fear of your adventure would counsel you to a more equal enterprise. We pray you, for your own fake, to embrace your own safety, and give over this attempt. Ros. Do, young fir; your reputation fhall not therefore be mifprifed: we will make it our fuit to the duke, that the wrestling might not go forward. ORL. I beseech you, punish me not with your hard thoughts; wherein I confefs me much guilty, to deny fo fair and excellent ladies any thing. But let your fair eyes, and gentle wifhes, go with me -our eyes, and-our judgment. The argument is, Your Spirits are too bold, and therefore your judgment deceives you; but did you fee and know yourself with our more impartial judgment, you would forbear. WARBURTON. I cannot find the abfurdity of the prefent reading. If you were not blinded and intoxicated, fays the princefs, with the Spirit of enterprife, if you could use your own eyes to fee, or your own judgment to know yourself, the fear of your adventure would counsel you. JOHNSON. 4 I beseech you, punish me not, &c.] I fhould wish to read, I beseech you, punish me not with your hard thoughts. Therein I confefs myjelf much guilty to deny fo fair and excellent ladies any thing. JOHNSON. As the word wherein muft always refer to fomething preceding, I have no doubt but there is an error in this paffage, and that we ought to read herein, inftead of wherein. The hard thoughts that he complains of are the apprehenfions expreffed by the ladies of his not being able to contend with the wrestler. He befeeches that they will not punish him with them; and then adds, " Herein I confefs me much guilty to deny fo fair and excellent ladies any thing. But let your fair eyes and gentle wishes go with me to my trial." M. MASON. The meaning I think is, "punifh me not with your unfavourable opinion (of my abilities); which, however, I confess, I deferve to incur, for denying fuch fair ladies any requeft." The expreffion is licentious, but our author's plays furnish many fuch. MALONE. to my trial: wherein if I be foiled, there is but one fhamed that was never gracious; if killed, but one dead that is willing to be fo: I fhall do my friends no wrong, for I have none to lament me; the world no injury, for in it I have nothing; only in the world I fill up a place, which may be better fupplied when I have made it empty. Ros. The little ftrength that I have, I would it were with you. CEL. And mine, to eke out hers. Ros. Fare you well. Pray heaven, I be deceived in you! CEL. Your heart's defires be with you! CHA. Come, where is this young gallant, that is fo defirous to lie with his mother earth? ORL. Ready, fir; but his will hath in it a more modeft working. DUKE F. You shall try but one fall. CHA. No, I warrant your grace; you fhall not entreat him to a second, that have fo mightily perfuaded him from a first. ORL. You mean to mock me after; you should not have mocked me before: but come your ways. Ros. Now, Hercules be thy fpeed, young man! CEL. I would I were invifible, to catch the strong fellow by the leg. [CHARLES and ORLANDO wrestle. Ros. O excellent young man! 5 let your gentle wishes, go with me to my trial:] Addison might have had this paffage in his memory, when he put the following words into Juba's mouth: Marcia, may I hope "That thy kind wishes follow me to battle?" STEEVENS. CEL. If I had a thunderbolt in mine eye, I can tell who should down. [CHARLES is thrown. Shout. DUKE F. No more, no more. ORL. Yes, I beseech your grace; I am not yet well breathed. DUKE F. How doft thou, Charles? LE BEAU. He cannot fpeak, my lord. DUKE F. Bear him away. [CHARLES is borne out.] What is thy name, young man? ORL. Orlando, my liege; the youngest son of fir Rowland de Bois. DUKE F. I would, thou hadst been fon to fome man elfe. The world efteem'd thy father honourable, Thou shouldft have better pleas'd me with this deed, [Exeunt Duke FRED. Train, and LE BEAU. CEL. Were I my father, coz, would I do this? ORL. I am more proud to be fir Rowland's fon, His youngest fon; —and would not change that calling,+ To be adopted heir to Frederick. Ros. My father lov'd fir Rowland as his foul, And all the world was of my father's mind: Had I before known this young man his fon, 3 His youngest fon ;] The words " than to be defcended from any other house, however high," must be understood. Orlando is replying to the duke, who is juft gone out, and had faid, "Thou should't have better pleas'd me with this deed, "Hadft thou defcended from another house." MALONE. 4that calling,] i. e. appellation; a very unusual, if not unprecedented fenfe of the word. STEEVENS. I fhould have given him tears unto entreaties, CEL. Gentle cousin, Let us go thank him, and encourage him: My father's rough and envious difpofition But juftly, as you have exceeded promise," Ros. Gentleman, [Giving him a chain from her neck. Wear this for me; one out of fuits with fortune;' That could give more, but that her hand lacks means. Shall we go, coz? CEL. Ay:-Fare you well, fair gentleman. ORL. Can I not fay, I thank you? My better parts Are all thrown down; and that which here stands up, Is but a quintain, a mere lifeless block." 5 as you have exceeded promife,] The old copy, without regard to the measure, reads-all promife. STEEVENS. 6 —one out of fuits with fortune;] This feems an allufion to cards, where he that has no more cards to play of any particular fort, is out of fuit. JOHNSON. Out of fuits with fortune, I believe means, turned out of her fervice, and stripped of her livery. STEEVENS. So afterwards Celia fays, "but turning these jefts out of fervice, let us talk in good earneft." MALONE. 7 Is but a quintain, a mere lifeless block.] A quintain was a poft or butt fet up for feveral kinds of martial exercises, against which they threw their darts and exercised their arms. The allufion is beautiful. I am, fays Orlando, only a quintain, a lifeless block on which love only exercifes his arms in jeft; the great difparity of condition between Rofalind and me, not fuffering me to hope that love will ever make a ferious matter of it. The famous fatirist Regnier, who lived about the time of our authour, uses the fame metaphor, on the fame subject, though the thought be dif ferent: Ros. He calls us back: My pride fell with my fortunes: I'll ask him what he would:-Did you call, fir?— Sir, you have wrestled well, and overthrown More than your enemies. CEL. Will you go, coz? Ros. Have with you :-Fare you well. [Exeunt ROSALIND and CELIA. ORL. What paffion hangs these weights upon my tongue? I cannot speak to her, yet fhe urg'd conference. "Et qui depuis dix ans jufqu'en fes derniers jours, "Laffe en fin de fervir au peuple de quintaine, 66 Elle" &c. WARBURTON. This is but an imperfect (to call it no worfe) explanation of a beautiful paffage. The quintain was not the object of the darts and arms it was a stake driven into a field, upon which were hung a fhield and other trophies of war, at which they fhot, darted, or rode, with a lance. When the fhield and the trophies were all thrown down, the quintain remained. Without this information how could the reader understand the allufion of My better parts Are all thrown down? GUTHRIE. Mr. Malone has difputed the propriety of Mr. Guthrie's animadverfions; and Mr. Douce is equally dissatisfied with those of Mr. Malone. The phalanx of our auxiliaries, as well as their circumftantiality, is fo much increased, that we are often led (as Hamlet obferves) to fight for a fpot 66 "Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause." The prefent ftrictures therefore of Mr. Malone and Mr. Douce, (which are too valuable to be omitted, and too ample to find their place under the text of our author,) muft appear at the conclufion of the play. STEEVENS. For a more particular description of a quintain, fee a note on a paffage in Jonfon's Underwoods, Whalley's edit. Vol. VII. p. 55. M. MASON. also be read in A humourous description of this amusement may Laneham's Letter from "Killingwoorth Caftle." HENLEY. |