "that's the reason that your sincere puritans cannot "abide a surplice, because they say 'tis made of the "same thing that your villainous sin is committed in, "of your prophane holland." Cupid's Whirligig, by E. S. 1616. So in the Match at Midnight, 1633, by W. R. "He has turn'd my stomach for all the world like a puritan's at the sight of a surplice." Again, in The Hollander, 1640. -" A puritan, who, because he saw a surplice in "the church, would needs hang himself in the bell" ropes." STEEVENS. 20-captious and intenible sieve,] Capacious is understood by Farmer to be here the meaning of Shakspeare; but I have no doubt that his word is captious, as signifying taking in or receiving. 21 let higher Italy, &c.] This is obscure. Italy, at the time of this scene, was under three very different tenures. The emperor, as successor of the Roman emperors, had one part; the pope, by a pretended donation from Constantine, another; and the third was composed of free states. Now by the last monarchy is meant the Roman, the last of the four general monarchies. Upon the fall of this monarchy, in the scramble, several cities set up for themselves, and became free states: now these might be said properly to inherit the fall of the monarchy. This being premised, let us now consider sense. The King says, higher Italy;-giving it the rank of preference to France; but he corrects himself and says, I except those from that precedency, who only inherit the fall of the last monarchy; as all the little petty states; for instance, Florence, to whom these volunteers were going. As if he had said, I give the place of honour to the emperor and the pope, but not to the free states. WARBURTON. The ancient geographers have divided Italy into the higher and the lower, the Apennine hills being a kind of natural line of partition; the side next the Adriatick was denominated the higher Italy, and the other side the lower and the two seas followed the same terms of distinction, the Adriatick being called the upper sea, and the Tyrrhene or Tuscan the lower. Now the Sennones or Senois, with whom the Florentines are here supposed to be at war, inhabited the higher Italy, their chief town being Ariminum, now called Rimini, upon the Adriatick. Sir T. Hanmer reads, Those bastards that inherit, &c. with this note: HANMER. Reflecting upon the abject and degenerate condition of the cities and states which arose out of the ruins of the Roman empire, the last of the four great monarchies of the world. HANMER. Dr. Warburton's observation is learned, but rather too subtle; sir Thomas Hanmer's alteration is merely arbitrary. The passage is confessedly obscure, and therefore I may offer another explanation. I am of opinion that the epithet higher is to be understood of situation rather than of dignity. The sense may then be this, Let upper Italy, where you are to exercise your valour, see that you come to gain honour, to the abatement, that is, to the disgrace and depression of those that have now lost their antient military fame, and inherit but the fall of the last monarchy. To abate is used by Shakspeare in the original sense of abatre, |