Helen, after reflecting on Bertram, the object of her love, who had immediately before takenhis leave to fet out for the court, on feeing Parolles, by her obfervations on him, prepares the reader for fome notable entertainment which is to enfue. Her tenderness in difcuffing of his vices is a strong, though delicate, confeffion of her love to Bertram :

HELEN.

I love him for his fake;

And yet I know him a notorious liar,

Think him a great way fool, folely a coward:
Yet thefe fix'd evils fit fo fit on him,

That they take place when virtue's fteely brows
Look bleak to the cold wind.

There is fuch a relative charm, in that which in any manner appertains to the perfon we love, let it be never fo infignificant and worthless, that we are fure to be pleased with it, because it calls to mind the object of our affections. Helen's remark, that the flight and worthlefs, provided they have talents to excite gaiety and cheerfulness,

theerfulness, are often preferred to the meritorious, but lefs pliable in temper, is equally juft; and of this many instances can be produced.

Lully, the famous French musician, was a debauched fellow and a voluptuary; his company was notwithstanding the delight of all parties, of the witty and the gay, the grave and the learned. He excelled in mimicry and the art of inventing and telling little ftories. He was not over nice in the selection of his terms, but indulged a licentious humour to the height. The fevere Boileau, who was not fo much fought after and invited as Lully, wondered at the distinction bestowed upon that obfcene buffoon, as he called him; and would often chide Moliere for his tafte in admiring his talent of exciting mirth, for Moliere was as filent in Lully's company as Garrick used to be in Foote's. He was always inviting him to indulge his talent: Lully, fais nous rire,' • Make us laugh,'

was the constant address of the great dra

matic writer to the merry musician. But this happy talent of pleafing, in a man of merit, and not abfolutely abandoned, may be reconciled to conveniency, if not approved by reafon. But Parolles was marked with so many vices, that we can hardly juftify the countenance given him by his fu periors. But there is, in fome men, an uncommon power of fubduing the minds of others, fo that, in spite of a thousand reasons against it, you are fo bewitched as not to difcern their vices, though ever fo grofs, through the inchanted veil which they throw over them.

Dr. Swift was, of all men, if we may believe himself, the most cautious in the felection of his friends and companions. Earl Rivers, the father of the unfortunate Savage, was, in Swift's opinion, the most profligate and abandoned of men: and yet he was so inchanted by his irresistible power of pleasing in conversation,* that he

could

* Amongst other allurements, Homer gives Juno, to charm Jupiter, is the attraction of perfuafive converfation. Παρφασις, η τ' εκλεψε νοον πυκα περ φρονεοντων.

ILIAD. Lib. XIV.

could not help declaring, that he loved

the dog dearly.'

The fame fcene continued.

HELE N.

With a world

Of fond adoptious Christendoms.

The word Christendom is no where used in this fenfe by Shakspeare, I believe, except by Prince Arthur, in King John, act iv. scene 1 :

By my Christendom,

So I were out of prifon, and kept sheep,
I fhould be as merry as the day is long.
Swearing by Christendom is fwearing by

all that is dear.

HELE N.

But the compofition, that your valour and fear make in you, is the virtue of a good wing. I like it well.

Dr. Warburton produces abundance of argument to support his emendations of the text. He would fubftitute ming for wing, a word common, he fays, in Shakspeare and the writers of the age: - but where, pray? Dr. Johnson rejects his

ming, but cannot preferve the original word, wing, without allowing it to be a metaphor taken from hawking; and this Mr. Steevens, I think, very substantially proves. Helen's meaning, then, may be thus plainly deduced : "The agreement, which is fettled between your valour, which is paffive, and your fear, which is active, will carry you through all dangers; and you will foar, with a well-poised wing, very fafely."

HELEN.

The mightiest space in fortune nature brings
To join like likes, and kiss like native things.
Impoffible be strange attempts to those

That weigh their pain with sense, and do fuppose
What hath been cannot be.

I agree with Dr. Johnson, that these lines are not without obscurity; but our great poet's conceptions were fo quick, that he very often did not allow himself time to give them proper clothing. In this paffage, Shakspeare gives only the feelings of the character. "There is

(fays