Gambar halaman
PDF
ePub

LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST.

OBSERVATIONS.

I HAVE not hitherto discovered any novel on which this comedy appears to have been founded; and yet the story of it has most of the features of an ancient romance. STEEVENS.

As very bad a play as this is, it was certainly Shakspeare's, as appears by many fine master-strokes scattered up and down. And as our author, and Jonson his contemporary, are, confessedly, the two greatest writers in the drama that our nation could ever boast of, this may be no improper occasion to take notice of one material difference between Shakspeare's worst plays, and the other's. Our author owed all to his prodigious natural genius; and Jonson most to his acquired parts and learning. This, if attended to, will explain the difference we speak of. Which is this, that in Jonson's bad pieces, we do not discover the least traces of the author of the Fox and Alchemist; but, in the wildest and most extravagant notes of Shakspeare, you every now and then encounter strains that recognize their divine composer. And the reason is this, that Jonson owing his chief excellence to art, by which he sometimes strained himself to an uncommon pitch, when he unbent himself had nothing to support him, but fell below all likeness of himself; while Shakspeare, indebted more largely to nature than the other to his acquired talents, could never, in his most negligent hours, so totally divest himself of his genius, but that it would frequently break out with amazing force and splendour. WARBURTON.

In this play, which all the editors have concurred to censure, and some have rejected as unworthy of our poet, it must be confessed, that there are many passages mean, childish, and vulgar; and some which ought not to have been exhibited, as we are told they were, to a maiden Queen. But there are scattered through the whole many sparks of genius; nor is there any play that has more evident marks of the hand of Shakspeare. JOHNSON.

I suspect that there is an error in the title of this play, which I believe, should be-" Love's Labours Lost."

M. MASON.

[blocks in formation]
[ocr errors]
[blocks in formation]

MERCADE,

lords, attending on the Princess of

France.

Don ADRIANO DE ARMADO, a fantastical Spaniard.

Sir NATHANIEL, a curate.

HOLOFERNES, a schoolmaster.
DULL, a constable.

COSTARD, a clown.

MOTH, page to Armado.

A Forester.

Princess of France.

ROSALINE,

MARIA,

KATHARINE,:

ladies; attending on the Princess.

JAQUENETTA, a country wench.

Officers and others, attendants on the King and Princess

SCENE.-Navarre.

LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST.

ACT I.

SCENE I.-Navarre. A Park, with a Palace in it.
King, BIRON, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN.

King.

LET fame, that all hunt after in their lives,
Live register'd upon our brazen tombs,
And then grace us in the disgrace of death;
When, spite of cormorant devouring time,
The endeavour of this present breath may buy

Enter the

That honour, which shall bate his scythe's keen edge,
And make us heirs of all eternity.

Therefore, brave conquerors!-for so you are,
That war against your own affections,

And the huge army of the world's desires,—
Our late edict shall strongly stand in force:
Navarre shall be the wonder of the world;
Our court shall be a little Academe ;
Still and contemplative in living_art.

You three, Birón, Dumain, and Longaville,

Have sworn for three years' term to live with me,
My fellow-scholars, and to keep those statutes,
That are recorded in this schedule here:

Your oaths are past, and now subscribe your names;
That his own hand may strike his honour down,
That violates the smallest branch herein :

If you are arm'd to do, as sworn to do,
Subscribe to your deep oath, and keep it too.

Long. I am resolv'd: 'tis but a three years' fast ;
The mind shall banquet, though the body pine:
Fat paunches have lean pates; and dainty bits
Make rich the ribs, but bank'rout quite the wits.
Dum. My loving lord, Dumain is mortified;
The grosser manner of these world's delights
He throws upon the gross world's baser slaves:

« SebelumnyaLanjutkan »