To bandy word for word, and frown for frown: My hand is ready, may it do him eafe, Pet. Why, there's a wench!-Come on, and kiss me, Kate. Luc. Well, gothy ways, old lad; for thou fhalt ha't, Vin. 'Tis a good hearing, when children are toward. Luc. But a harsh hearing when women are fro ward. Pet. Come, Kate, we'll to-bed :——— We three are married, but you two are fped. 'Twas I won the wager, though you hit the white; And, being a winner, God give you good night! [Exeunt Petruchio, and Katharine. Hor. Now go thy ways, thou haft tam'd a curft fhrew. LNC. 'Tis a wonder, by your leave, fhe will be tam'd [Exeunt omnes', fo. 5 Then vail your fomachs,—] i. e. abate your pride, your fpirit. STEEVENS. 6 Though you hit the white;] To hit the white is a phrase borrowed from archery: the mark was commonly white. Here it alludes to the name Bianca, or white. JOHNSON. So, in Feltham's Anfer to Ben Jonfon's ode at the end of his New Inn: "As oft you've wanted brains And art to ftrike the white, As you have levell'd right." Again, in Sir Afton Cokayn's Poems, 1658: "And as an expert archer bits the white." MALONE. 7 At the conclufion of this piece, Mr. Pepe continued his infer tions from the old play, as follows: Enter two fervants, bearing Sly in his own apparel, and leaving him players gone? What, all the "Tap. Tap. A lord, with a murrain?-Come, art thou drunk ftill? "Sly. Who's this? Tapfter!-Oh, I have had the bravest dream that ever thou heard'ft in all thy life. "Tap. Yea, marry, but thou hadst beft get thee home, for your wife will curfe you for dreaming here all night. "Sly. Will be? I know how to tame a fhrew. I dreamt upon it all this night, and thou haft wak'd me out of the best dream that ever I had. But I'll to my wife, and tame her too, if the anger me. Thefe paffages, which have been hitherto printed as part of the work of Shakspeare, I have funk into the notes, that they may be preferved, as they feem to be neceffary to the integrity of the piece, though they really compofe no part of it, being neither published in the folio or quarto edition. Mr. Pope, however, has quoted them with a degree of inaccuracy which would have deferved cenfure, had they been of greater confequence than they are. The players delivered down this comedy, among the reft, as one of Shakspeare's own; and its intrinfic merit bears fufficient evidence. to the propriety of their decifion. May I add a few reafons why I neither believe the former comedy of the Taming the Shrew, 1607, nor the old play of King John in two parts, to have been the work of Shakspeare? He generally followed every novel or history from whence he took his plots, as clofely as he could; and is fo often indebted to thefe originals for his very thoughts and expreffions, that we may ta rly pronounce him not to have been above borrowing, to fpare himfelf the labour of invention. It is therefore probable, that both thefe plays, (like that of Hen. V. in which Oldcastle is introduced) were the unfuccefsful performances of contemporary players. Shakspeare faw they were meanly written, and yet that their plans were fuch as would furnish incidents for a better dramatist. He therefore might lazily adopt the order of their fcenes, ftill writing the dialogue anew, and inferting little more from either piece, than a few lines which he might think worth preferving, or was too much in hafte to alter. It is no uncommon thing in the literary world, to fee the track of others followed by thofe who would never have given themselves the trouble to mark out one of their own. The following are the obfervations of Dr. Hurd on the Induction to this comedy. They are taken from his Notes on the Eif the to Augufius. "The Induction, as Shakspeare calls it, to The Taming of the Shrew, deferves, for the excellence of its moral defign and beauty of execution, throughout, to be fet in a just light. This Prologue fets before us the picture of a poor drunken beggar, advanced, for a fhort feafon, into the proud rank of nobility. And the humour of the scene is taken to confift in the furprize and aukward deportment of Sly, in this his strange and unwonted fituation. But the poet had a further defign, and more worthy worthy his genius, than this farcical pleafantry. He would ex pofe, under cover of this mimic fiction, the truly ridiculous figure of men of rank and quality, when they employ their great advantages of place and fortune, to no better purposes, than the foft and felfish gratification of their own intemperate paffions: Of thefe, who take the mighty privilege of defcent and wealth to lie in the freer indulgence of thofe plea'ures, which the beggar as fully enjoys, and with infinitely more propriety and confiftency of character, than their lordships. "To give a poignancy to his fatire, the poet makes a man of quality himself, just returned from the chace, with all his mind intent upon his pleafures, contrive this metamorphofis of the beggar, in the way of fport and derifion only; not confidering, how feverely the jeft was going to turn upon himself. His first reflections, on fecing this brutal drunkard, are excellent: "O! monftrous beaft! how like a fine he lies! "Grim death! how foul and loathfome is thy image! "The offence is taken at human nature, degraded into beftial ity; and at a state of stupid infenfibility, the image of death. Nothing can be jufler, than this reprefentation. For thefe lordly fentualifts have a very nice and faftidious abhorrence of fuch ignoble brutality. And what alarms their fears with the profpect of death, cannot chufe but prefent a foul and loathfome image. It is, alfo, faid in perfect confiftency with the true Epicurean character, as given by thefe, who underflood it beft, and which is, here, fuftained by this noble difciple. For, though these great mafters of wifdom made pleafure the fupreme good, yet, they were among the firf, as we are told, to cry out against the Afotos; meaning fuch grofs fenfualifts, qui in menfam vomunt & qui de conviviis auferuntur, crudique poftridie fe rurfus ingur gitant." But as for the "mundos, elegantes, optumis cocis, piftoribus, pifcatu, aucupio, venatione, his omnibus exquifitis, "vitantes cruditatem," thefe they complimented with the name of beatos and fapientes. [Cic. de Fin. lib. ii. 8.] 66 "And then, though their philofophy promifed an exemption from the terrors of death, yet the boafted exemption confifted only in a trick of keeping it out of the memory by continual diffipation; fo that when accident forced it upon them, they could not help on all occafions, expreffing the most dreadful apprehenfions of it. "However, this tranfient gloom is foon fucceeded by gayer profpects. My lord bethinks himself to raise a little diverfion out of this adventure: "Sirs, I will practise on this drunken man: And, fo, propofes to have him conveyed to bed, and bleffed with all thofe regalements of coftly luxury, in which a selfish opulence is wont to find its fupreme happiness. "The "The project is carried into execution. And now the jest begins. Sly, awakening from his drunken nap, calls out as ufual for a cup of ale. On which the lord, very characteristically, and (taking the poets defign, as here explained) with infinite fatyr, replies: "O! that a mighty man of fuch defcent, "And again, afterwards: "Oh! noble Lord, bethink thee of thy birth, "Call home thy ancient thoughts from banishment; For, what is the recollection of this high defcent and large poff fions to do for him? And, for the introduction of what better thoughts and nobler purposes, are thefe lowly abject themes to be difcarded? Why the whole inventory of Patrician pleasures is called over; and he hath his choice of which foever of them fuits best with his lordship's improved palate. A long train of fervants ready at his beck: mufic, fuch as twenty caged nightingales do fing: couches, fofter and fweeter than the lufiful bed of Semiramis burning odours, and diftilled waters: floors beftrewed with carpets the diverfions of hawks, bounds, and borfes in fhort, all the ob jects of exquifite indulgence are prefented to him. "But among thefe, one fpecies of refined enjoyment, which requires a tafte, above the coarse breeding of abject commonalty, is chiefly infifted on. We had a hint, of what we were to expect, before: "Carry him gently to my faireft chamber, And hang it round with all my wanton pictures. fc. ii. And what lord, in the luxury, of his wifhes, could feign to him felf a more delicious collection, than is here delineated? 2 Man. Doft thou love pictures? We will fetch thee ftraight "Adonis painted by a running brook; "And Citherea all in fedges bid; "Which feem to move and wanton with her breath, "Lord. We will fhew thee Io, as he was a maid, "And how he was beguiled and furprized, "3 Man. Or Daphne, roaming through a thorny wood, "Scratching her legs, that one fhall fwear, he bleeds, "So workmanly the blood and tears are drawn.” To apprehend it thoroughly, it may not be amifs to recollect what the fenfible Bruyere obferves on a like occasion. "Un Grand aime le Champagne, abhorre la Brie; il s'enyvre de meillieure vin, que l'homme de peuple: feule difference, que la crapule laiffe entre "les conditions les plus difproportionees, entre le Seigneur, & l'Efaffier." [Tom. ii. p. 12.] Thef Thefe pictures, it will be owned, are, all of them, well chosen But the fervants were not fo deep in the fecret, as their master. They dwell entirely on circumftantials. While his lordship, who had, probably, been trained in the chaft Ichool of Titian, is for coming to the point more directly. There is a fine ridicule implied in this. "After thefe incentives of picture, the charms of beauty itself are prefented, as the crowning privilege of his high ftation: "Thou haft a lady far more beautiful "Than any woman in this waining age. Here indeed the poet plainly forgets himself. The fate, if not the enjoyment, of nobility, furely demanded a mifires, instead of a wife. All that can be faid in excufe of this indecorum, is, that he perhaps conceived, a fimple beggar, all unused to the refinements of high life, would be too much fhocked, at fetting out, with a propofal, fo remote from all his former practices. Be it, as it will, beauty even in a wife, had fuch an effect on this meck Lord, that, quite melted and overcome by it, he yields himfelf at laft to the inchanting deception. "I fee, I hear, Ifpeak, "I fmell fweet favours, and 1 feel foft things; The fatyr is fo ftrongly marked in this last line, that one can no longer doubt of the writer's intention. If any should, let me further remind him that the poet, in this fiction, but makes his Lord play the fame game, in jef, as the Sicilian tyrant acted,. long ago very seriously. The two cafes are fo fimilar, that fome readers may, perhaps, fufpect the poet of having taken the whole conceit from Tully. His defcription of this inftructive scenery is given in the following words: Vifne (inquit Dionyfius) ô Damocle, quoniam te haec vita "delectat, ipfe eandem deguftare & fortunam experiri meam? "Cum fe ille cupere dixiffet, conlocari juffit hominem in aureoledo, "ftrato pulcherrimo, textili firagulo magnificis operibus picto: aba"eofque complures ornavit argento auroque caelato: hinc ad menfam eximia forma pueros delectos juffit confiftere, eofque nutum *Sir Epicure Mammon, indeed, would have thought this an infipid collection; for he would have his rooms. "Fill'd with fuch pictures, as Tiberius took "From Elephantis, and dull Aretine "But coldly imitated." Alchemift, Act ii. fc. 2. But then Sir Epicure was one of the Afoti, before mentioned. In general, the fatiric intention of the poet in this collection of the pictures may be further gathered from a fimilar ftroke in Randolph's Mufe`s Looking-Glafs, where to characterize the voluptuous, he makes him fay I would delight my fight "With pictures of Diana and her nymphe |
