Kath. A wife!-A beard, fair health, and honesty; With three-fold love I wish you all these three. Dum. O shall I say, I thank you, gentle wife? Kath. Not so, my lord. A twelvemonth and a day I'll mark no words that smooth-fac'd wooers say: Come when the king doth to my lady come, Then, if I have much love, I'll give you some.

Dum. I'll serve thee true and faithfully till then. Kath. Yet swear not, lest you be forsworn again. Long. What says Maria?

Mar.
At the twelvemonth's end,
I'll change my black gown for a faithful friend.
Long. I'll stay with patience; but the time is long.
Mar. The liker you: few taller are so young.
Biron. Studies my lady? mistress look on me:
Behold the window of my heart, mine eye,
What humble suit attends thy answer there;
Inpose some service on me for thy love.

Ros. Oft have I heard of you, my lord Biron,
Before I saw you, and the world's large tongue
Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks;
Full of comparisons and wounding flouts,
Which you on all estates will execute,
That lie within the mercy of your wit:

To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain,

And, therewithal, to win me, if you please,
Without the which I am not to be won,
You shall this twelvemonth term, from day to day,
Visit the speechless sick, and still converse
With groaning wretches; and your task shall be,
With all the fierce endeavour of your wit,
To enforce the pained impotent to smile.

Biron. To move wild laughter in the throat of death?

It cannot be; it is impossible:

Mirth cannot move a soul in agony.

Ros. Why, that's the way to choke a gibing spirit,
Whose influence is begot of that loose grace,
Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools.
A jest's prosperity lies in the ear

Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
Of him that makes it: then, if sickly ears,
Deaf'd with the clamours of their own dear groans.
Will hear your idle scorns, continue then,
And I will have you, and that fault withal;
But, if they will not, throw away that spirit,
And I shall find you empty of that fault,
Right joyful of your reformation.

Biron. A twelvemonth? well, befal what will befal, I'll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital.

That's too long for a play.
Enter ARMADO.

Arm. Sweet majesty, vouchsafe me,-
Prin. Was not that Hector?

Dum. The worthy knight of Troy.
Arm. I will kiss thy royal finger, and take leave.

And then 'twill end.

the plough for her sweet love three years. But, most esteemed greatness, will you hear the dialogue

ACT I-SCENE I.

"LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST."-"The title of this play stands as follows, in the folio of 1623-Loues Labour's Lost.' The modes in which the genitive case, and the contraction of is after a substantive, are printed in the titles of other plays, in that edition, and in the earlier copies, leads us to believe that the author intended to call his play 'Love's Labour is Lost.' The apostrophe is not given, as the mark of the genitive case, in these instances The Winters Tale, A Midsummer Nights Dream,'-(so printed.) But when the verb is forms a part of the title, the apostrophe is introduced, as in

All's Well that Ends Well.' We do not think ourselves justified, therefore, in printing either 'Love's Labour Lost,' or 'Love's Labours Lost,'-as some have recommended."-KNIGHT.

"BIRON"-"Biron" is, in all the old editions, printed Berowne, which Rowe altered to "Biron," as the traditionary pronunciation of that noble name had, in his time, still remained as in Shakespeare's. The verse shows that it is not a misprint, but the pronunciation of the Poet himself, and his times. It is to be pronounced with the accent on the last syllable.

"-but bankrupt QUITE the wits"-This is the reading of the quarto, (1598 :) the folio omits "quite," and prints "bankrupt" as a trisyllable-bankerout-which Knight adopts. Both the older and more modern sound of bankrupt," and bankerout, were then still in common use; and either reading might have come from the Poet's pen.

"With ALL THESE living"-i. e. To love, to wealth, to pomp, Dumaine is dead; but philosophy, in which he lives, includes them all. This is Johnson's understanding of the line, which is yet obscure and ambiguous.

It is a more obvious sense to refer "all these" to the King and his friends, with whom he is to live in philosophy.

"Too much to know is to know nought but fame”— The consequence (explains Johnson) of too much knowledge is, not any real solution of doubts, but mere empty reputation. In other words, too much knowledge gives only fame-a mere name, which every godfather can give likewise.

'PROCEEDED well"-To proceed, Johnson observes, 'is an academical term, and means, to take a degree; as, he proceeded' bachelor in physic."

"an envious SNEAPING frost"-" Sneaping" is mipping, or, as we now say, nipping-as in the WINTER'S TALE, act i. scene 2.

"sit you out"-To "sit out" is a term from the card-table. Thus, Bishop Sanderson

They are glad, rather than sit out, to play very small game.

The person who cuts out, at a rubber of whist, is still said to sit out-i. e. to be no longer engaged in the party.

"A dangerous law against GENTILITY"-By "gentility" is here signified what the French express by Such a law, for banishing women from the court, is gentilesse-i. e. grace, refinement. The meaning isdangerous to politeness, urbanity, and the refined plea

sures of life.

"She must LIE here"-i. e. Reside. We have the sense in Wotton's punning definition of an ambassador"An honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country."

"Necessity will make us all fors worn"-" Biron, amidst his extravagances, speaks with great justness against the folly of vows. They are made without sufficient regard to the variations of life, and are therefore broken by some unforeseen necessity. They proceed commonly from a presumptuous confidence, and a false estimate of human power."-JOHNSON.

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'Suggestions"-i. e. Temptations; repeatedly so used by Shakespeare.

"A man of COMPLEMENTS"-"This passage, I believe, means no more than that Don Armado was a man nicely versed in ceremonial distinctions-one who could distinguish, in the most delicate questions of honour, the exact boundaries of right and wrong. Compliment, in Shakespeare's time, did not signify (at least did not only signify) verbal civility, or phrases of courtesy; but, according to its original meaning, the trappings, or ornamental appendages, of a character-in the same manner, and on the same principles of speech, with accomplishment. Complement' is, as Armado well expresses it, the 'varnish' of a complete man."-JOHNSON.

-FIRE-NEW words"-i. e. Brand-new-new from the forge.

"-his grace's THARBOROUGH"-i. e. Thirdborough, or constable. (See Sly, in the COMEDY OF ERRORS.)

"as the STYLE shall give us cause to CLIMB"-A quibble between the stile, that must be climbed to pass from one field to another, and "style," in regard to language.

-taken with the MANNER"-i. e. In the fact. Costard speaks in law-phrase. A thief is said to be "taken with the manner," (written mainour, or manour, from

"the dancing horse will tell you"-The allusion is to a celebrated bay horse, called Morocco, belonging to one Bankes, who exhibited the docile and sagacious animal in various countries of Europe. Sir Kenelm Digby observes that "he would restore a glove to the owner, after the master had whispered the man's name in his ear; would tell the just number of pence in any piece of silver coin newly showed him by his master," His remarkable pranks are mentioned, or alluded to, by Ben Jonson, Taylor, Donne, Hall, and Raleigh. It seems to be ascertained that man and horse were both burned, at Rome, as magicians.

etc.

"Green, indeed, is the colour of lovers"-"I do not know whether our author alludes to the 'rare green eye' which, in his time, seems to have been thought a beauty, or to that frequent attendant on love, jealousy, to which, in the MERCHANT OF VENICE, and in OTHELLO, he has applied the epithet 'green-eyed.'"-MALONE. "-for the DAY-WOMAN"-A 'day-woman" is a dairy-woman, or milk-woman. Upon the line in Chaucer's" Nonnes Preestes Tale"

"

For she was, as it were, a manner dey

Tyrwhitt observes, "It probably meant, originally, a day-labourer in general, though it may since have been used to denote particularly the superintendent of a dayerie."

"That's HEREBY"-A provincial expression for as it may happen. Armado takes it as hard by.

11

The first and second cause will not serve my turn"-See Touchstone's dissertation on the causes of quarrel, in As YOU LIKE IT, act v. scene 4.

"I shall TURN SONNETS"-The old reading is, "I shall turn sonnet," which was altered by Hanmer to "turn sonneteer;" and this has been usually followed. But that phrase is hardly of Shakespeare's day, and certainly not in Armado's style; and I have preferred in the text, in place of any of the readings of the English editors, the slight alteration of "sonnets"-taking the phrase in the same sense with "turn a tune," "turn a sentence," or Ben Jonson's "well-turned lines."

ACT II.-SCENE I.

base sale of chapmen's tongues”—“ Chapman” here seems to signify the seller, not, as now commonly, the buyer. Cheap, or cheapen, was anciently the market, and chapman, therefore, marketman. The meaning is, that the estimation of beauty depends not on the uttering, or proclamation, of the seller, but on the eye of the buyer. There is a similar thought in Shakespeare's One Hundred and Second "Sonnet:"

That love is merchandised whose rich esteeming
The owner's tongue doth publish every where.

"WIDE fields"-This is the original reading, which later editors, without reason, and against the desired antithesis of wide with the high roof, change to wild.

"'LONG of you"-i. e. Along of you-through you: a phrase found in Hooker, and other grave authors, as well as used colloquially,

"DEPART withal"-To "depart," and to part, were formerly used synonymously.

"My lips are no COMMON, though SEVERAL they be"Shakespeare here used his favourite law-phrases. But there is here some confusion in the use, occasioned by the word "though." A "common," as all know, is unapportioned land-a "several," land that is private property. Shakespeare uses the word according to this sense in the "Sonnets:"

Why should my heart think that a several plot,

Which my heart knows the world's wide common place? But Dr. James has attempted to show that several, or severell, in Warwickshire, meant the common field— common to a few proprietors, but not common to all. In this way, the word "though" is not contradictory. Maria's lips are "no common, though several"—

Belonging to whom?

To my fortunes and me.

I and my fortunes are the co-proprietors of the common field; but we will not "grant pasture" to others. Provincial usages are important in the illustration of Shakespeare.

"—all impatient to speak and not see"-i. e. His tongue being impatiently desirous to see, as well as to speak.

"His face's own margin"-In Shakespeare's time, notes, quotations, etc., were usually printed in the exterior margin of books. So, in ROMEO AND JULIET:— And what obscured in this fair volume lies, Find written in the margin of his eyes.

"CONCOLINEL"-Most likely Moth here sang some Italian song, beginning "Concolinel." The songs thus introduced into old plays were usually popular ditties, and it was, therefore, not necessary to give the words, which in many old comedies are omitted, as here.

"-a French BRAWL"-The "brawl" was a stately species of dance, formerly much in vogue. Several persons united hands, in a circle, and gave each other continual shakes; the steps changing with the tune. (which was sometimes performed by the highest and Gray has a pleasant allusion to this courtly exercitation, gravest characters,) in his "Long Story," in which he so graphically describes the ancient seat of the Hattons:Full oft, within the spacious walls, When he had fifty winters o'er him, My grave Lord-keeper led the brawls; The seals and maces danced before him. His bushy beard, and shoestrings green, His high-crowned hat and satin doublet, Moved the stout heart of England's Queen,

Though Pope and Spaniard could not trouble it. "CANARY to it with your feet"-A verb coined from the active character of the dance called a "canary."

"your hands in your pocket, like a man after the old painting". "It was a common trick, among some of the most indolent of the ancient masters, to place the hands in the bosom or the pockets, or conceal them in some other part of the drapery, to avoid the labour of representing them, or to disguise their own want of skill to employ them with grace and propriety."-STEVENS.

"the hobby-horse is forgot"-This is meant by Moth as the end of the line which Armado had begun with, "But O,—but 0,-." In HAMLET, act iii. scene 2, we have the whole line of the ballad-" For O, for O, the hobby-horse is forgot." It seems to have been written on the omission of the hobby-horse in Maygames. "The hobby-horse is forgot," and the " hobbyhorse is quite forgot," are phrases constantly occurring in old writers.

“— a CoSTARD broken in a shin”—“ Costard” signifies a head; hence Moth's joke.

"thy L'ENVOY;—begin"—"L'envoy" is the old French word for the conclusion of a story, or poem. Armado means, "Come to thy conclusion by beginning." "L'envoy" was adopted early in English.

“ — no salve in THE MALE"-"This is printed in the quarto, (1598,) and in the folio, no salve in thee male, sir. Malone, Stevens, and Johnson take "male" in the sense of bag-there is no salve in the bag, or wallet; but Tyrwhitt proposes to read, no salve in them all, sir-which is so plausible, that I am almost tempted to place it in the text, even in opposition to all the authorities."-COLLier.

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The boy hath sold him a bargain”—“ This comedy is running over with allusions to country-sports-one of the many proofs that, in its original shape, it may be assigned to the author's greenest years. The sport which so delights Costard, about the fox, the ape, and the humble-bee, has been explained by Capell, whose lumbering and obscure comments upon Shakespeare have been pillaged and sneered at by the other commentators. In this instance, they take no notice of him. It seems, according to Capell, that selling a bargain' consisted in drawing a person in, by some stratagem, to proclaim himself fool, by his own lips; and thus, when Moth makes his master repeat the l'envoy, ending in the goose, he proclaims himself a goose, according to the rustic wit, which Costard calls selling a bargain well.'Fast and loose,' to which he alludes, was another holiday sport; and the goose, that ended the market, alludes to the proverb, three women and a goose make a market.'"-KNIGHT.

"my INCONY Jew"-Mr. Dyce, in his edition of Middleton's works, explains "incony" as fine, delicate, pretty. This was also Warburton's interpretation of the word, asserting it to be of northern origin, which Ritson, without sufficient evidence, denied. It is of frequent occurrence, and we meet with it again in this play, act iv. scene 1. "Jew" seems used by Costard as a term of endearment, and for the sake of the rhyme.

“ — Guerdon—remuneration”—In a tract published in 1598, ("A Health to the Gentlemanly Profession of Serving Men,") there is a story of a servant who got a "remuneration" of three farthings from one of his master's guests, and a “guerdon" of a shilling from another guest. Perhaps the story had passed into the gossip of the people, and Costard's jocularity was understood by thegentlemanly profession," who stood on the ground of the Blackfriars Theatre, or the Globe.

"This SENIOR-JUNIOR"-In reference to the contrariety of love, Shakespeare calls Cupid "senior-junior," and giant-dwarf." The quarto and the folios have it, "signior Junios giant dwarf." The change was made by Johnson.

"-trotting PARITORS"-"An apparitor, or 'paritor,' (says Johnson,) is an officer of the bishop's court, who carries out citations: as citations are most frequently issued for fornication, the paritor is put under Cupid's government."

"a corporal of his field,

And wear his colours like a tumbler's hoop!" "It appears, from Lord Stafford's Letters,' that a corporal of the field was employed, as an aide-de-camp is now, in taking and carrying to and fro the directions of the general, or other higher officers of the field.' From other sources, however, it seems that the functions of this officer were of a diversified nature. 'tumbler's hoop' was usually dressed out with coloured ribands. To wear love's colours means, to wear his badge or cognomen, or to be his servant or retainer.”— Illust. Shak.

Α

ACT IV.-SCENE I.

"Whoe'er a' was"-We have, with Collier, preferred the retaining, as in the original editions, this mode of putting a' for he, in familiar conversation; as showing it not to have been confined, in that age, to vulgar or ludicrous dialogue.

"-play the murderer in”—“ Royal and noble ladies, in the days of Elizabeth, delighted in the somewhat unrefined sport of shooting deer with a cross-bow. In the 'alleys green' of Windsor or of Greenwich parks, the queen would take her stand, on an elevated platform, and, as the pricket or the buck was driven past her. would aim the death-shaft, amid the acclamations of her admiring courtiers. The ladies, it appears, were skilful enough at this sylvan butchering. Sir Francis Leake writes to the Earl of Shrewsbury-' Your lordship has sent me a very great and fat stag, the welcomer being stricken by your right honourable lady's hand.' The practice was as old as the romances of the middle ages. But, in those days, the ladies were sometimes not so expert as the Countess of Shrewsbury; for, in the history of Prince Arthur, a fair huntress wounds Sir Launcelot of the Lake, instead of the stag at which she aims."-KNIGHT.

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- good my GLASS"-" Here Dr. Johnson and Dr. Farmer have each a note, too long and too absurd to quote, to show it was the fashion for ladies to wear mirrors at their girdles. Stevens says, justly, that Dr. Johnson is mistaken, and that the forester is the mirror."-PYE.

"a member of the commonwealth"-"The Princess calls Costard a 'member of the commonwealth,' because he is one of the attendants on the King and his associates, in their new-modelled society."-SINGER. "God DIG-YOU-DEN all"-i. e. God give you good even all. "Good den" is good even.

"Break up this capon"—i. e. Open this letter. "To break up (says Percy) was a peculiar phrase in carving." "PENELOPHON"-The ballad which Shakespeare alludes to, in RICHARD II. and elsewhere, may be found in Percy's delightful collection of "Reliques of Ancient Poetry."

"a MONARCHO"-The allusion is to a fantastical character of the time. "Popular applause (says Meares, in 'Wit's Treasurie,' p. 178) doth nourish some, neither do they gape after any other thing but vaine praise and glorie, as in our age Peter Shakerlye of Paules, and Monarcho that lived about the court.' "" He is called an Italian by Nashe, and Churchyard has written some lines which he calls his "Epitaphe." By another writer it appears that he was a “Bergamasco.”

"who is the SUITOR"-The joke, here and afterwards, depends upon the pronunciation of "sitor"shooter. In this play, in the last line but one of act iii., to sue is printed to shue, both in the quarto and in the folio; and here "suitor" is printed shooter. This indicates the pronunciation of the Elizabethan age, in this respect, to have been the same with that still preserved in Ireland, which was for a time, on Sheridan's authority, fashionable on the stage, and among public speakers.

"An I cannot, another can"-This, like many of the "snatches of songs" in SHAKESPEARE, is a fragment of a popular song. It is referred to in the light poetry of

the time.

SCENE II.

"-a buck of the first head"—In the "Return from Parnassus," (1606,) there is an account of the different appellations of deer, at their different ages:-" Now, sir, a buck is the first year, a fawn; the second year, a pricket; the third year, a sorrel; the fourth yeare, a soare; the fifth, a buck of the first head; the sixth, a