And these great tears grace his remembrance more,
Than those I fhed for him. What was he like?
I have forgot him: my imagination

Carries no favour in it, but Bertram's.

young girl, ought to keep up the credit which her father" "had" eftablished, who was the beft phyfician of the age; and fhe by her anfwer, O, were that all! feems to admit that it would be no difficult matter for her to do fo." The abfurdity of this is evident; and the words will admit of no other interpretation. Some alteration therefore is neceffary; and that which I propofe is, to read uphold, instead of muft hold, and then the meaning will be this:

Lafeu, obferving that Helena had shed a torrent of tears, which he and the Countefs both afcribe to her grief for her father, fays, that the upholds the credit of her father, on this principle, that the fureft proof that can be given of the merit of a perfon deceased, are the lamentations of those who furvive him. But Helena, who knows her own heart, wishes that she had no other cause of grief, except the lofs of her father, whom the thinks no more of."

M. MASON.

O, were that all! &c.] Would that the attention to maintain the credit of my father, (or, not to act unbecoming the daughter of fuch a father, for fuch perhaps is the meaning,) were my only folicitude! I think not of him. My cares are all for Bertram.

MALONE. 7 these great tears-] The tears which the King and Countefs fhed for him. JOHNSON.

And thefe great tears his remembrance more,

grace

Than thofe I fhed for him.] Johnfon fuppofes that, by these great tears, Helena means the tears which the King and the Countess fhed for her father; but it does not appear that either of those great perfons had fhed tears for him, though they fpoke of him with regret. By thefe great tears, Helena does not mean the tears. of great people, but the big and copious tears fhe then shed herself, which were caufed in reality by Bertram's departure, though attributed by Lafeu and the Countefs, to the lofs of her father; and from this misapprehenfion of theirs, graced his remembrance more than those fhe actually fhed for him. What the calls gracing his remembrance, is what Lafeu had ftyled before, upholding his credit, the two paffages tending to explain each other. It is fcarcely neceffary to make this grammatical obfervation-That if Helena had alluded to any tears fuppofed to have been fhed by the King, fhe would have faid thofe tears, not thefe, as the latter pronoun muft neceffarily refer to fomething prefent at the time.

M. MASON.

I am undone; there is no living, none,
If Bertram be away. It were all one,
That I should love a bright particular star,
And think to wed it, he is so above me:
In his bright radiance and collateral light
Muft I be comforted, not in his fphere.
The ambition in my love thus plagues itself:
The hind, that would be mated by the lion,
Muft die for love. 'Twas pretty, though a plague,
To fee him every hour; to fit and draw
His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls, X
In our heart's table; heart, too capable
Of every line and trick of his fweet favour: 2

• In his bright radiance, &c.] I cannot be united with him and move in the fame Sphere, but must be comforted at a diftance by the radiance that shoots on all fides from him. JOHNSON,

So, in Milton's Paradife Loft, B. X:

66

from his radiant feat he rose

"Of high collateral glory." STEEVENS.

Twas pretty, though a plague,

To fee him every bour, to fit and draw

His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,

In our heart's table;] So, in our author's 24th Sonnet:
"Mine eye hath play'd the painter, and hath steel'd

"Thy beauty's form in table of my heart."

A table was in our author's time a term for a picture, in which fenfe it is ufed here. Tableau, Fr. So, on a picture painted in the time of Queen Elizabeth, in the poffeffion of the Hon. Horace Walpole:

"The Queen to Walfingham this table sent,

"Mark of her people's and her own content." MALONE. Table here only fignifies the board on which any picture was painted. So, in Mr. Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting in England, Vol. I. p. 58: "Item, one table with the picture of the Duchefs of Milan.' "Item, one table, with the pictures of the King's Majefty and Queen Jane:" &c. Helena would not have talked of drawing Bertram's picture in her heart's picture; but confiders her heart as the tablet or furface on which his refemblance was to be pour trayed. STEEVENS.

1-trick of his feet favour:] So, in King John: "he hath VOL. VI.

But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy
Muft fanctify his relicks. Who comes here?

Enter PAROLLES.

One that goes with him: I love him for his fake;
And yet I know him a notorious liar,

Think him a great way fool, folely a coward;
Yet these fix'd evils fit fo fit in him,

That they take place, when virtue's steely bones
Look bleak in the cold wind: withal, full oft we fee
Cold wisdom waiting on fuperfluous folly.3

PAR. Save you, fair queen.

HEL. And you, monárch."
PAR. No.

HEL. And no."

PAR. Are you meditating on virginity?

a trick of Cœur de Lion's face." Trick feems to be fome peculiarity or feature. JOHNSON.

Trick is an expreffion taken from drarving, and is fo explained in King John, Act I. fc. i. The present instance explains itself: to fit and draw

His arched brows, &c.

and trick of his feet favour.

Trick, however, on the prefent occafion, may mean neither tracing nor outline, but peculiarity. STEEVENS.

Tricking is ufed by heralds for the delineation and colouring of arms, &c. MALONE.

3 Cold wisdom waiting on fuperfluous folly.] Cold for naked; as fuperfluous for over-cloathed. This makes the propriety of the

antithefis. WARBURTON.

And you, monarch.] Perhaps here is fome allufion defigned to Monarche, a ridiculous fantastical character of the age of Shakspeare. Concerning this perfon, fee the notes on Love's Labour's Loft, A&t IV. fc. i. STEEVENS.

5 And no.] I am no more a queen than you are a monarch, or Monarche. MALONE.

HEL. Ay. You have some stain of foldier in you; let me afk you a queftion: Man is enemy to virginity; how may we barricado it against him? PAR. Keep him out.

HEL. But he affails; and our virginity, though valiant in the defence, yet is weak: unfold to us fome warlike refiftance.

PAR. There is none; man, fitting down before you, will undermine you, and blow you up.

.HEL. Blefs our poor virginity from underminers, and blowers up!-Is there no military policy, how virgins might blow up men?

PAR. Virginity being blown down, man will quicklier be blown up: marry, in blowing him down again, with the breach yourselves made, you lofe your city. It is not politick in the common

6

ftain of foldier-] Stain for colour. Parolles was in red, as appears from his being afterwards called red-tail'd humble-bee. WARBURTON.

་་

It does not appear from either of these expressions, that Parolles was entirely dreft in red. Shakspeare writes only fome flain of foldier, meaning in one fenfe, that he had red breeches on, (which is fufficiently evident from calling him afterwards red-tail'd humblebee,) and in another, that he was a difgrace to foldiery. Stain is ufed in an adverfe fenfe by Shakspeare, in Troilus and Creffida: nor any man an attaint, but he carries fome ftain of it.” Mr. M. Mafon observes on this occafion that " though a red coat is now the mark of a foldier in the British fervice, it was not fo in the days of Shakspeare, when we had no ftanding army, and the use of armour ftill prevailed." To this I reply, that the colour red has always been annexed to foldierfhip. Chaucer, in his Knight's Tale, v. 1749, has "Mars the rede," and Boccace has given Mars the fame epithet in the opening of his Theseida: O rubicondo Marte." STEEVENS.

Stain rather for what we now fay tincture, fome qualities, at least fuperficial, of a foldier. JOHNSON.

7 with the breach yourselves made, you lofe your city.] So, in our author's Lover's Complaint:

8.

wealth of nature, to preferve virginity. Lofs of virginity is rational increase; and there was never virgin got, till virginity was first loft. That, you were made of, is metal to make virgins. Virginity, by being once loft, may be ten times found: by being ever kept, it is ever loft: 'tis too cold a companion; away with it.

HEL. I will ftand for't a little, though therefore I die a virgin.

9

PAR. There's little can be faid in't; 'tis against the rule of nature. To fpeak on the part of virginity, is to accufe your mothers; which is most infallible difobedience. He, that hangs himself, is a virgin virginity murders itfelf; and fhould be buried in highways, out of all fanctified limit, as a defperate offendrefs againft nature. Virginity breeds mites, much like a cheese; confumes itself to the very paring, and fo dies with feeding his own ftomach. Besides, virginity is peevish, proud, idle, made of felf-love, which is the most inhibited fin2 in the canon. Keep it not; you cannot choose but lose by't: Out with't: within ten years it will

"And long upon these terms I held my city,
"Till thus he 'gan befiege me."

Again, in The Rape of Lucrece:

"This makes in him more rage, and leffer pity,

"To make the breach, and enter this fweet city." MALONE. 8 Lofs of virginity is rational increafe;] I believe we should read, national. TYRWHITT.

Rational increase may mean the regular increase by which rational beings are propagated. STEEVENS.

9 He, that hangs himself, is a virgin: virginity murders itself;]. i. e. he that hangs himfelf, and a virgin, are in this circumftance alike; they are both felf-deftroyers. MALONE.

inhibited fin—] i. e. forbidden. So, in Othello:

a practifer

"Of arts inhibited and out of warrant." STEEVENS.