Give me the paper, let me read the fame; KING. How well this yielding rescues thee from fhame! BIRON. [Reads.] Item, That no woman shall come within a mile of my court. And hath this been proclaim'd? LONG. Four days ago. BIRON. Let's fee the penalty. [Reads.]-On pain of lofing her tongue.— LONG. Marry, that did I. Who devis'd this ?5 BIRON. Sweet lord, and why? LONG. To fright them hence with that dread penalty. BIRON. A dangerous law against gentility." The perfon who cuts out at a rubber of whift, is ftill faid to fit out; i. e. to be no longer engaged in the party. STEEVENS. • Who devis'd this ?] The old copies read-this penalty. I have omitted this needlefs repetition of the word penalty, because it destroys the measure. STEEVENS. * A dangerous law against gentility!] I have ventured to prefix the name of Biron to this line, it being evident, for two reafons, that it, by fome accident or other, flipt out of the printed books. In the firft place, Longaville confeffes, he had devised the penalty: and why he should immediately arraign it as a dangerous law, feems to be very inconfistent. In the next place, it is much more natural for Biron to make this reflection, who is cavilling at every thing; and then for him to pursue his reading over the remaining articles.-As to the word gentility, here, it does not fignify that rank of people called, gentry; but what the French exprefs by, gentileffe, i. e. elegantia, urbanitas. And then the meaning is this: Such a law for banishing women from the court, is dangerous, or injurious, to politeness, urba nity, and the more refined pleasures of life. For men without women would turn brutal, and favage, in their natures and behaviour. THEOBALD. [Reads.] Item, If any man be feen to talk with a woman within the term of three years, he shall endure fuch publich fhame as the rest of the court can pofsibly devife. This article, my liege, yourself must break; For, well you know, here comes in embassy The French King's daughter, with yourself to fpeak, A maid of grace, and cómplete majesty,About furrender-up of Aquitain To her decrepit, fick, and bed-rid father: Therefore this article is made in vain, Or vainly comes the admired princess hither. KING. What fay you, lords? why, this was quite forgot. BIRON. So ftudy evermore is overshot ; While it doth ftudy to have what it would, It doth forget to do the thing it should: And when it hath the thing it hunteth moft, "Tis won, as towns with fire; fo won, fo loft. KING. We muft, of force, difpenfe with this de cree; She must lie here7 on mere neceffity. BIRON. Neceffity will make us all forfworn Three thousand times within this three years' fpace: For every man with his affects is born; Not by might mafter'd, but by special grace: lie here-] Means refide here, in the fame sense as an ambaffador is faid to lie leiger. See Beaumont and Fletcher's Love's Cure, or the Martial Maid, A&t II. sc. ii : "Or did the cold Mufcovite beget thee, "That lay here leiger, in the last great frost?" Again, in Sir Henry Wotton's Definition: "An ambaffador is an honest man fent to lie (i. e. reside) abroad for the good of his country." REED. If I break faith, this word fhall speak for me, So to the laws at large I write my name : [Subfcribes. And he, that breaks them in the least degree, Stands in attainder of eternal shame: Suggestions are to others, as to me; But, I believe, although I seem so loth, I am the last that will last keep his oath. But is there no quick recreation 1 granted? KING. Ay, that there is: our court, you know, is haunted With a refined traveller of Spain; A man in all the world's new fashion planted, Not by might mafter'd, but by fpecial grace:] Biron, amidst his extravagancies, fpeaks with great juftness against the folly of vows. They are made without fufficient regard to the variations of life, and are therefore broken by fome unforeseen neceffity. They proceed commonly from a prefumptuous confidence, and a false estimate of human power. JOHNSON. 9 Suggestions-] Temptations. JOHNSON. So, in King Henry IV. P. I: "And these led on by your fuggeftion." STEEVENS. quick recreation] Lively sport, spritely diverfion. So, in Antony and Cleopatra: the quick comedians Extemporally will ftage us." STEEVENS. A man of complements, whom right and wrong JOHNSON. Have chofe as umpire of their mutiny:] As very bad a play as this is, it was certainly Shakspeare's, as appears by many fine mafter-strokes scattered up and down. An exceffive complaifance This child of fancy,3 that Armado hight,4 For interim to our studies, fhall relate, In high-born words, the worth of many a knight From tawny Spain, loft in the world's debate.§ is here admirably painted, in the perfon of one who was willing to make even right and wrong friends; and to perfuade the one to recede from the accuftomed ftubbornness of her nature, and wink at the liberties of her oppofite, rather than he would incur the imputation of ill-breeding in keeping up the quarrel. And as our author, and Jonfon his contemporary, are confeffedly the two greatest writers in the drama that our nation could ever boast of, this may be no improper occafion to take notice of one material difference between Shakspeare's worst plays and the other's. Our author owed all to his prodigious natural genius; and Jonfon most to his acquired parts and learning. This, if attended to, will explain the difference we speak of. Which is this, that, in Jonfon's bad pieces, we do not discover the leaft traces of the author of the Fox and Alchemist; but in the wildest and most extravagant notes of Shakspeare, you every now and then encounter ftrains that recognize their divine compofer. And the reason is this, that Jonfon owing his chief excellence to art, by which he fometimes ftrained himself to an uncommon pitch, when he unbent himself, had nothing to fupport him; but fell below all likeness of himself; while Shakspeare, indebted more largely to nature than the other to his acquired talents, could never, in his moft negligent hours, fo totally diveft himself of his genius, but that it would frequently break out with amazing force and splendour. WARBURTON. This paffage, I believe, means no more than that Don Armado was a man nicely verfed in ceremonial diftinctions, one who could diftinguith in the moft delicate queftions of honour the exact boundaries of right and wrong. Compliment, in Shakfpeare's time, did not fignify, at least did not only fignify verbal civility, or phrafes of courtesy, but according to its original meaning, the trappings, or ornamental appendages of a character, in the fame manner, and on the fame principles of speech with accomplishment. Complement is, as Armado well expreffes it, the varnish of a complete man. JOHNSON. Dr. Johnson's opinion may be fupported by the following paffage in Lingua, or The Combat of the Tongue and the Five Senfes for Superiority, 1607 :-" after all fathions and of all colours, with rings, jewels, a fan, and in every other place, odd How you delight, my lords, I know not, I; complements." And again, by the title-page to Richard Braithwaite's English Gentlewoman: "drawne out to the full body, expreffing what habiliments doe best attire her; what ornaments doe beft adorne her; and what complements doe best accomplish her." Again, in p. 59, we are told that "complement hath beene anciently defined, and fo fucceffively retained;—a no lesse reall than formall accomplishment." Again, in Chapman's verfion of the 24th Iliad: "Found him ftill fighing; and fome friends, with all their complements Soothing his humour." Again, in Sir Giles Goofecap, 1606: 66 adorned with the exacteft complements belonging to everlafting nobleness." STEEVENS. Thus, in Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio calls Tybalt," the Captain of complements." M. MASON. 3 This child of fancy,] This fantaflick. The expreffion, in another sense, has been adopted by Milton in his L'Allegro : "Or sweetest Shakspeare, Fancy's child." MALONE. * That Armado hight,] Who is called Armado. MALONE. 5 From tawny Spain, loft in the world's debate.] i. e. he fhall relate to us the celebrated ftories recorded in the old romances, and in their very ftyle. Why he fays from tawny Spain is, because those romances, being of Spanish original, the heroes and the scene were generally of that country. Why he says, loft in the world's debate is, because the subject of those romances were the crufades of the European Chriftians against the Saracens of Afia and Africa. WARBURTON. I have fuffered this note to hold its place, though Mr. Tyrwhitt has fhewn that it is wholly unfounded, because Dr. Warburton refers to it in his differtation at the end of this play. MALONE in the world's debate.] The world seems to be used in a monaftick sense by the king, now devoted for a time to a monaftic life. In the world, in feculo, in the bustle of human affairs, from which we are now happily fequeftred, in the world, to which the votaries of folitude have no relation. JOHNSON. Warburton's interpretation is clearly preferable to that of |