AUD. Your features! Lord warrant us! what features? TOUCH. I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most capricious poet, honeft Ovid, was among the Goths. F42. O knowledge ill-inhabited !' worse than Jove in a thatch'd houfe! [Afide. TOUCH. When a man's verfes cannot be underftood, nor a man's good wit feconded with the forward child, understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room: Truly, I would the gods had made thee poetical. Again, in The Spanish Tragedy: "It is my fault, not she, that merits blame; "My feature is not to content her fight; "My words are rude, and work her no delight." 6 Feature appears to have formerly fignified the whole countenance. So, in K. Henry VI. P. I: "Her peerless feature, joined with her birth, Approves her fit for none but for a king." MALONE. —as the most capricious poet, honeft Ovid, was among the Goths.] Capricious is not here humourfome, fantaftical, &c. but lafcivious. HOR, Epod. 10. Libidinofus immolabitur caper. The Goths are the Getæ, Ovid. Trift. V. 7. The thatch'd house is that of Baucis and Philemon. Ovid. Met. VIII. 630. Stipulis et canna tecta paluftri, UPTON. Mr. Upton is perhaps too refined in his interpretation of capricious. Our author remembered that caper was the Latin for a goat, and thence chofe this epithet. This, I believe, is the whole. There is a poor quibble between goats and Goths. MALONE. sill-inhabited!] i, e. ill-lodged, An unusual sense of the word. STEEVENS. 6 it ftrikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room] Nothing was ever wrote in higher humour than this fimile. A great reckoning, in a little room, implies that the entertainment was mean, and the bill extravagant. The poet here alluded to the French proverbial phrase of the quarter of an hour of Rabelais: who faid, there was only one quarter of an hour in human life paffed ill, and that was between the calling for the AUD. I do not know what poetical is: Is it honest in deed, and word? Is it a true thing? TOUCH. No, truly; for the trueft poetry is the moft feigning; and lovers are given to poetry; and what they fwear in poetry, may be said, as lovers, they do feign." AUD. DO you wish then, that the gods had made me poetical? TOUCH. I do, truly: for thou fwear'ft to me, thou art honeft; now, if thou wert a poet, I might have fome hope thou didst feign. AUD. Would you not have me honest? TOUCH. No truly, unless thou wert hard-favour'd: for honefty coupled to beauty, is to have honey a fauce to fugar. F42. A material fool!" [Afide. AUD. Well, I am not fair; and therefore I pray the gods make me honest! TOUCH. Truly, and to caft away honesty upon a reckoning and paying it. Yet the delicacy of our Oxford editor would correct this into-It ftrikes a man more dead than a great reeking in a little room. This is amending with a vengeance. When men are joking together in a merry humour, all are difpofed to laugh. One of the company fays a good thing: the jeft is not taken; all are filent, and he who faid it, quite confounded. This is compared to a tavern jollity interrupted by the coming in of a great reckoning. Had not Shakspeare reafon now in this cafe to apply his fimile to his own cafe, against his critical editor? Who, it is plain, taking the phrafe to ftrike dead, in a literal fenfe, concluded, from his knowledge in philofophy, that it could not be fo effectually done by a reckoning as by a reeking. WARBURTON. 6 and what they fwear in poetry, &c.] This fentence feems perplexed and inconfequent; perhaps it were better read thus-What they fwear as lovers, they may be faid to feign as poets. JOHNSON. I would read-It may be faid, as lovers they do feign. M. MASON. A material fool!] A fool with matter in him; a fool stocked with notions. JOHNSON. foul flut, were to put good meat into an unclean difh. AUD. I am not a flut, though I thank the gods I am foul. TOUCH. Well, praised be the gods for thy foulnefs! fluttishness may come hereafter. But be it as it may be, I will marry thee: and to that end, I have been with Sir Oliver Mar-text, the vicar of the next village; who hath promised to meet me in this place of the foreft, and to couple us. 742. I would fain see this meeting. AUD. Well, the gods give us joy! [Afide. 8 I am foul.] By foul is meant coy or frowning. HANMER. I rather believe foul to be put for the ruftick pronunciation of full. Audrey, fuppofing the Clown to have spoken of her as a foul flut, fays, naturally enough, I am not a flut, though, I thank the gods, I am foul, i. e. full. She was more likely to thank the gods for a belly-full, than for her being coy or frowning. TYRWHITT, In confirmation of Mr. Tyrwhitt's conjecture, it may be ob ferved, that in the fong at the end of Love's Labour's Loft, instead of-" and ways be foul," we have in the first quarto, 1598, "-and ways be full." In that and other of our author's plays many words feem to have been spelled by the ear. MALONE. Audrey fays, fhe is not fair, i. e. handfome, and therefore prays the gods to make her honeft. The Clown tells her that to caft bonefly away upon a foul flut, (i. e. an ill favoured dirty creature) is to put meat in an unclean disfh. She replies, fhe is no flut (no dirty drab) though in her great fimplicity, the thanks the gods for her foulness (homelynefs) i. e. for being as the is. "Well, (adds he) praised be the gods for thy foulness, fluttishness may come hereafter." RITSON. I think that, by foul, Audrey means, not fair, or what we call homely. Audrey is neither coy or ill-humoured; but fhe thanks God for her homeliness, as it rendered her lefs exposed to temptation. So, in the next scene but one, Rofalind fays to Phebe"Foul is moft foul, being foul, to be a fcoffer." M. MASON. |