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going away after his harangue, said, will you any thing with me? to which Helen may reply

what to do with the passage.

I know not
JOHNSON.

'I do not perceive so great a want of connection as my predecessors have apprehended; nor is that connection always to be sought for, in so careless a writer as ours, from the thought immediately preceding the reply of the speaker. Parolles has been laughing at the unprofitableness of virginity, especially when it grows ancient, and compares it to withered fruit. Helena properly enough replies, that her's is not yet in that state; but that in the enjoyment of her, his master should find the gratification of all his most romantick wishes. What Dr. Warburton says afterwards is said at random, as all positive declarations of the same kind must of necessity be. Were I to propose any change, I would read should instead of shall. It does not, however, appear, that this rapturous effusion of Helena was designed to be intelli gible to Parolles. Its obscurity, therefore, may be its merit. It sufficiently explains what is passing in the mind of the speaker, to every one but him to whom she does not mean to explain it. STEEVENS. Perhaps we should read: “Will you any thing with us? ie. will you send any thing with us to court? to which Helena's answer would be proper enough

"Not my virginity yet."

A similar phrase occurs in Twelfth Night, act iii. sc. 1.

"You'll

"You'll nothing, madam, to my lord, by me?" TYRWHITT.

Perhaps something has been omitted in Parolles' speech, "I am now bound for the Court; will you any thing with it [i. e. with the court ?]" MALONE.

I am satisfied the passage is as Shakspere left it. Parolles, after having cried down, with all his eloquence, old virginity, in reference to what he had before said" that virginity is a commodity the longer kept, the less worth: off with't, while 'tis vendible. ANSWER THE TIME OF REQUEST.-Asks Helena :"Will you any thing with IT ?"-to which she replies -“Not мY virginity, YET." HENLEY.

173. A phoenix, captain, &c.] The eight lines following friend, I am persuaded, is the nonsense of some foolish conceited player. What put it into his head was Helen's saying, as it should be read for the future :

There shall your master have a thousand loves ;

A mother, and a mistress, and a friend.

I know not what he shall God send him well. Where the fellow, finding a thousand loves spoken of, and only three reckoned up, namely, a mother's, a mistress's, and a friend's (which, by the way, were all a judicious writer could mention; for there are but these three species of love in nature), he would help out the number, by the intermediate nonsense: and, because they were yet too few, he pieces out his loves with enmities, and makes of the whole such

finished

finished nonsense as is never heard out of Bedlam. WARBURTON.

This "finished nonsense," I fear, was poor Shakspere's, and intended as an answer in kind to such a character as Parolles. Though the bishop knew it not by experience, he might have remembered the apothegm, Amantium ira, amoris integratio..

HENLEY.

175. —a traitress, -] It seems that traitress was in that age a term of endearment, for when Lafeu introduces Helena to the king, he says, You are like a traitor, but such traitors his majesty does not much fear. JOHNSON.

I cannot conceive that traitress (spoken seriously) was in any age a term of endearment. From the present passage, we might as well suppose enemy (in the last line but one) to be a term of endearment. In the other passage quoted, Lafeu is plainly speaking ironically. TYRWHITT.

Traditora, a traitress, in the Italian language, is generally used as a term of endearment. The meaning of Helen is, that she shall prove every thing to Bertram. Our ancient writers delighted in catalogues, and always characterize love by contrarieties.

STEEVENS.

Falstaff, in The Merry Wives of Windsor, says to Mrs. Ford: "Thou art a traitor. to say so." In his interview with her, he certainly meant to use the language of love. MALONE.

179. -christendoms,] This word, which signifies the collective body of Christianity, every place where the Christian religion is embraced, is surely used with much licence on this occasion. STEEVENS,

It is used by another ancient writer in the same sense; so that the word probably bore, in our author's time, the signification which he has affixed to it. In A Royal Arbor of Loyal Poesie, by Thomas Jordan, no date, but printed about 1661:

"She is baptiz'd in Christendom,

[i.e by a Christian name,]

"The Jew cries out he's undone.".

These lines are found in a ballad formed on part of the story of The Merchant of Venice, in which it is remarkable that it is the Jew's daughter, and not Portia, that saves the Merchant's life by pleading his cause. There should seem therefore to have been some novel on this subject, that has hitherto escaped the researches of the commentators. In the same book are ballads founded on the fables of Much Ado about Nothing, and The Winter's Tale. MALONE.

190. And shew what we alone must think ;- -] And shew by realities what we now must only think.

JOHNSON.

209. -is a virtue of a good wing.] Mr. Edwards is of opinion, that a virtue of a good wing refers to his nimbleness or fleetness in running away. The phrase, however, is taken from falconry, as may appear from the following passage in Marston's Fawne, 1606:

"I love

66 -I love my horse after a journeying easiness, as he is easy in journeying; my hawk, for the goodness of his wing," &c. Or it may be taken from dress: So, in Every Man out of his Humour: “I would have mine such a suit without a difference; such stuff, such wing, such a sleeve," &c. Mr. Tollet observes, that a good wing signifies a strong wing, in Lord Bacon's Natural History, experiment 866: "Certainly many birds of a good wing (as kites and the like) would bear up a good weight as they Ay." STEEVENS.

The reading of the old copy is supported by a pas sage in King Henry V. in which we meet with a similar expression: "Though his affections are higher mount. ed than ours, yet when they stoop, they stoop with the like wing."

Again, King Henry IV. P. I.

"Yet let me wonder, Harry,

"At thy affections, which do hold a wing,
"Quite from the flight of all thy ancestors.'

MALONE.

225. What power is it, which mounts my love so high; That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye?] She means, by what influence is my love directed to a person so much above me? why am I made to dis cern excellence, and left to long after it, without the food of hope? JOHNSON. The mightiest space in fortune, nature brings To join like likes, and kiss, like native things.

227.

Impossible

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