I rather would entreat thy company, Than To this obfervation of Mr. Pope, which is very juft, Mr. Theobald has added, that this is one of Shakespeare's wort plays, and is lefs corrupted than any other. Mr. Upton peremptorily determines, that if any proof can be drawn from manner and file, this play must be fent packing, and seek for its parent elsewhere. How other wife, fays he, do painters diftinguish copies from originals, and have not authors their peculiar ftile and manner from which a true critic can form as unerring judgment as a painter? I am afraid this illuftration of a critic's fcience will not prove what is defired. A painter knows a copy from an original by rules fomewhat refembling thefe by which critics know a tranflation, which if it be literal, and literal it muft be to resemble the copy of a picture, will be easily distinguished. Copies are known from originals, even when the painter copies his own picture; fo if an author fhould literally tranflate his work, he would lofe the manner of an original. Mr. Upton confounds the copy of a picture with the imitation of a painter's manner. Copies are eafily known, but good imitations are not detected with equal certainty, and are, by the best judges, often mistaken. Nor is it true that the writer has always peculiarities equally diftinguishable with thofe of the painter. The peculiar manner of each arises from the defire, natural to every performer, of facilitating his fubfequent works by recurrence to his former ideas; this recurrence produces that repetition which is called habit. The painter, whofe work is partly intellectual and partly manual, has habits of the mind, the eye and the hand, the writer has only habits of the mind. Yet, fome painters have differed as much from themselves as from any other; and I have been told, that there is little refemblance between the first works of Raphael and the laft. The fame variation may be expected in writers; and if it be true, as it seems, that they are less fubje& to habit, the difference between their works may be yet greater. But by the internal marks of a compofition we may discover the author with probability, though feldom with certainty. When I read this play, I cannot but think that I find, both in the ferious and ludicrous fcenes, the language and fentiments of Shakespeare. It is not indeed one of his most powerful effufions, it has neither many diversities of character, nor ftriking delineations of life, but it abounds in you beyond most of his plays, and few have more lines or paffages, which, fingly confidered, are eminently beautiful. I am yet inclined to believe that it was not very fuccefsful, and fufpect that it has Than (living dully fluggardiz'd at home) 4 Wear out thy youth with + fhapeless idleness. Pro. Wilt thou be gone? Sweet Valentine, adieu ! When thou doft meet good hap; and, in thy danger, Commend thy grievance to my holy prayers, . Val. And on a love-book pray for my fuccefs. Pro. That's a deep ftory of a deeper love; For he was more than over fhoes in love. Val. 'Tis true; for you are over boots in love, And yet you never fwom the Hellefpont. Pro. Over the boots? 5 nay, give me not the boots, Val. has escaped corruption, only because being feldom played, it was lefs expofed to the hazards of tranfcription. JOHNSON. 3 Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits:] Milton has the fame play on words: 4 "It is for homely features to keep home, They had their name thence." STEEVENS. -fhapeless idleness.] The expreffion is fine, as implying that idleness prevents the giving any form or character to the WARBURTON. manners. nay, give me not the boots.] A proverbial expreffion, though now difufed, fignifying, don't make a laughing stock of me; don't play upon me. The French have a phrase, Bailler foin en corne; which Cotgrave thus interprets, To give one the boots; to fell him a bargain. THEOBALD. Do you know this? why boots at harveft ?] Perhaps this expreffion took its origin from a fport the country people in Warwickshire use at their harvest home, where one fits as judge to try misdemeanors committed in harvest, and the punishment for the men is to be laid on a bench, and flapped on the breech with a pair of boots, This they call giving them the boots. I meet Val. No, I will not; for it boots thee not. Val. To be in love, where fcorn is bought with groans; Coy looks, with heart-fore fighs; one fading moment's mirth, With twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights. Pro. So, by your circumftance, you call me fool. Methinks fhould not be chronicled for wife. Pro. Yet writers fay, as in the sweetest bud Val. And writers fay, as the most forward bud Once more adieu: my father at the road meet with the fame expreffion in the old comedy called Mother Bombie: "What do you give me the boots?" STEEVENS. • However, but a folly-] This love will end in a foolish action, to produce which you are long to spend your wit, or it will end in the lofs of your wit, which will be overpowered by the folly of love. JOHNSON, At At Milan, let me hear from thee by letters Pro. He after honour hunts, I after love: 8. Enter Speed. Speed. Sir Protheus, fave you: faw you my master? Pro. But now he parted hence to imbark for Milan. Speed. Twenty to one then he is fhipp'd already, And I have play'd the sheep in lofing him. Pro. Indeed, a fheep doth fheep doth very often stray, An if the fhepherd be awhile away. Speed. You conclude that my master is a fhepherd then, and I a sheep? Pro. I do. 7 Made wit with mufing weak,-] For made read make. Thou, Julia, haft made me war with good counsel, and make wit weak with mufing. JOHNSON. This whole scene, like many others in thefe plays (fome of which I believe were written by Shakespeare, and others interpolated by the players) is compofed of the loweft and moft trifling conceits, to be accounted for only from the grofs tafte of the age he lived in; Populo ut placerent. I wish I had authority to leave them out; but I have done all I could, fet a mark of reprobation upon them throughout this edition.. POPE. That this, like many other fcenes, is mean and vulgar, will be univerfally allowed; but that it was interpolated by the players feems advanced without any proof, only to give a greater licence to criticifm. JOHNSON. Speed. Speed. Why then my horns are his horns, whether I wake or fleep. Pro. A filly anfwer, and fitting well a sheep. Pro. True; and thy mafter a fhepherd. Speed. Nay, that I can deny by a circumstance. Pro. It fhall go hard, but I'll prove it by another. Speed. The fhepherd feeks the sheep, and not the fheep the fhepherd; but I feek my mafter, and my mafter feeks not me: therefore I am no fheep. Pro. The fheep for fodder follows the thepherd, the fhepherd for the food follows not the sheep; thou for wages followest thy master, thy mafter for wages follows not thee: therefore thou art a sheep. Speed. Such another proof will make me cry Baå. Pro. But doft thou hear? gav'ft thou my letter to Julia? Speed. Ay, Sir: 9 I, a loft mutton, gave your letter to her, a lac'd mutton; and fhe, a lac'd mutton, gave me, a loft mutton, nothing for my labour. Pro. I, a loft mutton, gave your letter to her, a lac'd mutton;—】 Speed calls himself a loft mutton, because he had loft his mafter, and becaufe Protheus had been proving him a sheep. But why does he call the lady a lac'd mutton? Wenchers are to this day called mutton-mongers; and confequently the object of their paffion muft, by the metaphor, be the mutton. And Cotgrave, in his English-French Dictionary, explains lac'd mutton, Une garfe, putain, fille de joye. And Mr. Motteux has rendered this paffage of Rabelais, in the prologue of his fourth book, Cailles coiphees mignonnement chantans, in this manner; Coated quails and lac'd mutton waggishly finging. So that lac'd mutton has been a fort of standard phrafe for girls of pleasure. THEOBALD. Nath, in his Have with you to Saffron Walden, 1595, fpeaking of Gabriel Harvey's incontinence, fays, he would not flick to extoll rotten lac'd mutton. So in the comedy of The Shoemaker's Holiday, or the Gentle Craft, 1610. "Why here's good lac'd mutton, as I promis'd you." Again, in Blurt Mafler Conftable, 1602. 46 Cupid hath got me a ftomach, and I long for lac'd mutton.” So in Whetstone's Promos and Caffandra, 1578. "And I fmelt he lov'd lac'd mutton well." So |