TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.

ACT I. SCENE 1.

"Speed. Ay, sir; I, a lost mutton, gave your letter to her, a laced mutton; and she, a laced mutton, gave me, a lost mutton, nothing for my labour."

"asks Mr.

"In the present passage, is 'laced mutton,' Dyce, "to be regarded as synonymous with courtesan? I doubt it. When Speed applies that term to Julia, he probably uses it in the much less offensive sense of a richly attired piece of woman's flesh." Mr. Dyce has well expressed a signification, which, until I read the comments of the Variorum men, I took for granted, as that obviously required by the context, and as a point upon which no question could arise. Would Speed tell Proteus plainly that his mistress was a courtesan ? And had he done so, would he have escaped with a sound skin?

ACT II. SCENE 1.

"Speed. When you look'd sadly, it was for want of money. And now you are metamorphos'd with a mistress, that when I look on you, I can hardly think you my master."

The MS. correction in Mr. Collier's folio, "And now you are so Metamorphos'd with a Mistris that when," &c., seems very plausible; but still, with the sentence punctuat

ed as it is above, I am not sure that the so is necessary. Speed's meaning is, you are metamorphosed with a mistress, so that when I look on you, I can hardly think you my master'; and the particle is dropped by a not uncommon, and, it appears to me, rather elegant elision.

ACT II. SCENE 3.

“Launce. This hat is Nan, our maid; I am the dog:-no, the dog is himself and I am the dog,-oh! the dog is me, and I am myself."

Will it be believed by those who have not seen it for themselves, the exquisite confusion of poor Launce's feeble ideas is not appreciated by Dr. Johnson and Sir Thomas Hanmer! How delightful is the complacence with which, after doubting whether he is the dog or the dog is himself and he is the dog, he triumphantly extricates himself from his dilemma, by exclaiming: "Oh! the dog is me, and I am myself." And yet Dr. Johnson is not certain "how much reason the author intended to bestow on Launce's soliloquy," and Sir Thomas Hanmer actually printed the passage, "I am the dog :-no, the dog is himself and I am me; the dog is the dog, and I am myself." This it was to edit Shakespeare in the 'Augustan age' of English literature! Augustan in what? Its looseness, its servility, its maliciousness, its marrowless thought, its inability to make its philosophy more than an iteration of trite orthodoxy or triter scepticism, or its poetry more than an oily flow of pretty epigrams?

line,

SCENE 4.

"Val. I, my good Lord, I know the gentleman

To be of worth, and worthy estimation;

And not without desert so well reputed."

The MS. correction, by Mr. Collier's folio, in the second

66

"To be of wealth and worthy estimation,"

seems required by the context, and to be justified by a probable misprint, until we remember that "worthy estimation" may mean, 'the esteem of worthy people.' Valentine evidently means to say that the father of Proteus is not only of worth" but "of worthy estimation;" and the substitution of wealth for "worth" impoverishes both the declaration and the subject of it. "I," in the first line, is the old mode of spelling 'Aye,' and furnishes a guide as to the varying pronunciation of that word.

ACT III. SCENE 1.

"Proteus. Even in the milk-white bosom of thy love."

The commentators remark upon this passage," that the lady of the 16th century had a pocket in the front of her stays;" and they suppose this fashion again referred to when Valentine says,

"My herald thoughts in thy pure bosom rest them;"

and also in Hamlet's fancy,

"These to her excellent white bosom."

What need, what need of all this mantua-making lore! Where have Eve's daughters put their lover's letters and their own nameless little knick-knacks ever since their mother's apron of fig leaves was first accommodated with a boddice ? Do lovers send their thoughts to the "pure" pockets, the "excellent white" stays of their mistresses? What absurd misconstruction of beautiful and appropriate thoughts, for the purpose of displaying a little knowledge of antiquated man-millinery!

The Earl of Surrey, who wrote his poetry to a "lady of

the sixteenth century" (1557), in one of his sonnets thus predicts its happy fate :

"When she hath read and seen the grief wherein I serve,

Between her brests she shall thee put, there shall she thee reserve."

Stays and pockets, forsooth!

[This was written before I saw the Variorum edition; and there I find that Malone has quoted this very passage from Surrey; and yet a gentleman of Mr. Charles Knight's taste and sympathetic appreciation of Shakespeare, editing his works in the middle of the nineteenth century, can perpetuate the Mantalini-ism of the tie-wig editors !]

"Launce. He lives not now, that knows me to be in love; yet I am in love; but a team of horse shall not pluck that from me; nor who it is I love; and yet 'tis a woman."

Upon this characteristic exhibition of simplicity, Dr. Johnson remarks that Launce is thinking, "I see how Valentine is suffering for telling his love secrets, therefore I will keep mine close." But Steevens comes to the rescue, and adds, "Perhaps Launce was not intended to show so much sense; but here indulges himself in talking contradictory nonsense." Perhaps, indeed!

I notice such platitudes as these, that it may be seen and known of all those who cannot or will not wade through the rubbish of the commentators, what thick-headedness seems to have taken possession of men of the last century, when they came to the reading of Shakespeare, although they were, in other respects, able and learned; and also that we may all be warned of the utter folly of relying upon the mere authority of any name for the justification of a change in the text as the original folio gives it to us. If that can be understood by men of ordinary common sense, it must be changed at no man's bidding, even for the better.

"Speed. Item, 'She is not to be fasting, in respect of her breath.""

Rowe added kissed; and read,

"She is not to be kissed fasting, in respect of her breath,"

which has been palmed upon us as Shakespeare's text for a hundred and fifty years. Mr. Collier suggests that the addition was perhaps unnecessary. There's no 'perhaps 'in the case it was certainly unnecessary, and therefore unjustifiable and presumptuous. Launce's "cate-log" of the "conditions" of his sweetheart, says that she must not be made to fast, for fear of certain unpleasant physiological consequences. The text has a plain meaning, and by what right does any man make an arbitrary addition to it?

ACT V. SCENE 4.

"Val. These are my mates that make their wills their law, Have some unhappy passenger in chase,"

Mr. Collier's margins propose, with reason, to read

"These my rude mates," &c.

As the sentence stands in the original, "have " is without an antecedent.