SHEP. Would I had been by, to have helped the old man !8 CLO. I would you had been by the fhip fide, to have helped her; there your charity would have lacked footing. [Afide. SHEP. Heavy matters! heavy matters! but look thee here, boy. Now blefs thyfelf; thou met'ft with things dying, I with things new born. Here's a fight for thee; look thee, a bearing-cloth for a fquire's child! Look thee here; take up, take up, boy; open't. So, let's fee; It was told me, I fhould be rich by the fairies: this is fome changeling-open't: What's within, boy? 8 Shep. Would I had been by, to have helped the old man !] Though all the printed còpies concur in this reading, I am perfuaded, we ought to reftore, nobleman. The Shepherd knew nothing of Antigonus's age; befides, the Clown hath just told his father, that he faid his name was Antigonus, a nobleman; and no less than three times in this fhort scene, the Clown, speaking of him, calls him the gentleman. THEOBALD. I fuppofe the Shepherd infers the age of Antigonus from his inability to defend himself; or perhaps Shakspeare, who was conscious that he himself defigned Antigonus for an old man, has inadvertently given this knowledge to the Shepherd who had never feen him. STEEVENS. Perhaps the word old was inadvertently omitted in the preceding speech: nor the bear half dined on the old gentleman;" Mr. Steevens's second conjecture, however, is, I believe, the true MALONE. one. 9 a bearing-cloth-] A bearing-cloth is the fine mantle or cloth with which a child is usually covered, when it is carried to the church to be baptized. PERCY. -fome changeling :] i. e. fome child left behind by the fairies, in the room of one which they had ftolen. So, in A Midfummer-Night's Dream: "A lovely boy, ftol'n from an Indian king; "She never had so sweet a changeling." STEEVENS. CLO. You're a made old man; if the fins of your youth are forgiven you, you're well to live. Gold! all gold! SHEP. This is fairy gold, boy, and 'twill prove fo: up with it, keep it clofe; home, home, the next way. We are lucky, boy; and to be fo ftill, requires nothing but fecrecy.-Let my sheep go:Come, good boy, the next way home. CLO. Go you the next way with your findings; I'll go fee if the bear be gone from the gentleman, and how much he hath eaten they are never curft, but when they are hungry :4 if there be any of him left, I'll bury it. SHEP. That's a good deed: If thou may'st dis 2 You're a made old man ;] In former copies :-You're a mad old man; if the fins of your youth are forgiven you, you're well to live. Gold! all gold!-This the Clown fays upon his opening his fardel, and difcovering the wealth in it. But this is no reason why he should call his father a mad old man. I have ventured to correct in the text-You're a made old man; i. e. your fortune's made by this adventitious treasure. So our poet, in a number of other paffages. THEOBALD. Dr. Warburton did not accept this emendation, but it is certainly right. The word is borrowed from the novel : " The good man defired his wife to be quiet: if fhe would hold peace, they were made for ever." FARMER. 3 So, in the ancient ballad of Robin Hood and the Tinker: "I have a warrand from the king, "To take him where I can ; "If you can tell me where hee is, "I will you make a man." STEEVENS. the next way.] i. e. the nearest way. So, in King Henry IV. P. I: "'Tis the next, way to turn tailor, or be red breaft teacher." STEEVENS. 4 -they are never curft, but when they are hungry :] Curft, fignifies mifchievous. Thus the adage : Curft cows have fhort horns." HENLEY. cern by that which is left of him, what he is, fetch me to the fight of him. CLO. Marry, will I; and you fhall help to put him i'the ground. SHEP. 'Tis a lucky day, boy; and we'll do good deeds on't. [Exeunt. ACT IV. Enter Time, as Chorus. TIME. I,-that please some, try all; both joy, and terror, Of good and bad; that make, and unfold error,5Now take upon me, in the name of Time, To ufe my wings. To me, or my fwift Impute it not a crime, and leave the growth untried 5 that make, and unfold error,] This does not, in my opinion, take in the poet's thought. Time does not make miftakes, and discover them, at different conjunctures; but the poet means, that Time often for a season covers errors; which he afterwards difplays and brings to light. I chufe therefore to read : that maik and unfold error,- THEOBALD. 66 Theobald's emendation is furely unneceffary. Departed time renders many facts obfcure, and in that fenfe is the cause of error. Time to come brings discoveries with it. "These very comments on Shakspeare (fays Mr. M. Mason,) prove that time can both make and unfold error." STEEVENS. 6 that Ifide O'er fixteen years,] This trefpafs, in refpect of dramatick unity, will appear venial to those who have read the once famous Of that wide gap; To o'erthrow law, fince it is in my power and in one self-born hour Lyly's Endymion, or (as he himself calls it in the prologue,) his Man in the Moon. This author was applauded and very liberally paid by Queen Elizabeth. Two acts of his piece comprize the fpace of forty years, Endymion lying down to fleep at the end of the fecond, and waking in the first scene of the fifth, after a nap of that unconscionable length. Lyly has likewise been guilty of much greater abfurdities than ever Shakspeare committed; for he supposes that Endymion's hair, features, and perfon, were changed by age during his fleep, while all the other perfonages of the drama remained without alteration. George Whetstone, in the epiftle dedicatory, before his Promos and Caffandra, 1578, (on the plan of which Measure for Meafure is formed,) had pointed out many of thefe abfurdities and offences against the laws of the Drama. It must be owned, therefore, that Shakspeare has not fallen into them through ignorance of what they were: "For at this daye, the Italian is fo lafcivious in his comedies, that honeft hearts are grieved at his actions. The Frenchman and Spaniard follow the Italian's humour. The German is too holy; for he prefents on everye common ftage, what preachers fhould pronounce in pulpits. The Englishman in this qualitie, is moft vaine, indifcreete, and out of order. He firft grounds his worke on impoffibilities: then in three houres ronnes he throwe the worlde: marryes, gets children, makes children men, men to conquer kingdomes, murder monsters, and bringeth goddes from heaven, and fetcheth devils from hell," &c. This quotation will ferve to show that our poet might have enjoyed the benefit of literary laws, but, like Achilles, denied that laws were defigned to operate on beings confident of their own powers, and fecure of graces beyond the reach of art. STEEVENS. In The pleafant Comedie of Patient Griffel, 1603, written by Thomas Dekker, Henry Chettle, and William Haughton, Griffel is in the firft A&t married, and foon afterwards brought to bed of twins, a fon and a daughter; and the daughter in the fifth A& is produced on the scene as a woman old enough to be married. MALONE. 7 and leave the growth untried Of that wide gap;] Our author attends more to his ideas than to his words. The growth of the wide gap, is fomewhat irregular; but he means, the growth, or progreffion of the time which filled up the gap of the story between Perdita's birth and To plant and o'erwhelm custom: Let me pafs Or what is now received: I witness to The times that brought them in; fo fhall I do In fair Bohemia ;9 and remember well, I mentioned a fon o'the king's, which Florizel her fixteenth year. To leave this growth untried, is, to leave the paffages of the intermediate years unnoted and unexamined. Untried is not, perhaps, the word which he would have chosen, but which his rhyme required. JOHNSON. Dr. Johnson's explanation of growth is confirmed by a subsequent paffage : "I turn my glafs; and give my scene such growing, 66 As you had flept between." Again, in Pericles, Prince of Tyre: "Whom our faft-growing scene must find "At Tharfus." Gap, the reading of the original copy, which Dr. Warburton changed to gulph, is likewife fupported by the fame play, in which old Gower, who appears as Chorus, fays: learn of me, who ftand i'the gaps to teach you "The stages of our story." MALONE. -fince it is in my power &c.] The reasoning of Time is not very clear; he feems to mean, that he who has broke fo many laws may now break another; that he who introduced every thing, may introduce Perdita in her fixteenth year; and he intreats that he may pafs as of old, before any order or fucceffion of objects, ancient or modern, diftinguished his periods. Gentle fpectators, that I now may be JOHNSON. In fair Bohemia ;] Time is every where alike. I know not |