I am my master's true confirmed love; Enter Silvia, attended. Gentlewoman, good day! I pray you, be my mean To bring me where to speak with madam Silvia. Sil. What would you with her, if that I be she? Jul. If you be she, I do entreat your patience To hear me speak the message I am sent on. Sil. From whom? [Picture brought. Jul. Madam, please you peruse this letter. Sil. I pray thee, let me look on that again. Sil. There, hold. I will not look upon your master's lines: I know, they are stuff’d with protestations, And full of new-found oaths; which he will break, As easily as I do tear his paper. Jul. Madam, he sends your ladyship this ring. Sil. The more shame for him that he sends it me; Jul. She thanks you. Jul. I thank you, madam, that you tender her: Poor gentlewoman! my master her much. Sı. Dost thou know her? Jul. Almost as well as I do know myself: To think upon her woes, I do protest, That I have wept an hundred several times. Sil. Belike, she thinks that Proteus hath forsook her. JUL. I think she doth; and that's her cause of sorrow. Sil. Is she not passing fair? Jul. She hath been fairer, madam, than she is : When she did think my master lov'd her well, She, in my judgement, was as fair as you ; But since she did neglect her looking-glass, And threw her sun-expelling malk away, The air hath starv'd the roles in her cheeks, And pinch'd the lily-tincture of her face, That now she is become as black as I. And pinch'd the lily-tinature of her face,] The colour of a part pinched, is livid, as it is commonly termed, black and blue. The weather may therefore be justly said to pinch when it produces the same visible effect. I believe this is the reason why the cold is said to pinch. JOHNSON, Cleopatra says of herself: think on me, STEETINS, Sil. How tall was she? Jul. About my stature: for, at Pentecost, When all our pageants of delight were play'd, Our youth got me to play the woman's part, And I was trimm'd in madam Julia's gown; Which served me as fit, by all men's judgement, As if the garment had been made for me : Therefore, I know she is about my height. And, at that time, I made her weep a-good, For I did play a lamentable part: Madam, 'twas Ariadne, passioning For Theseus' perjury, and unjust fight;' 9 7 Sil. How tall was fher] We should read—“ How tall is the ??' For that is evidently the question which Silvia means to alk. Ritson. -weep a-good,] i. e. in good earnest. Tout de bon. Fr. STEEVENS, So, in Marlowe's few of Malta, 1633: “ And therewithal their knees have rankled so, “ That I have laugh'd a-good." MALONE. 9-'was Ariadne, paffioning For Theseus' perjury, and unjust flight;] The history of this twice-deserted lady is too well known to need an introduction here; nor is the reader interrupted on the business of Shakspeare: but I find it difficult to refrain from making a note the vehicle for á conjecture which I may have no better opportunity of communicating to the public.—The subject of a picture of Guido (commonly supposed to be Ariadne deserted by Theseus and courted by Bacchus) may possibly have been hitherto mistaken. Whoever will examine the fabulous history critically, as well as the performance itself, will acquiesce in the truth of the remark. Ovid, in his Fafti, tells us, that Bacchus (who left Ariadne to go on his Indian expedition) found too many charms in the daughter of one of the kings of that country. “ Interea Liber depexos crinibus Indos “ Vincit, et Eoo dives ab orbe redit. “ G rata nimis Baccho filia regis erat. Edidit incultis talia verba fonis, Which I so lively acted with my tears, Sil. She is beholden to thee, gentle youth!- [Exit Silvia Jul. And she shall thank you for’t, if e'er you know her. “ Quid me desertis perituram, Liber, arenis “ Servabas ? potui dedoluisse semel. Ovid. Faft. 1. iii. v. 46;. In this picture he appears as if just returned from India, bringing with him his new favourite, who hangs on his arm, and whole presence only causes those emotions so visible in the countenance of Ariadne, who had been hitherto represented on this occasion :. as passioning “ For Theseus' perjury and unjust flight.” From this painting a plate was engraved by Giacomo Freij, which is generally a companion to the Aurora of the same master. The print is fo common, that the curious may easily satisfy themselves concerning the propriety of a remark which has intruded itself among the notes on Shakspeare. To pafron is used as a verb, by writers contemporary with Shakspeare. In The Blind Beggar of Alexandria, printed 1598, we meet with the same expression: -what, art thou paffioning over the picture of Cleanthes ?" Again, in Elioto Libidinoso, a novel, by John Hinde, 1606: if thou gaze on a picture, thou must, with Pigmalion, be passionate." Again, in Spenser's Faery Queen, B. III. c. 2: “ Some argument of matter paffioned.” Steevens. 'twas Ariadne, passioning - On her being deserted by Theseus in the night, and left on the Inand of Naxos. MALONE A virtuous gentlewoman, mild, and beautiful. yet the painter flatter'd her a little, 3 —my mistress' love so much.] She had in her preceding speech called Julia ber mistress; but it is odd enough that she should thus describe herself, when she is alone. Sir T. Hanmer reads“ his mistress;” but without necessity. Our author knew that his audience considered the disguised Julia in the present scene as a page to Proteus, and this, I believe, and the love of antithesis, produced the expression. Malone. 4 I'll get me such a colour'd periwig.] It should be remembered, that false hair was worn by the ladies, long before wigs were in fashion. These false coverings, however, were called periwigs. So, in Northward Hoe, 1607: “ There is a new trade come up for cast gentlewomen, of perriwig-making: let your wife set up in the Strand.” “ Perwickes," however, are mentioned by Churchyard in one of his earliest poems. Steevens. See Much Adoabout Nothing, AA II. sc. iii: “ - and her hair shall be of what colour it please God.”—and The Merchant of Ver rice, Act III. sc. ii : “ So are crisped snaky golden locks," &c. Again, in The Honeftie of this age, proving by good circumstance that the world was never honest till now, by Barnabe Rich, quarto, 1615: “ My lady holdeth on her way, perhaps to the tiremaker's shop, where she shaketh her crownes, to bestowe upon fome new-fashioned attire ; upon such artificial deformed periwigs, that they were fitter to furnish a theatre, or for her that in a stage play should represent some hag of hell, than to be used by a Christian woman.' Again, ibid : “ These attire-makers within these forty years were not known by that name; and but now very lately they kept their lowzie commodity of periwigs, and their monstrous attires, closed in boxes,--and those women that used to weare them Vol. III. T |