Luc. I cannot reach so high. JUL. Let's fee your fong:-How now, minion? Luc. No, madam; it is too fharp. Luc. Nay, now you are too, flat, And mar the concord with too harsh a descant: 2 Luc. Indeed, I bid the base for Proteus.^ too harsh a descant:] Defcant is a term in mufic. See Sir John Hawkins's note on the first speech in K. Richard III. STEEVENS. 3 - but a mean, &c.] The mean is the tenor in music. So, in the enterlude of Mary Magdalen's Repentance, 1569: "Utilitie can fing the base full cleane, STEEVENS. 4 Indeed, I bid the base for Protheus.] The speaker here turns the allufion (which her miftrefs employed) from the bafe in mufick to a country exercise, Bid the bafe in which fome purfue, and others are made prifoners. So that Lucetta would intend, by this, to fay, Indeed I take pains to make you a captive to Proteus's paffion. He uses the fame allufion in his Venus and Adonis ; To bid the winds a bafe he now prepares,” And in his Cymbeline he mentions the game: Lads more like "To run the country base." WARBURTON. Dr. Warburton is not quite accurate. The game was not called Bid the Bafe, but the Bafe. To bid the bafe means here, I believe, to challenge to a conteft. So, in our author's Venus and Adonis : "To bid the wind a base he now prepares, "And wh'er he run, or fly, they knew not whether." Again, in Hall's Chronicle, fol. 98. b. "The Queen marched from York to Wakefield, and bade base to the duke, even before his caftle." MALONE. JUL. This babble fhall not henceforth trouble me. Here is a coil with protestation!— [Tears the letter. Go, get you gone; and let the papers lie: You would be fingering them, to anger me. Luc. She makes it ftrange; but he would be best pleas'd To be fo anger'd with another letter. [Exit. JUL. Nay, would I were fo anger'd with the fame! O hateful hands, to tear fuch loving words! Injurious wafps! to feed on fuch fweet honey, And kill the bees, that yield it, with your ftings! I'll kiss each feveral paper for amends. Look, here is writ-kind Julia ;—unkind Julia ! I throw thy name against the bruising stones, And thus I fearch it with a fovereign kifs. And throw it thence into the raging sea! Mr. Malone's explanation of the verb-bid, is unquestionably juft. So, in one of the parts of K. Henry VI: "Of force enough to bid his brother battle." STEEVENS. -written down?] To write down is ftill a provincial ex preffion for to write. HENLEY. Poor forlorn Proteus, paffionate Proteus, He couples it to his complaining names: Re-enter LUCETTA. Luc. Madam, dinner's ready, and your father stays. JUL. Well, let us go. Luc. What, fhall these papers lie like tell-tales here? JUL. If you refpect them, best to take them up. Luc. Nay, I was taken up for laying them down: Yet here they shall not lie, for catching cold." JUL. I fee, you have a month's mind to them." Yet here they shall not lie, for catching cold.] That is, as Mr. M. Mafon obferves, left they should catch cold. This mode of expreffion (he adds) is not frequent in Shakspeare, but occurs in every play of Beaumont and Fletcher. So, in The Captain: "We'll have a bib, for spoiling of your Again, in Love's Pilgrimage: "Stir my horfe, for catching cold." Again, in The Pilgrim: "All her face patch'd, for difcovery." doublet." To these I fhall add another inftance from Barnabie Riche's Souldiers Wife to Britons Welfare, or Captaine Skill and Captaine Pill, 1604. p. 64: "-fuch other ill difpofed perfons, being once preffed, muft be kept with continuall guard, &c. for running away." STEEVENS. 7 I fee, you have a month's mind to them.] A month's mind was an anniversary in times of popery; or, as Mr. Ray calls it, a lefs folemnity directed by the will of the deceased. There was alfo a year's mind, and a week's mind. See Proverbial Phrafes. This appears from the interrogatories and obfervations against the clergy, in the year 1552. Inter. 7: "Whether there are any Luc. Ay, madam, you may say what fights you fee; I see things too, although you judge I wink. SCENE III. [Exeunt. The fame. A Room in Antonio's House. Enter ANTONIO and PANTHINO. 8 ANT. Tell me, Panthino, what fad talk was that, Wherewith my brother held you in the cloister? PAN. 'Twas of his nephew Proteus, your fon. months' minds, and anniversaries? Strype's Memorials of the Refor mation, Vol. II. p. 354. "Was the month's mind of Sir William Laxton, who died the laft month (July 1556.) his hearfe burning with wax, and the morrow mafs celebrated, and a fermon preached," &c. Strype's Mem. Vol. III. p. 305. GREY. A month's mind, in the ritual fenfe, fignifies not defire or inclination, but remembrance; yet I suppose this is the true original of the expreffion. JOHNSON. In Hampshire, and other western counties, for "I can't remember it," they say, "6 I can't mind it." BLACKSTONE. Puttenham, in his Art of Poetry, 1589, chap. 24. fpeaking of Poetical Lamentations, fays, they were chiefly used " at the burials of the dead, alfo at month's minds, and longer times:" and in the churchwardens' accompts of St. Helen's in Abingdon, Berkshire, 1558, thefe month's minds, and the expences attending them, are frequently mentioned. Instead of month's minds, they are sometimes called month's monuments, and in the Injunctions of K. Edward VI. memories, Injunct. 21. By memories, fays Fuller, we understand the Obfequia for the dead, which fome fay fucceeded in the place of the heathen Parentalia. If this line was defigned for a verfe, we should read-monther mind. So, in A Midsummer Night's Dream: "Swifter than the moones fphere." Both these are the Saxon genitive cafe. STEEVENS. ·what fad talk―] Sad is the fame as grave or ferious. JOHNSON ANT. Why, what of him? 8 PAN. He said, that Proteus, your fon, was meet; ANT. Nor need'ft thou much impórtune me to that Whereon this month I have been hammering. So, in The Wife Woman of Hog fden, 1638: "Marry, fir knight, I faw them in fad talk, "But to fay they were directly whispering," &c. Again, in Whetstone's Promos and Caffandra, 1578: "The king feigneth to talk fadly with fome of his counfel." STEEVENS. of flender reputation,] i. e, who are thought flightly of, are of little confequence. STEEVENS. 9 Some to difcover islands far away;] In Shakspeare's time, voyages for the discovery of the islands of America were much in vogue. And we find, in the journals of the travellers of that time, that the fons of noblemen, and of others of the best families in England, went very frequently on these adventures. Such as the Fortefcues, Collitons, Thornhills, Farmers, Pickerings, Littletons, Willoughbys, Chefters, Hawleys, Bromleys, and others. To this prevailing fashion our poet frequently alludes, and not without high commendations of it. WARBURTON. 2-great impeachment to his age,] Impeachment, as Mr. M. Mafon very juftly obferves, in this inftance fignifies reproach or imputation. So Demetrius fays to Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream: "You do impeach your modefty too much, "To leave the city, and commit yourself "Into the hands of one that loves you not." STEEVENS. |