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NATH. A rare talent!

DULL. If a talent be a claw,' look how he claws him with a talent."

HOL. This is a gift that I have, fimple, fimple; a foolish extravagant fpirit, full of forms, figures, fhapes, objects, ideas, apprehenfions, motions, revolutions these are begot in the ventricle of memory, nourished in the womb of pia mater, and deliver'd upon the mellowing of occafion: But the gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and I am thankful for it.

NATH. Sir, I praise the Lord for you; and fo may my parishioners; for their fons are well tutor'd by you, and their daughters profit very greatly under you: you are a good member of the commonwealth.

HOL. Mehercle, if their fons be ingenious, they fhall want no inftruction: if their daughters be capable, I will put it to them: But, vir fapit, qui pauca loquitur: a foul feminine faluteth us.

This correction (fays Mr. Malone) is confirmed by the rhyme: "A deer (he adds) during his third year is called a forell."

STEEVENS.

5 If a talent be a claw, &c.] In our author's time the talon of bird was frequently written talent. Hence the quibble here, and in Twelfth Night, let them ufe their talents." So, in The First Part of the Contention between the houses of York and Lancafter, 1600: "Are you the kite, Beaufort? where's your talents?" Again, in Marlowe's Tamberlaine, 1590:

and now doth ghaftly death

"With greedy tallents gripe my bleeding heart."

MALONE.

claws him with a talent.] Honeft Dull quibbles. One of the fenfes of to claw, is to flatter. So, in Much ado about nothing: " - laugh when I am merry, and claw no man in his humour." STEEVENS.

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if their daughters be capable, &c.] Of this double entendre, defpicable as it is, Mr. Pope and his coadjutors availed themselves, in their unfuccefsful comedy called Three Hours after Marriage.

STEEVENS.

Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD.

F42. God give you good morrow, mafter person, HOL. Mafter perfon,-quafi perf-on. And if one should be pierced, which is the one?

COST. Marry, mafter schoolmaster, he that is likeft to a hogfhead.

HOL. Of piercing a hogfhead! a good luftre of conceit in a turf of earth; fire enough for a flint, pearl enough for a fwine: 'tis pretty; it is well.

F42. Good mafter parfon, be fo good as read me this letter; it was given me by Coftard, and fent me from Don Armatho: I befeech you, read it.

HOL. Faufte, precor gelidâ quando pecus omne fub

umbrá

Capable is ufed equivocally. One of its fenfes was reasonable; endowed with a ready capacity to learn. So, in King Richard III: "O'tis a parlous boy,

"Bold, quick, ingenious, forward, capable.”
MALONE.

The other wants no explanation.

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quafi perf-on.] So, in Holinfhed, p. 953:

Jerom was vicar of Stepnie, and Garrard was perfan of Honielane." Again, in The Contention betwyxte Churchyard and Camell, 1560:

"And fend fuch whens home to our person or vicar.” I believe, however, we should write the word-pers-one. The fame play on the word pierce is put into the mouth of Falstaff. STEEVENS.

The words one and on were, I believe, pronounced nearly alike, at least in fome counties, in our author's time; the quibble, therefore, that Mr. Steevens has noted, may have been intended as the text now ftands. In the fame ftyle afterwards Moth fays, “Offer'd by a child to an old man, which is wit-old. MALONE.

Perfon, as Sir William Blackstone obferves in his Commentaries, is the original and proper term; Perfona ecclefiæ. MALONE.

9 Hol. Faufte, precor gelidá-] Though all the editions concur to give this fpeech to fir Nathaniel, yet, as Dr. Thirlby ingeni

Ruminat, and fo forth. Ah, good old Mantuan! I may speak of thee as the traveller doth of Venice; -Vinegia, Vinegia,

Chi non te vede, ei non te pregia.

oully obferved to me, it is evident it must belong to Holofernes. The Curate is employed in reading the letter to himself; and while he is doing fo, that the ftage may not ftand ftill, Holofernes either pulls out a book, or, repeating fome verfe by heart from Mantuanus, comments upon the character of that poct. Baptifta Spagnolus (firnamed Mantuanus, from the place of his birth) was a writer of poems, who flourished towards the latter end of the 15th century. THEOBALD.

Faufte, precor gelidá, &c.] A note of La Monnoye's on these very words in Les Contes des Periers, Nov. 42. will explain the humour of the quotation, and fhew how well Shakspeare has fuftained the character of this pedant.-Il defigne le Carme Baptifte Mantuan, dont au commencement du 16 fiecle on lifoit publiquement à Paris les Poefies; fi celebres alors, que, comme dit plaisamment Farnabe, dans fa preface fur Martial, les Pedans ne faifoient nulle difficulté de preferer à le Arma virumque cano, le Faufte precor gelida; c'eft-a-dire, à l' Eneide de Virgil les Eclogues de Mantuan, la premiere defquelles commence par, Faufte, precor gelidâ. WARBURTON.

The Eclogues of Mantuanus the Carmelite were translated before the time of Shakspeare, and the Latin printed on the opposite fide of the page for the use of schools. STEEVENS.

From a paffage in Nafhe's Apologie of Pierce Pennileffe, 1593, the Eclogues of Mantuanus appear to have been a school-book in our author's time: "With the first and fecond leafe he plaies very prettilie, and, in ordinarie terms of extenuating, verdits Pierce Pennileffe for a grammar-school wit; faies, his margine is as deeply learned as Faufte precor gelida." A tranflation of Mantuanus by George Turberville was printed in 8vo. in 1567. MALONE.

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Vinegia, Vinegia,

Chi non te vede, ei non te pregia.] Our author is applying the praifes of Mantuanus to a common proverbial fentence, faid of Venice. Vinegia, Vinegia! qui non te vedi, ei non te pregia. O Venice, Venice, he who has never feen thee, has thee not in efteem. THEOBALD.

The proverb, as I am informed, is this; He that fees Venice little, values it much; he that fees it much, values it little. But I fuppofe

Old Mantuan! old Mantuan! Who understandeth thee not, loves thee not.-Ut, re, fol, la, mi, fa.3Under pardon, fir, what are the contents? or, rather, as Horace fays in his-What, my foul, verses?

NATH. Ay, fir, and very learned.

HOL. Let me hear a staff, a ftanza, a verfe; Lege, domine.

NATH. If love make me forfworn, how fhall I fwear to love?

Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vowed!

Though to myself forfworn, to thee I'll faithful prove;

Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like ofiers bowed.

Mr. Theobald is right, for the true proverb would not serve the fpeaker's purpose. JOHNSON.

The proverb ftands thus in Horvell's Letters, B. I. fect. i. 1. 36. "Venetia, Venetia, chi non te vede, non te pregia,

"Ma chi t'ha troppo veduto te difpregia.

Venice, Venice, none thee unfeen can prize;

"Who thee hath feen too much, will thee defpife."

The players in their edition, have thus printed the first line. Vemchie, vencha, que non te unde, que non te perreche.

Mr. Malone obferves that " the editor of the first folio here, as in many other inftances, implicitly copied the preceding quarto. The text was corrected by Mr. Theobald." STEEVENS.

Our author, I believe, found this Italian proverb in Florio's Second Frutes, 4to. 1591, where it stands thus:

"Venetia, chi non ti vede, non ti pretia;

"Ma chi ti vede, ben gli cofta." MALONE.

3 Ut, re, fol, &c.] He hums the notes of the gamut, as Edmund does in King Lear, A&t I. fc. ii. where fee Dr. Burney's note.

DOUCE.

4 If love make me forf-worn, &c.] Thefe verfes are printed with fome variations in a book entitled The Paffionate Pilgrim, 8vo. 1599. MALONE.

Study his bias leaves, and makes his book thine

eyes;

Where all those pleasures live, that art would comprehend:

If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall fuffice;

Well learned is that tongue, that well can thee commend:

All ignorant that foul, that fees thee without wonder;

(Which is to me fome praise, that I thy parts admire ;)

Thy eye Jove's lightning bears, thy voice his dreadful thunder,

Which, not to anger bent, is musick, and sweet

fire."

Celestial, as thou art, oh pardon, love, this wrong, That fings heaven's praise with fuch an earthly tongue!

HOL. You find not the apoftrophes, and fo mifs the accent: let me fupervize the canzonet. Here are only numbers ratified; but, for the elegancy,

5 thy voice his dreadful thunder,

Which, not to anger bent, is musick and fweet fire.] So, in Antony and Cleopatra:

66

his voice was propertied

"As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends;

"But when he meant to quail, and shake the orb,
"He was as ratling thunder." MALONE.

6 Here are only numbers ratified;] Though this fpeech has all along been placed to fir Nathaniel, I have ventured to join it to the preceding words of Holofernes; and not without reafon. The fpeaker here is impeaching the verfes; but fir Nathaniel, as it appears above, thought them learned ones: befides, as Dr. Thirlby obferves, almost every word of this fpeech fathers itself on the pedant. So much for the regulation of it: now, a little, to the contents.

And why, indeed, Nafo; but for fmelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy? the jerks of invention imitary is nothing.

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