VOL. VII. LOVE'S CURE; OR, THE MARTIAL MAID. OVE'S Page 403. VITELLI........ To further which, your friendship And oaths! will your assistance let your deeds I prefer, without hesitation, the manner of pointing this passage, which Seward and Sympson recommend, to that which the Editors have adopted. It should run thus To further which, your friendship, And oaths will your assistance: let your deeds The word will is used in a similar sense in the very next page, where Eugenia says Send for musick, And will the cooks to use their best of cunning. Page 404. BOBADILLA........ And holpe the king to a subject that may live Seward tells us, that in the former editions, the word grave began with a capital letter, as if it were a proper name, which is, in truth, the manner in which it ought to be printed; for it is not, as he supposes, an epithet characteristic of Prince Maurice of Nassau, but a title of honour which was usually given him, and by which he was distinguished, as other princes are by that of Margrave, Landgrave, Palgrave, &c. This appears from the histories of the time; and also from one of Howell's letters, page 166, in which he gives Lord Clifford an account of the death of this very prince, in the following words I doubt not but you have heard of the Grave Maurice's death, which happened when the town was past cure, &c. And he proceeds to tell Lord Clifford, that Grave Henry succeeded him in all things, and was a gallant gentleman, of French education and temper: which last part of Grave Henry's character does not bespeak much gravity of deportment. Grave is synonymous to prince, or count. Page 406. BOBADILLA........ 'Tis well he has forgot how I frighted him yet. The word yet, at the end of this line, offends Sympson; but it is frequently used in all these plays, in the sense of however, or nevertheless. In this passage it may mean as yet. Page 407. EUGENIA......... Haste, and take down those blacks, with which my chamber Hath, like a widow, her said mistress mourn'd. We must read sad mistress, as in Seward's edition. 30 Page 416 METALDA...... Why, Signor Pachieco, do you stand So much on the priority and antiquity Quality means here profession or calling. Page 420. LAZARILLO.... Tho' now Your block-head be cover'd with the Spanish block, Velvet pee is nonsense: we should read velvet peel; meaning a coat or covering of velvet. A Spanish block, means a hat after the Spanish fashion. Page 429. VITELLI........ And he whose tongue thus gratifies the daughter Sympson wishes to read, glorifies the daughter; and asks, what gratification Vitelli makes to Clara? Does he suppose that praise is no gratification? But the truth is, that to gratify, means here to requite. Page 440. PIORATO........ Design me labours most impossible, I'll do them, or die in them. W Sympson wishes to weaken the expression by reading Labours almost impossible: But the present reading is right, and a bold poetical mode of expression, used by Shakespeare as well as by our Authors. In Much Ado about Nothing, Beatrice says, that Benedict amused himself in devising impossible slanders: in the Merry Wives of Windsor, Ford says that he would search for Falstaff in impossible places; and in Johnson's Sejanus, Silius accuses Aper of malicious and manifold applying, foul arresting, and impossible construction. Page 442. MALRODA.... For I am great, In labour, e'en with anger, big with child If there be any absurdity or inconsistency in this passage, it is owing to the false pointing: point it thus, and the meaning will be clear For I am great, In labour even with anger; big with child The objection to this passage, as containing an anticlimax, is an hypercriticism: no climax was intended. Page 442. VITELLI........ Oh! the uncomfortable ways such women have! Seward quarrels with this expression, and proposès unstable, instead of uncomfortable: but I will venture to assert, that there is no word in the English language that would express so strongly Vitelli's meaning as that in the text. n n Page 447. ALVAREZ....In my young days, A cavalier would stock a needle's point. That is, would hit it with a stoccado, a thrust of his rapier. The amendments of Seward and Sympson are equally useless. Page 464. ALGUAZIER.... We'll suffer noble yet. Page 470. LAMORAL.... How unequal Wrongs well maintain'd make us to others, which, Ending with shame, teach us to know ourselves! Unequal, in this place, means unjust (iniquus). Wrongs, well maintained, means injuries successfully maintained, not justly. Page 473. LUCIO....All that's good in me, That heavenly love, the opposite to base lust, (Which would have all men worthy) hath created. The parenthesis introduced in this passage entirely destroys the sense: for, if that is to stand, it is base lust that would have all men worthy; it must, therefore, be struck out. Page 473. LuCIO........ There's nothing that's within my nerves, (and yet, But when you please, now, and on all occasions, Dispose of at your pleasure. The word but, in the fourth line, should be struck out. |