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To-day in our young lords, but they may jeff,
Till their own fcorn return to them; unnoted,
Ere they can hide their levity in honour.
+ So like a courtier, contempt nor bitterness
Were in his pride or fharpness; if they were,
His equal had awak'd them; and his honour,

make it pafs for defert. The Oxford editor, not understanding this, alters the line to

Ere they can wye their levity with his honour. WARBURTON. I believe honour is not dignity of birth or rank, but acquired reputation: Your father, fays the king, had the fame airy flights of Jatirical wit with the young lords of the prefent time, but they do not what he did, hide their unnoted levity in honour, cover petty faults with great merit.

This is an excellent obfervation. Jocofe follies, and flight offences, are only allowed by mankind in him that overpowersthem by great qualities.

66

4 So like a courtier, contempt nor bitterness
Were in his pride or sharpness; if they were,

His equal bad awak'd them.-]

JOHNSON.

This paffage is fo very incorrectly pointed, that the author's meaning is loft. As the text and flops are reformed, these are most beautiful lines, and the fenfe is this" He had no contempt or bitterness; if he had any thing that look'd like pride "or sharpness, (of which qualities contempt and bitterness are "the exceffes,) his equal had avvaked them, not his inferior: to "whom he fcorn'd to discover any thing that bore the shadow of pride or sharpness." WARBURTON.

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The original edition reads the first line thus,

So like a courtier, contempt nor bitterness.

The fenfe is the fame. Nor was ufed without reduplication. So in Meafure for Measure,

More nor lefs to others paying,

Than by felf-offences weighing.

The old text needs to be explained. He was fo like a courtier, that there was in his dignity of manner nothing contemptuous, and in his keenness of wit nothing bitter. If bitterness or contemptuousnefs ever appeared, they had been awakened by fome injury, not of a man below him, but of his equal. This is the complete image of a well bred man, and fomewhat like this Voltaire has exhibited his hero Lewis XIV. JOHNSON. Clock

Clock to itself, knew the true minute when
Exception bid him fpeak; and, at that time

His tongue obey'd his hand. Who were below him 'He us❜d as creatures of another place;

And bow'd his eminent top to their low ranks,
"Making them proud of his humility,

In their poor praise he humbled: Such a man
Might be a copy to these younger times;

Which, follow'd well, would demonftrate them now
But goers backward.

Ber. His good remembrance, fir,

Lies richer in your thoughts, than on his tomb;

8

*So in approof lives not his epitaph,

As in your royal speech.

5 His tongue obeyed his hand.] We should read,

His tongue obeyed the band.

King.

That is, the band of his honour's clock, fhewing the true minute when exceptions bad him speak. JOHNSON.

He us'd as creatures of another place.] i. e. He made allowances for their conduct, and bore from them what he would not from one of his own rank. The Oxford editor, not understanding the fense, has altered another place, to a brother-race. WARBURTON. 7 Making them proud of his humility, In their poor praije, he humbled

But why were they proud of his humility? It should be read and pointed thus:

--Making them proud; AND his humility,

In their poor praife, he humbled-

i. e. by condefcending to ftoop to his inferiors, he exalted them and made them proud; and, in the gracious receiving their poor praife, he humbled even his humility. The fentiment is fine.

WARBURTON.

Every man has seen the mean too often proud of the humility of the great, and perhaps the great may fometimes be humbled in the praifes of the mean, of thofe who commend them without conviction or difcernment: this, however is not fo common; the mean are found more frequently than the great. JOHNSON.

So in approof lives not his epitaph,

As in your reyal fpeech.]

Epitaph for character.

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King. Would, I were with him! He would always fay,

(Methinks, I hear him now; his plaufive words
He scatter'd not in ears, but grafted them
Tó grow there, and to bear)-Let me not live,-
-Thus his good melancholy oft began,
On the catastrophe and heel of pastime,
When it was out,-let me not live, (quoth he,)
After my flame lacks oil, to be the fnuf
Of younger fpirits; whofe apprehenfive fenfes
All but new things difdain; whofe judgments are
9 Meer fathers of their garments; whofe conftancies
Expire before their fashions: This he wifh'd.

I, after him, do after him wifh too,

Since I nor wax, nor honey, can bring home,
I quickly were diffolved from my hive,

To give fome labourer room.

2 Lord. You are lov'd, fir;

They, that least lend it you, fhall lack you first. King. I fill a place, I know't-How long is't, count, Since the phyfician at your father's died?

He was much fam'd.

Ber. Some fix months fince, my lord.

King. If he were living, I would try him yet;Lend me an arm;the reft have worn me out

I should wish to read,

Approof fo lives not in his epitaph,

As in your royal speech.

Approof is approbation. If I fhould allow Dr. Warburton's interpretation of Epitaph, which is more than can be reasonably expected, I can yet find no fenfe in the prefent reading. JOHNSON. We might, by a flight tranfpofition, read,

So his approof lives not in epitaph.

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Mere fathers of their garments.]

STEEVENS.

Who have no other use of their faculties, than to invent new

modes of drefs.

JOHNSON.

With feveral applications :-nature and sickness
Debate it at their leifure.-Welcome, count,

My fon's no dearer.

Ber. Thank your majefty.

[Flourish. Exeunt.

SCENE III.

A room in the count's palace.

Enter Countess, Steward, and Clown.'

gen

Count. I will now hear: what fay you of this tlewoman? Stew. Madam, the care I have had to even your content, I wish might be found in the calendar of my paft endeavours; for then we wound our modefty, and make foul the clearness of our defervings, when of ourselves we publish them.

Count. What does this knave here? Get you gone, firrah: the complaints, I have heard of you, I do not all believe; 'tis my flownefs that I do not: for, I know, you lack not folly to commit them, and have ability enough to make fuch knaveries yours.

Clo.

Sterward and Clown.] A Clown in Shakespeare is commonly taken for a licensed jefter, or domeftick fool. We are not to wonder that we find this character often in his plays, fince fools were, at that time, maintained in all great families, to keep up merriment in the houfe. In the picture of fir Thomas More's family, by Hans Holbein, the only fervant reprefented is Patifon the fool. This is a proof of the familiarity to which they were admitted, not by the great only, but the wife.

JOHNSON.
JOHNSON.

In fome plays, a fervant, or a ruftic, of remarkable petulance and freedom of fpeech, is likewife called a clown. 2 To even your content. To act up to your defires. 3 you lack not folly to commit them, and have ability enough to make fuch knaveries YOURS.] Well, but if he had folly to commit them, he neither wanted knavery, nor any thing elfe, fure, to make them his own? This nonfenfe fhould be read, To make fuch knaveries YARE; nimble, dextrous, i. e. Tho' you be fool enough

Clo. 'Tis not unknown to you, madam, that I am a poor fellow.

Count. Well, fir.

Clo. No, madam, 'tis not fo well, that I am poor; tho' many of the rich are damn'd: but, if I have your ladyship's good will to go to the world, Ifbel the woman and I will do as we may.

Count. Wilt thou needs be a beggar?

Clo. I do beg your good will in this cafe,
Count. In what cafe?

Service is no

Clo. In Ifbel's cafe, and mine own. heritage; and, I think, I fhall never have the bleffing of God, till I have iffue of my body; for, they fay, bearns are bleflings.

Count. Tell me thy reafon why thou wilt marry. Clo. My poor body, madam, requires it. I am driven on by the flesh; and he must needs the devil drives.

Count. Is this all your worship's reason?

go, that

to commit knaveries, yet you have quickness enough to commit them dextroufly: for this obfervation was to let us into his character. But now, though this be fet right, and, I dare fay, in Shakespeare's own words, yet the former part of the fentence will fill be inaccurate-you lack not folly to commit THEM. Them, what? the fenfe requires knaveries, but the antecedent referred to, is complaints. But this was certainly a negligence of ShakeSpeare's, and therefore to be left as we find it. And the reader, who cannot fee that this is an inaccuracy which the author might well commit, and the other what he never could, has either read Shakespeare very little, or greatly mifpent his pains. The principal office of a critick is to diftinguish between those two things. But 'tis that branch of criticifin which no precepts can teach the writer to difcharge, or the reader to judge of. WARBURTON.

After premifing that the accufative, them, refers to the precedent word, complaints, and that this by a metonymy of the effect for the caufe, itands for the freaks which occafioned thofe complaints, the fenfe will be extremely clear. You are fool enough to commit thofe irregularities you are charged with, and yet not so much fool neither, as to d fcredit the accufation by any defect in your ability. REVISAL.

Clo.

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