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With that malignant cause wherein the honour
Of my dear father's gift stands chief in power,*
I come to tender it, and my appliance,
With all bound humbleness.

King.

We thank you, maiden;

But may not be so credulous of cure,-
When our most learned doctors leave us; and
The congregated college have concluded

That labouring art can never ransome nature
From her inaidable estate,-I say we must not
So stain our judgment, or corrupt our hope,
To prostitute our past-cure malady

To empiricks; or to dissever so

Our great self and our credit, to esteem

A senseless help, when help past sense we deem.
Hel. My duty then shall pay me for my pains:
I will no more enforce mine office on you;
Humbly entreating from your royal thoughts
A modest one, to bear me back again.

King. I cannot give thee less, to be call'd grateful:
Thou thought'st to help me; and such thanks I give,
As one near death to those that wish him live:
But, what at full I know, thou know'st no part;

I knowing all my peril, thou no art.

Hel. What I can do, can do no hurt to try,
Since you set up your rest 'gainst remedy:
He that of greatest works is finisher,
Oft does them by the weakest minister:
So holy writ in babes hath judgment shown,

When judges have been babes. Great floods have flown

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Of my dear father's gift stands chief in power,] Perhaps we may better read:

wherein the power

Of my dear father's gift stands chief in honour. Johnson. 5 So holy writ in babes hath judgment shown,

When judges have been babes.] The allusion is to St. Matthew's Gospel, xi, 25: "O father, lord of heaven and earth. I thank thee, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them unto babes." See also 1 Cor. i, 27: "But GoD hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world, to confound the things which are mighty." Malone.

From simple sources; and great seas have dried,
When miracles have by the greatest been denied."
Oft expectation fails, and most oft there
Where most it promises; and oft it hits,
Where hope is coldest, and despair most sits.7

King. I must not hear thee; fare thee well, kind maid; Thy pains, not us'd, must by thyself be paid: Proffers, not took, reap thanks for their reward. Hel. Inspired merit so by breath is barr'd:

It is not so with him that all things knows,

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As 'tis with us that square our guess by shows:
But most it is presumption in us, when

The help of heaven we count the act of men.
Dear sir, to my endeavours give consent;
Of heaven, not me, make an experiment.
I am not an impostor, that proclaim
Myself against the level of mine aim;8

• When miracles have by the greatest been denied.] I do not see the import or connexion of this line. As the next line stands without a correspondent rhyme, I suspect that something has been lost. Johnson.

I point the passage thus; and then I see no reason to complain of want of connexion:

When judges have been babes. Great floods, &c.

When miracles have by the greatest been denied.

Shakspeare after alluding to the production of water from a rock, and the drying up of the Red Sea, says, that miracles had been denied by the GREATEST; or, in other words, that the ELDERS of ISRAEL (who just before, in reference to another text, were styled judges) had, notwithstanding these miracles, wrought for their own preservation, refused that compliance they ought to have yielded. See the Book of Exodus, particularly ch. xvii, 5, 6, &c. Henley.

So holy writ, &c. alludes to Daniel's judging, when, "a young youth," the two Elders in the story of Susannah. Great floods, i. e. when Moses smote the rock in Horeb, Exod. xvii.

great seas have dried

When miracles have by the greatest been denied.

Dr. Johnson did not see the import or connexion of this line. It certainly refers to the children of Israel passing the Red Sea, when miracles had been denied, or not hearkened to, by Pharaoh. H White. 7 — and despair most sits.] The old copy reads-shifts. The correction was made by Mr. Pope. Malone.

8 M self against the level of mine aim;] i. e. pretend to greater things than befits the mediocrity of my condition. Warburton.

But know I think, and think I know most sure,
My art is not past power, nor you past cure.
King. Art thou so confident? Within what space
Hop'st thou my cure?

Hel.

The greatest grace lending grace,

Ere twice the horses of the sun shall bring
Their fiery torcher his diurnal ring;

Ere twice in murk and occidental damp

Moist Hesperus hath quench'd his sleepy lamp;1
Or four and twenty times the pilot's glass
Hath told the thievish minutes how they pass;
What is infirm from your sound parts shall fly,
Health shall live free, and sickness freely die.
King. Upon thy certainty and confidence,
What dar'st thou venture?

Hel.

Tax of impudence,

A strumpet's boldness, a divulged shame,
Traduc'd by odious ballads; my maiden's name
Sear'd otherwise; no worse of worst extended,
With vilest torture let my life be ended.2

I rather think that she means to say,-I am not an impostor that proclaim one thing and design another, that proclaim a cure and aim at a fraud; I think what I speak. Johnson.

9 The greatest grace lending grace,] I should have thought the repetition of grace to have been superfluous, if the grace of grace had not occurred in the speech with which the tragedy of Macbeth concludes. Steevens.

The former grace in this passage, and the latter in Macbeth, evidently signify divine grace. Henley.

1 - his sleepy lamp;] Old copy-her sleepy lamp. Corrected by Mr. Rowe. Malone.

2

a divulged shame,—

Traduc'd by odious ballads; my maiden's name
Sear'd otherwise; no worse of worst extended,

With vilest torture let my life be ended ] I would bear (says she) the tax of impudence, which is the denotement of a strumpet; would endure a shame resulting from my failure in what I have undertaken, and thence become the subject of odious ballads; let my maiden repu tation be otherwise branded; and, no worse of worst extended, i. e. provided nothing worse is offered to me, (meaning violation) let my life be ended with the worst of tortures. The poet, for the sake of rhyme, has obscured the sense of the passage. The worst that can befal a woman, being extended to me, seems to be the meaning of the last line. Steevens.

3

King. Methinks, in thee some blessed spirit doth speak;
His powerful sound, within an organ weak:
And what impossibility would slay

In common sense, sense saves another way.
Thy life is dear; for all, that life can rate
Worth name of life, in thee hath estimate ;5

Tax of impudence, that is, to be charged with having the boldness of a strumpet:-a divulged shame; i. e. to be traduced by odious ballads: my maiden's name seared otherwise; i. e. to be stigmatized as a prostitute:-no worse of worst extended; i. e. to be so defamed that nothing severer can be said against those who are most publickly reported to be infamous. Shakspeare has used the word sear and extended in The Winter's Tale, both in the same sense as above:

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And "The report of her is extended more than can be thought." Henley.

The old copy reads, not no, but ne, probably an error for nay, or the. I would wish to read and point the latter part of the passage thus:

my maiden's name

Sear'd otherwise; nay, worst of worst, extended
With vilest torture, let my life be ended.

i. e. Let me be otherwise branded; and (what is the worst of worst the consummation of misery) my body being extended on the rack by the most cruel torture, let my life pay the forfeit of my presumption.

So, in Daniel's Cleopatra, 1594

66

the worst of worst of ills."

No was introduced by the editor of the second folio.
Again, in The Remedie of Love, 4to. 1600:

"If she be fat, then she is swollen, say,

"If browne, then tawny as the Africk Moore;
"If slender, leane, meagre and worne away,

“If courtly, wanton, worst of worst before." Malone.

3 Methinks, in thee some blessed spirit doth speak;

His powerful sound, within an organ weak:] The verb, doth speak, in the first line, should be understood to be repeated in the construction of the second, thus:

His powerful sound speaks within a weak organ. Heath. This, in my opinion, is a very just and happy explanation.

4 And what impossibility would slay

Steevens.

In common sense, sense saves another way.] i. e. and that which, if I trusted to my reason, I should think impossible, I yet, perceiving thee to be actuated by some blessed spirit, think thee. capable of effecting. Malone.

Youth, beauty, wisdom, courage, virtue, all:*
That happiness and prime can happy call:
Thou this to hazard, needs must intimate
Skill infinite, or monstrous desperate.
Sweet practiser, thy physick I will try;
That ministers thine own death, if I die.
Hel. If I break time, or flinch in property 8

Of what I spoke, unpitied let me die;

And well deserv'd: Not helping, death 's my fee;
But, if I help, what do you promise me?

King. Make thy demand.

Hel.

But will you make it even? King. Ay, by my sceptre, and my hopes of heaven.o

5 in thee hath estimate;] May be counted among the gifts enjoyed by thee. Johnson.

Youth, beauty, wisdom, courage, virtue, all-] The old copy omits virtue. It was supplied by Dr. Warburton, to remedy a defect in the measure. Steevens.

7 prime-] Youth; the spring or morning of life. Johnson. Should we not read-pride? Dr. Johnson explains prime to mean youth; and indeed I do not see any other plausible interpretation that can be given of it.

But how does that suit with the context?" You have all that is worth the name of life; youth, beauty, &c. all, That happiness and youth can happy call."-Happiness and pride may signify, I think, the pride of happiness; the proudest state of happiness. So, in The Second Part of Henry IV, Act III, sc. i, the voice and echo, is put for the voice of echo, or, the echoing voice. Terwhitt.

I think, with Dr. Johnson, that prime is here used as a substantive, but that it means, that sprightly vigour which usually accompanies us in the prime of life. So, in Montaigne's Essaies, translated by Florio, 1603, B. II, ch. 6: "Many things seeme greater by imagination, than by effect. I have passed over a good part of my age in sound and perfect health. I say, not only sound, but blithe and wantonly-lustful. That state, full of lust, of prime and mirth, made me deeme the consideration of sicknesses so yrksome, that when I came to the experience of them, I have found their fits but weak." Malone.

8

in property-] In property seems to be here used, with much laxity, for-in the due performance. In a subsequent passage it seems to mean either a thing possessed, or a subject discrimi nated by peculiar qualities:

"The property by what it is should go,
"Not by the title." Malone.

9 Ay, by my sceptre, and my hopes of heaven.] The old copy

reads:

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