Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

ANNOTATIONS

UPON

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

ÅLL's WELL THAT ENDS WELL.] SHAKSPERE IS indebted to the novel, only for a few leading circumstances in the graver parts of the piece. The comick business appears to be entirely of his own formation. STEEVENS.

Line 5.

ACT I.

IN ward,-] Under his particular care,

as my guardian, till I come to age. It is now almost forgotten in England, that the heirs of great fortunes were the king's wards. Whether the same practice prevailed in France, it is of no great use to inquire, for Shakspere gives to all nations the manners of England. JOHNSON,

Howell's

Howell's fifteenth letter acquaints us, that the province of Normandy was subject to wardships, and no other part of France besides; but the supposition of the contrary furnished Shakspere with a reason why the king compelled Rousillon to marry Helen. TOLLET.

-in ward-] The prerogative of a wardship is a branch of the feudal law, and may as well be supposed to be incorporated with the constitution of France, as it was with that of England, till the reign of Charles II. Sir J. HAWKINS.

19.

This young gentlewoman had a father (0, that had! how sad a passage 'tis!)] Passage is any thing that passes, so we now say, a passage of an author, and we said about a century ago, the passages of a reign. When the countess mentions Helena's loss of a father, she recollects her own loss of a husband, and stops to observe how heavily that word had passes through her mind. JOHNSON. Thus Shakspere himself. See The Comedy of Errors, act iii. sc. 1.

"Now in the stirring passage of the day."

So, in The Gamester, by Shirley, 1637: "I'll not be witness of your passages myself," i. e. of what passes between you. Again, in A Woman's a Weathercock, 1612:

66 -never lov'd these prying listening men
"That ask of others states and passages.”

Again :

"I knew the passages 'twixt her and Scudamore.' Again, in the Dumb Knight, 1633:

-have beheld

"Your vile and most lascivious passages.” Again, in the English Intelligencer, a tragi-comedy, 1641: "-two philosophers that jeer and weep at the passages of the world." STEEVENS.

O, that had! how sad a passage 'tis!] Imitated from the Heautontimorumenos of Terence (then translated) where Menedemus says:

-Filium unicum adolescentulum

"Habeo. Ah, quid dixi? habere me? imo

[blocks in formation]

“Nunc habeam, necne, incertum est.”

BLACKSTONE.

43. —where an unclean mind carries virtuous quali ties, there commendations go with pity, they are virtues and traitors too; in her they are the better for their sim= pleness; she derives her honesty, and achieves her goodness.] By virtuous qualities are meant qualities of good breeding and erudition; in the same sense that the Italians say, qualità virtuosa; and not moral ones. On this account it is, she says, that, in an ill mind ' these virtuous qualities are virtues and traitors too: i. e. the advantages of education enable an ill mind to go further in wickedness than it could have done without ' them. WARBURTON.

Her virtues are the better for their simpleness; that is, her excellencies are the better because they are artless and open, without fraud, without design. The learned commentator has well explained virtues, but has not, I think, reached the force of the word traitors, and therefore

B

therefore has not shewn the full extent of Shakspere's masterly observation. Virtues in an unclean mind are virtues and traitors too. Estimable and useful qualities joined with evil disposition, give that evil disposition power over others, who, by admiring the virtue, are betrayed to the malevolence. The Tatler, mentioning the sharpers of his time, observes, that some of them are men of such elegance and knowledge, that a young man who falls into their way, is betrayed as much by his judgment as his passions. JOHNSON.

Virtue, and virtuous, as I am told, still keep this signification in the north, and mean ingenuity and ingenious. Of this sense perhaps an instance occurs in the eighth book of Chapman's Version of the Iliad:

"Then will I to Olympus' top our virtuous engine bind,

"And by it every thing shall hang," &c. Again, in Marlowe's Tamburlaine, p. 1. 1590: "If these had made one poem's period, "And all combin'd in beauties worthynesse, "Yet should there hover in their restlesse heads "One thought, one grace, one wonder at the

least,

"Which into words no vertue can digest.".

STEEVENS. 53. -all livelihood-] i. e. all appearance of life. STEEVENS.

56. I do affect a sorrow, indeed, but I have it too.] Helena has, I believe, a meaning here that she does not wish should be understood by the countess. Her

affected

« ZurückWeiter »