COR. For not being at court? Your reason. TOUCH. Why, if thou never waft at court, thou never faw'ft good manners; if thou never saw'st good manners, then thy manners must be wicked; and wickedness is fin, and fin is damnation: Thou art in a parlous ftate, fhepherd. COR. Not a whit, Touchstone: thofe, that are good manners at the court, are as ridiculous in the country, as the behaviour of the country is most mockable at the court. You told me, you falute not at the court, but you kifs your hands; that courtesy would be uncleanly, if courtiers were fhepherds. TOUCH. Inftance, briefly; come, instance. COR. Why, we are ftill handling our ewes; and their fells, you know, are greasy. TOUCH. Why, do not your courtier's hands fweat? and is not the greafe of a mutton as wholefome as the fweat of a man? Shallow, fhallow: A better inftance, I fay; come. COR. Befides, our hands are hard. TOUCH. Your lips will feel them the fooner. Shallow, again: A more founder inftance, come. be damn'd all on one fide; but will not fufficiently show how Touchitone applies his fimile with propriety; unless he means that he who has not been at court is but half educated. STEEVENS. I believe there was nothing intended in the correfponding part of the fimile, to anfwer to the words, "all on one fide." Shakfpeare's fimiles (as has been already obferved) hardly ever run on four feet. Touchftone, I apprehend, only means to fay, that Corin is completely damned; as irretrievably deftroyed as an egg that is utterly fpoiled in the roafting, by being done all on one fide only. So, in a fubfequent scene," and both in a tune, like two gypfies on a horfe." Here the poet certainly meant that the fpeaker and his companion fhould fing in unifon, and thus resemble each other as perfectly as two gypfies on a horfe;-not that two gypfics on a horfe fing both in a tune.. MALONE. COR. And they are often tarr'd over with the furgery of our fheep; And would you have us kifs tar? The courtier's hands are perfumed with civet. TOUCH. Moft fhallow man! Thou worms-meat, in refpect of a good piece of flesh: Indeed!-Learn of the wife, and perpend: Civet is of a baser birth than tar; the very uncleanly flux of a cat. Mend the inftance, fhepherd. COR. You have too courtly a wit for me; I'll reft. TOUCH. Wilt thou reft damn'd? God help thee, fhallow man! God make incifion in thee! thou art raw." - make incifion in thee!] To make incifion was a proverbial expreffion then in vogue for, to make to understand. So, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Humorous Lieutenant: O excellent king, "Thus he begins, thou life and light of creatures, i. e. to make him underítand what he would be at. WARBURTON. Till I read Dr. Warburton's note, I thought the allufion had been to that common expreffion, of cutting fuch a one for the fimples; and I must own, after confulting the paffage in the Humorous Lieutenant, I have no reafon to alter my fuppofition. The editors of Beaumont and Fletcher declare the phrafe to be unintelligible in that as well as in another play where it is introduced. I find the fame expreffion in Monfieur Thomas: "We'll bear the burthen: proceed to incifion, fidler." STEEVENS. I believe that Steevens has explained this paffage juftly, and am certain that Warburton has entirely mistaken the meaning of that which he has quoted from The Humourous Lieutenant, which plainly alludes to the practice of the young gallants of the time, who used to cut themselves in fuch a manner as to make their blood flow, in order to show their paffion for their mittreffes, by drinking their healths, or writing verfes to them in blood. For a more full explanation of this cuftom, fe a note on Love's Labour's Loft, Act IV. fc. iii: M. MASON. 9 thou art, raw.] i. e. thou art ignorant; unexperienced. COR. Sir, I am a true labourer; I earn that I eat, get that I wear; owe no man hate, envy no man's happiness; glad of other men's good, content with my harm and the greatest of my pride is, to fee my ewes graze, and my lambs fuck. TOUCH. That is another fimple fin in you; to bring the ewes and the rams together, and to offer to get your living by the copulation of cattle: to be bawd to a bell-wether; and to betray a fhe-lamb of a twelvemonth, to a crooked-pated, old, cuckoldly ram, out of all reasonable match. If thou be'ft not damn'd for this, the devil himself will have no fhepherds; I cannot fee elfe how thou fhouldft 'fcape. COR. Here comes young mafter Ganymede, my new miftrefs's brother. Enter ROSALIND, reading a paper. Ros. From the east to western Ind, Her worth, being mounted on the wind, So, in Hamlet: " quick fail." MALONE. and yet but raw neither, in refpect of his 2-bard to a bell-wether;] Wether and ram had anciently the fame meaning. JOHNSON. 3 -faireft lin'd,] i. e. most fairly delineated. Modern editors read-limn'd, but without authority, from the ancient copies. STEEVENS. 4 But the fair of Rofalind.] Thus the old copy. Fair is beauty, complexion. See the notes on a paffage in The Midsummer Night's Dream, Act I. fc. i. and The Comedy of Errors, A&t II. fc. i. The TOUCH. I'll rhime you fo, eight years together; dinners, and fuppers, and fleeping hours excepted: it is the right butter-woman's rate to market. Ros. Out, fool! TOUCH. For a tafte: If a bart do lack a bind, modern editors read-the face of Rofalind. Lodge's Novel will likewise support the ancient reading: "Then muse not, nymphes, though I bemone "The absence of fair Rofalynde, "Since for her faire there is fairer none," &c. Again, "And hers the faire which all men do respect." STEEVENS. Face was introduced by Mr. Pope. MALONE. 4 rate to market.] So, Sir T. Hanmer. In the former editions-rank to market. JOHNSON. Dr. Grey, as plaufibly, propofes to read-rant. Gyll brawled like a butter-whore, is a line in an ancient medley. The fenfe defigned, however, might have been-" it is fuch wretched rhime as the butter-woman fings as fhe is riding to market." So, in Churchyard's Charge, 1580, p. 7: "And ufe a kinde of ridynge rime" Ratt-ryme, however, in Scotch, fignifies fome verfe repeated by rote. See Ruddiman's Gloffary to G. Douglas's Virgil. STEEVENS. The Clown is here fpeaking in reference to the ambling pace of the metre, which, after giving a fpecimen of, to prove his affertion, he affirms to be " the very falfe gallop of verses." HENLEY. I am now perfuaded that Sir T. Hanmer's emendation is right. The bobbling metre of thefe verfes, (fays Touchstone,) is like the ambling, buffling pace of a butter-woman's bore, going to market. The fame kind of imagery is found in K. Henry IV. P. I: "And that would fet my teeth nothing on edge, Nothing fo much, as mincing poetry; " 'Tis like the forc'd gait of a shuffling nag." MALONE. VOL. VI. G Winter-garments must be lin'd, They that reap, must sheaf and bind; He that fweetest rofe will find, Muft find love's prick, and Rosalind. This is the very falfe gallop of verses; Why do you infect yourself with them? Ros. Peace, you dull fool; I found them on a tree. TOUCH. Truly, the tree yields bad fruit. Ros. I'll graff it with you, and then I fhall graff it with a medlar: then it will be the earliest fruit" in the country; for you'll be rotten ere you be half ripe, and that's the right virtue of the medlar. TOUCH. You have faid; but whether wifely or no, let the foreft judge. Enter CELIA, reading a paper. Ros. Peace! Here comes my fifter, reading; stand afide. CEL. Why Should this defert filent be?" For it is unpeopled? No; 7 This is the very false gallop of verfes;] So, in Nafhe's Apologie of Pierce Pennileffe, 4to. 1593: I would trot a falfe gallop through the reft of his ragged verfes, but that if I fhould retort the rime doggrell aright, I must make my verfes (as he doth his) run bobbling, like a brewer's cart upon the ftones, and observe no measure in their feet." MALONE. 6 the earlieft fruit-] Shak fpeare feems to have had little knowledge in gardening. The medlar is one of the latest fruits, being uneatable till the end of November. STEEVENS. 7 Why should this defert filent be?] This is commonly printed: Why Jhould this a defert be? |