Illustrations of Shakspeare, and of Ancient Manners: / with Dissertations on the Clowns and Fools of Shakspeare; on a Collection of Popular Tales Entitled Gesta Romanorum; and on the English Morris dance.

by Francis Douce

ACT II.

Scene 2. Page 201.

Jul. Keep this remembrance for thy Julia's sake.
[giving a ring.

Pro. Why then we'll make exchange; here, take you this.

Jul. And seal the bargain with a holy kiss.

This was the mode of plighting troth between lovers in private. It was sometimes done in the church with great solemnity, and the service on this occasion is preserved in some of the old rituals. To the latter ceremony the priest alludes in Twelfth night, Act V. Scene 1.

"A contract of eternal bond of love
Confirm'd by mutual joinder of your hands,
Attested by the holy close of lips,
Strengthen'd by interchangement of your rings, &c."

Scene 4. Page 210.

Sil. That you are welcome?

Pro. ... No; that you are worthless.

Dr. Johnson has here inserted the particle no, "to fill up the measure;" but the measure is not defective though the harmony is. Mr. Steevens, disputing the suggestion of a brother critic, that worthless might have been designed as a trisyllable, asks whether worthless in the preceding speech of Sylvia is a trisyllable? Certainly not; but he should have remembered the want of uniformity of metre in many words among the poets of this period. Thus in p. [223], lines 8 and 9, the word fire is alternately used as a monosyllable and dissyllable; and where the quantity is complete, as in the present instance, the harmony is often left to shift for itself.