9 BIRON. Armado is a moft illuftrious wight, A man of fire-new words, fashion's own knight. LONG. Coflard the fwain, and he, fhall be our fport; And, fo to fludy, three years is but short. Enter DULL, with a letter, and COSTARD. 2 DULL. Which is the duke's own perfon? BIRON. This, fellow; What would'ft? DULL. I myself reprehend his own person, for I am his grace's tharborough: 3 but I would fee his own perfon in flesh and blood. BIRON. This is he. DULL. Signior Arme-Arme-commends you. There's villainy abroad; this letter will tell you more. COST. Sir, the contempts thereof are as touching me. fire-new words, ] " i. e. (fays an intelligent writer in the Edinburgh Magazine, Nov. 1786) words newly coined, new from the forge. Fire-new, new off the irons, and the Scottish expreffion bren-new, have all the fame origin. The fame compound epithet occurs in K. Richard III: "Your fire-new ftamp of honour is fcarce current. STEBVENS. Which is the duke's own perfon?] The king of Navarre in feveral paffages, through all the copies, is called the duke: but as this muft have fprung rather from the inadvertence of the editors than a forgetfulness in the poet, I have every where, to avoid confufion, reftored king to the text. THEOBALD. The princefs in the next a&t calls the king- -"this virtuous duke;" a word which, in our author's time, feems to have been ufed with great laxity. And indeed, though this were not the cafe, fuch a fellow as Coftard may well be fuppofed ignorant of his true title. MALONE. I have followed the old copies. STEEVEns. tharborough: i. e. Thirdborough, a peace officer, alike in authority with a headborough or a conftable. SIR J. HAWKINS. 1 1 KING. A letter from the magnificent Armado. BIRON. How low foever the matter, I hope in God for high words. a LONG. A high hope for a low having: God grant us patience! BIRON. To hear? or forbear hearing? LONG. To hear meekly, fir, and to laugh moderately; or to forbear both. BIRON. Well, fir, be it as the ftile fhall give us caufe to climb in the merriness. COST. The matter is to me, fir, as concerning Jaquenetta. The manner of it is, I was taken with the manner. 7 4 A high hope for a low having:] In old editions: "A high hope for a low heaven;" A low heaven, fure is a very intricate matter to conceive. dare warrant, I have retrieved the poet's true reading; and the meaning is this: “ Though you hope for high words, and fhould have them, it will be but a low acquifition at beft." This our poet calls a low having: and it is a fubftantive which he ufes in several other paffages. THEOBALD. It is employed in Macbeth, A& I: 66 great predi&ion Of noble having, and of royal hope. " Heaven, however, may be the true reading, in allufion to the gradations of happiness promifed by Mohammed to his followers. So, in the comedy of Old Fortunatus, 1600: "Oh, how my foul is rapt to a third heaven !” STEEVENS. To hear? or forbear hearing?] One of the modern editors plaufibly enough, reads. 6 To hear? or forbear laughing?" MALONE. as the file fhall give us caufe to climb-] A quibble between the file that must be climbed to pass from one field to another, and style, the term expreffive of manner of writing in regard to language. 7 STEEVENS. taken with the manner. ] i. e. in the fact. So in Heywood's Rape of Lucrece, 1630: "-- and, being taken with the manner, had nothing to fay for himself. " STEEVENS. A forenfick term. A thief is faid to be taken with the manner, BIRON. In what manner? COST. In manner and form following, fir; all thofe three: I was feen with her in the manor houfe, fitting with her upon the form, and taken following her into the park; which, put together, is, in manuer and form following. Now, fir, for the manner,—it is the manner of a man to speak to a woman for the form,-in fome form. BIRON. For the following, fir? COST. As it fhall follow in my correction? And God defend the right! KING. Will you hear this letter with attention? BIRON. As we would hear an oracle. COST. Such is the fimplicity of man to hearken after the flesh. KING. [reads. ] Great deputy, the welkin's vicegerent, and fole dominator of Navarre, my foul's earth's God, and body's foftering patron, COST. Not a word of Coflard yet. KING. So it is, COST. It may be fo: but if he fay it is fo, he is, in telling true, but so, so.7 KING. Peace. COST.-be to me, and every man that dares not fight! KING. No words. COST.-of other men's fecrets, I befeech you. KING. So it is, befuged with fable-colour'd melan i. e. mainour or maneur, (for fo it is written in our old law-books,) when he is apprehended with the thing ftolen in his poffeffion. The thing that he has ten was called mainour, from the Fr. manier, manu tractare. MALONE. 7 but fo, fo.] The fecond fo was added by Sir T. Hanmer,' and adopted by the fubfequent editors. MALONE. choly, I did commend the black-oppreffing humour to the moft wholefome phyfick of thy health-giving air; and, as I am a gentleman, betook my felf to walk. The time, when? About the fixth hour; when beafts moft graze, birds beft peck, and men fit down to that nourishment which is called fupper. So much for the time when: Now for the ground which; which, I mean, I walk'd upon: it is pcleped, thy park. Then for the place where; where, I mean, I did encounter that obfcene and most prepoflerous event, that draweth from my Snow-white pen the ebon-colour'd ink, which here thou vieweft, beholdeft, furveyeft, or feeft: But to the place, where,It flandeth north-north-east and by east from the weft corner of thy curious-knotted garden: There did I fee that low-fpirited fwain, that bafe minnow of thy mirth, s 8 COST. Me. KING.that unletter'd fmall-knowing foul, COST. Me. KING. that fhallow vaffal,. 7 — curious-knotted garden:] Ancient gardens abounded with figures of which the lines interfected each other in many directions. Thus in King Richard II: "Her fluit-trees all unprun'd, her hedges ruin'd. In Thomas Hill's Profitable Art of Gardening, &c. 4to. bl. 1. 1579, is the delineation of "a proper knot for a garden, whereas is fpare roume enough, the which may be fet with Time, or Isop, at the difcretion of the Gardener.' In Henry Dethicke's Gardener's Labyrinth, bl. 1. 4to. 1586, are other examples of “ proper knots deuifed for gardens. STEEVENS. 8 -bafe minuow of thy mirth,] The base minnow of thy mirth, is the contemptible little object that contributes to thy entertainment. Shakipeare makes Coriolanus characterize the tribunitian infolence of Sicinius, under the fame figure: Again, in Have with you to Saffron Walden, or Gabriel Harvey's Hunt is up, &c. 1596: Let him denie that there was another fhewe made of the little minnow his brother, &c. STEEVENS. COST. Still me. KING.-which, as I remember, hight Coftard, KING.-forted and conforted, contrary to they eftablished proclaimed redict and continent canon, withwith O with-but with this I paffion to fay wherewith. COST. With a wench. KING.—with a child of our grandmother Eve, a female; or, for thy more fweet understanding, a woman. Him I as my ever-esteemed duty pricks me on) have fent to thee, to receive the meed of punishment, by thy Sweet Grace's officer, Antony Dull; a man of good repute, carriage, bearing, and eftimation. DULL. Me, an't fhall pleafe you; I am Antony Duil. 2 KING. For Jaquenetta, (fo is the weaker vessel called, which I apprehended with the aforefaid fwain,) I keep her as a veffel of thy law's fury; and shall, at the leaf of thy fweet notice, bring her to trial. Thine, in all compliments of devoted and heart-burning heat of duty, Don Adriano de Armado. BIRON. This is not fo well as I look'd for, but the beft that ever I heard. KING. Ay, the beft for the worft. But, firrah, what fay you to this? 9 COST. Sir, I confefs the wench. KING. Did you hear the proclamation? with-with-] The old copy reads-which with. The correction is Mr. Theobald's. MALONE. 2 66 the vessel vellel of thy law's fury;] This feems to be a phrafe adopted from fcripture. See Epift. to the Romans, ix. 22. of wrath." Mr. M. Mason would read-vaffal instead of vessel. STEEVENS. |