are well met: Will you dispatch us here under this tree, or shall we go with you to your chapel ? SIR OLI. Is there none here to give the woman? TOUCH. I will not take her on gift of any man. SIR OLI. Truly, she must be given, or the marriage is not lawful. JAQ. [Discovering himself.] Proceed, proceed; I'll give her. 5 TOUCH. Good even, good master What ye call't: How do you, sir? You are very well met: God ild you for your last company: I am very glad to see you :-Even a toy in hand here, sir :-Nay; pray, be cover'd. JAQ. Will you be married, motley? TOUCH. As the ox hath his bow, sir, the horse his curb, and the faulcon her bells, so man hath his desires; and as pigeons bill, so wedlock would be nibbling. JAQ. And will you, being a man of your breeding, be married under a bush, like a beggar? Get you to church, and have a good priest that can tell you what marriage is: this fellow will but join you together as they join wainscot; then one of you will prove a shrunk pannel, and, like green timber, warp, warp. not a Welsh knight who hath taken orders, but only a Welsh clergyman without any regular degree from either of the universities. See Barrington's Hystory of the Guedir Family. NICHOLS. God'ild you] i. e. God yield you, God reward you. 5 So, in Antony and Cleopatra: "And the gods yield you for't!" See notes on Macbeth, Act I. Sc. VI. STEEVENS. 6 his Bow,] i. e. his yoke. The ancient yoke in form resembled a bow. See note on The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act V. Sc. V. STEEVENS. Mr. Steevens refers the reader to a note of Mr. Mason's on the line: 66 See you these husband? do not these fair yokes —." BOSWELL. TOUCH. I am not in the mind, but I were better to be married of him than of another: for he is not like to marry me well: and not being well married, it will be a good excuse for me hereafter, to leave my wife. [Aside. JAQ. Go thou with me, and let me counsel thee. TOUCH. Come, sweet Audrey: We must be married, or we must live in bawdry, Farewell, good master Oliver! Not-O sweet Oliver, Leave me not behind thee: But-Wind away, I will not to wedding with thee. [Exeunt JAQUES, TOUCHSTONE, and AUDREY. 7 Not-O sweet Oliver, O brave, &c.] Some words of an old ballad. WARBURTON. Of this speech as it now appears, I can make nothing, and think nothing can be made. In the same breath he calls his mistress to be married, and sends away the man that should marry them. Dr. Warburton has very happily observed, that O sweet Oliver is a quotation from an old song; I believe there are two quotations put in opposition to each other. For wind I read wend, the old word for go. Perhaps the whole passage may be regulated thus: Clo. I am not in the mind, but it were better for me to be married of him than of another: for he is not like to marry me well: and not being well married, it will be a good excuse for me hereafter to leave my wife.-Come, sweet Audrey; we must be married, or we must live in bawdry. Jaq. Go thou with me, and let me counsel thee. [They whisper. Clo. Farewell, good sir Oliver, not O sweet Oliver, O brave Oliver, leave me not behind thee,—but Wend away, I will not to wedding with thee to-day. Of this conjecture the reader may take as much as shall appear necessary to the sense, or conducive to the humour. I have VOL. VI. 2 G SIR OLI. 'Tis no matter; ne'er a fantastical knave of them all shall flout me out of my calling. [Exit. received all but the additional words. The song seems to be complete without them. JOHNSON. The Clown dismisses Sir Oliver only because Jaques had alarmed his pride, and raised his doubts, concerning the validity of a marriage solemnized by one who appears only in the character of an itinerant preacher. He intends afterwards to have recourse to some other of more dignity in the same profession. Dr. Johnson's opinion, that the latter part of the Clown's speech is only a repetition from some other ballad, or perhaps a different part of the same, is, I believe, just. O brave Oliver, leave me not behind you, is a quotation at the beginning of one of N. Breton's Letters, in his Packet, &c. 1600. STEEVENS. That Touchstone is influenced by the counsel of Jaques, may be inferred from the subsequent dialogue between the former and Audrey, Act V. Sc. I.: "Touch. We shall find a time, Audrey; patience, gentle Audrey. "Aud. 'Faith, the priest was good enough, for all the old gentleman's saying." MALONE. "O sweet Oliver." The epithet of sweet seems to have been peculiarly appropriated to Oliver, for which, perhaps, he was originally obliged to the old song before us. No more of it, however, than these two lines has as yet been produced. See Ben Jonson's Underwood: "All the mad Rolands and sweet Olivers." And, in Every Man in His Humour, p. 88, is the same allusion : "Do not stink, sweet Oliver." TYRWHITT. In the books of the Stationers' Company, Aug. 6, 1584, was entered, by Richard Jones, the ballad of, Again, 66 Ó sweete Olyver "Leave me not behinde thee." "The answere of O Sweete Olyver.” 66 Again, in 1586: “O Sweete Olyver altered to the Scriptures.” STEEVENS. I often find a part of this song applied to Cromwell. In a paper called, A Man in the Moon, Discovering a World of Knavery under the Sun, "the juncto will go near to give us the baggage, if O brave Oliver come not suddenly to relieve them." The same allusion is met with in Cleveland. Wind away and wind off are still used provincially: and, I believe, nothing but the provincial pronunciation is wanting to join the parts together. I read: Enter ROSALIND and CELIA. Ros. Never talk to me, I will weep. CEL. Do, I pr'ythee; but yet have the grace to consider, that tears do not become a man. Ros. But have I not cause to weep? CEL. As good cause as one would desire; therefore weep. Ros. His very hair is of the dissembling colour. CEL. Something browner than Judas's: marry, his kisses are Judas's own children. Not-O sweet Oliver! O brave Oliver! Leave me not behi thee- I will not to wedding wi' thee. FARMER. To produce the necessary rhyme, and conform to the pronunciation of Shakspeare's native county, I have followed Dr. Farmer's direction. Wind is used for wend in Cæsar and Pompey, 1607: "Winde we then, Antony, with this royal queen." Again, in the MS. romance of the Sowdon of Babyloyne, p. 63: "And we shalle to-morrowe as stil as stoon, "The Saresyns awake e'r ye wynde." STEEVENS. If, according to Dr. Johnson's notion, we consider these lines as separate quotations, there can be no reason why they should rhyme together. Touchstone says in the first place, I will not quote that part of the ballad which says, O sweet Oliver! leave me not behind thee;' but adds, in the second place, I will rather take that verse which suits my present purposes,' which was probably the man's answer. 'Wind away,' &c. BOSWELL. 8 Something browner than JUDAS'S:] See Mr. Tollet's note and mine, on a passage in the fourth scene of the first Act of The Merry Wives of Windsor, from both of which it appears that Judas was constantly represented in ancient painting or tapestry, with red hair and beard. So, in The Insatiate Countess, 1613: "I ever thought by his red beard he would prove a Judas." STEEVENS. Ros. I'faith, his hair is of a good colour. CEL. An excellent colour: your chesnut was ever the only colour. Ros. And his kissing is as full of sanctity as the touch of holy bread'. CEL. He hath bought a pair of cast lips of Diana2: a nun of winter's sisterhood3 kisses not 9 I'faith, his hair is of a good colour.] There is much of nature in this petty perverseness of Rosalind she finds fault in her lover, in hope to be contradicted; and when Celia in sportive malice too readily seconds her accusations, she contradicts herself, rather than suffer her favourite to want a vindication. I JOHNSON. as the touch of holy BREAD.] We should read beard, that is, as the kiss of an holy saint or hermit, called the kiss of charity. This makes the comparison just and decent; the other impious and absurd. WARBURTON. 2 1 a pair of CAST lips of Diana:] i. e. a pair left off by Diana. THEOBALD. 3-a nun of WINTER'S SISTERHOOD-] This is finely expressed. But Mr. Theobald says, the words give him no ideas. And it is certain, that words will never give men what nature has denied them. However, to mend the matter, he substitutes Winifred's sisterhood. And after so happy a thought, it was to no purpose to tell him there was no religious order of that denomination. The plain truth is, Shakspeare meant an unfruitful sisterhood, which had devoted itself to chastity. For as those who were of the sisterhood of the spring, were the votaries of Venus ; those of summer, the votaries of Ceres; those of autumn, of Pomona so these of the sisterhood of winter were the votaries of Diana; called, of winter, because that quarter is not, like the other three, productive of fruit or increase. On this account it is, that when the poet speaks of what is most poor, he instances it in winter, in these fine lines of Othello: : "But riches fineless is as poor as winter "To him that ever fears he shall be poor." The other property of winter, that made him term them of its sisterhood, is its coldness. So, in A Midsummer-Night's Dream: "To be a barren sister all your life, "Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon." WARBURTON. In There is certainly no need of Theobald's conjecture, as Dr. Warburton has most effectually supported the old reading. one circumstance, however, he is mistaken. The Golden Le |