Enter Two other Citizens. COR. Pray you now, if it may stand with the tune of your voices, that I may be consul, I have here the customary gown. 3 CIT. You have deserved nobly of your country, and you have not deserved nobly. COR. Your enigma? 3 CIT. You have been a scourge to her enemies, you have been a rod to her friends; you have not, indeed, loved the common people. COR. You should account me the more virtuous, that I have not been common in my love, I will, sir, flatter my sworn brother the people, to earn a dearer estimation of them; 'tis a condition they account gentle: and since the wisdom of their choice is rather to have my hat than my heart, I will practise the insinuating nod, and be off to them most counterfeitly; that is, sir, I will counterfeit the bewitchment of some popular man, and give it bountifully to the desirers. Therefore, beseech you, I may be consul. 4 CIT. We hope to find you our friend; and therefore give you our voices heartily. 3 CIT. You have received many wounds for your country. COR. I will not seal your knowledge with showing them. I will make much of your voices, and so trouble you no further, • I will not seal your knowledge-] I will not strengthen or complete your knowledge. The seal is that which gives authenticity to a writing, JOHNSON. BOTH CIT. The gods give you joy, sir, heartily! COR. Most sweet voices! Better it is to die, better to starve, [Exeunt. Than crave the hire9 which first we do deserve. Why in this woolvish gown' should I stand here, 9 the hire-] The old copy has higher, and this is one of the many proofs that several parts of the original folio edition of these plays were dictated by one and written down by another. MALONE. 1 1 this woolvish gown-] Signifies this rough hirsute gown. JOHNSON. The first folio reads-this wolvish tongue. Gown is the reading of the second folio, and, I believe, the true one. Let us try, however, to extract some meaning from the word exhibited in the elder copy. The white robe worn by a candidate was made, I think, of white lamb-skins. How comes it then to be called woolvish, unless in allusion to the fable of the wolf in sheep's clothing? Perhaps the poet meant only, Why do I stand with a tongue deceitful as that of the wolf, and seem to flatter those whom I would wish to treat with my usual ferocity? We might perhaps more distinctly read: -with this woolvish tongue. unless tongue be used for tone or accent. Tongue might, indeed, be only a typographical mistake, and the word designed be toge, which is used in Othello. Yet, it is as probable, if Shakspeare originally wrote toge, that he afterwards exchanged it forgown, a word more intelligible to his audience. Our author, however, does not appear to have known what the toga hirsuta was, because he has just before called it the napless gown of humility. Since the foregoing note was written, I met with the following passage in "A Merye Jest of a Man called Howleglas," bl. 1. no date. Howleglas hired himself to a tailor, who "caste unto him a husbande mans gown, and bad him take a wolfe, and make it up. Then cut Howleglas the husbandmans gowne and made thereof a woulfe with the head and feete, &c. Then sayd the maister, I ment that you should have made up the russet gown, for a husbandman's gowne is here called a wolfe." By a wolvish gown, therefore, Shakspeare might have meant Coriolanus to compare the dress of a Roman candidate to the coarse frock of a Enter Two other Citizens. COR. Pray you now, if it may stand with the tune of your voices, that I may be consul, I have here the customary gown. 3 CIT. You have deserved nobly of your country, and you have not deserved nobly. COR. Your enigma? 3 CIT. You have been a scourge to her enemies, you have been a rod to her friends; you have not, indeed, loved the common people. COR. You should account me the more virtuous, that I have not been common in my love, I will, sir, flatter my sworn brother the people, to earn a dearer estimation of them; 'tis a condition they account gentle: and since the wisdom of their choice is rather to have my hat than my heart, I will practise the insinuating nod, and be off to them most counterfeitly; that is, sir, I will counterfeit the bewitchment of some popular man, and give it bountifully to the desirers. Therefore, beseech you, I may I may be consul. 4 CIT. We hope to find you our friend; and therefore give you our voices heartily. 3 CIT. You have received many wounds for your country. COR. I will not seal your knowledge with showing them. I will make much of your voices, and so trouble you no further. • I will not seal your knowledge-] I will not strengthen or complete your knowledge. The seal is that which gives authenticity to a writing, JOHNSON, BOTH CIT. The gods give you joy, sir, heartily! COR. Most sweet voices! Better it is to die, better to starve, [Exeunt. Than crave the hire which first we do deserve. Why in this woolvish gown' should I stand here, 9 the hire-] The old copy has higher, and this is one of the many proofs that several parts of the original folio edition of these plays were dictated by one and written down by another. MALONE. 1 1—this woolvish gown-] Signifies this rough hirsute gown. JOHNSON. The first folio reads-this wolvish tongue. Gown is the reading of the second folio, and, I believe, the true one. Let us try, however, to extract some meaning from the word exhibited in the elder copy. The white robe worn by a candidate was made, I think, of white lamb-skins. How comes it then to be called woolvish, unless in allusion to the fable of the wolf in sheep's clothing? Perhaps the poet meant only, Why do I stand with a tongue deceitful as that of the wolf, and seem to flatter those whom I would wish to treat with my usual ferocity? We might perhaps more distinctly read: with this woolvish tongue. unless tongue be used for tone or accent. Tongue might, indeed, be only a typographical mistake, and the word designed be toge, which is used in Othello. Yet, it is as probable, if Shakspeare originally wrote toge, that he afterwards exchanged it forgown, a word more intelligible to his audience. Our author, however, does not appear to have known what the toga hirsuta was, because he has just before called it the napless gown of humility. Since the foregoing note was written, I met with the following passage in "A Merye Jest of a Man called Howleglas," bl. 1. no date. Howleglas hired himself to a tailor, who "caste unto him a husbande mans gown, and bad him take a wolfe, and make it up.-Then cut Howleglas the husbandmans gowne and made thereof a woulfe with the head and feete, &c. Then sayd the maister, I ment that you should have made up the russet gown, for a husbandman's gowne is here called a wolfe." By a wolvish gown, therefore, Shakspeare might have meant Coriolanus to compare the dress of a Roman candidate to the coarse frock of a To beg of Hob and Dick, that do appear, ploughman, who exposed himself to solicit the votes of his fellow rusticks. STEEVENS. Mr. Steevens has in his note on this passage cited the romance of Howleglas to show that a husbandman's gown was called a wolf; but quære if it be called so in this country? it must be remembered that Howleglas is literally translated from the French, where the word "loup" certainly occurs, but I believe it has not the same signification in that language. The French copy also may be literally rendered from the German. DOUCE. Mr. Steevens, however, is clearly right, in supposing the allusion to be to the "wolf in sheep's clothing;" not indeed that Coriolanus means to call himself a wolf; but merely to say, "Why should I stand here playing the hypocrite, and simulating the humility which is not in my nature" RITSon. Why in this woolvish gown should I stand here,] I suppose the meaning is, Why should I stand in this gown of humility, which is little expressive of my feelings towards the people; as far from being an emblem of my real character, as the sheep's clothing on a wolf is expressive of his disposition. I believe woolvish was ased by our author for false or deceitful, and that the phrase was suggested to him, as Mr. Steevens seems to think, by the common expression," a wolf in sheep's clothing." Mr. Mason says, that this is "a ludicrous idea, and ought to be treated as such." I have paid due attention to many of the ingenious commentator's remarks in the present edition, and therefore I am sure he will pardon me when I observe that speculative criticism on these plays will ever be liable to error, unless we add to it an intimate acquaintance with the language and writings of the predecessors and contemporaries of Shakspeare. If Mr. Mason had read the following line in Churchyard's Legend of Cardinal Wolsey, Mirror for Magistrates, 1587, instead of considering this as a ludicrous interpretation, he would probably have admitted it to be a natural and just explication of the epithet before us: "O fye on wolves, that march in masking clothes." The woolvish [gown or] toge is a gown of humility, in which Coriolanus thinks he shall appear in masquerade; and not in his real and natural character. Woolvish cannot mean rough, hirsute, as Dr. Johnson interprets it, because the gown Coriolanus wore has already been described as napless. The old copy has tongue; which was a very natural error for |