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DUKE. There's for thy pains.

CLO. No pains, sir; I take pleasure in singing, sir. DUKE. I'll pay thy pleasure then.

CLO. Truly, sir, and pleasure will be paid, one time or another.

DUKE. Give me now leave to leave thee.

CLO. Now, the melancholy god protect thee; and the tailor make thy doublet of changeable taffata, for thy mind is a very opal!-I would have men of such constancy put to sea, that their business might be every thing, and their intent every where;' for that's it, that always makes a good voyage of nothing.-Farewell. [Exit Clown.

Again, in King Henry VIII:

"Is held no great good lover of th' archbishop's." There is perhaps, therefore, no need of abbreviating the word never in this line.

MALONE.

In the instance produced from A Midsummer Night's Dream, I suppose lover to be a misprint for love; and in K. Henry VIII. I know not why it should be considered as a monosyllable.

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STEEVENS.

a very opal!] A precious stone of almost all colours.

So, Milton, describing the walls of heaven :

POPE.

"With opal tow'rs, and battlements adorn'd." The opal is a gem which varies its appearance as it is viewed in different lights. Thus, in The Muses' Elizium, by Drayton: "With opals more than any one "We'll deck thine altar fuller, "For that of every precious stone "It doth retain some colour."

"In the opal, (says P. Holland's translation of Pliny's Natural History, B. XXXVII. c. 6,) you shall see the burning fire of the carbuncle or rubie, the glorious purple of the amethyst, the green sea of the emeraud, and all glittering together mixed after an incredible manner.' STEEVENS.

1that their business might be every thing, and their intent every where ;] Both the preservation of the antithesis,

DUKE. Let all the rest give place..

[Exeunt CURIO and Attendants.
Once more, Cesario,

Get thee to yon' same sovereign cruelty:
Tell her, my love, more noble than the world,
Prizes not quantity of dirty lands;

The parts that fortune hath bestow'd upon her,
Tell her, I hold as giddily as fortune;
But 'tis that miracle, and queen of gems,
That nature pranks her in, attracts my soul.

and the recovery of the sense, require we should read,-and their intent no where. Because a man who suffers himself to run with every wind, and so makes his business every where, cannot be said to have any intent; for that word signifies a determination of the mind to something. Besides, the conclusion of making a good voyage of nothing, directs to this emendation.

WARBURTON.

An intent every where, is much the same as an intent no where, as it hath no one particular place more in view than another. HEATH.

The present reading is preferable to Warburton's amendment. We cannot accuse a man of inconstancy who has no intents at all, though we may the man whose intents are every where; that is, are continually varying. M. MASON.

2 But 'tis that miracle, and queen of gems,

That nature pranks her in,] What is that miracle, and queen of gems? we are not told in this reading. Besides, what is meant by nature pranking her in a miracle?-We should read : "But 'tis that miracle, and queen of gems,

"That nature pranks, her mind,

i. e. what attracts my soul, is not her fortune, but her mind, that miracle and queen of gems that nature pranks, i. e. sets out, adorns. WARBURTON.

The miracle and queen of gems is her beauty, which the commentator might have found without so emphatical an enquiry. As to her mind, he that should be captious would say, that though it may be formed by nature, it must be pranked by education.

Shakspeare does not say that nature pranks her in a miracle,

VIO. But, if she cannot love you,
DUKE. I cannot be so answer'd.3

sir?

'Sooth, but you must.

V10.
Say, that some lady, as, perhaps, there is,
Hath for your love as great a pang of heart
As you have for Olivia: you cannot love her;
You tell her so; Must she not then be answer'd?
DUKE. There is no woman's sides,

Can bide the beating of so strong a passion
As love doth give my heart: no woman's heart
So big, to hold so much; they lack retention.
Alas, their love may be call'd appetite,-
No motion of the liver, but the palate,-
That suffer surfeit, cloyment, and revolt ;*
But mine is all as hungry as the sea,"
And can digest as much: make no compare

but in the miracle of gems, that is, in a gem miraculously beautiful. JOHNSON.

To prank is to deck out, to adorn. See Lye's Etymologicon.

So, in The Winter's Tale:

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and me,

HEATH.

"Most goddess-like, prank'd up-." STEEVENS.

3 I cannot be so answer'd.] The folio reads-It cannot be, &c. The correction by Sir Thomas Hanmer. STEEVENS.

Alas, their love may be call'd appetite, &c.

That suffer surfeit, cloyment, and revolt;] The duke has changed his opinion of women very suddenly. It was but a few minutes before that he said they had more constancy in love than men. M. MASON.

Mr. Mason would

read--suffers; but there is no need of Suffer is governed by women, implied under the words, "their love." The love of women, &c. who suffer.

change.

as hungry as the sea,] So, in Coriolanus: "Then let the pebbles on the hungry beach 86 Fillip the stars" STEEVENS.

MALONE.

Between that love a woman can bear me,
And that I owe Olivia.

VIO.

Ay, but I know,

DUKE. What dost thou know?

V10. Too well what love women to men may

owe:

In faith, they are as true of heart as we.
My father had a daughter lov'd a man,
As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman,
I should your lordship.

DUKE.

And what's her history?

V10. A blank, my lord: She never told her love, But let concealment, like a worm i'the bud," Feed on her damask cheek: she pin'd in thought;" And, with a green and yellow melancholy,

6 like a worm i'the bud,] So, in the 5th Sonnet of Shakspeare:

"Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose,
"Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name.'

Again, in our author's Rape of Lucrece:

STEEVENS.

"Why should the worm intrude the maiden bud?”

Again, in King Richard II:

"But now will canker sorrow eat my bud,
“And chase the native beauty from his cheek."

MALONE.

7 she pin'd in thought;] Thought formerly signified melancholy. So, in Hamlet:

"Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." Again, in The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet, 1562: "The cause of this her death was inward care and thought." MALONE.

Mr. Malone says, thought means melancholy. But why wrest from this word its plain and usual acceptation, and make Shakspeare guilty of tautology? for in the very next line he uses melancholy." DOUCE

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She sat like patience on a monument,

Smiling at grief. Was not this love, indeed?

She sat like patience on a monument,

Smiling at grief] Mr. Theobald supposes this might possibly be borrowed from Chaucer:

"And her besidis wonder discreetlie

"Dame pacience ysitting there I fonde

"With facé pale, upon a hill of sonde."

And adds: "If he was indebted, however, for the first rude draught, how amply has he repaid that debt, in heightening the picture! How much does the green and yellow melancholy transcend the old bard's pale face; the monument his hill of sand."--I hope this critic does not imagine Shakspeare meant to give us a picture of the face of patience, by his green and yellow melancholy; because, he says, it transcends the pale face of patience given us by Chaucer. To throw patience into a fit of melancholy, would be indeed very extraordinary. The green and yellow then belonged not to patience, but to her who sat like patience. To give patience a pale face was proper and had Shakspeare described her, he had done it as Chaucer did. But Shakspeare is speaking of a marble statue of patience; Chaucer of patience herself. And the two representations of her, are in quite different views. Our poet, speaking of a despairing lover, judiciously compares her to patience exercised on the death of friends and relations; which affords him the beautiful picture of patience on a monument. The old bard, speaking of patience herself directly, and not by comparison, as judiciously draws her in that circumstance where she is most exercised, and has occasion for all her virtue; that is to say, under the losses of shipwreck. And now we see why she is represented as sitting on a hill of sand, to design the scene to be the sea-shore. It is finely imagined; and one of the noble simplicities of that admirable poet. But the critic thought, in good earnest, that Chaucer's invention was so barren, and his imagination so beggarly, that he was not able to be at the charge of a monument for his goddess, but left her, like a stroller, sunning herself upon a heap of sand. WARBUrton.

This celebrated image was not improbably first sketched out in the old play of Pericles. I think, Shakspeare's hand may be sometimes seen in the latter part of it, and there only:

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thou [Marina] dost look

"Like Patience, gazing on kings' graves, and smiling Extremity out of act." FARMER.

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