Obrazy na stronie
PDF
ePub

orthodoxy, the late Lord Chesterfield, in one of the letters of that nobleman to his son, abusing fiddlers but indeed Mr. Steevens might have been released from his anxiety if he had considered that the sentiments delivered by a dramatic character, whether good or bad, are by no means to be regarded as the sentiments of the poet; or had reflected that the encomiums here pronounced on music is only a general praise of according measures of that nobler and sublimer harmony, that fascinating "concord of sweet sounds," embracing eloquence and poetry, which a Plato himself approved, which Apollo professed, and which as far transcends the criticism of Lord Chesterfield, as the circuit and music of the spheres exceed the compass and the rattling of a dice box.

387. "I am the unhappy subject of these quarrels."

Subject," licentiously for author, causer.

AS YOU LIKE IT.

This Play, I think, frequently exhibits very evident marks of sophistication in the style of the dialogue; as in the first scene, which has nothing of the manner of Shakspeare, but resembles rather that of Ben Jonson.

ACT I. SCENE I.

5. "It was on this fashion bequeathed me: by will, but a poor thousand crowns, and, as thou say'st, charged my brother on his blessing, to breed me well."

Notwithstanding the confidence with which Dr. Johnson asks, what is there in this difficult or obscure? and the additional credit that the passage may seem to acquire from Mr. Steevens's satisfaction, it is such construction as can, by no means, be admitted.-If Sir William Blackstone's easy emendation is not to be received, I should propose, with only a slight transposition-" It was on this fashion bequeathed me; by will, but a poor thousand crowns, and, as thou say'st, my brother charged, on his blessing, to breed me

}

well," i. e. My father thus provided for me; by his will, I was to receive a thousand crowns; and my brother was charged to breed me well.

6. Stays me here at home," &c.

[ocr errors]

Stys me," as Dr. Warburton has suggested, appears to be the true expression here.

7. "What make you here? Orl. "

Nothing.

Oli. "What mar you, then?

Orl. "I am helping you to mar that which God made, a poor unworthy brother of yours, with idleness.

Oli.

"Be better employed, and be nought
awhile."

"Be nought awhile," i. e. begone from this
place, make a vacancy by removing yourself; or,
as it is sometimes expressed, "avoid"
"avoid" (impera-
tively). It is a play upon words; Orlando had
said that he was helping Oliver to mar what God
made; and he is bidden to be better employed, in
making himself a cypher. But the whole seems
to be a reference to a trite joke, apparently of
some antiquity, where a master, coming suddenly
upon two idle servants, asks one of them, what
he is doing? to which the man replies, nothing,
sir; and what are you doing, says the master to
the other servant? To which the fellow confused-
ly answers, I am helping him, sir.

9. "What prodigal portion have I spent."
This certainly should be "What prodigal's
portion.

10.

66

VOL. I.

Nearer to his reverence."

K

Reverence, I suppose, with a sneer; and hence the resentment expressed by Oliver.

[ocr errors]

15. My soul hates nothing more than he."

He should at once have been corrected in the text to him.

SCENE II.

"I see thou lovest me not with the same weight that I love thee."

"That," being here a pronoun (which), the preposition "with" is necessary to the construc

tion.

[ocr errors]

16. My father hath no child but I.

It was the editor's duty to correct this error, and insert "me" for I.

26. "Punish me not with your hard thoughts, wherein I confess," &c.

I would, with Dr. Johnson, read "therein;" but perhaps the text may stand as it is.“ In your thoughts of me I confess I must appear guilty," &c.

31. "Which of the two was daughter to the Duke,

[ocr errors]

"That here was at the wrestling."

As this passage stands, "the Duke" is the antecedent to the relative" that;" but it would be a foolish circumstance to annex to the

"that," con

Duke, who was at the wrestling: sequently, must belong to "the two," and, of course, requires the plural verb "were."

32. Hereafter, in a better world than this."

[blocks in formation]
[ocr errors]

are"

"Am" should have been corrected to in the text. The sense is well explained by Dr. Johnson.

40.

66

ACT II. SCENE I.

-The winter's wind,

Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,

"Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say," &c.

Here is a nominative noun without operation, -"which"-well! I smile and say, &c. I fear it is an incorrigible defect: the impetuosity of passion will sometimes justify a change in the structure of a sentence, as in Hotspur's speech

[ocr errors]

For all those wounds,

"Those mouthed wounds which gallantly he bore," &c.

« PoprzedniaDalej »