BER. Admiringly, my liege: at first I stuck my choice upon her, ere my heart Durst make too bold a herald of my tongue: Where the impression of mine eye infixing, Contempt his scornful perspective did lend me, Which warp'd the line of every other favour; Scorn'd a fair colour, or express'd it stol❜n; Extended or contracted all proportions, To a most hideous object: Thence it came, That she, whom all men prais'd, and whom myself, Since I have lost, have lov'd, was in mine eye The dust that did offend it. KING. Well excus'd: That thou didst love her, strikes some scores away From the great compt: But love, that comes too late, Like a remorseful pardon slowly carried, 4 3 The inaudible and noiseless foot of time, &c.] This idea seems to have been caught from the third book of Sidney's Arcadia; "The summons of Time had so creepingly stolne upon him, that hee had heard scarcely the noise of his feet." STEEVENS. 4 Our own love waking, &c.] These two lines I should be glad to call an interpolation of a player. They are ill connected with the former, and not very clear or proper in themselves. I believe the author made two couplets to the same purpose; wrote them both down that he might take his choice; and so they happened to be both preserved. For sleep I think we should read slept. Love cries to see what was done while hatred slept, and suffered mischief to be done. Be this sweet Helen's knell, and now forget her. Send forth your amorous token for fair Maudlin : The main consents are had; and here we'll stay To see our widower's second marriage-day. COUNT. Which better then the first, O dear heaven, bless! Or, ere they meet, in me, O nature, cease* 5! name Must be digested, give a favour from you, *First folio, cesse. 6 Or the meaning may be, that hatred still continues to sleep at ease, while love is weeping;' and so the present reading may stand. JOHNSON. I cannot comprehend this passage as it stands, and have no doubt but we should read "Our old love waking," &c. Extinctus amabitur idem. "Our own love," can mean nothing but our self-love, which would not be sense in this place; but " our old love waking," means, our former affection being revived. M. MASON. This conjecture appears to me extremely probable; but waking will not, I think, here admit of Mr. M. Mason's interpretation, being revived; nor, indeed, is it necessary to his emendation. It is clear, from the subsequent line, that waking is here used in its ordinary sense. Hate sleeps at ease, unmolested by any remembrance of the dead, while old love, reproaching itself for not having been sufficiently kind to a departed friend, "wakes and weeps;" crying, "that's good that's gone." MALONE. 5 Which better than the first, O dear heaven, bless! Or, ere they meet, in me, O nature, cease!] I have ventured against the authorities of the printed copies, to prefix the Countess's name to these two lines. The King appears, indeed, to be a favourer of Bertram; but if Bertram should make a bad husband the second time, why should it give the King such mortal pangs ? A fond and disappointed mother might reasonably not desire to live to see such a day; and from her the wish of dying, rather than to behold it, comes with propriety. THEOBALD. And every hair that's on't, Helen, that's dead, BER. 6 Hers it was not. KING. Now, pray you, let me see it; for mine eye, While I was speaking, oft was fasten'd to it.This ring was mine; and, when I gave it Helen, I bade her, if her fortunes ever stood 7 Necessitied to help, that by this token I would relieve her: Had you that craft, to reave her Of what should stead her most? BER. COUNT. My gracious sovereign, Son, on my life, I have seen her wear it; and she reckon'd it LAF. 8 I am sure, I saw her wear it. BER. You are deceiv'd, my lord, she never saw it: In Florence was it from a casement thrown me Wrapp'd in a paper, which contain'd the name Of her that threw it: noble she was, and thought 6 The last that e'er I took her leave-] The last time that I saw her, when she was leaving the court. Mr. Rowe and the subsequent editors read—" that e'er she took," &c. MALone. 7 I BADE her, if her fortunes ever stood many Necessitied to help, THAT ] Our author here, as in other places, seems to have forgotten, in the close of the sentence, how he began to construct it. See p. 311. The meaning however is clear, and I do not suspect any corruption. MALONE. 8 In Florence was it from a casement thrown me,] Bertram still continues to have too little virtue to deserve Helen. He did not know indeed that it was Helen's ring, but he knew that he had it not from a window. JOHNSON. I stood ingag'd: but when I had subscrib'd KING. Plutus himself, That knows the tinct and multiplying medicine 9, That you are well acquainted with yourself, I stood INGAG'D:] Thus the old copy.-Dr. Johnson reads― engaged. STEEVens. The plain meaning is, when she saw me receive the ring, she thought me engaged to her. JOHNSON. Ingag'd may be intended in the same sense with the reading proposed by Mr. Theobald, [ungag'd] i. e. not engaged; as Shakspeare, in another place, uses gag'd for engaged. Merchant of Venice, Act I. Sc. I. TYRWHITT. I have no doubt that ingaged (the reading of the folio) is right. Gaged is used by other writers, as well as by Shakspeare, for engaged. So, in a Pastoral, by Daniel, 1605: "Not that the earth did "Unto the husbandman gage "Her voluntary fruits, free without fees." Ingaged, in the sense of unengaged, is a word of exactly the same formation as inhabitable, which is used by Shakspeare and the contemporary writers for uninhabitable. Malone. 9 Plutus himself, That knows the TINCT and MULTIPLYING medicine,] Plutus, the grand alchemist, who knows the tincture which confers the properties of gold upon base metals, and the matter by which gold is multiplied, by which a small quantity of gold is made to communicate its qualities to a large mass of base metal. In the reign of Henry the Fourth a law was made to forbid all men thenceforth to multiply gold, or use any craft of multiplication. Of which law, Mr. Boyle, when he was warm with the hope of transmutation, procured a repeal. JOHNSON. You got it from her she call'd the saints to surety That she would never put it from her finger, (Where you have never come,) or sent it us BER. She never saw it. KING. Thou speak'st it falsely, as I love mine ho nour; And mak'st conjectural fears to come into me, My fore-past proofs, howe'er the matter fall, Having vainly fear'd too little 2.-Away with him;— BER. If you shall prove This ring was ever hers, you shall as easy Prove that I husbanded her bed in Florence, Where yet she never was. [Exit BERTRAM, guarded. 1 Then, IF YOU KNOW THAT YOU ARE WELL ACQUAINTED WITH YOURSELF, Confess 'twas hers,] i. e. confess the ring was hers, for you know it as well as you know that you are yourself. EDWARDS. The true meaning of this expression is, If you know that your faculties are so sound, as that you have the proper consciousness of your own actions, and are able to recollect and relate what you have done, tell me, &c. JOHNSON. 2 My forepast proofs, howe'er the matter fall, Having vainly fear'd too little.] The proofs which I have already had are sufficient to show that my fears were not vain and irrational. I have rather been hitherto more easy than I ought, and have unreasonably had too little fear. JOHNSON. |