he suggestive cue:--
"For I will home again unto my father's house.
"_Ferando_. I, when y'are meeke and gentle, but not before."--p. 194.
Petruchio, having dispatched the tailor and haberbasher, proceeds--
"Well, come my Kate: we will unto your father's,
Even in these honest mean habiliments;
Our purses shall be proud, our garments poor;"--p. 198.
throughout continuing to urge the vanity of outward appearance, in
reference to the "ruffs and cuffs, and farthingales and things,"
which he had promised her, and with which the phrase "honest mean
habiliments" is used in contrast. The sufficiency _to the mind_ of
these,
"For 'tis the mind that makes the body rich,"
is the very pith and purpose of the speech. Commencing in nearly the
same words, the imitator entirely mistakes this, in stating the object
of clothing to be to "shrowd us from the winter's rage;" which is,
nevertheless, true enough, though completely beside the purpose. In
Act II. Sc. 1., Petruchio says,-- {347}
"Say that she frown; I'll say she looks as clear
As morning roses newly wash'd with dew."
Here is perfect consistency: the clearness of the "morning _roses_,"
arising from their being "wash'd with dew;" at all events, the quality
being heightened by the circumstance. In a passage of the so-called
"older" play, the duke is addressed by Kate as "fair, lovely lady,"
&c.
"As glorious as the morning wash'd with dew."--p. 203
As the morning does not derive its glory from the circumstance of
its being "wash'd with dew," and as it is not a peculiarly apposite
comparison, I conclude that here, too, as in other instances, the
sound alone has caught the ear of the imitator.
In Act V. Sc. 2., Katharine says,--
"Then vail your stomachs; for it is no boot;
And place your hand below your husband's foot;
In token of which duty, if he please,
My hand is ready: may it do him ease."
Though Shakspeare was, in general, a most correct and careful writer,
that he sometimes wrote hastily it would be vain to deny. In the third
line of the foregoing extract, the meaning clearly is, "as which
token of duty;" and it is the performance of this "token of duty"
which Katharine hopes may "do him ease." The imitator, as usual, has
caught something of the words of the original which he has laboured
to reproduce at a most unusual sacrifice of grammar and sense; the
following passage appearing to represent that the wives, by laying
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