IV.ii (392,2) [_Enter Dull, Holofernes, and Sir Nathaniel_] I am not of the learned commentator's [Wurburton] opinion, that the satire of Shakespeare is so seldom personal. It is of the nature of personal invectives to be soon unintelligible; and the authour that gratifies private malice, _aniuam in vulnere ponit_, destroys the future efficacy of his own writings, and sacrifices the esteem of succeeding times to the laughter of a day. It is no wonder, therefore, that the sarcasms, which, perhaps, in the authour's time, _set the_ playhouse _in a roar_, are now lost among general reflections. Yet whether the character of Holofernes was pointed at any particular man, I am, notwithstanding the plausibility of Dr. Warburton's conjecture, inclined to doubt. Every man adheres as long as he can to his own pre-conceptions. Before I read this note I considered the character of Holofernes as borrowed from the Rhombus of sir Philip Sidney, who, in a kind of pastoral entertainment, exhibited to queen Elizabeth, has introduced a school-master so called, speaking _a leash of languages at once_, and puzzling himself and his auditors with a jargon like that of Holofernes in the present play. Sidney himself might bring the character from Italy; for, as Peacham observes, the school-master has long been one of the ridiculous personages in the farces of that country. IV.ii.29 (395,4) [And such barren plants are set before us, that we thankful should be, Which we taste and feeling are for those parts that do fructify in us, more than he] Sir T. Hammer reads thus, _And such barren plants are set before us, that we thankful should be, For those parts which we taste and feel do fructify in us more than he._ And Mr. Edwards, in his animadversions on Dr. Warburton's notes, applauds the emendation. I think both the editors mistaken, except that sir T. Hammer found the metre, though he missed the sense. I read, with a slight change, _And such barren plants are set before us, that we thankful should be_, When _we taste and feeling are for those parts that do fructify in us more than he_. That is, _such barren plants_ are exhibited in the creation, to make us _thankful when we have more taste and feeling than he, of those parts_ or qualities _which_ produce fruit _in us_, and preserve as from being likewise _barren plants_. Such is the sense, just in itself and pious, but a little clouded by the diction of sir Nathaniel. The length of these lines was no novelty on the English stage. The moralities afford scenes of the like measure. (1773) IV.ii.32 (396,5) [For as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet, or a fool; So were there a patch set on learning, to see him in a school] The meaning is, to be in a school would as ill become a _patch_, or low fellow, as folly would become me.