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This expression I do not well understand. In the middle counties, mortal, from mort, a great quantity, is used as a particle of amplification; as mortal tall, mortal little. Of this sense I believe Shakspere takes the advantage to produce one of his darling equivocations. Thus the meaning will be, so is all nature in love abounding in folly. JOHNSON.

257. And in my voice most welcome shall you be.] In my voice, as far as I have a voice or vote, as far as I have power to bid you welcome.

JOHNSON.

285. rugged;] In old editions ragged.

JOHNSON.

308.

-to live-] Modern editions, to lie.

JOHNSON.

To live i' th' sun, is to labour and "sweat in the eye of Phœbus," or, vitam agere sub dio; for by lying in the sun, how could they get the food they eat?

TOLLET.

323. Duc ad me-] For ducdame sir T. Hanmer, very acutely, and judiciously, reads duc ad me, That is, bring him to me. JOHNSON. If duc ad me were right, Amiens would not have asked its meaning, and been put off with "a Greek invocation." It is evidently a word coined for the We have here, as Butler says, "One for sense and one for rhyme."-Indeed we must have a double rhyme; or this stanza cannot well be sung to the same tune with the former. I read thus:

nonce.

[blocks in formation]

"Ducdame, Ducdamè, Ducdamè,

"Here shall he see

"Gross fools as he,

"An' if he will come to Ami.”

That is, to Amiens. Jacques did not mean to ridicule himself.

FARMER. Duc ad me seems to be a plain allusion to the burthen of Amiens's song:

Come hither, come hither, come hither.

That Amiens, who is a courtier, should not understand Latin, or be persuaded it was Greek, is no great matter for wonder. An anonymous correspondent proposes to read-Huc ad me. STEEVENS.

-the first-born of Egypt.] A proverbial

330. expression for high-born persons.

JOHNSON. 355. -compact of jars,] i. e. made up of discords. Shakspere elsewhere says, compact of credit, for made up of credulity. STEEVENS.

See Compact, catch-word Alphabet.

363. A motley fool!—a miserable world!] A miserable world is a parenthetical exclamation, frequent among melancholy men, and natural to Jaques at the sight of a fool, or at the hearing of reflections on the frailty of life. JOHNSON. 369. Call me not fool, till heaven has sent me fortune,] Fortuna favet fatuis, is, as Mr. Upton observes, the saying here alluded to.

In Every Man out of his Hurour, act i. sc. 3:

Sog. Why, who am I, sir? Mac. One of those that fortune favçurs. Car. The periphrasis of a foole."

REED.

384. motley's the only wear.] It would not have been necessary to repeat that a motley or party-coloured coat was anciently the dress of a fool, had not the editor of Ben Jonson's works been mistaken in his comment on the 53d Epigram:

-where, out of motley's he

"Could save that line to dedicate to thee?" Motley, says Mr. Whalley, is the man who out of any odd mixture, or old scraps, could save, &c. whereas it means only, Who but a fool, i. e, one in a suit of mot ley, &c.

See Fig. XII. in the plate of the window, with Mr. Tollet's explanation. STEEVENS. 395. Only suit;] The poet meant a quibble. So act v. “Not out of your apparel, but out of your suit.” STEEVENS,

404. He, that a fool doth wisely hit,

Doth very foolishly, although he smart,

-Seem senseless of the bob: if not, &c.] Besides that the third verse is defective one whole foot in measure, the tenor of what Jaques continues to say, and the reasoning of the passage, shew it no less defective in the sense. There is no doubt, but the two little monosyllables, which I have supplied, were either by accident wanting in the manuscript, or by inadvertence left out. THEOBALD.

406. if not, &c.] Unless men have the prudence not to appear touched with the sarcasms of a jester, they subject themselves to his power, and the wise man will have his folly anatomised, that is, dissected and

laid open by the squandering glances or random shots of a fool.

JOHNSON.

417. As sensual as the brutish sting] Though the brutish sting is capable of a sense not inconvenient in this passage, yet as it is a harsh and unusual mode of speech, I should read the brutish fly. JOHNSON.

I believe the old reading is the true one.

Othello,

our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts."

See Sting, catch-word Alphabet.

So, in

STEEVENS.

424. Till that the very, very-] The old copy has

-weary, very.

446.

-the thorny point

MALONE.

Of bare distress hath ta'en from me the shew
Of smooth civility :]

We might read torn with more elegance; but elegance alone will not justify alteration.

JOHNSON. 449. And know some nurture:] Nurture is education.

So, in Greene's Never too Late, 1616:

He shew'd himself as full of nurture as of nature."

STEEVENS.

462. desert inaccessible,] This expression I find in The Adventures of Simonides, by Barn. Riche, 1584: " and onely acquainted himselfe with the solitarinesse of this unaccessible desert." HENDERSON.

477. And take upon command what help we have,] Upon command, is at your own command. STEEVENS. 492. Wherein we play in.] Thus the old copy. Mr. Pope more correctly reads:

Wherein we play.

STEEVENS.

497. His acts being seven labours.] See Labours, or Acts, in catch-word Alphabet.

In the Treasury of Ancient and Modern Times, 1613, Proclus, a Greek author, is said to have divided the lifetime of man into seven ages; over each of which one of the seven planets was supposed to rule. "The FIRST AGE is called Infancy, containing the space of foure yeares.-The SECOND AGE continueth ten yeares, untill he attaine to the yeares of fourteene: this age is called Childhood.-The THIRD AGE Consisteth of eight yeares, being named by our auncients Adolescencie or Youthhood; and it lasteth from fourteene till two and twenty years be fully compleate.-The FOURTH AGE paceth on, till a man have accomplished two and fortie yeares, and is termed Young Manhood. The FIFTH AGE, named Mature Manhood, hath (according to the said author) fifteene yeares of continuance, and therefore makes his progress so far as six and fifty yeares. -Afterwards in adding twelve to fifty-sixe, you shall make up sixty-eight yeares, which reach to the end of the SIXTH AGE, and is called Old Age. The SEVENTH and last of these seven ages is limited from sixty-eight yeares, so far as fourscore and eight, being called weak, declining, and Decrepite Age.-If any man chance to goe beyond this age (which is more admired than noted in many) you shall evidently perceive that he will returne to his first condition of Infancy againe." Hippocrates likewise divided the life of man into seven ages, but differs from Proclus in the number of Cij

years

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