VAL.

Ay, and we are betroth’d; Nay, more, our marriage hour, With all the cunning manner of our flight, Determin'd of: how I must climb her window; The ladder made of cords; and all the means Plotted; and 'greed on, for my happiness. Good Proteus, go with me to my chamber, In these affairs to aid me with thy counsel.

Pro. Go on before; I shall enquire you forth:
I must unto the road, to disembark
Some necessaries that I needs must use;
And then I'll presently attend you.

VAL. Will you make haste?
PRO. I will. -

[Exit VAL
Even as one heat another heat expels,
Or as one nail by strength drives out another,
So the remembrance of my former love
Is by a newer object quite forgotten.
Is it mine eye, or Valentinus' praise,

8

7

- the road,] The haven, where ships ride at anchor.

MALONE. 8 Even as one heat another heat expels,

Or as one nail by Arength drives out another,
So the remembrance of my former love

Is by a newer object quite forgotten.] Our author feems here to have remembered The Tragicall History of Romeus and Juliet, 1562:

“ And as out of a planke a nayle a nayle doth drive,

“. So novel love out of the minde the auncient love doth rive." So also, in Coriolanus : “ One fire drives out one fire; one nail one nail."

MALONE. 9 Is it mine eye, or Valentinus' praise,] The old copy reads

“ Is it mine or Valentine's praise ?" STEEVENS. Here Proteus questions with himself, whether it is his own praise, or Valentine's, that makes him fall in love with Valentine's miftrefs. But not to infift on the abfurdity of falling in love through his own praises, he had not indeed praised her any farther than giving his opinion of her in three words, when his friend asked it of him.

Her true perfection, or my false tranfgrefsion,
That makes me, reafonless, to reason thus?
She's fair; and so is Julia, that I love ;-
That I did love, for now my love is thaw'd;
Which, like a waxen image 'gainst a fire,
Bears no impression of the thing it was.
Methinks, my zeal to Valentine is cold ;
And that I love him not, as I was wont:
O! but I love his lady too, too much;
And that's the reason I love him so little.
How fhall I dote on her with more advice,

A word is wanting in the first folio. The line was originally thus :

“ Is it mine Eye, or Valentino's praise ?" Proteus had just feen Valentine's mistress, whom her lover had been lavishly praising. His encomiums therefore heightening Proteus's ideas of her at the interview, it was the less wonder he should be uncertain which had made the strongest impression, Valentine's praises, or his own view of her. WARBURTON. The first folio reads :

“ It is mine or Valentine's praise." The second :

“ Is it mine then or Valentinean's praise?" Ritson. I read, as authorized, in a former inftance, by the old copy, Valentinus. See A& I. fc. iii. STEEVENS.

- a waxen image 'gainst a fire,] Alluding to the figures made by witches, as representatives of those whom they designed to torment or destroy. See my note on Macbeth, Act I. sc. iii.

Steevens. King James afcribes these images to the devil, in his treatise of Daemonologie : “ to some others at these times he teacheth how to make pictures of waxe or claye, that by the roasting thereof the persons that they bear the name of may be continually melted, and dried away by continual sicknesse." See Servius on the 8th Eclogue of Virgil, Theocritus Idyl. 2. 22. Hudibras, p. 2. 1. 2. V. 331. S. W.

- with more advice,] With more advice, is on further knowledge, or better confideration. So, in Titus Andronicus:

“ The Greeks, upon advice, did bury Ajax.' The word, as Mr. Malone observes, is still current among mer.

That thus without advice begin to love her?
'Tis but her picture * I have yet beheld,
And that hath dazzled my reason's light;
But when I look on her perfections,
There is no reason but I shall be blind.
If I can check my erring love, I will;
If not, to compass her I'll use

my

skill. [Exit.

cantile people, whose conftant language is, " we are advised by letters from abroad," meaning informed. So in bills of exchange the conclusion always is—" Without further advice.” So in this very play :

“ This pride of hers, upon advice, " &c. Again, in Measure for Measure:

“ Yet did repent me, after more advice." STEEVENS. 1 'Tis but her picture

-] This is evidently a flip of attention, for he had seen her in the last scene, and in high terms offered her his service. Johnson.

I believe Proteus means, that, as yet, he had seen only her outward form, without having known her long enough to have any acquaintance with her mind. So, in Cymbeline :

“ All of her, that is out of door, moft rich!

56 If she be furnish'd with a mind so rare," &c. Again, in The Winter's Tale, Ad II. sc. i:

“ Praise her but for this her without-door form." Perhaps Proteus, is mentally comparing his fate with that of Pyrocles, the hero of Sidney's Arcadia, who fell in love with Philoclea immediately on seeing her portrait in the house of Kalander. STEEVENS. s And that hath dazzled my reason's light;

But when I look, &c.] Our author uses dazzled as a trisyllable. The editor of the second folio not perceiving this, introduced so, (" And that hath dazzled fo," &c.) a word as hurtful to the sense as unnecessary to the metre. The plain meaning is, Her mere outfide has dazzled me ;-when I am acquainted with the perfections of ber mind, I shall be struck blind. MALONE.

Speed. Launce! by mine honesty, welcome to Milan.

Laun. Forswear not thyself, sweet youth; for I am not welcome. I reckon this always—that a man is never undone, till he be hang'd; nor never welcome to a place, till some certain shot be paid, and the hostess say, welcome.

Speed. Come on, you mad-cap, I'll to the alehouse with you presently; where, for one shot of five pence, thou shalt have five thousand welcomes. But, firrah, how did thy master part with madam Julia ?

Laun. Marry, after they closed in earnest, they parted very fairly in jest.

Speed. But shall she marry him?
LAUN. No.
SPEED. How then? Shall he

marry

her? LAUN. No, neither. Speed. What, are they broken? Laun. No, they are both as whole as a fish. Speed. Why then, how stands the matter with

them? Laun. Marry, thus; when it stands well with him, it stands well with her.

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to Milan.] It is Padua in the former editions. See the note on Act III. Pope,

Speed. What an ass art thou? I understand the not.

Laun. What a block art thou, that thou canst

not?

My staff understands me.?

SPEED. What thou say'st?

Laun. Ay, and what I do too: look thee, I'll but lean, and my staff understands me.

Speed. It ftands under thee, indeed.
Laun. Why, stand under and understand is all one.
Speed. But tell me true, will’t be a match?

Laun. Ask my dog: if he say, ay, it will; if he say, no, it will; if he thake his tail, and say nothing, it will.

Speed. The conclusion is then, that it will.

Laun. Thou shalt never get fuch a secret from me, but by a parable.

Speed. 'Tis well that I get it so. But, Launce, how fay'st thou, that my master is become a notable lover? 8

7 My faff understands me.] This equivocation, miferable as it is, has been admitted by Milton in his great poem, B. VI:

The terms we sent were terms of weight,
“ Such as, we may perceive, amaz'd them all,
“ And stagger'd many; who receives them right,
“ Had need from head to foot well understand;
“ Not understood, this gift they have besides,

“ To fhew us when our foes ftand not upright.” Johnson. The fame quibble occurs likewise in the fecond part of The Three Merry Coblers, an ancient ballad :

“ Our work doth th' owners understand,
“ Thus ftill we are on the mending hand.” Steevens,

hozu say.ft thou, that my master is become a notable lover?] i. e. (as Mr. M. Mason has elsewhere observed) What say'st thou to this circumstance,-namely, that my master is become a notable lover? MALONE.

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