Dull.
Holofernes.
Satis quod sufficit.
Nath.
7 note
I praise God for you, Sir, your reasons at
dinner have been sharp and sententious; pleasant without
scurrility, witty without affectation, audacious without
impudency, learned without opinion, and strange
without heresy. I did converse this quondam-day with a
companion of the King's, who is entitled, nominated,
or called, Don Adriano d' Armado.
Hol.
Novi hominem, tanquam te. His humour is
lofty, his discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his
eye ambitious, his gait majestical, and his general behaviour
vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical. 8 note
He is too
piqued, too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it were;
too peregrinate, as I may call it,
-- 182 --
Nath.
A most singular and choice epithet.
[Draws out his table book.
Hol.
He draweth out the thread of his verbosity
finer than the staple of his argument. I abhor such
phanatical phantasms, such insociable and point-devise
companions; such rackers of orthography, as to speak
dout fine, when he should say doubt; det, when he
should pronounce debt; d, e, b, t; not, d, e, t: he
clepeth a calf, cauf: half, hauf: neighbour vocatur
nebour; neigh abbreviated ne: this is abominable,9 note
which we would call abhominable: 1 note
it insinuateth me
-- 183 --
of Insanity: (Ne intelligis, Domine.) to make frantick,
lunatick?
Nath.
Laus Deo, bone, intelligo.
Hol.
Bone?—bone, for benè; Priscian a little
scratch'd; 'twill serve.
Samuel Johnson [1765], The plays of William Shakespeare, in eight volumes, with the corrections and illustrations of Various Commentators; To which are added notes by Sam. Johnson (Printed for J. and R. Tonson [and] C. Corbet [etc.], London) [word count] [S11001].
