ties introduces the saying of some philosopher "that this world was a stage, we the players which present the comedie." Shakspeare had himself used nearly the same language in the first act of The merchant of Venice, "I hold the world, but as the world, Gratiano, A portion of Jaques's speech has been imitated in some lines by Thomas Heywood among the commendatory verses prefixed to his Actors vindication, 1658, 4to: "The world's a theater, the earth a stage, Which God and nature doth with actors fill; All men have parts, and each man acts his own," &c. Sc. 7. p. 66. JAQ. And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. A print of the seven ages of men like those referred to by Messrs. Henley and Steevens may be seen in Comenius's Orbis pictus, tit. xxxvii., in which are found the infant, the boy, and the decrepid old man: the rest of Shakspeare's characters seem to be of his own invention. There is a division of the seven ages of man in Arnolde's Chronicle, fo. lix verso, agreeing, except in the arrangement of years, with that given by Mr. Malone from The treasury of ancient and modern times. Sc. 7. p. 69. JAQ. Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing. This word, introduced into our language as early as the time of Chaucer, has sometimes received on the stage a French pronunciation, which in the time of Shakspeare it certainly had not. The old orthography will serve to verify this position: "I none dislike, I fancie some, But yet of all the rest, Sance envie, let my verdite passe, Lord Buckhurst is the best." Turbervile's verses before his ACT III. Scene 2. Page 82. Ros. I'll graff it with you, and then I shall graff it with a medlar: then it will be the earliest fruit in the country, for you'll be rotten ere you be half ripe, and that's the right virtue of the medlar. On this Mr. Steevens observes that Shakspeare had little knowledge of gardening, the medlar being one of the latest fruits, and uneatable till the end of November. But is not the charge, at least in this instance, unfounded; and has not the learned commentator misunderstood the poet's meaning? It is well known that the medlar is only edible when apparently rotten. This is what Shakspeare calls its right virtue. If a fruit be fit to be eaten when rotten and before it be ripe, it may in one sense be termed the earliest. The inaccuracy seems to be in making the medlar rotten before it is ripe, the rottenness being, as it is conceived, the ripeness. Sc. 2. p. 93. ORL. I pray you, mar no more of my verses with reading them ill-favouredly. This very much resembles the sed male cum recitas, incipit esse tuum, in one of Martial's epigrams, lib. i. ep. 39, of which the following translation was made by Timothy Kendall, in his Flowers of epigrammes, 1577, 12mo: "The booke which thou doest read, it is Frende Fidentinus myne; But when thou ill doest read it, then Beginns it to bee thyne.” Sc. 4. p. 111. CEL. He hath bought a pair of cast lips of Diana; a nun of winter's sisterhood kisses not more religiously; the very ice of chastity is in them. Theobald explains cast lips "a pair left off by Diana." It is not easy to conceive how the goddess could leave off her lips; or how, being left off, Orlando could purchase them. Celia seems rather to allude to a statue cast in plaister or metal, the lips of which might well be said to possess the ice of chastity. As to the "nun of winter's sisterhood," Warburton might have contented himself with censuring the dullness of Theobald. His own sisterhoods of the seasons are by much too refined and pedantic, and in every respect objectionable. Shakspeare poetically feigns a new order of nuns, most appropriate to his subject, and wholly devoid of obscurity. SIL. Sc. 5. p. 115. The common executioner Falls not the axe upon the humbled neck. There is no doubt that the expression to fall the axe may with propriety refer to the usual mode of decapitation; but if it could be shown that in the reign of Elizabeth this punishment was inflicted in England by an instrument resembling the French guillotine, which though merciful in the discharge of its office, has justly excited abhorrence from the number of innocent victims that have suffered by it, the expression would perhaps seem rather more appropriate. Among the cuts to the first edition of Holinshed's chronicle such a machine is twice introduced; and as it does not appear that in either instance there was any cause for the particular use of it, we may reasonably infer that it was at least sometimes adopted. Every one has heard of the Halifax gibbet, which was just such another instrument, and certainly introduced into that town, for reasons that do not appear, long before the time in which Holinshed was printed. It is said that the Earl of Morton the Scotish regent saw it at Halifax, and that he introduced it into Scotland, where it was used for a considerable time afterwards*. In that country it was called the maiden, and Morton himself actually suffered by it, when con * See Hume's hist. of the houses of Douglas and Angus, 1644, folio, p. 356. There are good reasons for supposing that the instrument in question was invented in Germany. |