some of the old rituals. To the latter ceremony the priest alludes in Twelfth night, Act V. Scene 1. "A contract of eternal bond of love Confirm'd by mutual joinder of your hands, Attested by the holy close of lips, Strengthen'd by interchangement of your rings, &c." Dr. Johnson has here inserted the particle no, "to fill up the measure;" but the measure is not defective though the harmony is. Mr. Steevens, disputing the suggestion of a brother critic, that worthless might have been designed as a trisyllable, asks whether worthless in the preceding speech of Sylvia is a trisyllable? Certainly not; but he should have remembered the want of uniformity of metre in many words among the poets of this period. Thus in p. 223, lines 8 and 9, the word fire is alternately used as a monosyllable and dissyllable; and where the quantity is complete, as in the present instance, the harmony is often left to shift for itself. ACT III. SCENE 1. Page 232. DUKE. Why Phaeton, (for thou art Merop's son) It is far more likely that Shakspeare found this at the end of the first book of Golding's Ovid's metamorphosis, than in the authorities referred to in Mr. Steevens's note. SCENE 1. Page 239. LAUN. There; and Saint Nicholas be thy speed. The true reason why this Saint was chosen to be the patron of Scholars may be gathered from the following story in his life, composed in French verse by Maitre Wace, chaplain to Henry the Second, remaining in manuscript but never printed. It appears from a passage in Ordericus Vitalis, p. 598, that the metrical legends of Saints were sung by the Norman minstrels to the common people. "Treis clers aloent a escole, Les ames mist el cors ariere. Por ceo qe as clers fist tiel honor That is, "Three scholars were on their way to school, (I shall not make a long story of it,) their host murdered them in the night, and hid their bodies; their he reserved. Saint Nicholas was informed of it by God Almighty, and according to his pleasure went to the place. He demanded the scholars of the host, who was not able to conceal them, and therefore showed them to him. Saint Nicholas, by his prayers, restored the souls to their bodies. Because he conferred such honour on scholars, they at this day celebrate a festival." It is remarkable, that although the above story explains the common representation of the Saint, with three children in a tub, it is not to be found in that grand repertory of Monkish lies, The Golden Legend. It occurs, however, in an Italian life of Saint Nicholas, printed in 1645, whence it is extracted into the Gentleman's Magazine for 1777, p. 158. There is a note by Mr. Whalley on Saint Nicholas's clerks, as applied to highwaymen, in King Henry the Fourth, part the first, vol. viii. p. 418, which, though erroneously conceived, would have been more properly introduced on the present occasion. Standing where it does, the worthy author is made responsible for having converted the parish clerks of A word defaced in the manuscript. London into a nest of thieves, which he certainly never intended. Those respectable persons, finding that scholars, more usually termed clerks, had placed themselves under the patronage of Saint Nicholas, conceived that clerks of any kind might have the same right, and accordingly took this saint as their patron; much in the same way as the woolcombers did Saint Blaise, who was martyred with an instrument resembling a curry-comb, the nail-makers Saint Clou, and the booksellers Saint John Port-Latin. SCENE 2. Page 246. PRO. Especially against his very friend. Mr. Steevens explains very to be immediate. Is it not rather true, verus? Thus Massinger calls one of his plays A very woman. See likewise the beginning of the Nicene creed. HOST. ACT IV. SCENE 2. Page 257. the musick likes you not. i. e. pleases, in which sense it is used by Chaucer. This is the genuine Saxon meaning of the word, however it might have been corrupted in early times from its Latin original licet. In the next speech Julietta plays upon the word. SCENE 2. Page 258. SIL. What is your will? PRO. That I may compass yours. SIL. You have your wish; my will is even this ; On which Dr. Johnson observes, "The word will is here ambiguous. He wishes to gain her will; she tells him, if he wants her will he has it." The learned critic seems to have mistaken the sense of the word compass, when he says it means to gain. If it did, his remark would be just. But to compass in this place signifies, to perform, accomplish, take measures for doing a thing. Thus in Twelfth night, Act I. Scene 2, "that were hard to compass ;" and in 1. Hen. VI. Act V. Scene 5, "You judge it impossible to compass wonders." Accordingly Sylvia proceeds to instruct Proteus how he may perform her will. Wish and will are here used, as in many other places, though inaccurately, as synonymous. If however Shakspeare really designed to make Proteus say that he was desirous of gaining Sylvia's good will, she must be supposed, in her reply, purposely to mistake his meaning. SCENE 2. Page 260. SIL. But since your falshood shall become you well Dr. Johnson objects to the sense of this passage, and the other commentators offer conjectural interpretations; yet surely nothing is more clear than the sense, and even the grammar may be defended. It is simply, "since your falsehood shall adapt or render you fit to worship shadows." Become here answers to the Latin convenire, and is used according to its genuine Saxon meaning. SCENE 2. Page 260. HOST. By my hallidom, I was fast asleep. This Mr. Ritson explains, by my holy doom, or sentence at the resurrection, from the Saxon halıgdom; but the word does not appear to have had such a meaning. It rather signifies holiness or honesty. It likewise denoted a sacrament, a sanctuary, relics of saints, or anything holy. It seems in later times to have been corrupted into holidame, as if it expressed the holy virgin. Thus we have so help me God and hollidame. See Bullein's Book of the use of sicke men, 1579, in folio, fo. 2 b. SCENE 4. Page 270. JUL. But since she did neglect her looking-glass, And threw her sun-expelling mask away. It was the fashion at this time for the ladies to wear masks, which are thus described by the puritanical Stubs in his Anatomie of abuses, 1595, 4to, p. 59. "When they use to ride abroad they have masks and visors made of velvet wherewith they cover all their faces, having holes made in them against their eyes, whereout they looke. So that if a man that knew not their guise before, should chaunce to meet one of them, he would think he met a monster or a Devil, for face he can shew (see) none, but two broad holes against their eyes, with glasses in them." More will be said on the subject of this mode of disguising the female face in a remark on The merry wives of Windsor, Act IV. Scene 2. JUL. SCENE 4. Page 271. 't was Ariadne, passioning For Theseus' perjury and unjust flight. A note is here inserted, "not" says its learned and classical author, "on the business of Shakspeare," but to introduce a conjecture relating to one of Guido's paintings commonly supposed to represent Ariadne as deserted by Theseus and courted by Bacchus, but which he conceives to have been intended for Bacchus's desertion of this lady for an Indian captive. An attentive examination of the print from Guido's picture will, it is presumed, incline any one to hesitate much before he shall decide on having discerned any traces of an Indian princes; and this supposed character may rather turn out to be Venus introducing the amorous Deity, attended by his followers, to Ariadne, forlorn and abandoned by Theseus in the isle of Chios, according to Ovid, or Naxos according to Lactantius. Nor is the female who accompanies Bacchus "hanging on his arm," as stated by the critic. is impossible likewise to perceive in this figure the modest looks or demeanour of a female captive, or in the supposed Bacchus the character of a lover, insulting, according to Ovid's description, his former mistress by displaying the beauties of another. Boccaccio has very comically accounted for Ariadne's desertion by Theseus, and her subsequent transfer It |