In whose comparison all whites are ink, me, As true thou tell'ft me, when I fay-I love her; where the most eloquent of the Greeks (old Nestor) reminds Antilochus that his horfes - their flow feet handle not." The intentionally quaint phrase " taste your legs," introduced in Twelfth-Night, is not more ridiculous than to talk of horfes handling their feet." Though our author has many and very confiderable obligations to Mr. Malone, I cannot regard his foregoing fuppofition as one of them; for in what does it confift? In making Shakspeare answerable for two of the worst lines in a degraded play, merely because they exhibit a jingle fimilar to that in the speech before us. 2 STEEVENS. -and spirit of fenfe Hard as the palm of ploughman!] In comparison with Cressida's hand, says he, the spirit of sense, the utmost degree, the most exquifite power of fenfibility, which implies a foft hand, fince the sense of touching, as Scaliger says in his Exercitations, refides chiefly in the fingers, is hard as the callous and insensible palm of the ploughman. Warburton reads: Hanmer: spite of fenfe. -to th' fpirit of fenfe. It is not proper to make a lover profess to praise his mistress in Spite of sense; for though he often does it in spite of the fenfe of others, his own fenfes are fubdued to his defires. JOHNSON. Spirit of fenfe is a phrase that occurs again in the third AcA of this play : "That most pure spirit of sense, behold itself." Mr. M. Mason (from whom I have borrowed this parallel) recommends Hanmer's emendation as a neceffary one. PAN. I speak no more than truth. TRO. Thou doft not speak so much. PAN. 'Faith, I'll not meddle in't. Let her be as she is: if she be fair,' 'tis the better for her; an fhe be not, she has the mends in her own hands.3 TRO. Good Pandarus! How now, Pandarus ? PAN. I have had my labour for my travel; illthought on of her, and ill-thought on of you: gone between and between, but small thanks for my labour. TRO. What, art thou angry, Pandarus? what, with me? PAN. Because she is kin to me, therefore, she's not fo fair as Helen: an fhe were not kin to me, she would be as fair on Friday, as Helen is on Sunday. But what care I ? I care not, an she were a black-a-moor; 'tis all one to me. 3 TRO. Say I, she is not fair ? PAN. I do not care whether you do or no. She's - she has the mends-] She may mend her complexion by the affistance of cosmeticks. JOHNSON. I believe it rather means-She may make the best of a bad bargain. This is a proverbial saying. So, in Woman's a Weathercock, 1612: "I shall stay here and have my head broke, and then I have the mends in my own hands." Again, in S. Goffon's School of Abuse, 1579: "-turne him with his back full of stripes, and his hands loden with his own amendes." Again, in The Wild Goose Chase, by Beaumont and Fletcher: "The mends are in mine own hands, or the furgeon's." Again, in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, edit. 1632, p. 605: "-and if men will be jealous in such cases, the mends is in their owne hands, they must thank themselves." STEEVENS. a fool to stay behind her father; 4 let her to the Greeks; and so I'll tell her the next time I see her: for my part, I'll meddle nor make no more in the matter. TRO. Pandarus, PAN. Not I. TRO. Sweet Pandarus, PAN. Pray you, speak no more to me, I will leave all as I found it, and there an end. [Exit PANDARUS. An Alarum. TRO. Peace, you ungracious clamours! peace, rude founds! Fools on both fides! Helen must needs be fair, 4-to stay behind her father;) Calchas, according to Shakspeare's authority, The Defiruction of Troy, was " a great learned bishop of Troy," who was fent by Priam to confult the oracle of Delphi concerning the event of the war which was threatened by Agamemnon. As foon as he had made "his oblations and demaunds for them of Troy, Apollo (fays the book) aunswered unto him, faying; Calchas, Calchas, beware that thou returne not back again to Troy; but goe thou with Achylles, unto the Greekes, and depart never from them, for the Greekes shall have victorie of the Troyans by the agreement of the Gods." Hift. of the Destruction of Troy, translated by Caxton, 5th edit. 4to. 1617. This prudent bishop followed the advice of the Oracle, and immediately joined the Greeks. Her bed is India; there the lies, a pearl: Alarum. Enter ÆNEAS. ANE. How now, prince Troilus? wherefore not afield?? TRO. Because not there; This woman's anfwer forts, For womanish it is to be from thence. What news, Æneas, from the field to-day? ANE. That Paris is returned home, and hurt. TRO. By whom, Æneas? ANE. Troilus, by Menelaus. TRO. Let Paris bleed: 'tis but a scar to scorn; Paris is gor'd with Menelaus' horn. [Alarum. 5-Ilium,] Was the palace of Troy. JOHNSON. Ilium, properly speaking, is the name of the city; Troy, that of the country. STEEVENS. 6 this failing Pandar, Our doubtful hope, our convoy, and our bark.] So, in The Merry Wives of Windfor: " This punk is one of Cupid's carriers; "Clap on more fails," &c. MALONE. 7 How now, prince Troilus? wherefore not afield?] Shakfpeare, it appears from various lines in this play, pronounced Troilus improperly as a dissyllable; as every mere English reader does at this day. So also, in his Rape of Lucrece : 8 "Here manly Hector faints, here Troilus swounds." MALONE. forts,] i. e. fits, fuits, is congruous. So, in King Henry V: "It forts well with thy fierceness." STEEVENS. C ÆNE. Hark! what good sport is out of town to-day ! TRO. Better at home, if would I might, were may. But, to the sport abroad; - Are you bound thither ? ALEX. Up to the eastern tower, Whose height commands as subject all the vale, To fee the battle. Hector, whose patience Is, as a virtue, fix'd, to-day was mov'd: 9 -Hector, whose patience Is, as a virtue, fix'd,] Patience sure was a virtue, and therefore cannot, in propriety of expression, be said to be like one. We should read : Is as the virtue fix'd, i. e. his patience is as fixed as the goddess Patience itself. So we find Troilus a little before saying: "Patience herself, what goddess ere she be, "Doth leffer blench at fufferance than I do." It is remarkable that Dryden when he altered this play, and found this false reading, altered it with judgment to whose patience "Is fix'd like that of heaven." Which he would not have done had he seen the right reading |