"Why, I would have the fool in every act, "The rogue will make.-O, it does me good "To see him hold out his chin, hang down his hands, "And twirl his bable. There is ne'er a part "I'd rather hear him leap, or laugh, or cry, "But ravishing joy enter'd into my heart." MALONE. -to even your content, -] To act up to 323. your desires. JOHNSON. 331. -you lack not folly to commit them, and have ability enough to make such knaveries your's.] After premising that the accusative, them, refers to the precedent word, complaints, and that this, by a metonymy of the effect for the cause, stands for the freaks which occasioned those complaints, the sense will be extremely clear. You are fool enough to commit those irregularities you are charged with, and yet not so much fool neither as to discredit the accusation by any defect in your ability. REVISAL. 338. to go to the world,-] This phrase has already occurred in Much Ado about Nothing, and signifies to be married: and thus, in As You Like It, Audrey Audrey says: "it is no dishonest desire, to desire to be a woman of the world." STEEVENS. 362. Clo. You are shallow, madam, in great friends; for the knaves come to do that for me, which I am a weary of The meaning seems to be, you are not deeply skilled in the character or offices of great friends. I would read, JOHNSON. You are shallow, madam: ev'n great friends. Even and in are so near in sound, that they might easily have been confounded by an inattentive hearer. The same mistake has happened in another place in this play. Act iii. sc. 1. folio 1623: "Lad. What have we here? "Clown. In that you have there." So, in Antony and Cleopatra: "No more but in a woman." Again, in Twelfth Night, act i. "'Tis with him in standing water, between boy and man," &c. The modern editors have rightly corrected all these passages, and read-" Ev'n that you have there""No more but ev'n a woman," &c. Ev'n was formerly contracted thus, e'n. [See act iv. of this play, sc. 1. sixth speech, in the old copy.] Hence the mistake was the more easy. Again, in The Merchant of Venice, quarto, 1600: "We were Christians enow before, in as many as could well live one by another.” MALONE. 863. the knaves come to do that for me, which I am a weary of] The same thought is more dilated in an old MS. play, entitled, The Second Maiden's Tragedy: Soph. "I have a wife, would she were so preferr'd! "I could but be her subject, so I am now. "I allow her her owne frend to stop her mowth, "And keep her quiet, give him his table free, "And the huge feeding of his great stone horse, "On which he rides in pompe about the cittie "Beside I drawe my life owte by the bargaine "When my young prodigal gallant kicks up's heels "At one-and-thirtie, and lies dead and rotten "Some five-and-fortie yeares before I'm cof fin'd. "Tis the right waie to keep a woman honest : To have his children all of one man's get- And he that performes best, can have no better: "I'm e'en as happy then that save a labour " STEEVENS. 364. -that ears my land -] To ear is to plough. So, in Antony and Cleopatra: "Make the sea serve them, which they ear and wound "With keels of every kind.” See 1 Sam. viii. 12. Isaiah xxx. 24. Gen. xlv. 6. Exod. xxxiv. 21. for the verb. STEEVENS. Deut. xxi. 4. use of this HENLEY. 378. A prophet, 1, madam; I speak the truth the next way] It is a superstition, which has run through all ages and people, that natural fools have something in them of divinity. On which account they were esteemed sacred: travellers tell us in what esteem the Turks now hold them; nor had they less honour paid them heretofore in France, as appears from the old word benet, for a natural fool. Hence it was that Pantagruel, in Rabelais, advised Panurge to go and consult the fool Triboulet as an oracle; which gives occasion to a satirical stroke upon the privy-council of Francis the First--Par l'avis, conseil, prediction des fols vos sçavez quants princes, &c. ont esté conservez, &c.- -The phrase-speak the truth the next way, means, directly; as they do who are only the instruments or canals of others such as inspired persons WARBURTON. were supposed to be. Next way is nearest way. So, in K. Henry IV. P. I. 'Tis the next way to turn taylor," &c. STEEVENS. Next way is a phrase still used in Warwickshire, and signifies, without circumlocution, or (as we have it in line 514) going about. 383. HENLEY. sings by kind.] I find something like two of the lines of this ballad in John Grange's Garden, 1577: "Content yourself as well as I, let reason rule your minde, "As cuckoldes come by destinie, so cuckowes sing by kinde." STEEVENS. 388. Was this fair face the cause, quoth she, Why the Grecians sacked Troy? Fond done, fond done; Was this king Priam's joy?] This is a stanza of an old ballad, out of which a word or two are dropt, equally necessary to make the sense and the alternate rhyme. For it was not Helen, who was king Priam's joy, but Paris. The third line, therefore, should be read thus: Fond done, fond done, for Paris, he. WARBURTON. If this be a stanza taken from any ancient ballad, it will probably in time be found entire, and then the restoration may be made with authority. STEEVENS. Was this fair cause, &c.] The name of Helen, whom the countess has just called for, brings an old ballad on the sacking of Troy to the clown's mind. In confirmation of Dr. Warburton's conjecture, Mr. Theobald has quoted from Fletcher's Maid in the Mill, the following stanza of another old ballad: "And |