To make fuch means for her as thou haft done, And think thee worthy of an emprefs' love." I now befeech you, for your daughter's fake, DUKE. I grant it, for thine own, whate'er it be. 4 To make fuch means for her as thou haft done,] i. e. to make fuch intereft for, to take fuch difingenuous pains about her. So, in King Richard III: "One that made means to come by what he hath." STEEVENS. 5 And think thee worthy of an emprefs' love.] This thought has already occurred in the fourth scene of the fecond act: "He is as worthy for an emprefs' love." STEEVENS. 6 — all former griefs,] Griefs in old language frequently fignified grievances, wrongs. MALONE. ? Plead a new state-] Should not this begin a new sentence? Plead is the fame as plead thou. TYRWHITT. I have followed Mr. Tyrwhitt's direction. STEEVENS. 8 Difpofe of them, as thou know'ft their deferts. VAL. And, as we walk along, I dare be bold With our discourse to make your grace to fmile: What think you of this page, my lord? DUKE. I think the boy hath grace in him; he blushes. VAL. I warrant you, my lord; more grace than boy. DUKE. What mean you by that saying? VAL. Please you, I'll tell you as we pafs along, That done, our day of marriage fhall be yours; [Exeunt." * — include all jars-] Sir Tho. Hanmer reads-conclude. To include is to shut up, to conclude. So, in Macbeth: and shut up "In measureless content." Again, in Spenfer's Faery Queen, B. IV. c. ix: JOHNSON. "And for to put up all in friendly love." STEEVENS. With triumphs,] Triumphs in this and many other paffages of Shakspeare, fignify Mafques and Revels, &c. So, in K. Henry VI. P. III: "With ftately triumphs, mirthful comic fhows." STEEVENS. 2 In this play there is a ftrange mixture of knowledge and ignorance, of care and negligence. The verfification is often excellent, the allufions are learned and juft; but the author conveys his heroes by fea from one inland town to another in the fame country; he places the emperor at Milan, and fends his young men to attend him, but never mentions him more; he makes Proteus, after an interview with Silvia, fay he has only feen her picture; and, if we U VOL. III. may credit the old copies, he has, by miftaking places, left his fcenery inextricable. The reafon of all this confusion seems to be, that he took his ftory from a novel, which he fometimes followed, and fometimes forfook, fometimes remembered, and fometimes forgot. That this play is rightly attributed to Shakspeare, I have little doubt. If it be taken from him, to whom shall it be given? This queftion may be afked of all the difputed plays, except Titus Andronicus; and it will be found more credible, that Shakspeare might fometimes fink below his highest flights, than that any other fhould rife up to his lowest. JOHNSON. Johnfon's general remarks on this play are juft, except that part in which he arraigns the conduct of the poet, for making Proteus fay, that he had only feen the picture of Silvia, when it appears that he had had a perfonal interview with her. This, however, is not a blunder of Shakspeare's, but a mistake of Johnson's, who confiders the paffage alluded to in a more literal fenfe than the author intended it. Sir Proteus, it is true, had feen Silvia for a few moments; but though he could form from thence fome idea of her perfon, he was ftill unacquainted with her temper, manners, and the qualities of her mind. He therefore confiders himself as having feen her picture only.-The thought is juft, and elegantly expreffed. So, in The Scornful Lady, the elder Lovelefs fays to her: "I was mad once when I loved pictures; "For what are shape and colours elfe, but pictures ?" M. MASON. Mr. Ritfon's reply to the objections of Mr. Tyrwhitt, was not only too long to appear in its proper place, but was communicated too late to follow the note on which it is founded. STEEVENS. Pro. O, how this Spring of love refembleth, &c. pp. 191, 192, 193. The learned and refpectable writer of these observations is now unfortunately no more; but his opinions will not on that account have lefs influence with the readers of Shakspeare: I am therefore still at liberty to enforce the juftice and propriety of my own fentiments, which I truft I fhall be found to do with all poffible delicacy and refpect toward the memory and character of the truly ingenious gentleman from whom I have the misfortune to differ. I humbly conceive that, upon more mature confideration, Mr. Tyrwhitt would have admitted, that, if the propofed method of printing the words in queftion were once proved to be right, it would be of little confequence whether the discovery had ever been" adopted before," or could " be followed in the pronunciation of them, without the help of an entire new fyftem of fpelling:" which, in fact, is the very object I mean to contend for; or rather for a fyftem of spelling, as I am perfectly confident we have none at prefent, or at leaft I have never been able to find it. We are not to regard the current or fashionable orthography of the day, as the refult of an enquiry into the fubject by men of learning and genius; but rather as the mechanical or capricious efforts of writers and printers to exprefs by letters, according to their ear, the vulgar fpeech of the country, juft as travelers attempt that of the Chickfaws or Cherokees, without the affiftance of grammar, and utterly ignorant or regardless of confiftency, principle, or fyftem. This was the cafe in Caxton's time, when a word was fpelled almost as many different ways as it contained letters, and is no otherwise at this day; and, perhaps, the prejudices of education and habit, even in minds fufficiently expanded and vigorous on other fubjects, will always prevent a reform, which it were to be wished was neceffary to objects of no higher importance. Whether what I call the right method of printing these words be" fuch as was never adopted before by any mortal," or not, does not feem of much confequence; for, reafoning from principle and not precedent, I am by no means anxious to avail myfelf of the inconfiftencies of an age in which even scholars were not always agreed in the orthography of teir own name: a fufficient number of inftances will, however, occur in the course of this note to fhew that the remark was not made with its author's ufual deliberation; which I am the rather difpofed to believe, from his conceiving that this method could not be followed in pronunciation;" fince were it univerfally adopted, pronunciation neither would nor poffibly could be affected by it in any degree whatever. "Fanciful and unfounded" too as my 66 fuppofed canon" may be, I find it laid down in Ben Jonfon's Grammar, which exprefsly fays that the fecond and third perfon fingular of the prefent are made of the firft by adding eft and eth, which laft is fometimes fhortened into s." And afterward, fpeaking of the firft conjugation, he tells us that " it fetcheth the time paft from the prefent by adding ed." I fhall have reason to think myself peculiarly unfortunate, if, after my hypothefis is" allowed in its utmoft extent," it will not prove what it was principally formed to do, viz. that Shakspeare has not taken a liberty in extending certain words to fuit the purpose of his metre. But, furely, if I prove that he has only given those words as they ought to be written, I prove the whole of my pofition, which fhould cease, of course, to be termed or confidered an hypothefis. A mathematical problem may, at firft fight, appear" fanciful and unfounded" to the ableft mathematician, but his affent is enfured by its demonftration. I may fafely admit that the words in queftion are" more frequently ufed" by our author's contemporaries, and by himself, without the additional fyllable;" as this will only fhew that his contemporaries and himself have" more fre quently" taken the liberty of fhortening those words, than written them at length. Such a word as alarm'd, for inftance, is generally, perhaps conftantly, ufed by poets as a diffyllable; and yet, if we found it given with its full power a-larm-ed, we fhould fcarcely fay that the writer had taken the liberty of lengthening it a fyllable. Thus too the word diamond is ufually fpoken as if two fyllables, but it is certainly three, and is fo properly given by Shakspeare: "Sir, I muft have that diamond from you." Hadft is now a monofyllable, but did our author therefore take a liberty in writing Hadeft? "Makes ill deeds done. Hadeft thou not been by." Not only this word, but mayeft, doeft, doeth, and the like are uniformly printed in the bible as diffyllables. Does Butler, to ferve his rhime, ftretch out the word brethren in the following paffage ? "And fierce auxiliary men, "That came to aid their brethren." Or does he not rather give it, as he found it pronounced, and as it ought to be printed? The word idly is ftill more to the purpofe: It is at prefent a diffyllable; what it was in Shakspeare's time may appear from his Comedy of Errors, 1623: "God helpe poore foules how idlely doe they talk :" or, indeed, from any other paffage in that or the next edition, being constantly printed as a trifyllable. So, again in Spenfer's Faery Queene, 1609, 1611: "Both ftaring fierce, and holding idlely." And this orthography, which at once illuftrates and fupports my fyftem, appears in Shelton's Don Quixote, Sir T. Smith's Commonwealth, Goulart's Hiftories, Holinfhed's Chronicle, and numberless other books; and confequently proves that the word was not ftretched out by Spenfer to fuit the purpose of his metre, though I am aware that it is miffpelled idely in the first edition, which is lefs correctly printed. But the true and established spelling might have led Mr. Seward and Dr. Farmer to a better reading than gentily, in the following line of Beaumont and Fletcher: "For when the weft wind courts her gently." if Proved, I fuppofe, is rarely found a diffyllable in poetry, even pronounced as one in profe; but, in the Articles of Religion, Oxford, 1728, it is fpelled and divided after my own heart: -whatfoever is not read therein, nor may be prove-ed thereby, &c." The words obfervation and affection are ufually pronounced, the one as confifting of three, the other of four fyllables, but each of them is in reality a fyllable longer, and is fo properly given by our author: "With obfervation, the which he vents:" |