"THE HUMOROUS LIEUTENANT." ACT I. sc. 1. Second Ambassador's speech : THIS "When your angers, Like so many brother billows, rose together, HIS worse than superfluous "like" is very like an interpolation of some matter of fact critic-all pus, prose atque venenum. The " your' in the next line, instead of "their," is likewise yours, Mr. Critic! Act ii. sc. 1. Timon's speech: "Another of a new way will be look'd at." "We must suspect the poets wrote, ' of a new day.' So immediately after, Time may For all his wisdom, yet give us a day." Seward's Note. For this very reason I more than suspect the contrary. Ib. sc. 3. Speech of Leucippe: "I'll put her into action for a wastcoat." What we call a riding-habit,-some mannish dress. "THE MAD LOVER." ACT IV. Masque of beasts : "This goodly tree, An usher that still grew before his lady, ERE must have been omitted a line rhyming HER to "tree;" and the words of the next line have been transposed : "This goodly tree, Which leafless, and obscur'd with moss you see, Wither d at root: this, for he could not woo," &c. "THE LOYAL SUBJECT." IT T is well worthy of notice, and yet has not been, I believe, noticed hitherto, what a marked difference there exists in the dramatic writers of the Elizabetho-Jacobaan age-(Mercy on me! what a phrase for "the writers during the reigns of Elizabeth and James I.!")-in respect of their political opinions. Shakespeare, in this, as in all other things, himself and alone, gives the permanent politics of human nature, and the only predilection which appears, shows itself in his contempt of mobs and the populacy. Massinger is a decided Whig;-Beaumont and Fletcher highflying, passive-obedience, Tories. The Spanish dramatists furnished them with this, as with many other ingredients. By the by, an accurate and familiar acquaintance with all the productions of the Spanish stage previously to 1620, is an indispensable qualification for an editor of B. and F.;-and with this qualification a most interesting and instructive edition might be given. edition of Colman's (Stockdale, 1811) is below criticism. This In metre, B. and F. are inferior to Shakespeare, on the one hand, as expressing the poetic part of the drama, and to Massinger, on the other, in the art of reconciling metre with the natural rhythm of conversation,-in which, indeed, Massinger is unrivalled. Read him aright, and measure by time, not syllables, and no lines can be more legitimate,-none in which the substitution of equipollent feet, and the modifications by emphasis, are managed with such exquisite judgment. B. and F. are fond of the twelve syllable (not Alexandrine) line, as: "Too many fears 'tis thought too: and to nourish those." This has often a good effect, and is one of the varieties most common in Shakespeare. "RULE A WIFE AND HAVE A WIFE." ACT III. Old Woman's speech :— MR. R. SEWARD discards the words "for lying," because most of the things spoke of Estifania are true, with only a little exaggeration, and because they destroy all appearance of measure."-Colman's note. Mr. Seward had his brains out. The humour lies in Estifania's having ordered the Old Woman to tell these tales of her; for though an intriguer, she is not represented as other than chaste; and as to the metre, it is perfectly correct. Ib. 66 Marg. As you love me, give way. Leon. It shall be better, I will give none, madam," &c. The meaning is:-"It shall be a better way, first; as it is, I will not give it, or any that you in your present mood would wish." |