Extremely ftretch'd, and conn'd with cruel pain, To do you fervice. THE. I will hear that play: For never any thing can be amifs, Go, bring them in ;-and take your places, ladies. [Exit PHILOSTRATE. HIP. I love not to fee wretchednefs o'ercharg'd, And duty in his fervice perifhing. THE. Why, gentle fweet, you fhall fee no fuch thing. HIP. He fays, they can do nothing in this kind. THE. The kinder we, to give them thanks for nothing. Our fport fhall be, to take what they mistake: act of Othello. Intents therefore may be put for the object of their We ftill fay a perfon is intent on his business. attention. never any thing can be amifs, STEEVENS. When fimpleness and duty tender it.] Ben Jonfon in Cynthia's Revels has employed this fentiment of humanity on the fame occafion, when Cynthia is preparing to fee a mafque : 66 Nothing which duty and defire to please, STEEVENS. 8 Our fport hall be, &c.] Voltaire fays fomething like this of Louis XIV. who took a pleasure in feeing his courtiers in confufion when they spoke to him. I am told, however, by a writer in the Edinburgh Magazine, for Nov. 1786, that I have affigned a malignant inftead of a humane fentiment to Thefeus, and that he really means-We will accept with pleasure even their blundering attempt. STEEVENS. 9 And what poor duty cannot do,] The defective metre of this line fhews that fome word was inadvertently omitted by the tranfcriber or compofitor. Mr. Theobald supplied the defect by reading " And what poor willing duty," &c. MALONE. Noble refpect takes it in might, not merit.' 2 And what poor duty cannot do, Noble refpect takes it in might, not merit.] The fense of this paffage, as it now ftands, if it has any fenfe, is this: What the inability of duty cannot perform, regardful generofity receives as an act of ability, though not of merit. The contrary is rather true: What dutifulness tries to perform without ability, regardful generofity receives as having the merit, though not the power, of complete performance. We fhould therefore read: And what poor duty cannot do, Noble refpe&t takes not in might, but merit. JOHNSON. In might, is perhaps an elliptical expreffion for what might have been. STEEVENS. If this paffage is to ftand as it is, the meaning appears to be this" and what poor duty would do, but cannot accomplish, noble respect confiders as it might have been, not as it is." M. MASON. And what dutifulness tries to perform without ability, regardful generofity receives with complacency, eftimating it not by the actual merit of the performance, but by what it might have been, were the abilities of the performers equal to their zeal.-Such, I think, is the true interpretation of this paffage; for which the reader is indebted partly to Dr. Johnson, and partly to Mr. Steevens. MALONE. 3 Where I have come, great clerks, have purpofed, &c.] So, in Pericles: "She fings like one immortal, and the dances "As goddefs like to her admired lays; Deep clerks fhe dumbs." It fhould be obferved, that periods in the text is used in the sense of full points. MALONE. And in the modefty of fearful duty I read as much, as from the rattling tongue Love, therefore, and tongue-tied fimplicity, Enter PHILOSTRATE. PHILOST. So please your grace, the prologue is addreft.+ THE. Let him approach. [Flourish of Trumpets. Enter Prologue. PROL. If we offend, it is with our good will. That you should think, we come not to offend, But with good-will. To show our fimple skill, That is the true beginning of our end. Confider then, we come but in defpite. We do not come, as minding to content you, Our true intent is. All for your delight, We are not here. That you should here repent you, The actors are at hand; and, by their fhow, You shall know all, that you are like to know. THE. This fellow doth not ftand upon points. Lrs. He hath rid his prologue, like a rough colt; addreft.] That is, ready. So, in K. Henry V: "To-morrow for our march we are addreft." STEEVENS. • Flourish of trumpets.] It appears from The Guls Hornbook, by Decker, 1609, that the prologue was anciently ufher'd in by trumpets. Prefent not yourfelfe on the ftage (efpecially at a new play) until the quaking prologue hath (by rubbing) got cullor in his cheekes, and is ready to give the trumpets their cue that hee's upon point to enter." STEEVENS. he knows not the ftop. A good moral, my lord: It is not enough to fpeak, but to speak true. 6 HIP. Indeed he hath play'd on this prologue, like a child on a recorder; a found, but not in government." THE. His fpeech was like a tangled chain; nothing impaired, but all difordered. Who is next? Enter PYRAMUS, and THISBE, Wall, Moonshine, and Lion, as in dumb show. PROL. "Gentles, perchance, you wonder at this fhow; "But wonder on, till truth make all things plain. "This man is Pyramus, if you would know; "This beauteous lady Thisby is, certain." 6 on a recorder;] Lord Bacon in his natural hiftory, cent. iii. fect. 221, speaks of recorders and flutes at the fame inftant, and fays, that the recorder hath a lefs bore, and a greater, above and below; and elfewhere, cent. ii. fect. 187, he fpeaks of it as having fix holes, in which refpect it anfwers to the Tibia minor or Flajolet of Merfennus. From all which particulars it fhould seem that the flute and the recorder were different inftruments, and that the latter in propriety of fpeech was no other than the flagelet. Hawkins's Hiftory of Mufick, Vol. IV. p. 479. REED. Shakspeare introduces the fame inftrument in Hamlet; and Milton fays: "To the found of foft recorders." The recorder is mentioned in many of the old plays. STEEVENS. 7but not in government.] That is, not regularly, according to the tune. STEEVENS. Hamlet, fpeaking of a recorder, fays, "Govern thefe ventages with your fingers and thumb; give it breath with your mouth; and it will difcourfe moft eloquent mufic."-This explains the meaning of government in this paffage. M. MASON. In this place the folio, 1623, exhibits the following prompter's direction. Tawyer with a trumpet before them. STEEVENS. This beauteous lady Thiby is, certain.] A burlefque was here "This man, with lime and rough-caft, doth prefent "Wall, that vile wall which did thefe lovers fun der: "And through wall's chink, poor fouls, they are content "To whifper; at the which let no man wonder. "This man, with lantern, dog, and bufh of thorn, "Prefenteth moon-fhine: for, if you will know, "By moon-fhine did thefe lovers think no fcorn "To meet at Ninus' tomb,' there, there to woo. "This grifly beaft, which by name lion hight,' "The trufty Thisby, coming firft by night, "Did fcare away, or rather did affright: intended on the frequent recurrence of "certain" as a bungling rhime in poetry more ancient than the age of Shakspeare. Thus in a fhort poem entitled " A lytell treatyfe called the dyfpu taryon or the complaynte of the herte through perced with the lokenge of the eye. Inprynted at Ledon in Fleteftrete at ye fygne of the jonne by Wynkyn de Worde." "And houndes fyxefcore and mo certayne "To whome my thought gan to strayre certayne- "To loke upon a fayre Lady certayne "As moch as is in me I am contente certayne They made there both two theyr promyffe certayne — "All armed with margaretes certayne "Towardes Venus when they fholde go certayne-,” &c. STEEVENS. To meet at Ninus' tomb, &c.] So, in Chaucer's Legend of Thibe of Babylon: Again: "Thei fettin markes ther metingis fhould be, "And as the ran her wimple the let fall," &c. Again, Golding in his verfion of Ovid's Metamorphofis, B. IV. has a fimilar line: 3 And as he fled away for hafte, fhe let her mantle fall." STEEVENS. which by name Lion hight,] As all the other parts of this fpeech are in alternate rhyme, excepting that it clofes with a co |