The seasons' difference; as, the icy fang,
And churlish chiding of the winter's wind;
Which when it bites and blows upon my body,
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile, and say,-
This is no flattery: these are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.
Sweet are the uses of adversity;

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head 2;

-the cold and effects of the winter feelingly persuade him what he is. How does he not then feel the penalty? Doubtless, the text must be restored as I have corrected; and it is obvious, in the course of these notes, how often not and but, by mistake, have changed place in our author's former editions. THEOBALD. As not has here taken the place of but, so, in Coriolanus, Act II. Sc. III. but is printed instead of not:

"Cor. Ay, but mine own desire.

"1 Cit. How! not your own desire." MALONE. Surely the old reading is right. Here we feel not, do not suffer, from the penalty of Adam, the season's difference; for when the winter's wind blows upon my body, I smile, and say

2 Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,

BOSWELL.

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head ;] It was the current opinion in Shakspeare's time, that in the head of an old toad was to be found a stone, or pearl, to which great virtues were ascribed. This stone has been often sought, but nothing has been found more than accidental or perhaps morbid indurations of the skull. JOHNSON.

In a book called A Green Forest, or a Natural History, &c. by John Maplett, 1567, is the following account of this imaginary gem: "In this stone is apparently seene verie often the verie forme of a tode, with despotted and coloured feete, but those uglye and defusedly. It is available against envenoming." Again, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Monsieur Thomas, 1639: in most physicians' heads,

66

"There is a kind of toadstone bred."

Again, in Adrasta, or The Woman's Spleen, 1635: "Do not then forget the stone

"In the toad, nor serpent's bone," &c.

Pliny, in the 32d book of his Natural History, ascribes many wonderful qualities to a bone found in the right side of a toad, but makes no mention of any gem in its head. This deficiency however is abundantly supplied by Edward Fenton, in his Secrete

And this our life, exempt from publick haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks3,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.

AMI. I would not change it*: Happy is your

grace,

That can translate the stubbornness of fortune
Into so quiet and so sweet a style.

DUKE S. Come, shall we go and kill us venison ?
And yet it irks me, the poor dappled fools,-
Being native burghers of this desert city",
Should, in their own confínes, with forked heads "

6

Wonders of Nature, 4to. bl. 1. 1569, who says, "That there is founde in the heades of old and great toades, a stone which they call Borax or Stelon: it is most commonly founde in the head of a hee toad, of power to repulse poysons, and that it is a most soveraigne medicine for the stone."

Thomas Lupton, in his First Booke of Notable Things, 4to. bl. 1. bears repeated testimony to the virtues of the "Tode-stone, called Crapaudina." In his Seventh Book he instructs us how to procure it; and afterwards tells us- "You shall knowe whether the Tode-stone be the ryght and perfect stone or not. Holde the stone before a Tode, so that he may see it; and if it be a ryght and true stone, the Tode will leape towarde it, and make as though he would snatch it. He envieth so much that man should have that stone." STEEVENS.

3 Finds tongues in trees, &c.] So, in Sidney's Arcadia, book i. "Thus both trees and each thing else, be the bookes to a fancie." 4 I would not change it :] Mr. Upton, not without probability, gives these words to the Duke, and makes Amiens begin-Happy is your grace. JOHNSON.

5

native BURGHERS of this desert city,] In Sidney's Arcadia, the deer are called "the wild burgesses of the forest.” Again, in the 18th song of Drayton's Polyolbion :

"Where, fearless of the hunt, the hart securely stood,
"And every where walk'd free, a burgess of the wood."
STEEVENS.

A kindred expression is found in Lodge's Rosalinde, 1592:
"About her wond'ring stood

"The citizens o' the wood.”

Our author afterwards uses this very phrase:

6

66

Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens." MALONE. with FORKED HEADS] i. e. with arrows, the points of which were barbed. So, in A Mad World my Masters:

Have their round haunches gor❜d.

1 LORD.

Indeed, my lord,

The melancholy Jaques grieves at that;
And, in that kind, swears you do more usurp
Than doth your brother that hath banish'd you.
To-day, my lord of Amiens, and myself,
Did steal behind him, as he lay along

Under an oak, whose antique root peeps out
Upon the brook that brawls along this wood":
To the which place a poor sequester'd stag,
That from the hunters' aim had ta'en a hurt,
Did come to languish; and, indeed, my lord,
The wretched animal heav'd forth such groans,
That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat
Almost to bursting; and the big round tears
Cours'd one another down his innocent nose
In piteous chase : and thus the hairy fool,
Much marked of the melancholy Jaques,

Stood on the extremest verge of the swift brook,
Augmenting it with tears.

7

"While the broad arrow with the forked head

66

Misses," &c.

as he lay along

Under an oak, &c.]

STEEVENS.

"There at the foot of yonder nodding beech "That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, "His listless length at noon-tide would he stretch, "And pore upon the brook that babbles by." Gray's Elegy. STEEVENS. 8 The wretched animal heav'd forth such groans, That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat, Almost to bursting; and the big round tears Cours'd one another down his innocent nose, &c.] Saucius at quadrupes nota intra tecta refugit, Successitque gemens stabulis; questuque, cruentus, Atque imploranti similis, tectum omne replevit. Virg. MALONE.

It is said in one of the marginal notes to a similar passage in the 13th Song of Drayton's Polyolbion, that "the harte weepeth at his dying his tears are held to be precious in medicine."

STEEVENS.

DUKE S.

But what said Jaques ?

Did he not moralize this spectacle?

1 LORD. O, yes, into a thousand similes. First, for his weeping in the needless stream '; Poor deer, quoth he, thou mak'st a testament As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more

To that which had too much1: Then, being there alone 2,

Left and abandon'd of his velvet friends;
'Tis right, quoth he; thus misery doth part
The flux of company: Anon, a careless herd,
Full of the pasture, jumps along by him,
And never stays to greet him; Ay, quoth Jaques,
Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens;
'Tis just the fashion: Wherefore do you look
Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?
Thus most invectively he pierceth through
The body of country, city, court,

9

IN the NEEDLESS stream;] The stream that wanted not such a supply of moisture. The old copy has into, caught probably by the compositor's eye from the line above. The correction was made by Mr. Pope. MALONE.

To that which had too мUCH:] Old copy-too must. Corrected by the editor of the second folio. MALONE.

Shakspeare has almost the same thought in his Lover's Complaint :

2

"Upon whose weeping margin she was set,
“Like usury, applying wet to wet."

Again, in King Henry VI. Part III. Act V. Sc. IV.:

"With tearful eyes add water to the sea,

"And give more strength to that which hath too much."

STEEVENS.

Then, being alone,] The old copy redundantly readsThen being there alone. STEEvens.

3 The body of THE country,] The oldest copy omits—the; but it is supplied by the second folio, which has many advantages over the first. Mr. Malone is of a different opinion; but let him speak for himself. STEEVENS.

Country is here used as a trisyllable. So again, in Twelfth Night:

"The like of him. Know'st thou this country?"

The editor of the second folio, who appears to have been ut

Yea, and of this our life: swearing, that we
Are mere usurpers, tyrants, and what's worse,
To fright the animals, and to kill them up,
In their assign'd and native dwelling place.
DUKE S. And did you leave him in this contem-
plation?

2 LORD. We did, my lord, weeping and com

menting

Upon the sobbing deer.

DUKE S.

4

Show me the place;

I love to cope him in these sullen fits,

For then he's full of matter.

2 LORD. I'll bring you to him straight. [Exeunt.

SCENE II.

A Room in the Palace.

Enter Duke FREDERICK, Lords, and Attendants. DUKE F. Can it be possible, that no man saw them ?

It cannot be some villains of my court
Are of consent and sufferance in this.

1 LORD. I cannot hear of any that did see her. The ladies, her attendants of her chamber, Saw her a-bed; and, in the morning early,

terly ignorant of our author's phraseology and metre, reads-The body of the country, &c. which has been followed by all the subsequent editors. MALONE.

Is not country used elsewhere also as a dissyllable? See Coriolanus, Act I. Sc. VI. :

"And that his country's dearer than himself." Besides, by reading country as a trisyllable, in the middle of a verse, it would become rough and dissonant. STEEVENS.

I am bound to give Mr. Malone's text, or I should have been better pleased, in this instance, to have followed the second folio. BOSWELL.

4 -to COPE him-] To encounter him; to engage with him.

JOHNSON.