Jul. This babble shall 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 strange; but she would be

best pleas'd To be so anger'd with another letter. [Exit. Jul. Nay, would I were so anger’d with the

same! O hateful hands, to tear such loving words ! Injurious wasps ! to feed on such sweet honey, And kill the bees, that yield it, with your itings! I'll kiss each several paper for amends. . Look, here is writ-kind Julia ;-unkind Julia! As in revenge of thy ingratitude, I throw thy name against the bruising stones, Trampling contemptuously on thy disdain. Look, here is writ-love-wounded Proteus :Poor wounded name! my bosom, as a bed, Shall lodge thee, till thy wound be throughly

heal'd; And thus I search it with a sovereign kiss. But twice, or thrice, was Proteus written down? Be calm, good wind, blow not a word away, Till I have found each letter in the letter, Except mine own name; that some whirlwind bear Unto a ragged, fearful, hanging rock, And throw it thence into the raging sea! Lo, here in one line is his name twice writ,

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 still a ovincial ex. pression for to write. HENLEY.

Poor forlorn Proteus, passionate Proteus,
To the sweet Julia ;—that I'll tear away;
And yet I will not, fith so prettily
He couples it to his complaining names :
Thus will I fold them one upon another;
Now kiss, embrace, contend, do what you will.

Re-enter Lucetta.

Luc. Madam, dinner's ready, and your father

stays. Jul. Well, let us go. Luc. What, shall these papers lie like tell-tales

here? Jul. If you respect 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 see, you have a month's mind to them.?

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6 Yet here they shall not lie, for catching cold.] That is, as Mra M. Mason observes, left they should catch cold. This mode of expression (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 doublet." Again, in Love's Pilgrimage :

“ Stir my horse, for catching cold.” Again, in The Pilgrim :

“ All her face patch'd, for discovery." To these I shall add another instance from Barnabie Riche's Souldiers Wife to Britons Welfare, or Captaine Skill and Captaine Pill, 1604. p. 64: " —such other ill disposed perfons, being once pressed, must be kept with continuall guard, &c. for running away.'

STEEVENS. ? 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 less folemnity directed by the will of the deceased. There was also a year's mind, and a week's mind. See Proverbial Phrafes.

This appears from the interrogatories and observations 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.
Jul. Come, come, will’t please you go?

[Exeunt.
SCENE III.
The same. A Room in Antonio's House.

Enter Antonio and PANTHINO. Ant. Tell me, Panthino, what sad talk 8 was that, Wherewith

my

brother held you in the cloister? Pan. 'Twas of his nephew Proteus, your son.

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months' minds, and anniversaries ? Strype's Memorials of the Reformation, Vol. II. p. 354.

“ Was the month's mind of Sir William Laxton, who died the last month (July 1556.) his hearse burning with wax, and the morrow mass celebrated, and a fermon preached,” &c. Strype's Mem. Vol. III. p. 305. Grey.

A month's mind, in the ritual sense, fignifies not defire or inclination, but remembrance ; yet I suppose this is the true original of the expression. JOHNSON,

In Hampshire, and other western counties, for “ I can't remember it," they say, “ I can't mind it." BLACKSTONE.

Pottenham, in his Art of Poetry, 1589, chap. 24. fpeaking of Poetical Lamentations, says, they were chiefly used " at the burials of the dead, also at month's minds, and longer times :” and in the churchwardens' accompts of St. Helen's in Abingdon, Berkshire, 1558, these 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, says Fuller, we understand the Obsequia for the dead, which fome say succeeded in the place of the heathen Parentalia.

If this line was designed for a verse, we should read-monthes mind. So, in A Midsummer Night's Dream:

“ Swifter than the moones sphere." Both these are the Saxon genitive case. Steevens. i what fad talk-) Sad is the same as grave or serious. -]

JOHNSON,

Ant. Why, what of him?
Pan.

He wonder'd, that your lordship
Would suffer him to fpend his youth at home;
While other men, of Nender reputation,
Put forth their sons to seek preferment out:
Some, to the wars, to try their fortune there;
Some, to discover islands far away ;'
Some, to the studious universities.
For any, or for all these exercises,
He said, that Proteus, your son, was meet;
And did request me, to impórtune you,
To let him spend his time no more at home,
Which would be great impeachment to his age,
In having known

no travel in his youth. Ant. Nor need’st thou much importune me to that Whereon this month I have been hammering.

So, in The Wife Woman of Hogfden, 1638:

“ Marry, fir knight, I saw them in fad talk,

“ But to say they were directly whispering," &c. Again, in Whetstone's Promos and Calandra, 1578: “ The king feigneth to talk fadly with some of his counsel.”

STEEVENS. - of slender reputation,] i. e, who are thought slightly of, are of little consequence. SteeVENS.

9 Some to discover 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 sons of noblemen, and of others of the best families in England, went very frequently on these adventures. Such as the Fortescues, 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.

- great impeachment to his age,) Impeachment, as Mr. M. Mason very juftly observes, in this instance fignifies reproach or imputation.' So Demetrius says to Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream:

“ You do impeach your modesty too much,
• To leave the city, and commit yourself
« Into the hands of one that loves you not." STEVENS,

I have consider'd well his loss of time,
And how he cannot be a perfect man,
Not being try'd, and tutor'd in the world :
Experience is by industry aţchiev'd,
And perfected by the swift course of time:
Then, tell me, whither were I best to send him?

Pant. I think, your lordship is not ignorant,
How his companion, youthful Valentine,
Attends the emperor in his royal court.:

Ant. I know it well.
Pant. 'Twere good, I think, your lordship sent

him thither :
There shall he practice tilts and tournaments,
Hear sweet discourse, converse with noblemen;
And be in eye of every exercise,
Worthy his youth and nobleness of birth.

Ant. I like thy counsel ; well hast thou advisid:
And, that thou may'st perceive how well I like it,
The execution of it shall make known;
Even with the speediest expedition
I will dispatch him to the emperor's court.
PANT. To-morrow, may it please you, Don Al-

phonso,

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3 Attends the emperor in his royal court.] Shakspeare has been guilty of no mistake in placing the emperor's court at Milan in this play. Several of the first German emperors held their courts there occasionally, it being, at that time, their immediate property, and the chief town of their Italian dominions. Some of them were crowned kings of Italy at Milan, before they received the imperial crown at Rome. Nor has the poet fallen into any contradiction by giving a duke to Milan at the fame time that the emperor held his court there. The first dukes of that, and all the other great cities in Italy, were not sovereign princes, as they afterwards became; but were merely governors, or viceroys, under the emperors, and removeable at their pleasure. Such was the Duke of Milan mentioned in this play. Mr. M. Mason adds, that “

during the wars in Italy between Francis I. and Charles V. the latter, frequently refided at Milan." STEEVENS.

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