Heaven would that she these gifts should have, Ros. O most gentle Jupiter!-what tedious homily of love have you wearied your parishioners withal, and never cry'd, Have patience, good people! CEL. How now! back friends?-Shepherd, go off a little:-Go with him, firrah. TOUCH. Come, shepherd, let us make an honourable retreat; though not with bag and baggage, yet with fcrip and scrippage. [Exeunt CorIn and TOUCHSTONE. It is obfervable that the story of Atalanta in the Tenth Book of Ovid's Metamorphofes is interwoven with that of Venus and Adonis, which our author had undoubtedly read. The lines most material to the prefent point run thus in Golding's Tranflation, 1567: "She overcame them out of doubt; and hard it is to tell "Thee, whether she did in footemanshippe or beautie more excell." " - he did condemne the young men's love. But when "He faw her face and body bare, (for why, the lady then "Did ftrip her to her naked skin,) the which was like to mine, "Or rather, if that thou wast made a woman, like to thine, "He was amaz'd." And though that she " Did flie as swift as arrow from a Turkie bow, yet hee grace. MALONE. The passage quoted by Mr. Malone from Marston's Infatiate Countess, has no reference to the ball of Atalanta, but to the golden apple which was adjudged to Venus by Paris, on Mount Ida. After all, I believe, that "Atalanta's better part" means onlythe best part about her, such as was most commended. STEEVENS. 4 Sad-] Is grave, fober, not light. JOHNSON. So, in Much ado about Nothing: -" She is never fad but when she fleeps." STEEVENS. 3 - the touches-] The features; les traits. JOHNSON. So, in King Richard III: "Madam, I have a touch of your condition." STEEVENS. CEL. Didst thou hear these verses ? Ros. O, yes, I heard them all, and more too; for fome of them had in them more feet than the verses would bear. CEL. That's no matter; the feet might bear the verses. Ros. Ay, but the feet were lame, and could not bear themselves without the verse, and therefore stood lamely in the verse. CEL. But didst thou hear, without wondering how thy name should be hang'd and carved upon these trees? Ros. I was seven of the nine days out of the wonder, before you came; for look here what I found on a palm-tree: I was never fo be-rhimed fince Pythagoras' time, that I was an Irish rat, which I can hardly remember. 6 -a palm-tree:] A palm-tree, in the foreft of Arden is as much out of its place, as the lioness in a subsequent scene. STEEVENS, 7 I was never fo be-rhimed fince Pythagoras' time, that I was an Irish rat,] Rosalind is a very learned lady. She alludes to the Pythagorean doctrine, which teaches that fouls tranfmigrate from one animal to another, and relates that in his time she was an Irish rat, and by fome metrical charm was rhymed to death. The power of killing rats with rhymes Donne mentions in his Satires, and Temple in his Treatises. Dr. Grey has produced a fimilar paffage from Randolph : My poets " Shall with a fatire, steep'd in gall and vinegar, JOHNSON, So, in an address to the reader, at the conclufion of Ben Jonson's Poetafter: "Rhime them to death, as they do Irish rats "In drumming tunes," STEEVENS, So, in The Defence of Poefie by our author's contemporary, Sir Philip Sidney: "Though I will not with unto you to be driven by a poet's verses, as Rubonax was, to hang yourself, nor to be rimed to death, as is faid to be done in Ireland"-. MALONE. CEL. Trow you, who hath done this?) 1 A i CEL. And a chain, that you once wore, about his neck: Change you colour? Ros. I pr'ythee, who? CEL. O lord, lord! it is a hard matter for friends to meet; but mountains may be removed with earthquakes, and so encounter. Ros. Nay, but who is it? CEL. Is it poffible? : Ros. Nay, I pray thee now, with most petition ary vehemence, tell me who it is. CEL. O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful wonderful, and yet again wonderful, and after that out of all whooping!? " 1-friends to meet;] Alluding ironically to the proverb: "Friends may meet, but mountains never greet." 8 1 See Ray's Collection. STEEVENS. but mountains may be removed with earthquakes, and fo encounter.] " Montes duo inter fe concurrerunt," &c. fays Pliny, Hift. Nat. Lib. II. c. lxxxiii. or in Holland's translation: "Two bills (removed by an earthquake) encountered together, charging as it were, and with violence assaulting one another, and retyring again with a most mighty noise." TOLLET. 9 -out of all whooping!] i. e. out of all measure, or reckoning. So, in the Old Ballad of Yorke, Yorke for my money, &c. 1584: " And then was shooting, out of cry, Again, in the old bl. 1. comedy called Common Conditions: This appears to have been a phrase of the same import as another formerly in use, " out of all cry." The latter seems to allude to the custom of giving notice by a crier of things to be fold. So, in A Chaste Maide of Cheapfide, a comedy by T. Middleton, 1630: "I'll fell all at an outcry." MALONE. An oxtery is still a provincial term for an auction. STEEVENS. 2 Ros. Good my complexion! dost thou think, though I am caparison'd like a man, I have a doublet and hose in my difpofition? One inch of delay more is a South-fea-off difcovery. I pr'ythee, tell * Good my complexion! This is a mode of expreffion, Mr. Theobald fays, which he cannot reconcile to common sense. Like enough: and fo too the Oxford editor. But the meaning is-Hold good my complexion, i, e. let me not blush. WARBURTON. Good my complexion!] My native character, my female inquifitive disposition, can'st thou endure this! For thus characterizing the most beautiful part of the creation, let our author answer. MALONE. Good my complexion! is a little unmeaning exclamatory address to her beauty; in the nature of a small oath. RITSON. 3 One inch of delay more is a South-sea-off discovery.] The old copy reads is a South-fea of discoverie, STEEVENS. This is stark nonsense; we must read-off discovery, i. e. from discovery. "If you delay me one inch of time longer, I shall think this fecret as far from discovery as the South-fea is." WARBURTON. This sentence is rightly noted by the commentator as nonfenfe, but not fo happily reftored to sense. I read thus: One inch of delay more is a South-fea. Discover, I pr'ythee; tell me who is it quickly! - When the tranfcriber had once made difcovery from difcover I, he easily put an article after South-fea. But it may be read with still less change, and with equal probability-Every inch of delay more is a South-fea discovery: Every delay however short, is to me tedious and irksome as the longest voyage, as a voyage of discovery on the South-fea. How much voyages to the South-fea on which the English had then first ventured, engaged the conversation of that time, may be easily imagined. JOHNSON. Of for off, is frequent in the elder writers. A South-fea of discovery is a discovery a South-fea off-as far as the South-fea. FARMER. Warburton's fophistication ought to have been reprobated, and the old, which is the only reading that can preferve the sense of Rofalind, restored. A South-fea of discovery, is not a discovery, as FAR OFF, but as COMPREHENSIVE as the South-fea; which, being the largest in the world, affords the widest scope for exercifing curiofity. HENLEY. On a further confideration of this passage I am strongly inclined to think, with Dr. Johnson, that we should read-a South-fea diftopery, "Delay, however short, is to me tedious and irksome as / me, who is it? quickly, and speak apace: I would CEL. So you may put a man in your belly, Ros. Why, God will send more, if the man will be thankful: let me stay the growth of his beard, if thou delay me not the knowledge of his chin. CEL. It is young Orlando; that tripp'd up the wrestler's heels, and your heart, both in an instant. Ros. Nay, but the devil take mocking; fpeak fad brow, and true maid. CEL. I'faith, coz, 'tis he. CEL. Orlando. 5 Ros. Alas the day! what shall I do with my doublet and hofe? - What did he, when thou faw'st him? What faid he? How look'd he? Wherein went he? What makes he here? Did he afk for me? Where remains he? How parted he with thee? and when shalt thou see him again? Answer me in one word. the longest voyage, as a voyage of discovery on the South-Sea." The word of, which had occurred just before, might have been inadvertently repeated by the compositor. MALONE. 4-Speak fad brow, and true maid.] i. e. speak with a grave countenance, and as truly as thou art a virgin; speak feriously and honeftly. RITSON. 5 Wherein went he?] In what manner was he clothed? How did he go dressed? HEATH. i 1 |