"-to walk like one of the lions"-Ritson supposes that Shakespeare, in using the phrase "the lions," was thinking of the lions" in the Tower, of London; but it seems that the expression was in general use then, though probably derived from that ancient show.

"-for he, being in love, could not see to garter his hose"-At the period of this play, garters of great magnificence appeared around the large slashed hose, both above and below the knee. To go ungartered was the common trick of a fantastic lover, who thereby implied he was too much occupied by his passion to pay attention to his dress.

"O excellent MOTION! O exceeding PUPPET"—“ A 'motion,' in Shakespeare's time, meant a puppet-show, from the puppets being moved by the master, who interpreted to (or for) them, as Speed supposes Valentine will interpret for Silvia, the 'exceeding puppet' on this occasion."-COLLIER.

"All this I SPEAK IN PRINT"-i. e. "With exactness: Speed adds, that he found it in print,' perhaps in some book or ballad of that time, which has not survived to

"Why then, we'll make exchange"-The Priest, in TWELFTH NIGHT, (act v. scene i.,) describes the ceremonial of betrothing, for which the Catholic church had a ritual:

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.

This contract was made, in private, by Proteus and Julia; and it was also made by Valentine and Silvia"we are betroth'd."

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SCENE III.

this left shoe is my father"-A passage in KING JOHN also shows that each foot was formerly (as now) fitted with its shoe; a fashion which was lost during the last century, and allusions to it puzzled the commentators until it was revived about thirty years ago :

Standing on slippers, which his nimble haste
Had falsely thrust upon contrary feet.

"I am the DOG," etc.-Launce is himself puzzled with the characters of his own mono-polylogue; and perhaps Shakespeare did not mean him to get out of his confusion. Hanmer proposes to read, "I am the dog, no, the dog is himself, and I am me, the dog is the dog, and I am myself." Although this reading makes the text more reasonable, (as Johnson remarks,) it is not clear that the author meant to bestow much reason on Launce's soliloquy.

or frantic woman, wood being the old word for frantic or mad the mother of Launce was "wood" with grief at parting from her son.

"—and the TIDE"-"The first 'tied' refers to the dog, and the last to the river, as we see from what follows'Why man, if the river were dry,' etc. The joke which has occupied Launce and Panthino is more evident in the old copy, where the ' tide' of the river and the 'tied' dog are spelled in the same way-tide.'"-COLLIER.

SCENE IV.

how QUOTE you my folly"-To "quote" is to note or observe. Valentine in his answer, perhaps, plays upon the word, which was pronounced coat-from the French original.

"My jerkin is a doublet"-"The jerkin, or jacket, was generally worn over the doublet; but occasionally the doublet was worn alone, and, in many instances, is confounded with the jerkin. Either had sleeves or not, as the wearer fancied; for by the inventories and wardrobe accounts of the time, we find that the sleeves were frequently separate articles of dress, and attached to the doublet, jerkin, coat, or even woman's gown, by laces or ribands, at the pleasure of the wearer. A doblet jaquet' and hose of blue velvet, cut upon cloth of gold, embroidered, and a 'doblet hose and jaquet' of purple velvet, embroidered, and cut upon cloth of gold, and lined with black satin, are entries in an inventory of the wardrobe of Henry VIII.

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"In 1535, a jerkin of purple velvet, with purple satin sleeves, embroidered all over with Venice gold, was presented to the king by Sir Richard Cromwell; and another jerkin of crimson velvet, with wide sleeves of the same coloured satin, is mentioned in the same inventory."-KNIGHT.

"Enter THURIO"-"The editors, from Theobald downwards, make "a Servant" enter here, and not Thurio, to whom the old copies assign the sentence 'Madam, my lord, your father, would speak with you.' They say also that the commencement of Silvia's answer is addressed to two persons.' This is by no means clear: I wait upon his pleasure: come, Sir Thurio, go with me,' is spoken to Thurio with more propriety than to two distinct persons. It is more likely that Thurio went out on the entrance of Proteus, and returned with the message of the Duke to his daughter. The economy of the old stage, with many characters and with few performers, did not allow the waste of an actor in the part of a mere message-carrier. The probability is that the old copies are right, and that Thurio is employed from the Duke."-COLLIER.

"There is no woe TO HIS correction”—i. e. There is no woe compared to his correction. The idiom was

It is mine eye, or Valentino's praise; which is clearly not interrogative, as the punctuation of the oldest copies shows it ought to be. Malone's emendation gives no support to the next two linesHer true perfection, or my false transgression, That makes me, reasonless, to reason thus ? He was right in adopting Valentinus, and wrong in rejecting "eye," which was the cause of the transgression of Proteus. Valentinus for Valentine we have had already, act i. scene 3. Perhaps the true reading was mine eyen, which was corrupted and abbreviated by the old printer to mine.

"-like a WAXEN IMAGE 'gainst a fire"-This alludes to the custom attributed to supposed witches, of making waxen images of those whom they wished to destroy: as the image melted before the fire, the original was supposed to melt too.

"Tis but her PICTURE"-Johnson speaks of this line, as "evidently a slip of attention," as if Proteus could have forgotten that he had just seen Silvia herself, and not her "picture." He uses 'picture" figuratively, meaning merely exterior as compared with inward "perfections."

"And that hath dazzled my reason's light”—“ Dazzled" is here used as a trisyllable.

SCENE VI.

"-and PRETENDED fight"-i. e. Intended. "So in MACBETH, "What could they pretend?" The French word pretendre has an equivalent meaning."-STEVENS.

"this drift"--"I suspect that the author concluded the act with this couplet, and that the next scene should begin the third act; but the change, as it will add nothing to the probability of the action, is of no great importance."--JOHNSON.

SCENE VII.

"Who art the table wherein all my thoughts
Are visibly character'd and engrav'd."

The allusion is to the table-book, or tables, which were used, as at present, for noting down something to be remembered. Hamlet says:-

My tables,-meet it is I set it down.

They were made sometimes of ivory and sometimes of slate. The Archbishop of York, in HENRY IV., says: And, therefore, will he wipe his tables clean.

The table-book of slate is engraved and described in Gesner's treatise, De Rerum Fossilium Figuris, 1565: and it has been quoted in Douce's "Illustrations."

"And instances OF INFINITE of love"-" Infinite,”— infinity. The same form of expression occurs in MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, where we have "the infinite of thought," and also in Chaucer:-" although the life of it be stretched with infinite of time." The reading we give is that of the first folio, adopted by Knight and Singer. The common reading is that of the second folio, "Instances as infinite," which is preferred by Collier.

"-fearing lest my jealous AIM might err”—“ Aim” is here used in the sense of "guess," or "supposition," as the verb is similarly used in Proteus's answer.

"— is soon SUGGESTED"-i. e. Tempted. Thus, in ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL we have, "I give thee not this to suggest thee from thy master's service :" and in the same sense, in act i. scene 4, we have, "sweet-suggesting love," which the context shows to mean sweetly.

"And, WHERE I thought"-"Where" for whereas ; so used by our author in CORIOLANUS and PERICLES, and common in older authors.

"There is a lady, sir, in MILAN here"-The old copies concur in reading

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"Again, in Gascoigne's Adventures of Master F. I.:' 'at delivery thereof, [i. e. of a letter,] she understode not for what cause he thrust the same into her bosome.' "Trifling as the remark may appear, before the meaning of this address of letters to the bosom of a mistress can be understood, it should be known that anciently women had a pocket in the fore part of their stays, in which they not only carried love-letters and love-tokens, but even their money and materials for needlework. Thus Chaucer, in his Marchante's Tale:'

This purse hath she in hire bosome hid.

"In many parts of England, the rustic damsels still observe the same practice; and a very old lady informs me, that she remembers when it was the fashion to wear prominent stays, it was no less the custom for stratagem or gallantry to drop its literary favours within the front of them."-STEVENS.

"if he be but ONE knave"-i. e. Not a double knave, says Johnson: and Dr. Farmer has shown, from several passages of old poets, etc., that two foolstwo knaves, were often used where we should now say a double fool or knave.

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- for she hath had GOSSIPS"-"The meaning seems to be that she has had old women attending her at her lying-in. Gossip generally means a sponsor at baptism, and Launce may intend to say, that the progeny of the girl had required gossips.'"-COLLIER.

"-saint Nicholas be thy speed"-Saint Nicholas, besides being the patron-saint of Holland, and of Russia, presided over all clerks or learned persons. He was exalted to this honour, according to the legend, for having miraculously restored the lives of three young scholars who had been murdered. By the statutes of St. Paul's School, (London,) the scholars are required to attend divine service at the cathedral, on the anniversary of St. Nicholas. He has also long been known in Holland and New York as the special friend of children. In addition to these high charges of the care of nations, and scholars, and children, the saint was also honoured by having thieves called his clerks, why, it is not easy to say, unless it be that in the old times of learned beg"scholar" and "thief" were thought synonymous gary, terms.

"She hath a SWEET MOUTH"-"A sweet mouth' formerly meant a sweet tooth, which is here reckoned among the lady's vices; but Launce turns it to account by understanding the words in their literal sense, and setting her 'sweet mouth' against her 'sour breath.' ”COLLIER.

SCENE II.

"and perversely she PERSEVERS so"-This was the old mode of accenting the word. Milton was one of the first to write, and to pronounce it, persevere.

"You must provide to BOTTOM it on me"-Stevens has found this housewife's image, as appearing in English poetry, before the time of Shakespeare:

A bottom for your silk, it seems,

My letters are become,

Which oft with winding off and on,
Are wasted whole and some.

GRANGE'S "Garden," 1557.

"That may discover such integrity"—Malone “suspected" that a line following the above had been accidentally omitted; but any addition seems needless. Valentine alludes to the "integrity" of Sir Thurio's passion-"such integrity" as he may be supposed to have expressed in his sonnets.

"With some sweet CONSORT"-"Consort" meant, in our author's time, a band or company of musicians. It is so explained by the old dictionaries, and so used and spelled in King James's Bible. The substitution of concert is a modern corruption of the text.

"Tune a deploring DUMP"-The term "dump" is now used only in a ludicrous sense; but there were formerly regular serious pieces of music so called, one of which has been preserved by Stevens, in his editions, as "A Dumpe" of the sixteenth century.

"This, or else nothing, will INHERIT her"—To "inherit" is sometimes used by Shakespeare for to obtain possession of, without any idea of acquiring by inheritance. Milton, in "Comus" has, "disinherit Chaos," meaning, only, to dispossess it.

"To SORT some gentlemen well skill'd in music". To "sort" is to choose out, or select. When sorted, (Collier adds,) they would form a consort.

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By the bare scalp of Robin Hood's fat friar"The jolly Friar Tuck, of the old Robin Hood balladsthe almost equally famous Friar Tuck of " Ivanhoe”—is the personage whom the outlaws here invoke. It is unnecessary to enter upon the legends

Of Tuck, the merry friar, who many a sermon made, In praise of Robin Hood, his outlaws, and his trade. Shakespeare has two other allusions to Robin Hood. The old duke, in AS YOU LIKE IT, "is already in the forest of Arden, and many merry men with him, and there they live, like the old Robin Hood of England." Master Silence, that "merry heart," that "man of mettle," sings, "in the sweet of the night," of-

Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John.

The honourable conditions of Robin's lawless rule over his followers were evidently in our Poet's mind when he makes Valentine say—

I take your offer, and will live with you;
Provided that you do no outrages

On silly women, or poor passengers.

"Thrust from the company of AWFUL men"-Thus all the old editions, and it is probably the right reading"awful" being understood in its literal meaning, for full of awe, under awe of authority, and it is thus used by the Poet, as in HENRY IV., "We come within our awful banks again;" and in HENRY V., awe is used in reference to the same idea of respect for rightful rule. Yet this sense seems peculiar to Shakespeare, and the commentators and lexicographers have produced no instance in any other old author. This gives some colour to the conjecture that "awful" is here a misprint for lawful; the phrase lawful men being familiar both in legal and popular use.

"AN heir, and NEAR allied unto the duke"-This line varies from the old copies, for it there stands thus:

And heir, and neece allide unto the Duke. Both the words in Italic are probably errors of the press. The old spelling of "near" was often neere. "Heir" was formerly both masculine and feminine.

"As we do in our QUALITY much want”—i. e. In our kind, or profession. So, in the TEMPEST,

-Task Ariel and all his quality.

SCENE II.

"―he lov'd her out of all NICK"-Beyond all reckoning, or count. Reckonings were kept not only by hosts upon nicked, or notched sticks, but by such tallies in the Exchequer of England; and it is one of the many instances of the attachment of the English to their ancient forms, that this inartificial and primitive form of book-keeping was not abolished in the Exchequer until the first year of William IV.

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By my HALIDOM"-Minshew (Dictionary) thus explains this word: "Halidome, or Holidome, an old word, used by old country women, by manner of swearing, by my halidome; of the Saxon word, haligdome, ex halig, i. e. sanctum, and dome; dominium aut judicium." A more common explanation is, that it refers to "the holy dame"--the Virgin Mary. But Nares (Glossary) and others reject both interpretations, and with more probability, and say it is merely "Holy with the termination dom, as Kingdom, Christendom;" meaning thus, holiness, faith; and is equivalent as an oath to "By my faith."

Upon whose grave thou vow'dst pure chastity." This alludes to a practice common in former ages, for widows and widowers, (and, probably also, betrothed lovers,) to make vows of chastity in honour of their deceased wives or husbands. In Dugdale's "Antiquities of Warwickshire," (says Stevens,) there is the form of a commission, by the bishop of the diocese, for taking a vow of chastity by a widow. It seems that, besides observing the vow, the widow was for life to wear a veil and a mourning habit. The last distinction we may suppose to have been also made in respect of male votaries.

SCENE IV.

"Enter LAUNCE with his dog."

"What shall we say to Launce and his dog? Is it probable that even such a fool as Launce should have put his feet into the stocks for the puddings which his dog had stolen, or poked his head through the pillory for the murder of geese which the same dog had killed?-yet the ungrateful cur never denies one item of the facts with which Launce so tenderly reproaches him. Nay, what is more wonderful, this enormous outrage on the probable excites our common risibility. What an unconscionable empire over our fanciful faith is assumed by those comic geniuses! They despise the very word probability. Only think of Smollet making us laugh at the unlikely speech of Pipes, spoken to Commodore Trunnion down a chimney- Commodore Trunnion, get up and be spliced, or lie still and be damned!' And think also of Swift amusing us with contrasted descriptions of men six inches and sixty feet high-how very improbable!

"At the same time, something may be urged on the opposite side of the question. A fastidious sense of the improbable would be sometimes a nuisance in comic fiction. One sees dramatic critics often trying the probabilities of incidents in a play, as if they were testing the evidence of facts at the Old-Bailey. Now, unquestionably, at that august court, when it is a question whether a culprit shall be spared, or whipped and transported for life, probabilities should be sifted with a merciful leaning towards the side of doubt. But the theatre is not the Old-Bailey, and as we go to the former place for amusement, we open our hearts to whatever may most amuse us; nor do we thank the critic who, by his Old-Bailey-like pleadings, would disenchant our belief. The imagination is a liberal creditor of its faith as to incidents, when the poet can either touch our affections, or tickle our ridicule.

"Nay, we must not overlook an important truth in

this subject. The poet or the fictionist-and every great fictionist is a true poet-gives us an image of life at large, and not of the narrow and stinted probabilities of everyday life. But real life teems with events which, unless we knew them to have actually happened, would seem as to be next to impossibilities. So that if you chain down the poet from representing every thing that may seem in dry reasoning to be improbable, you will make his fiction cease to be a probable picture of Nature."T. CAMPBELL.

"-he steps me to her trencher"-That the daughter of a duke of Milan should eat her capon from a trencher, may appear somewhat strange. However, the Earl of Northumberland, in 1512, was ordinarily served on wooden trenchers; and plates of pewter, mean as we may now think them, were reserved in his family for great holidays. In the privy-purse expenses of Henry VIII. there are also entries regarding trenchers; as, for example, in 1530,-"Item, paied to the s'geant of the pantrye for certain trenchors for the king, xxiijs. iiijd."

"A slave that STILL AN END"-"Still an end," and most an end, are old idioms, once used by poets, but now retained only in vulgar use, and mean perpetually, generally.

"And threw her sun-expelling mask away"-An extract from Stubbs's "Anatomie of Abuses," (1595,) will explain this allusion:-"When they use to ride abroad, they have masks or visors made of velvet, wherewith they cover all their faces, having holes made in them against their eyes, whereout they look; so that if a man that knew not their guise before should chance to meet one of them, he would think he met a monster or a devil; for face he can show [see] none, but two broad holes against their eyes, with glasses in them."

"I made her weep A-GOOD"-i. e. In good earnest. The expression is common in old English, and corresponds to the French tout de bon.

"—such a colour'd periwig"-It seems, from various contemporary authorities, that false hair was much worn in Shakespeare's time: the custom, however, had newly arisen. In "Northward Hoe," (1607,) we find this passage: "There is a new trade come up for cast gentlewomen, of periwig making. Let your wife set up in the Strand." There is an allusion to the practice in the MERCHANT OF VENICE.

"Her eyes are grey as glass"-"The glass of Shakespeare's time was not of the colourless quality which now constitutes the perfection of glass, but of a light blue tint; hence as grey as glass.'

Even as

grey as glasse,' in the old romances, expresses the pale cerulean blue of those eyes which usually accompany a fair complexion-a complexion belonging to the 'auburn' and 'yellow' hair of Julia and Silvia."-KNIGHT.

"But I can make RESPECTIVE in myself"-Stevens interprets "respective" as respectful, respectable; but the true meaning of the word, and the context, show that Julia says, "What he respects in her has equal relation to myself."

"My substance should be STATUE in thy stead"-In the time of Shakespeare there was frequently some confusion when writers spoke of statues or paintings; possibly, because it was not unusual to paint statues, in the Same way that our Poet's bust was originally painted at Stratford-upon-Avon; and as the statue of Hermione, in the WINTER'S TALE, must be supposed to be painted. Thus Stowe, speaking of Queen Elizabeth's funeral, says, "Her statue or picture upon her coffin."

ACT V.-SCENE II.

"But love will not be spurr'd to what it loaths"— This line is given in the old copies to Proteus; but, as Boswell suggested, it seems to belong to Julia, who Lands by, and comments on what is said. And this is

exactly in the style of her other sarcastic speeches, while it does not correspond with Proteus's intention.

"For I had rather wink than look on them"-This

speech, assigned in the old editions to Thurio, certainly belongs to Julia.

"That they are out by lease"-Lord Hailes suggested that Thurio and Proteus meant different things by the word possessions; Thurio referring to his lands, and Proteus to his mental endowments. If so, the point of the answer would be, that as Thurio's mental endowments were "out by lease," he had none of them in his own keeping. This interpretation seems overstrained, and the meaning of Proteus may be only, that Thurio's possessions were let (as Stevens says) on disadvantageous terins.

SCENE III.

"--and RECORD my woes"-"To 'record' anciently signified to sing. So, in 'The Pilgrim,' by Beaumont and Fletcher:

6

O sweet, sweet, how the birds record too. Sir John Hawkins informs me, that to record' is a term still used by bird-fanciers, to express the first essays of a bird in singing."--STEVENS.

"Who should be trusted NOW, when one's right hand"-With Stevens and Collier, this edition follows the reading of the folio of 1632: the folio of 1623 omits "now." Malone and other editors read, on their own authority, thus :

Who should be trusted, when one's own right hand.

"All that was mine in Silvia I give thee"-" This passage has much perplexed the commentators. Pope, naturally enough, thinks it very odd, that Valentine should give up his mistress at once, without any reason alleged; and consequently the two lines, spoken by Valentine, after his forgiveness of Proteus,

And, that my love may appear plain and free, All that was mine in Silvia I give thee,are considered to be interpolated or transposed. Sir W. Blackstone thinks they should be spoken by Thurio. But why then, it is said, if the lines are omitted or removed, should Julia faint? Now it must be observed, that the stage-direction, Faints, is entirely modern; it is not so old as Rowe's edition. The words, 'O me unhappy,' and, Look to the boy,' do not imply any fainting. The exclamation of Julia is to draw the attention of Proteus to her story of the rings, after the affair of Valentine and Silvia is completed. But how is that completed, according to the present reading? Silvia has not said one word since Valentine has rescued her from Proteus. This is almost as unnatural as the conduct of Valentine in handing her over to the man who had insulted her. But let us, with an extremely slight alteration, put the two disputed lines in the mouth of Silvia, without changing their place. Valentine has forgiven his false friend :

By penitence th' Eternal's wrath's appeas'd. Silvia then has necessarily something to declare. She turns to Valentine, and says,

And, that my love may appear plain and free,
All that was mine in Silvia I give thee.

In other words, That there may be no doubt of my choice, I give thee all that is mine to give-I give thee Silvia;' the sentiment then is the same as in Moore's song,

I give thee all, I can no more, Though poor the offering be,

whose penitence touches him, and whose happiness he believes to require the sacrifice. Such romantic generosity is not uncommon in fiction, and probably not altogether unknown in actual life. One of Goldsmith's best serious essays, called Alcander and Septimius,' is founded on a similar incident: whether derived from fact, we are not prepared to say. The editor of the 'Pictorial' edition of SHAKESPEARE offers the very ingenious suggestion, that these remarkable lines should be given to Silvia, and addressed to Valentine; but, on a general view of his character, we have no doubt of the genuineness of the present reading."-Illust. Shak.

This is the light in which Charles Lamb and his sister understood the passage, which is thus paraphrased in the "Tales from Shakespeare:"

"Proteus was courting Silvia, and he was so much ashamed of being caught by his friend, that he was all at once seized with penitence and remorse; and he expressed such a lively sorrow for the injuries he had done to Valentine, that Valentine, whose nature was uoble and generous, even to a romantic degree, not only forgave and restored him to his former place in his friendship, but in a sudden flight of heroism he said, 'I freely do forgive you; and all the interest I have in Silvia, I give it up to you.' Julia, who was standing beside her master as a page, hearing this strange offer, and fearing Proteus would not be able with this new-found virtue to refuse Silvia, fainted, and they were all employed in recovering her: else would Silvia have been offended at being thus made over to Proteus, though she could scarcely think that Valentine would long persevere in this overstrained and too generous act of friendship."

It is very likely that the young Poet had intended to expand this idea, which would have been much in the taste of the romantic heroism of the poetry of his age; but that, finding himself too much cramped by the narrow limits left him in the last act, or for some other cause, he was content to leave this slight intimation of his thought as it first occurred to him, without dwelling upon it in detail.

"Behold her that GAVE AIM to all thy oaths"-Stevens confounded the phrases of to cry aim (MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR, act iii. scene 2) and to give aim, both terms in archery. He who " gave aim" appears to have been called the mark, and was stationed near the butts, to inform the archers how near their arrows fell to the butt. We are indebted to Mr. Gifford for distinguishing the terms.-(Vide "Massinger," vol. ii.)— Julia means to say that she was the mark that gave direction to his vows.

“VERONA shall not hold thee"-" Valentine had only seen Thurio, till now, in Milan, and Milan ought, perhaps, to have been the word, and not 'Verona.' However, we may imagine Valentine to be thinking of his native city; and, at all events, it is better to leave Verona' as an oversight of the Poet, (duly pointed out,) than to make so violent a change as Theobald adopted when he printed

Milan shall not behold thee, etc. which quite perverts the meaning of the passage.”— COLLIER.

"that I have KEPT WITHAL"-i. e. "With whom I have been living-that I have remained with," explains Collier; from which it would seem that this use of keep has become obsolete in England. It is still used, colloquially, in many parts of the United States; and was common in good English writers as late as Pope and Addison.

"we will INCLUDE all jars"-Hanmer arbitrarily substituted conclude for "include;" but all the old copies agree in the text; and "include" seems used here as Spenser has a similar usage,--" So hut up all in friendly love."

"With TRIUMPHS," etc.--This term wa applied, in Shakespeare's day, to shows, pageants, and processions of a serious nature.

"It is observable (I know not for what cause) that the style of this comedy is less figurative, and more natural and unaffected, than the greater part of this author's, though supposed to be one of the first he wrote."-POPE.

"To this observation of Mr. Pope, which is very just, Mr. Theobald has added, that this is one of Shakespeare's worst plays, and is less corrupted than any other.' Mr. Upton peremptorily determines, that 'if any proof can be drawn from manner and style, this play must be sent packing, and seek for its parent elsewhere. How otherwise,' says he, 'do painters distinguish copies from originals? And have not authors their peculiar style and manner, from which a true critic can form as unerring judgment as a painter?' I am afraid this illustration of a critic's science will not prove what is desired. A painter knows a copy from an original, by rules, somewhat resembling those by which critics know a translation, which, if it be literal, and literal it must be to resemble the copy of a picture, will be easily distinguished. Copies are known from originals, even when the painter copies his own picture; so, if an author should literally translate his work, he would lose the manner of an original.

"Mr. Upton confounds the copy of a picture with the imitation of a painter's manner. Copies are easily known; but good imitations are not detected with equal certainty, and are, by the best judges, often mistaken. Nor is it true, that the writer has always peculiarities equally distinguishable with those of the painter. The peculiar manner of each arises from the desire, natural to every performer, of facilitating his subsequent work, by recurrence to his former ideas; this recurrence proThe duces that repetition which is called habit. painter, whose work is partly intellectual and partly manual, has habits of the mind, the eye, and the hand; the writer has only habits of the mind. Yet, some painters have differed as much from themselves, as from any other; and I have been told, that there is little resemblance between the first works of Raphael and the last. The same variation may be expected in writers; and if it be true, as it seems, that they are less subject to habit, the difference between their works may be yet greater.

"But, by the internal marks of a composition, we may discover the author with probability, though seldom with certainty. When I read this play, I cannot but think, that I find, both in the serious and ludicrous scenes, the language and sentiments of Shakespeare. It is not, indeed, one of his most powerful effusions-it has neither many diversities of character, nor striking delineations of life; but it abounds in gnomai, beyond most of his plays; and few have more lines or passages which, singly considered, are eminently beautiful. am yet inclined to believe, that it was not very successful, and suspect that it has escaped corruption only because, being seldom played, it was less exposed to the hazards of transcription."-JOHNSON.

I

"The Two GENTLEMEN OF VERONA ranks above the COMEDY OF ERRORS, though still in the third class of Shakespeare's plays. It was probably the first English comedy in which characters are drawn at once ideal and true; the cavaliers of Verona and their lady loves are graceful personages, with no transgression of the probabilities of nature, but they are not exactly the real man and woman of the same rank in England. The imagination of Shakespeare must have been guided by some familiarity with romances before it struck out this play. It contains some very poetical lines.

"Though this play and the COMEDY OF ERRORS could not give the slightest suspicion of the depth of thought which LEAR and MACBETH were to display, it was already evident that the name of Greene, and even of Marlowe, would be eclipsed, without any necessity for purloining their plumes."-HALLAM.