COMMENTS ON THE COMMENTATORS ON SHAKESPEAR, COMMENTS ON THE COMMENTATORS ON \VITH PRELIiMINARY OBSERVATIONS ON HIS GENIUS AND WRITINGS; AKD ON THE LABdRS OF THOSE WHO HAVE ENDEA- VOURED TO ELUCIDATE THEM, By henry JAMES PYE. 'Ow Ob>ih hiuv w (p'lKoi /xh STS^oi TaTwv, T^ayov a-ixSKyiiv , o Je- ainZ HQUHivov v7ioTi9Evai. — Lucian Demon. One meets now and then with persons who are extremely learned and knotty in expounding clear cases.— Spec. No. 138. Hontion : PRINTED FOR TIPPER AND RICHARDS, LEAD"ENHALI,-STREET. Sy f. p. Dewick, Aldersg:ite-«rrett. IW7 THE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA TO JOHN PENN, ESQ.. OF STOKE FAMK. THIS LITTLE WORK AS A TOKEN OF RESPECT, FRIENDSHIP, AND GRATITUDE, SY HIS SINCERE AND FAITHFUL HUMBLE SERVANT, HENRY JAMES PYE. iluten-squure, Westminster, May 4, J 8 07. These Observations are made from the Edition of Mr. Nichols, in Eight Volumes, thick 12mo. 1797 ; and which professes to be a frugal Selection from the Labors of all the Commentatoril. SHORT OBSERVATIONS ON THE GENIUS AND WRITINGS OF SHAKESPEAR 5 AND THE tABORS OF HIS COMMENTATORS. After so much that has been written on this subject in the prolegomena to the various editions of Shakespear, and after the two luminous Essays of Mrs. Montague and Mr. Morgan, it is difficult to say any thing new upon the subject. I shall therefore only throw together a few thoughts on it that have occurred to me during my perusal of those works, which, through the course of my life, has been a favourite amusement in my hours of leisure. Those who consider Shakespear only as a dra- matic writer, will form ^ very incompetent idea of his merit; for he possesses every species of poetical excellence in a very great degree. Of the contrivance of the fable, and the arrangement of the incidents, which Aristotle calls the soul of the drama, he was very careless, as well as of the unities considered as essential to probability, which are very different from the unities hinted at by Aristotle, and so rigidly adhered to by the French critics. I see no breach of probability in the long period that elapses between the third and fourth Act in The Winter's Tale, any more than there would have been on the Athenian stage, where several tragedies were performed in succession, if the Iphiginia in Taurus had been acted immediately after the Iphigenia in Aulis. The real breach of the unity of time, (with which the unity of place is much connected) is, when the precise time of action is marked, and events are made to take place in that time which could not possibly happen. Of this error the play of Lear aifords a striking example. In the second Act, Lear comes in with his train to Regan, at Gloees- ter's castle, after having been recently affronted by Goneril. From the circumstance of the storm continuing, it is obvious that the interval between the second and third Acts does not com- prehend a period of time much exceeding that which really passes, and yet, in this time, we are told' that there *' is a power already footed to revenge the injuries the king now bears ;" and Cornwall says, " the French are now landed.'' The same distinction applies to the unity of place. The creative fancy of the poet, without essen- tially violating poetical probability, may place bis hero on a magic courser, that can * Put a girdle round about the earth Jn forty minutes.* But he must not make an army of men march from Edinburgh to London in one night. Without having recourse to Shakespear or the Arabian Tales, Euripides will furnish a strong instance of the breach of both these natural uni- ties. In the Suppliants, on which Chaucer's Pa- lemon and Arcite is founded, Thesius marches from Athens to Thebes, gains a complete victory, snd a messenger returns with an account of the xn battle, during a short dialogue between his mother, ^thra, and the Chorus. Shakespear introduces Time as a Chorus, to apologize for his breach of unity in the Winter's Tale ; but the Chorus in the Greek tragedy is a perpetual accuser, and never an apologist; for, consisting of persons who take an active part in the drama, their continual presence shews that no more than the actual time of the performance of the ode passes during the interval ; and there- fore the liberty taken by the Greek dramatic poets, and allowed by Aristotle, of letting the drama exceed a little one revolution of the sun, is too much, and offends against the natural unity just mentioned. In regard to the pathos, also, Shakespear is greatly inferior to many dramatic poets. In the terrific and sublime he is uaequalled, but he does not possess the power of Otway, and many infe- rior poets, in exciting pity. He is pre-eminent in '' unlocking the. gates of horror and thrilling fears," but not so " in opening the sacred source of sym- pathetic tears ;'' excepting, however, the part of XIU Constance, in King John, which, when aided by the voice and action of Mrs. Siddons, is almost too much for the feehngs. Considering Shakespear as a general poet, we may say that he highly possesses all the sublimity, the variet}^ the accurate description, and the scenery independent of representation, of the epopee, both serious and comic united, for we need not say the comic epopee was lost with the ]VIargites of Homer, while we possess the Tom Jones of Fielding. Shakespear, also excels hi that knowledcre of the human character and human heart which forms the complete ethic poet, and that boldness of conception and facility of transition, abrupt but not unintelligible, which is the greatest excellence of the lyric poet. That Shakespear sometimes swells his sublime to the bombast, and sometimes sinks his humour to buffoonery, cannot be denied ; but far-fetohed allusions to contemporary events, and hidden personal satire, which many of his commentators are very anxious to find, are very rarely indeed to be found in his writings. 1 The chief faults of his commentators, besides this, arise from a desire to say every thing they can say, not only on the passage commented on, but on every thing that has been said in the com- ment, as well as from a too great display of black- letter reading. That such a reading is as necessary to the investigation of certain passages in Shake- spear, as dung is necessary to produce ferti- lity, or scaffolding to erect a building; but when the business is accomplished, who would make an ostentatious display of either ? Other inferior faults are, imputing expressions to the age of Shakespear, which are at present in common use ; or to this or that particular county, when they are in common use throughout the kingdom. The latest commentator, Mr. Seymour, is very anxious to correct the grammar of Shakespear, and to reform his obsolete language. I was sur- prised to find, in the edition before me, the sub- stitution of akes for aches, making the blank verse halt for it. This may be expected from news- paper and gallery critics ; but an editor of Shake- spear should adhere to the rule laid down by Dr, XV Johnson — " It is sufficient that the words are Shakspear's. if phraseology is to be changed as words grow uncouth by disuse, or coarse by vul- garity, the history of every language will be lost; we shall no longer have the words of any author ; and, as these alterations will be often unskilfully made, we shall, in time, have little of hi?* meaning." The word aches occurs as a dissyllable in a much later poet: Swift, the most accurate writer of his day, has this line in his City Shower: ' Old aches ihrob^ your hollow tooth will rage.' For so the line stands in every edition down to the Dublin one 1762, and consequently in those published during the author's life ; but the re- former has since laid his fingers on it, and in the modern editions it stands — ' Old alces will throb,' &c. I trust no critic hving will be offended with the freedom with which I have treated his opinions : where such persons as Dr. Johnson, Mr.Warton, Mr. Steevens, and Sir William Blackstone, have failed, it is not disgrace for any man to fail. XVI As 1 did not wish to swell the work to an un- reasonable size, I have not gone through the whole variorum edition, but have made my ob- servations from the selection of the notes in the edition of Mr. Nichols. OBSERVATIONS ON SOME OF THE CRITICISMS ON SHAKESPEAR. TEMPEST. ACT L SCENE II. Full poor celLI i. e. " A CELL in a great degree of poverty.^' — Steevens. Surely it was not worth a note to tell us thatjTw//, is frdl of ten- iimes used for very. So dry was he for sxoaij?^ i.e. " So thirsty. The expression, 1 am told, is not uncommon in the midland counties." — Steevens. Good hea- vens ! Is not dr%j^ in all parts of England, and by all ranks of people, used ia this sense, at least, as 2 TEMPEST. often as thirsty? I will venture to assert very often by the critic himself. A hint.'] " Hint is suggestion/' — Steevens. Another wonderful discovery. Hace.'] " Race, and raciness in wine, signifies (signify) a kind of tartness.'^ — Blackstone. The contrary is the case, they signify a taste of the native richness of the grape. Curtsied zvheu theij have and kissed^ " As was anciently done at the beginning of some dances." — Steevens. I wonder the commentator missed so fair an opportunity of giving a learned dessertation on the cushion dance. ACT II. SCENE 11. / will not take too much for him.] " Too much means any sum ; ever so much." — Steevens. " I think the meaning is, let me take what sum I will, however great, I shall not take too much for him ; it is impossible for me to sell him too dear." — Ma lone. These profound critics are always digging to the centre for what lies on TEMPEST, S the surface. There is no figure of speech more common among such persons as Stephauo, than the expression of strong determination by seeming denial. As, to be sure, I shall not get drunk to- day. In this sense, the phrase is obviously used here^ ACT III. SCENE I. Ferdinand- — Metre's my hand. Miranda. — And mine imtli my heart in it.'] " It is still customary in the west of England, when the conditions of a bargain are agreed upon, for the parties to ratify it by joining their hands, and at the same time for the purchaser to give an earnest. To this practice the poet alludes/^ — - Henley. Though it must be obvious to every reader of common sense, that the poet had no such allusion in his head, but only used the very common expression of giving hand and heart together, we are nevertheless obliged to the learned critic, for informing us, that it was once customary to bind a bargain by shaking hands and giving earnest. And that this obsolete custom is B 2 4f TEMPEST. mirabile dictu / Still to be found in the west of England. ACT IV. SCENE I. Bosh) acres ?^ " Bosky acres are fields divided ,from each other by hedge-rows." — Steevens. Bosky acres are shrubby acres. Mr. Steevens does not seem to understand what hedge-row means ; a narrow thicket dividing two fields which he supposes it to be, is in some counties called a rozV) in others a spinni/, and in others a share;. A hedge-row is a line of forest trees in a hedge. Sd Milton uses it, hedge-row elms; and so it is called all over England, Sharp furzes^ prick li) goss^ " I know not how Shakespear distinguishes goss from furze, for what he calls furze, is called gorze or goss in the- midland counties." — Steevens. Miller givesy^r^e, whin^ and gorse, as names for the genista spinosa. But furze is, I conceive, the proper name, and the other two provincial terms, ;just as a wheat stubble is called in Hampshire a TEMPEST, 5 wheat ash. In Berkshire, where, though the pro- nunciation is broad, there are few provincial names of things, it is always called furze, and the nam^ of goss or gorse is given to the anonis, called by Miller, cammock, petty whin, or rest harrow. ACT V. SCENE I. Yes ^ for a score of kingdoms you shot^cl wrangle. And I would call it fair.] " I take the sense to be only this. Ferdinand would not, he says, play her false for the world. Yes, answers she, I would allow you to do it for something less than the world, for twenty kingdoms ; and I wish you well enough to allow you after a little wrangle, that your play was fair. So likewise Dr. Grey." — Johnson. This explanation would be just, if it had ended with the word king- doms. I conceive Shakespear, who was no nice weigher of words, meant wrangling to be equivalent with playing false or with unfair advantage. So in -Henry V. the king in allu- 6 TEMPEST. sion to the tennis-balls, directs the ambassadors to tell the dauphin He hath made a match with such a wrangler^ That all the courts of France shall be disturb'd With chases. TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. ACT L SCENE IL I see you have a month^s mind to them.^ This expression is a fine topic for the critics, who tak^ occasion to shew their learning, by describing it as a funeral ceremony of our ancestors. Such a ceremony, however, can have no reference to the phrase, as it is employed here, and which is still in use to express the having a great desire for ^ thing. ACT L SCENE III. IVJdcJi would be a great impeachment to /its age.^ " Impeachment, Mr. M. Mason very justly observes, signifies reproach or imputation.'^ — Steevens. It is very lucky that this common usage of the word i? confirmed by two critics. S TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. ACT Ii: SCENE I. Servant.'] '' Here Sylvia calls her lover servant, and again her gentle servant. This was the com- mon language of ladies to their lovers, at the time when Shakespear wrote." — Sir J. Hawkins. In the noble gentleman of Beaumont and Fletcher, the lady's gallant has no other name in the Dra- matis Personae than servant. Mistress and servant are always used for lovers in Dryden's plays, and I believe later ; the former word now is only in use, and in a very different sense. ACT n. SCENE IV. ' Tis but her picture I have yet beheld.] " This is evidently a slip of attention, for he has seen her in the last scene, and in high terms offered her his service." — Johnson. " / believe Porte us means that as yet he has only seen her outward form, without having known her long enough to have any acquaintance with her mind."— Sieevens, TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. 9 Dele / believe^ and the last note is unexcep- tionable. ACT III. SCENE L For long ugone I have forgot to court : Beside, the fashion of the time is changed^} <' The modes of courtship, the acts by which men recommended themselves to the ladies.^' — Johnson. What a wonderful elucidation of a difficult passage ! Which is much in a bare Christian!] " Bare has two senses, 7ne}^e and naked," — Steevens. Another wonderful discovery. ACT IV. SCENE III. As zvhen thy ladij and thy true love died. Upon zohose grave thou vow'dst true chastitij.] The long note about widow's and widower's vows, and the citing Dugdale, may display Mr. Steevens's knowledge as an antiquary, but can have no relation to this passage, which obviously alludes to the loss of an honorable mistress, and not a wife. THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. ACT I. SCENE I. The luce is tJie fresh Jisli^ the saltjish is an old fish.~\ On this strange line, Messrs. Johnsonj Steevens, Toilet, Malone, and Farmer, have vvritf ten a great deal, without throwing the least light on it. She speaks small, like a xcoman^ " When female characters were filled by boys, to speak small like a woman must have been a valuable qualification." — Holt White. True, in an actor of female characters, but as Slender is speaking of Anne Page, and not of the boy who played the part, there is no name for the absur<:Uty of thi;^ note. Yet I live like a poor gentleman born.j " As great a fool as the poet has made Slender, it ap- THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 11 pears by his boasting of his wealth, his breeding, and his courage, that he knew how to win a woman ; this is a fine instance of Shakespear's knowledge of nature.'^ — Warburton. Is it a proof of Shakespear's knowledge of nature, to make a character, which he has drawn so near absolute idiotisin, as to be hardly a proper object of the drama, have a deep insight into the female disposition? Perhaps, the bishop undervalued a science in which he was no great adept himself. Shakespear, however, has made Slender act quite in character, by not saying a word but what must make him perfectly ridiculous to any woman, who was not as great a fool as himself. ACT I. SCENE IV. A little wee face ^ Messrs. Collins and Ritson think this word, which is familiar to every childj a fit subject for serious investigation. ACT II. SCENE I. You wot of^ " To wot, is to know— obso- lete." — ^^Steeyens. Another deep discovery. iS THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. My desires had instance and argument to recom-^ mend them.'] " Instance is example.^' — John- son. It seldom has any other nieaning, but this js I think an exception, it seems here to meaft perseverance, ACT II. SCENE III. My heart of elder.'] " It should be remem- bered, to make this joke relish, that the elder has no heart. I suppose this expression were made use of in opposition to the common one, heart of oak."— Steevens. The latter part of this note is just ; but where did the critic learn that any plants was distinguished, by having, or not having a heart ? Heart is used metaphorically for the middle of the wood, which in the oak is the most solid part of the timber, and in the elder only a soft pith. ACT III. SCENE L Tit tie zcard, or pithj icari/.] As there is no place of this name, or any thing like it at "Wind- THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 13 sor, I am afi-aid it will always remain inexplicable, but the bold alteration to city«Dard^ i. e. towards London, adopted in the text of this edition seems wrong, the scene being at Windsor ; had it been laid in Westminster, it would have been very plausible. City is never applied to London in. common discourse, as the metropolis in general, but only to the incorporated part of it, as distin- guished from Westminster and the suburbs. ACT in. SCENE IV. Cut and long fail.'] We have the various opi- nions of Steevens, Reed, Sir J. Hawkins, and Judge Blackstone, on this phrase. I wish they had taken this opportunity to give us a few re- marks on tag, rag, and bobtail. ACT IV. SCENE I. Hemes oak.] There have been different opi- nions about this tree. Some have supposed it to be a tree in the little park, nearly a mile from the castle, which was cut down a few years since, and 14 TUE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR; which was near an old saw-pit, in which the fictitious fairies might have concealed themselves. This is the tree, 1 conceive, mentioned by them in this note of Steevens. Act V. Scene III. " An oak, which may be that alluded to by Shakespear, is still standing close to a pit in Windsor forest* It is yet shewn as the oak of Heme." The tree which the keepers shew as Hemes oak, is also in the little park, not much more than a hundred yards from the castle ditch, and in the middle of a row of elms, obviously above a century its juniors; it is in a state of decay, and might well have been an old tree in the time of Shakespear. I do not affirm this is the tree, but the other could not be the tree; for in Act V. Scene II. Page proposes to couch in the castle ditch, till they see the light of the fairies; and that this was not far from the tree appears from their laying hold on FalstafF, as soon as he rises from .tlie ground. THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 1* ACT IV. SCENE V. Paid.] " To pay, in our author's time, signi- fied to beat, so in Henry IV. Part I. Seven of I he eleven I paid." — Malone. That pay often had, and still has, the signification of beat, is very true ; but the illustration is an unlucky one, as in the passage quoted it signifies to kill. Poins says, " Pray God you have not murdered some of them !" Falstaff answers : " Nay, that's past praying for, two I am sure I have pay'd, two rogues in buckram suits.'' Though on this very place, Malone says, i. e. ''• Drubbed, beaten." Whatever Falstaff means here, lie means in the passage cited, as he is only particularly describing the identical circumstance after multiplying two men in buckram out of four, to seven out of eleven. ACT V. SCENE V. Ignorance itself is a plummet o^er me^ Without citing any of the other idse notes, I shall only give 16 THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR* t the very sensible remark of the editor, Mr. Nichols. " Dr. Johnson's note renders this perfectly intel- ligible, all those which follow it serving only to shew how agreeably learned critics can blunder.'^ The concluding note, on the title of Sir Hugh ■Evans, begins with an assertion, that, " the question, whether priests were formerly knights in consequence of their being called Sir^ still re- mains to be decided." This, however, Mr. Douce has afterwards dicided in the negative, after citing a number of learned authorities. But he has omitted one from our poet himself, where they are mentioned in contradistinction to each other; for in Twelfth Night, Viola says, " I am one that had rather go with Sir Priest, than Sir Knight. '' Mr. Douce, with all his learning, seems to be ignorant that the bachelors (bas chevaliers) of arts in our universities (at least in Oxford), are all styled domini in the battery books, and there arc few clergymen who have not taken that, or a higher degree* TWELFTH NIGHT. ACT L SCENE a- Posf.^ " Post, in our author's time, signified a messenger." — Malone. I believe it does still. In Markland's Pleriplegia, one of the requisites of a good shooter is having a foot-post's legs. ACT II. SCENE I. An excellent breast."] i. e. in singing. The putting breast for breath being fully established by T. Warton, Steevens makes the following re- mark on it — '^ I suppose this cant term to have been current among the musicians t f the age. All professions have in some degree their jargon ; and the remoter they are from liberal science, and the less consequential to the real interests of life, . the more they strive to hide themselves behind affected terms and barbarous phraseology." — Of 18 TWELFTH NIGHT. this note I shall only say, that it only shews Mr. Steevens had the same regard for musicians as his fellow-commentator, Dr. Johnson. ACT II. SCENE III. Then come kiss me sweeet and twenty^ " This line is obscure ; we might read — " Come a kiss then sweet and twenty. " Yet I know not whether the present reading be not right ; for, in some countries, sweet and twenty^ whatever be the meaning, is a phrase of endear- ment. — Johnson. If there is any such provincial expression of endearment, it is obviously used here, but I doubt the fact ; as for colloquial ex- pressions, Dr. Johnson is no authorit>\ The meaning I think is sufficiently clear, considering Shakespear's carelessness of arrangement (which, indeed, was the error of the time) ^ without the proposed alteration, which, however, is a good paraphrase of it. The same kind -of expression occurs in the Merry Wives or Windsor, Act II. Scene 1. Good even^ and tiventij. TWELFTH NIGHT. ID Draw three souls out oj^ one tceaver^ That Warburton should suppose that Shakespearailuded to the peripatetic dogma of the plastic^ the animal^ and the natural sou\ does not surprise me'; it is exactly in VV^arburton's manner. But that Far- mer should add a note to confirm it ; and Malonc only doubt whether the author intended it, does surprise me. ACT ir. SCENE IV. And dallies imth the innocence of ijonth.^ " To dally is to play, to trifle." — Steevens. Was this explanation necessary ? Hut 'tis that miracle and fjueen of gems That nature pranks her in. ^ \Varburton, with his usual absurdity, would substitute mind ^ox in. Steevens says, " The miracle and (pieen of gems is her beauty. T humbly conceive Shakespear meant her natural excellence both of form and mind in contradistinction to the gifts of fortune. She pined in thought.'] " Thought formerly signified melancholy." — X)ovc]i.. I should like to c 2 20 TWELFTH NIGHT. see one instance of this, except by implication, as it may also mean joy^ hate, or love. Th plain meaning here is so clear that it requires an un- usual refinement in the absurd to give it any other. ACT II. SCENE V. My nettle of Tndia.~\ " The poet must mean a zoophyte called the Urtica Marina, abounding in the Indian seas."- — Steevens. Shakespear had no such idea. My pearl of India is a common ex- pression ; and Sir Toby Belch was a character to c 1 1 jNlaria his nettle of India, by a figure not un- common in vulgar speech, from which such phrases as " the twinkling of a bed-post," and " an arrow out of a fire-shovel," are derived. This may be called low authority; but a critic, who will be always on stilts, would do better to shut his Shakespear and write comments on the modern tragedies. ACT II. SCENE V. Aqua vitce.'] " The old name for strong waters." — Johnson. Aqua vitce means brandy TWELFTH NIGHT. 21 only, which is, in its native language, Eau de vie. We call it brandy from the German brand win, burning wine. ACT III. SCENE IV. / have sent offer him — he says he'll come.'] On this clear passage we find the following inexplica- ble note — '* i. e. I suppose now, or admit now, he'll come." — Wareurton. Wht/ dost thou smile and kiss thy hand so oft ?\ Mr. Reed has a long note on \k\\% fantastical cus- tom, as he is pleased to call it; but why, if it were the custom, should it be more fantastical to kiss the hand than to take off the hat or bow the head I am to learn. The critic might have added that this custom is still in use among infants in their nurse's arms. Opposite.] " Opposite here, as in many places, means hostile^ adverse. — Ma lone. This is the third time this observation has been made in this play, and by the same critic, once before on this identical passage when the letter is first read by Malvolio. 22 TWELFTH NIGHT. Nai/^ if you he an undertaker I am for you^ After much investigation of the meaning of un- dertaker by Steevens, Tyrrhuyt, and llitson, the latter adds, " But I stiJl think the speaker in- tends a quibble, the simple meaning of the word being, one %vho undertakes, or takes up the quar- rel of another." — In this simple meaning, and without any quibble whatever, the word is obvi- ously used here. ACT IV. SCENE IL; Five z£?//6'.] " Thus the five senses were an- ciently called."— t8TE EVENS. Edgar says, in King Lear, " Bless thy five wits." The common phrase " frightened out of one's wits" gives the same meaning. Malone very justly observes, that " wit, in our author's time, was the general term for intellectual power;" it continued so till the beginning of the eighteenth century. See Dryden's plays, Passim. Are you not mad indeed, or do you but counter- feit J\ M. Mason I must think right, in op- position both to Joimson and Malone. It should TWELFTH XIGHT. 23 be thus read— Are you not mad (i. e. in your sound mind), indeed, or do you only counter- feit ? (subaudi sanity). This reading of M. Mason is allowed by Malone to remove the difficulty ; but he adds that, " considering the words that immediately precede is very harsh, and appears to be inadmissible/' I own it seems to me quite in unison with the whole scene, as well as with the character that speaks it. ACT V. SCENE I. Natural Perspective,] " A perspective seems to be taken for shows exhibited through a glass with such lights as make the figures seem really protuberant." — Johnson. " I believe Shake- spear meant nothing more by this natural per- spective than a reflection from a glass or mirror.' — M, Mason. M. Mason is certainly right. MEASURE FOR MEASURK ACT I. SCENE I. There is a kind of character in thy life That to the observer doth thy history FuUij unfold.l It really is wonderful to see the observations of Johnson, Steevens, and M. Mason, OQ this passage, which seems to me so clear, that no addition or alteration of words can possibly make it clearer, a thing, perhaps, that cannot be said of any other passage of the same length throughout this whole play. Your scope is our oxvn.l " That is your am- phtude of power." — Johnson. Yery true, but did it need explanation ? ACT I, SCENE ir. The sweat,'] The allusion is very clear, and has nothing to do with the sweating sickness, as MEASURE FOR MEASURl. 25 Suggested by Johnson ; the latter part of his note is right, but had been better omitted. ACT I. SCENE III. I got possession of JuUetta^s bed, (§-c.] "This speech is surely too indelicate to be spoken con- cerning Julietta before her face ; for she appears to be brought in with the rest, though she has no- thing to say. The clown points her out as they enter, and yet, from Claudio's telling Lucio that he knows the ladij, one would think she was not meant to make her personal appearance on the scene." — Steevens. " The little seeming im- propriety there is, will be entirely removed by sup- posing, that when Claudio stops to speak to Lucio the Provost's officers depart with Julietta." ' — RiTsoN. " Claudio may be supposed to spei)k to Lucio apart.^' — Malone. The observation of Malone is confirmed by the text, when Claudio says, Lucio^ a word with you. And there is this stage direction in the edition I have before me — Takes him aside. 26 MEASURE lOR MEASURE. ACT I. SCENE V. As blossoming time, cj-c] Of the far-fetched explanations of Johnson and Steevens, and the clear and full series of the whole passage given by M. Mason, then there can^be no doubt; but it is a passage that need not have been elucidated. ACT II. SCENE I. Pi'ovost^^ " A provost is generally the execu- tioner of an army." — Steevens. "A prison for military offenders is at this day, in some [)laces, called x\\^ provost'' — Ma lon e. Provost (usually called Prevot, as most of our military words are now French) is a military goaler. The keeper of the Savoy prison is always called Provost. Mr. Douce is, however, right in saying that it does not mean a military officer, but a gaoler of re-' spectability ; something equivalent, I should sup- pose, with the lieutenant of the Tower. Would not these observations have been more proper on MEASURE FOR MEASURE. 27 the dramatis personae, or on his first appearance in the preceding act ? ACT II. SCENK II. And merci} then will breathe zcithm your lips Like mem new made.'] " You will then appear as tender-hearted and merciful as the first man was in his days of innocence immediately after his creation." — Malone. Considering what im- ^^ mediately precedes this, it seems to me rather to apply to the regeneration, than the creation, of man. S/te speaks, and ^tis Such sense as tni/ sense breeds zi)ith.~\ " The sentence signifies, Isabella does not utter barren words, but speaks such sense as breeds and pro- duces consequences in Angelo's mind. Those truths which senerate no conclusion are often o termed barren facts.'" — Holt White. Why, this is exactly the logic of Crambe, in Martinus Senblims. These truths which generate no con- clusion are obviously the individua vaga of that S8 MEASURE FOR MfiAStJRE. wise logician, which, like whore-masters and com- mon strumpets, are barren. ACT II. SCENE IV. O place -iO form ^ ^c] Here, on five lines, we have three notes, the thousfhts and labour of Johnson, Warburton, Steevens, M. Mason, and Malone. To M. Mason we are obliged for a para- phrase completely illustrating the passage ; and to Mr. Malone for the information that the devil is usually represented with horns and cloven-feet. The other gentlemen only puzzle their readers and try to confute one another. T>le the deafh.'\ " It is a phrase taken from scripture." — Steevens. It would have been more correct to say from the English translation of the scripture. It was most probably familiar both at the time when the bible was translated, and when Shakespear wrote. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. ^^ ACT III. SCENE I. If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing That none but fools would keep. '\ Dr. John- son's defence of this passage against the absurdity of Warbiirton is just ; but the observation of Steevens, that " keep in this place may not signify preserve, but care for," is to me inexphcable. This whole speech is one of the least obscure parts of the play ; but what work have the critics made with it ? And the corrupt deputy scaled^ Notwithstand- ing the conjectures of many critics, this is to mc quite unintelligible. Grange-I Surely much critical enquiry is thrown away on this very common word. ACT III. SCENE II. This xvould make mercif swear and play the tyrant. 1 ** I do not much like mercy swear, the old reading, or m§rcy swerve, Dr. Warburton's 30 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. correction ; 1 believe it should be, this would make mercy severe,'" — Farmer. Dr. Farmer was certainly right to prefer his own correction to Warburton'Sj as he is always in the wrong. But surely, to suggest any amendment at all of a very clear passage, merely because he did not like it, and make the blank verse halt for it, is going a little beyond the bounds of sober criticism. ACT IV. SCENE II. True 77ien.'\ " True man, in the language of ancient times, is always placed in opposition to thief/' — Steevens. *' Mr. Steevens seems to be mistaken in his assertion that true man, in ancient times, was always placed in opposition to thief; at least, m the book of Genesis, there is one in- stance to the contrar}^ c. xlii. v. 11.' We are all one man's sons, we are all true men ; thy servants are no spies." — Henley. The making this ex- ample an exception to the rule of Mr. Steevens, is taking him an pielde Ij lettre with a vengeance. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. 3 1 A spij is surely a villain, and a thief is a knave^ and we ma}' surely say with Hamlet, There's ne'er a villain living in all Denmark, But he's an arrant knave. ACT IV. SCENE III. After him^ fellozvs; b/mg him to the blocJi\\ This speech Johnson says should be transferred from the duke to the provost, which Tyrwhit opposes. But surely, if emendation is ever jus- tifiable, it is so from necessity, in this instance. For, in the first place, what authority could a friar, as the duke appears to be, have to order the of- ficers of the provost ? and the duke immediately afterwards adds, that to execute him in his pre- sent habit of mind would be damnable. Tyrwliit adds a curious reason for not changing the per- sons, viz. that the provost was ignorant of the state of Bernardine's mind. This seems to me the strongest reason why it should be given to the provost, and not to the duke, who did know the state of his mind. 5S MEASURE FOR MEASURE. ACT V. SCENE I. The strong statues Stands like tliefascits in a harhev^s shop. As much in mock as 7nark^ The scientific re- marks of so many critics on this plain passage are truly laughable. Warburton gives us Latin quotations to prove that a barber's shop was the usual resort of the idle and the curious. Dr. Johnson tells us that a surgeon can keep all his instruments in a small box. Steevens tells us that barbers formerly used to pick people's teeth and ears ; and to conclude, Henley, with much display of critical sagacity, gives the real sense ef the passage, which must be obvious to every child. Like Saul among the prophets, I feel myself inspired with the spirit of explanatory criticism, and will illustrate this passage by similar species of jurisprudence recorded in the stable o* Kingston inn, in the vicinity of Oxford. All you who come Into this place. To smoke among the straw. Must pay a quart of ale at least. Because it is the law. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. 3S The law, however, and the forfeit it pronounced, were certainly as much in mock as mark. Though there are several striking passages in Measure for Measure, there are more faults in it, as a whole, than in any of the plays that are un- doubtedly written by Shakespear. How much stronger would the interest be if the friar was not known to be the duke till he suddenly broke forth, which should have been while Angelo was treating the remonstrance of Isabella /'which might be made to Escalus) with insult, and just as he was saying, " Away to prison with her." The death of Angelo should be respited by the unexpected appearance of Claudio, and not by the preposterous interference of Isabella, which, notwithstanding the candour of Ritson, and the brutal pleasantry of Johnson, is a gross violation of consistency of character, only to be equalled by the offer of Valentine of his mistress to Pro- theus, in the Two 'Gentlemen of Verona. Such faults as these, and not the interval of time be- tween the third and fourth act of the Winter's Tale, and the making Bohemia a maritime coun- D 84 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. try, are mortal sins against the probability of the drama. There is a great impropriety (not to men- tion the gross indecency of their language) in the impurity of such a character as Lucio; and the lenity with which Pompey and the bawd are treated, at a time when the interest of the drama turns on fornication being punished with death. There seems also justice in the remark of John- son, that it is strange Isabella should not express either gratitude, joy, or wonder, at the sight of her brother ; but perhaps they were supplied by the action. Shakespear was a player as well as a poet, and probably was more anxious for stage effect than the perfection of his drama as a com- position. The players have often been censured for this, but let it be remembered, that there has been no dramatic writerof eminence, from ^Eschy- les to Sheridan, who has not been connected with the theatre ; and that, though many a bad play has become popular merely from theatric effect, without theatric effect there cannot be a good play. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING ACT I. SCENE I But Jew of any sort^ and none of name.l **Sort is rank, distinction. I incline, however, to Mr. M. Mason's easiet explanation of any sort, which he says means of any kind whatever'' — Steevens. It is odd to take this opportunity of giving us an account how sort is sometimes used, when he allows himself, and which is sufficiently obvious from its opposition to name, that it here has its common meaning. The critic first says, sort is rank and distinction, and then says he in- clines to think it is not. There are no faces truer than those which are so washed.'] *' That is, none honester, none more sin- cereP — Johnson. As there are abundance of this kind of explanations, and especially by this truly great man, I shall in future only mark them D 2 36 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. by two or three notes of admiration, according to the nature of the case ! ! Hezvears his faith hut as the fashion of his hat, it ever changes with the next hlock.~\ " A block is the mould on which a hat is formed : the old wri- ters use the word for the hat itself."— Steevens. The first piece of information surely need not have been given us : the last should have been confirmed by the authority of at least one of these old writers. / ayn sim-burn-d^ '' But why sun-burn'd? I believe we should read, thus every one goes to the wood but I, and I am sun-burn'd : thus does every one but I find a shelter, and I am left ex- posed to wind and sun." — Johnson. " I am sun-burn'd may mean I have lost my beauty, and am consequently no longer such an object as can tempt a man to marry." — Steevens. For may read must^ and the note of Steevens is unexcep- tionable. Steevens only doubts when he is clearly in the right : when he is wrong he is positive enough. If it were necessary to quote authority in support of what is so obviously right, our poet MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 37 himself gives one in Troilus and Cressida, where Hector says, in his Gothic challenge in honor of Trojan beauty, that if it should not be accepted, he would say. The Grecian dames were sun-burn'd, and not worth The spUnter of a lance.—— ACT II. SCENE III. The night raven.] i. e. " The owl, Nijct/k' 'o§«^ Steevens. This note, short as it is, does the critic knig^ht's service. It shews that he is ac- quainted both with natural history and the Greek character. A more ordinary critic would have been contented with Nycticorax, which may mean an owl, as Ainsworth renders it. But Nuktikooo.^ divided into its constituent parts, Nt;^ and K^^ ( not 0?*^ ) is Corvus Nocturnus, a night crow. There xmll she sit in her smock , ^c] Tliis Mr. Henley, with a sagacity that wants a name, sup- poses to be allusive to a letter from Mary Queen of Scots, to Bothwell, which begins, " lam nakit and ganging to sleep, and zit I cease aot to scrib- 38 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. ble all this paper in so meikle as rest is thereof.*' The absurdity of it would be sufficient to make this, observation fall to the ground, without even the proof brought by Steevens that the word in the letter is irkit (uneasy^ and not nakit. ACT III. SCENE 11. What his heart thinks^ his tongue speaks.^ " A covert allusion to the old proverb, * As the fool thinketh, The bell clinketh." — Steevens. So covert that it required more than a lynx's ey© to discover it. From the waist downward all slopsP[ " Slops are large loose breeches or trowsers, worn only by sailors at present." — Steevens. " Hence evi- dently the term slop-seller, for a vendor of old clothes." — NicHOLLs. These notes are really cu- rious, as affording a striking example of the deri- vation of a general word from some singular and obsolete circumstance. Thus, from one, among hundreds of names given to female dress, is the general word mantua-maker derived. 2 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 3 9 ACT III. SCENE III. Shaven Hercuies.'] It was impossible for any one but Warbnrton to conceive our poet meant Sampson by this. ACT III. SCENE IV. He eats his meat xmthout grudging.'] The long, and I may add absurd, note of Johnson about this passage, is a proof, among too many in his notes on Shakespear, how very weakly a man of great genius may write, by turning himvself to objects he is unfit for, I perfectly agree with Mr. Mason, that the meaning is, " Benedict is in love, and takes kindly to it." ACT III. SCENE V. Jftxm men ride of a horse^ one must ride behind^ " This is not out of place, or without meaning. Dogberry, in his vanity of superior parts, apolo- gising for his neighbour, observes, * that if two men ride on a horse; one must ride behind.' The first place of rank or understanding can belong but 40 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. to one, and that happy one ought not to despise his inferior." — Johnsox. Of the critic, who could write such a piece of pompous inanity, considering who he is, we are tempted to say with Pope " Who would not laugh if such a one there be ? Who would not weep if Atticus were he ?" ACT IV. SCENE I. If either of you know any imvard impediment y ^■c] " This is borrowed from our marriage cere- ^lony, which (with a few changes in the phrase- ology) is the same as was used in the time of Shakespear."— Douce. This is very true, and so it is that two and two make four. Had the friars exhortation marked the exact changes of the phraseology, the remark, indeed, would have been curious. If ever love had interest in his liver. ^ " The liver, in conformity to ancient supposition, is fre- quently mentioned by Shakespear as the seat of love." — Steevens. I wonder the critic did not shew his learning by confirming this wonderful ' MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 41 discovery from quotations of Horace. As he has omitted this, I will indulge the reader with a quo- tation from Prior, which throw some light on this obscure passage.- "■ Nor e'er can Latin poets prove Where lies the real seat of love. Jccur they Imrn, and Cor they pierce. As either best supplies their verse. Thusj I presume, tlie British muse May take the freedom strangers use 5 If Cupid throws a single dart. We make him wound the lover's heart ; But if he takes his bow and quiver, 'Tis sure he must transfix the liver.*' Princes and Counties^ " County was the an- cient general name for a nobleman." — Steilveks. Dele general; and for nobleman, read earl or count. But manhood is melted in courtesies^ valor into compliment.'] i.e. " into ceremonious obeisance, like the courtesies dropped by women.'' — Stee- VENs. This is really a note one can scarcely read with common patience. It seems impossible, oven for the most absurd criticism, to find any 42 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. Other meaning here for courtesy than its proper general signification — Dropping a courtesy too ! ACT IV. SCENE II. 'Fore God they are both in a tale.'] " This is an admirable stroke of humour. Dogberry says that they are false knaves, and from that denial of the charge, which one in his wits could not but be supposed to make, he infers a communication of counsels, and records it as an evidence of their guilt. — Sir J. Hawkins. " If the learned anno- tator will amend his comment by omitting the word guilt and inserting the word innocence^ it will (except as to the supposed communication of counsel, which should likewise be omitted or corrected), be a just and pertinent remark." — RiTSON. By the aid of such omissions and such corrections, every note on Shakespear in every edition, maybe made equally just and pertinent. But the truth is, Dogberry neither infers their in- nocence, their guilt, or their commuaication ; he had heard of getting at the truth hy separate ex« MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 43 amination, and sagaciously asking a question of both which they could not but give the same an- swer to, expresses his surprise at the failure of his wise experiment. ACT V. SCENE L Cry sorroii) away ^ <^c.] Messrs. Rowe, Pope, Theobald, Tyrwhyt. Heath, T. "Warton, Ritson, Malone, Steevens, M. Mason, Hanmer, Farmer, and Warburton, your notes here are well defined by the title of the play. Dr. Johnson alone has given the true meaning. Candle wasters?^ Why ISIr. Whally should give us a long explanation of this, which he him- self thinks not satisfactory, exceeds my compre- hension. Impose me to whatever penance your invention can lay upon my sin.'] i. e. " Command me to undergo whatever penance.^' — Malone. This is the sepse but not the construction of the sen- tence. Impose is used here (as Steevens ob- serves), as it is at 'the universities — give me an 44 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. imposition or exercise by way of punuhment^ i. e. % penance to whatever extent you please. ACT V. SCENE II. / cannot imo in festival ferms.l i. e. "In splendid phraseology, such as differ from common language, as holy-days from common-days." — Steevens. I conceive it rather means affected and finial than splendid phraseology, as in the speech of Hotspur " With many holyday and lady terms." Claudio undergoes my chaUenge.l i. e. " Is subject to it.'' — Steevens. This is surely not an explanation of the passage, which, though oddly expressed, is sufficiently clear. An anonymous critic, in a concluding note, joins with Johnson in blaming the repetition of the same scheme to entrap Beatrice, which had before been used for Benedict. But the intention of the poet was to shew that persons of either sex might be made in love with each other by MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 45 supposing themselves beloved, though they were before enemies ; and how he could have done this by any other means I do not know. He wanted to shew the sexes were alike in this case, and to have employed different motives would have counteracted his own design. MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. ACT I. SCENE I„ Eartklier happy.'] Certainly, as Dr. Johnson observes, a very unusual mode to express " hap- pier on earth. '^ i. e. " As to worldly enjoyment ;" which is, however, obviously the poet's meaning. The araendation proposed by Johnson and Pope, earlier happy may be made at the expence only of tzoo letters and common sense. We must starve our swht From lover^ s food till morrow deep midnight.^ " Shakespear has a little forgot himself it appears, from p. 107, that to-morrow night would be with- in three nights of the new moon when there is no moon-shine at all^ much less at deep midnight. The same oversight occurs in Act III. Scene 1.^' — Blackstone. Whether this is an oversigrht MIDSUMMER NIGHT S DREAM. 47 the judge should have tried on an issue of Theseus, versus the Athenian almanack. I should think, however, on whatever side the verdict was given the present passage must be acquitted. A lover might contrive to be near enough his mistress to see her in a clear night, a little before Old Mayday in England (Shakespear thought little of the length of days at Athensj though, perhaps, Sir W. Black- stone would not admit an evidence to swear to the features of a highwayman in such circumstances. What is meant by something less than no moon- shine at all I do not understand. As vaaggish boys in game.] *' Game here sig- nifies not contentious play, hut sport, jest. ^' So Spencer, *' 'Twixt earnest and 'twixt game," — Johnson. Game is never used for contentious play, in gene- ral as a substutive. It signifies, indeed, this or that particular game with the article, as a game at whist, a game at chess ; and to game is never used in any other sense, therefore the note is quite needless. Game, without an article, is always 4S MIDSUMMER NIGHT's DREAM. used either for sport and jest, or for certain animals, in the language of law. If, therefore, Dr. Johnson was determined to tell us the word was employed in its common meaning, and not in a figurative one, he should have told us it nei- ther meant partridge, harein or pheasant, ACT 1. SCENE II. And so grow to a point.] If it were necessary to seek for any meaning where nonsense is obvi- ously intended, or to investigate the precise con- struction of words in the speech immediately after one which contains generally man by mayi. I should say, i. e. proceed to some conclusion. To transcribe the notes of Messrs. 8teevens and Warner would be tedious and useless, but Dr. Johnson's note maybe amusuig, if any thing can be so, which shews how weak the greatest mind may become when its energies are misapplied. Dr. Warburton reads go on, but grow is used in allusion to his name, Quince. MIDSUMMER NIGHT's DREAM, 49 ACT II. SCENE I. The wisest aunL] Here Steevens, with his usual habit of finding out something indecent, has a note to prove that atint means dazcd^wh'ich he takes up again in a note on the first song of Autolycus, in the Winter's Tale. He concludes thus, " The wisest aunt may therefore mean the most sentimental bawd, or perhaps the most prosaic old xfooman^'' On this Mr. Ritson very justly observes, " The first of these conjectures is much too wan- ton and injurious to the word aunt, which, in this place at least, certainly means no other than an innocent old woman." ACT 11. SCENE II. "No night is noz& zvith hymn or carol blest."] " Hymns and carols, in the time of Shakespear, during the season of Christmas, were sung every night about the streets, as a pretext for collecting money from house to house." — Steevens. Such a note as this is almost 4;oo much for the patience. £ 50 MIDSUMMER NIGHT S DREAM. "We may as well be told on this passage in As You Like it — *' If you have been where bells have knoU'd to church. If ever sat at any good man's table——" That, in the time of Shakespeai^ public prayers were announced by a bell, and people sat down to table when they dined. When we have laughed to see the sails conceive And g?'ozv big-bellied zoith the zvanton zoind, IVhich she, zvith pretty and with swimming gait, (Folloimng (her womb then big with my young squire). Would imitate.'] I have here marked the paren- thesis twice, the first as it is in this edition, and which Dr. Farmer and Mr. Malone contend for. The second, as it must have stood in the edition Dr. Farmer made his remark on, and which I think right. Dr. Farmer says, " Per- haps the parenthesis should begin sooner ; as I think Mr. Kenric observes (a pretty authority) ! " (Following her womb then big my young squire. So in TruUa's combat with Hudibras, ' — She press'd him home. Tiiat he retired and foUow'd'a bum." MIDSUMMER NIGHT's DREAM. 51 " And Dryden says of his Spanish Friar, ' his great belly walks in ^i2ite before him, and his gouty legs come limping aftet it/' Mr. Malone observes, " Which, according to the present re- gulation, must mean, zvhich motion of the ship imih swelling sails. According to the old regulation it must refer to embarked traders ;" which occurs before the passage here cited. 1 do not see the force of this last observation. Shakespear is always careless about his antecedents, but if he were not it proves nothing here, as in the old re- gulation following and imitate must both relate to the antecedent of which, and the big-bellied wo- man could only imitate the big bellied sails, and not the embarked traders. When I say this, how- ever, I am aware that there are some conjectures of some of the critics full as absurd and far-fetched as an allusion between embarked traders and the young Hans en Kelder. Why did Mr. Nichols adopt this reading of Dr. Farmer when he him- self says the old reading is defencible ? Thou rememberest When once I sat upon a promontory ^ <^c.] How E 2 52 MIDSUMMER NIGIIx's DREAM. could Mr. Ritson so misemploy his time as to write one single word to refute the folly of War* burton on this passage ? You draw me ^ you hard-hearted adamant^ " I learn from Edward Fenton's Certain Secret AVonders of Nature, that there is now-a- days a kind of adamant which dravveth unto it flesh, and the same so strongly that it hath power to knit and tie together two mouths of contrary persons, and draw the heat of a man out of his body without offending any part of him." — Steevens. If this is the use of black letter learning, away with it ; for it has no rela- tion whatever to this obvious metaphor. You do impeach your modesfy too much.^ i. e. " Bring in question."— Steevens. Here we re- ceive this wonderful explanation a second time. See a note on the Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act I. Scene III. It is not night when J do see your face, 1 " This is paraphrased from two lines of an ancient Poet. (tibuHus.) MIDSUMMER NIGHt's DREAM. 53 -Tu nocte vel atra Lumen, et in soils tu mihi turla locis" Johnson; What relation this part can have to the passage in question is not very apparent. " As the works of King David might be more familiar to Shakespear than Roman poetry perhaps, on the present occasion, the llth verse of the lS9th psalm was in his thoughts— Yea the darkness is no darkness with thee, but the night is as clear as the day." — Steevens. With all due deference to the learned opinions of Johnson and Steevens, I do think it possible that Shakespear might have written this without any assistance either from Tibullus or King David. On man.'] Mr. Steevens considers these rhymes as a sure proof that the broad Scotch pro- nunciation once prevailed in England. What would he infer from this triplet of Prior ? O potent virtue ! O victorious fair ! Forgive at least a trial too severe ; Accept the triumph, and forget the war. Or from the frequency of such rhymes is wit and loriie in so correofra vVriter as Pope? 54 MIDSUMMER NIGHT's DREAM. ACT II. SCENE III. Musk Rose.] " What is at present called the Musk Rose was a flower unknown to English botanists in the time of Shakespear. About fifty years ago it was brought into this country from Spain.^' — Steevens. As it is clear Shakespeaf could not mean a flower he had never heard of, he most probably means the moss rose— ' Rosa provin- cialis spirosissima pedunculo muscoso.' — Millar, 1741. As Millar does not speak of this particu- larly, most likely it was imported as early as any of of our garden roses, none of which are indigenous. In the same edition he mentions the Single Musk Rose, the Double Musk Rose, and the Evergreen Musk Rose, which he does not mention as new or curious plants at that time ; but simply says they are the latest rose, and will seldom flower before September, and will continue till October if they are planted in a shadif situation^ which does not indicate their being lately brought from a hot climate. MIDSUMMER NIGHT^S DREAM. 55 ACT III. SCENE. I. Brake.] " Brake, in the present instance, means a thicket or furze bush." — Steevens. " Brake, in the West of England, is used to ex- press a large extent of ground over-grown with furze, and appears both here and in the next scene, to convey the same idea.'^ — Henley. In regard to the first note, brake, neither here nor any where else means a furze bush ; neither could a furze bush serve for a tyring room. As to the second, not in the West of England only, but in the English language, brake means /-a piece of ground covered with brambles or furze, whether of one or fifty acres. So far from furze giving it its character, one of brambles is generally called dimply a brake, and the other a furze brake. Dewberries.] " Dewberries, strictly and properly, are the fruit of one species of the wild bramble called the creeping or lesser bramble ; but as they stand here among the more delicate fruits, Ihey must be understood to mean raspberries, 56 MIDStJMMER night's DREAM. which are a:so of the bramble kind." — T. Haw- kins. Dezvbcrries are gooseberries., which are still so called in man\' parts of the kingdom/'—. Henley. — The Dewberry is well known all over England by those who speak the English language, to be the fruit of that bramble called by Millar Rubus minor fructu caeruleo, from which circumstance it is sometimes vulgarly called the blueberry. It is a very delicate fruit, and as well worthy of horticulture as the strawberry. I should like to know in what part of the kingdom gooseber- ries are called dewberries. Patch.] " In the western countries cross patch 5S still used for a perverse ill-natured fool." TAYarton. This eternal jargon about the western, the noithern, and the midland counties, is insup- portable. Cross Patch is the nursery-name for a iVoward child. My friend I'om Warton might have heard it without going two furlongs west of Trinity College. ACT III. SCENE II. Bearing the badge of faith.] " This is said jn allusion to badges, i, e. family crests, ancif>ntly MIDSUMMER NIGHl's DEEAM. 57 worn on the sleeves of servants and retainers." — Steevens. Thank you, Sir. No7ie of nobler sort. '\ *' Sort is here used for deeper or quality." — Malone. Mr, MaJone, we are equally obliged to you. Even till the eastern gate all fiery red., (^c. j " What the fairy monarch means to inform Puck of is, that he was not compelled to vanish at the first appearance of dawn like meaner spirits." — Stee- vens. This is a wonderful discovery of the critic's, but it is a pity he had not made it sooner, he might then spared his very foolish, and some- thing prurient note about morning's love. ACT V. SCENE I. The Lunatic, the lover , and the poet. ] * * An ingenious modern zvriter supposes that our author had here in contemplation, Orestes, IMark Anlho.- ny, and himself."' — Malone. If Mr. Malone does not write this ironically, or is not much mistaken as to the genius of the writer: this is a sad proof of tlic excessive imbecility a man of genius may fall into. 2 5S MIDSUMMER NIGHt's DREAM. Say zohat abridgement have you for tJds evening.'] *' By abridgement our author may mean a dramatic performance which crowds the events of years into a few hours." — Steevens. " Does not abridgement in the present instance signify amount to beguile the tediousness of the evening, or in one word, pastime ?" — Henley. Certainly it does. It would be impossible to conceive how Steevens could have given the explanation he has, if we had not seen some other of his notes. ACTV. SCENE 11. Now the hungry lion roars.^^ " It has been justly observed by an anonymous writer, that among this assemblage of familiar circumstan- ces attending midnight either in England or its neighbouring kingdoms, Shakespear would never have thought of intermixing the exotic idea of the hungry lion roaring, which can be heard no nearer than in the deserts of Africa, if he had not read the 104th psalm: ' Thou makest darkness that it may be night, wherein all the beasts of the forest do move, the lioiu roaring after their prey, do MIDSUMMER NIGHT's DREAM. 59 seek their meat from God.'' — Malone. Here is another of Mr. Malone's ingenious friends ! Write foolishly {q)X justly and Mr. Malone will be right I dare say Shakespear neither knew or cared whe- ther there were any lions in Attica, for there, and not England, or its neighbouring kingdoms, is the scene laid. But we will suppose (and I dare say we shall be right) that Shakespear considered England only ; are not lions as frequent in our dis- course, and as often the subject both of simile and metaphor, as if they were to be found as commonly in our woods, mixed with foxes and badgers, as oranges are in our markets mixed with nuts and apples. Do not we all *' Talk as fanriiliarly of roaring lions As maids of thirteen do of puppy dogs." It is true (except in the tower, for Exeter Change hadnoPidcockthen) Shakespear could not well have heard a lion roar, neither could he hear a wolfbehowl the moon, which is one of ther/wem- hlage of familiar circumstances attending midnight in England, mentioned by this anonymous gende- man. It is true he adds neighbouring kingdoms, but 60 MIDSUMMER NTGHT's DREAM. for what reason, except to obviatean absurdity by a greater, I cannot imagine, as we have no reason to suppose Shakespear was ever out of England ; and it is certainly equally impossible in England to hear a wolf bay the moon in the woods of Picardy, and a lion roar for his prey in the deserts of Africa. To szveep the dust behind the door.'] " This is a common expression, and common practice in large old houses where the doors of halls and gal- leries are thrown back and seldom or ever shut." — Dr. Farmer. Dust, in such cases, will cer- tainly collect behind the doors ; but I suspect the Doctor and I, if we were to fill up the sentence, should not concur in the preposition. Yet I think the Doctor's house-maid, if she were ordered to sweep the dust behind the door, would sweep from behind, and if she adopted what I suppose to be his reading, would incur his censure rather than his approbation. LOVE S LABOURS LOST, ACT I. SCENE I. Not to sec ladies, study, fast^ not sleep.'] " The words, as they stand, will express the meaning intended, if pointed thus. Not to see ladies— study — fast — not sleep." — M. Mason. Two and two make four. The meaning of this is also sufficiently clear, if properly pointed. At Christmas I no more desire a rose. Than leish a snow in May's nezv Jangled shozes.] I cannot conceive any difficulty in this, or that there is any appearance of a line being lost. What T. Warton says, I think, with Steevens, to be right. " By these shows the poet means May games, at which a snow would be very unwel- come and unexpected : it is only a periphrasis for May.^' This child of Jancy, that Annado hight.'] If Mr, Malone thought it necessary to swell his edi- 62 lovl's labours lost. tion of Shakespear by the dissertations of War- burton and Tvrwhit on the orjo-in of romance, surely they might have been omitted in an editi- on which professes to compress the exuberance of notes. ACT I. SCENE II. The dancing horse.'] Though it is curious ^ know the art of making horses learned is coeval with Shakespear, one quotation about Banks's horse would have been sufficient, but we have here a heap of authorities and a wooden cut into the bargain. We know that to explain every word and every allusion of our poet, much black letter reading is as necessary as dung is to the production of vegetables ; but who would make a pompous display of either ? The rational hind Costard.'] " Perhaps we should read irrational hind." — Tyrwhit. " The rational hind perhaps only means the reasoning hrute, the animal with some shew of reason'^ — • Steevens. " I have always read irrational hind ; if hind be taken in its bestial sense, Armado makes love's labours lost. 63 Costarcl a female/' — Farmer. Shakespear uses it in its bestial sense in Julius Caesar, Act 1, Scene 3, and as of the masculine gender : He were no lion, were not Romans hinds. Again, in King Henry IV. Part I. Act 1. Scene 3. ' You are a shallow rascally hind, and you Ije.'^ — Steevens. I can have no doubt but that hind is used here for a clown, as also in the pas- sage quoted from Henry IV. Neither is the pas» sage brought from Julius Caesar any excuse for the making Costard a female here. No particu- lar cowardice is imputed to Costard. Cowards, and effeminate men might, in such a passage as that in Julius Caesar, be called woman, but to have called Costard a natural woman here would have been very strange : as for rational, is any thing more usual than an irony of this kind in common speech ? If this is not allowable, 1 have certainly misused the words -wise^ and learned^ and sagacious^ often in the course of these remarks. HerCy good mij glass.] Here Drs. Johnson and Farmer have each a note too long and too ab- 64> love's labours lost. surd to quote, to shew it was the fashion of the times for ladies to wear mirrors at their girdles. Steevens says justly (with a perhaps though) that Dr. Johnson is mistaken, and that the forester is the mirror. It is impossible for common sense to suppose otherwise. Erewhile.'] " Just now, a little while ago: so Raleisfh : o Here lies Hobbinol, our shepherd while eer. — Johnson." Would not the first line of Paradise Regained been a more obvious illustration, and the single word lately at least a better explanation Xhsiw just now P Suitor.'] Farmer and Steevens both contend that suitor and shooter were pronounced alike in the time of Shakespear, and Malone says the same is the case in Ireland now, with the vulgar. 1 believe we may say the same with the vulgar of London ; they very often pronounce the s as if it were aspirated ; indeed sure and sugar are pro- nounced so by every one. The oo for the u is also too common with those who are not to be classed with the vulgar. Too for tu, whoever has been love's labours lost. 65 at a Westminster play, will find to be the pronun- ciation of that truly respectable school ; and persons educated there will often carry it into their pronunciation of Enghsh, and say Toosday and presoom^ instead of Tuesday and pr-esume. Wide of the bow-hand.'] Surely Mr. Douce might have spared himself the trouble of writing a note to tell us that this must mean wide of the mark on that hand in which the bow was held. ACT V. SCENE III. Gnat.'] Mr. Theobald and the succeeding edi- tors read knot^ but as the arguments of Steevens and M. Mason are unanswerable, gnat is here very properly restored, from the authority of the old copies, supported both by rhyme and reason. For ivhere is any author in the world Teaches such beauty as a lady's eye?] " A lady's eye gives a fuller notion of beauty than any au- thor.' '—Johnson ! ! ! For when love speaks, the voice of all the gods Makes Heaven drowsy with the harmony']. The wisdom of almost all the critics is employed on 66 love's labours lost. this passage. The following explanation of Heath seems to me just. " The meaning is, whenever love speaks all the gods join their voices with his in harmonious concert." On the words ynakes Heaven drozi^si/, Mr. Tyrwhit observes, " If one could possibly suspect Shakespear of having read Pindar, one should say, that the idea of music making the heavens drowsy, was borrowed from the first Pythian." But is it not possible that Pindar and Shakespear should think alike on the sedative power of music, without one borrowing from the other ? ACT V. SCENE II. ■ St. Denis to St. Cupid.] " The princess of France invokes with too much levity the patron of her country to oppose the power of Cupid." — Johnson. Is Dr. Johnson serious in this vindi- cation of the sanctity of one of the seven Cham- pions of Christendom ? Vouchsafe, bright moon, and these thy stars to shine.l " When Queen Elizabeth asked an am- bassador how he liked her ladies. ' It is hard,' LOVERS LABOURS LOST* 67 said he, * to judge of stars in the presence of the sun." — Johnson. Why, here we have Pindar again quoted by the ambassador. £v a/AS^a Oaeivov af^ov, Shakespear, however, I suppose, rather remem- bered his Horace, Mlcat '■ ■ inter ignes, Luna minores. Wook^ard^ The meaning of this word, with its etymology, is so obvious from the context, that it is really wonderful to see the absurd lum- ber of pompous nonsense produced on it by Grey» Farmer, and T. Warton ; as for Warburton, no absurdity of his is wonderful. Converse of hreath.l " Converse matj^ in this line, mean interchange'^ — Johnson. It certain- ly does.) as it does also in the more familiar word conversation. The expression here is only an affected periphrasis for vivd voce, conversation. F 2 MERCHANT OF VENICE. ACT I. SCENE III. Wands.'] *' A wand in our author^s time was the usual term for what we now call a switch.*' — Ma LONE. Good heavens ! what word shall we have next referred to the time of Shakespear ? A wand is well known at this time to be a long thin stick, peeled; one is carried now by the Lord Chamberlain in the king's presence, by all stewards of feasts, and by the sheriffs in the courts of assize, and also (mark this, ye critics ! ) by conjurors. Of both these latter uses, take an authority from Addison. Sir George Trmnan. Where is my wand 1 Vellum. A fine taper stick ! it is well chosen. I will keep this till you are sheriff of the county. Switch is a modern cant term for a thin twig, used as a substitute for a whip. MERCHANT OF VENICE. GO ACT II. SCENE ir. Give me ^our blessing, ^c] " In this conver- sation between Launcelot and his bhnd father, there are frequent references to the decep- tion practised on the bhndness of Isaac, and the blessing obtained in consequence of it." — Henley. I confess I cannot find these references : neither is there any probabihty that such a manifest ridicule on part of the sacred scriptures should be permitted on the stage. Sliakespear, it is true, has frequent allusions to the Bible; there are many in this play, but they are never introduced indecently or irreverendly, ACT II. SCENE III. If a Christian do not play the knave and get thee.'] " I suspect that the waggish Launcelot de- signed this for a broken sentence, and get thee, implying get thee with child. JVJr. Malone, how- ever, supposes him to mean only carry thee away from thy father's house." — Steevens. " I should not have attempted to explain so easy a passage, if the ignorant editor of the second folio, thinking 70 MERCHANT OF VENICE. probably that the word get must necessarily mean bes^eti had not altered the text, and substituted didioY do, the reading of all the old and authentic editions ; in which he has been copied by every subsequent editor. Launcelot is not talking about Jessica's father, but about her future husband. I am aware, that in a subsequent scene he says to Jessica, Many, you may partly hope your fa- ther got you not. But he is now on another sub- ject." — Malone. " From the general censure expressed in the preceding note, I take leave to exempt Mr. Reed, who, by following the first folio, was no sharer in the inexpiable guilt of the second.'^ — Ste evens. Supposing this to be the proper reading, Malone must be right in conceiving get to mean marrij her, by stealing her from -her father; to suppose it implies get thee xdith child, is exactly worthy of the wag- gish Mr. Steevens ; but 1 confess I am guilty of the inexpiable crime of reading did for do with the second folio, and every subsequent editor, except Mr, Reed. I do not exactly see that Launcelot is on a different subject in the other MERCHANT OF VENICE. 71 similar passage, for when he cnWs her most beau- tiful Pagan, most sweet Jezv, he does allude to her descent from an unbelieving father. This sense of the passage here seems to me strongly confirmed by these words in the subsequent soliloquy of Jessica, which point strongly to her father, and are clearly the consequence of what has been just said by Launcelot : Mark, what heinous sin it is in me. To be ashamed to be my father's child. This appears an apology to herself for not check- ing the suspicion of Launcelot, as feehng con- scious she wished it was just. ACT ir. SCENE VI. I am bidforth^ " I am invited." — Malone ! ! Venus pigeons. ~\ " Lovers have in poetry been always called turtles or doves, which in lower lan- guage may be pigeons.^' — Johnson ! ! What a lucky thing it was Fluellen, in Henry the Fifth, saved Dr. Johnson the trouble of explaining Alexander the pig, by telling us himself that " the 72 MERCHANT OF VENICE. pig, or the great, or the mighty, or the huge, or the magnanimous, are all one reckonings, save the phrase is a little variations.'' Stj'umpet wind'] " Surely the bark ought to be of the masculine gender, or the allusion wants something of propriety." — Steevens. Surely, we need not be so hypercritical about the gender of ships, when we may say of the Alcides that she is a fine man of war. ACT II. SCENE V. Wrij-Jieck'd Jife.'] How this can be applicable to the modern fife does not appear, but the con- jecture of Mr. Seymour is the acme of absurdity^ accompanied as usual by bold assertion, who won- ders it was possible that Mr. M. Mason should transfer the wry-neck'dness from the performer to the instrument. I believe the earliest time of the transfer of the name of the instrument to the per- former in military language, was during Queen Anne's wars, for in the Spectator an old country gentleman expresses his surprise at his son, in a MERCHANT OF VENICE. 73 letter from the army, mentioning a saucy trumpet and a drum that carried messages. ACT II. SCENE VIII. Let it not enter in tjoiir mind of' love^ *' So all the copies, but I suspect some corruption." — Johnson. Langton (whose death I have to la- ment since 1 first wrote this observation) very Judiciously proposes " to remove this imaginary corruption by putting a comma after mind, which is confirmed by the observation of Steeven*, that of love is an adjuration sometimes used by Shake- spear." The editor of this edition, though he inserts these notes, adheres to the old punctua- tion in the text. ACT III. SCEiNE I. Jf you prick us, do we not bleed .^] " Are not Jews made of the same materials as Christia.^s ? isays Shy lock ; thus in Plutarch's life of C^sar, p. 140. 4 to. v. iv. Caesar does not consider his subjects are mortal, 'and bleed when they are 74 MERCHANT OP VENICE. pricked, ih SiTro rw r^avfiaruv >.oyic Qur law language, be would not make her do it absurdly,* 88 AS YOU LIKE IT. IVIr. Malonc, who thinks (with which I entirely tigvee) that the meaning is, " as those wliofear^ they, even those very persons, entertain hopes that their fears will not be realized, and yet at the same time they very well know there is reason for their Jears. Strange beasts.] *' What strange beasts ? yet such as have a name in all languages? Noah's ark is here alluded to, into which the clean beasts entered by sevens, and the unclean by two, male and female ; it is plain then that Shakespear wrote ' here come a pair of unclean beasts,' which is highly huimourous." — WaRbuiiton. Why will any editor insert the folly of Warburton ? From this moment I. have done with him ; censuring him is Hke censuring the wanderings, of a, maniac. EPILOGUE. Bush^ '' The practice of hanging out a bush is still observed in Warwickshire and the adjoin- ng cpunties, at fairs, &c. by persons who sel] al^ j^t no other time; and hence, I suppose, the AS YOU LIKE IT. 89 Bush tavern at Bristol and other places." — Rit- SON. This is another instance of attributing customs common to the whole kingdom to par- ticular counties. The Bush tavern at Bristol is a happij illustration as Bristol is so w^f7r Warwick- shire, and wine is only sold at that tavern during fairs, ^c. Stains 2i\idi Farnham are two other places that are in the same predicament. ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. ACT L SCEN^ I. Where an unclean mind carries virtuous qualities^ these commendations go with pity, they are virtues and traitors too.^ *' By virtuous qualities are meSint qualities of good breeding and erudition, in the saine sense that the Italians say gualitd virtuosa^ and not moral ones. On this account it is ghe says, ' that in an ill mind those virtuous qualities are virtues and traitors too, /. e. the ad- vantages of education enable an ill mind to go further in wickedness than it could have done without them. — Wa^burton. " Virtue and virtuous, as I am told, still keep this signification -^n the north, and mean hi^emdfrj SLndijigenioits.^*-'^ all's WELL THAT ENDS WELL. 91 Stfeven*. I should not have brought forward the absurdity of Warburton a^ain, had it not been for Steevens* favorite mode of accounting by pro- vincial authority for this new nneaning of virtue, where none is wanted. The passage means sim-- ply that where some virtuous qualities are found in a bad character (and where is the character so bad as not to possess some virtues ?) these vir, tuous qualities are traitors, as betraying us into placing a confidence where we ought not to place it, and though we are compelled to commend these qualities, our commendation is tempered with pity, to see so many " mildew'd ears blast- ing their hopeful brethren." 'Tis the best brine a inaidcn can season her praiic in.'] " To season has here a culinary pense, tq preserve ly salting.'^ — Malone. Sure- ly, this coarse and vulgar metaphor neither want* ed nor merited a iiote. Farezcell^ prettij lady, you must hold up th^ credit of your father^ " This passage has been passed over in silence by all the commentators, yet it is evidently dofvctive, The only meaning 92 ALL^ WELL THAT ENDS WELL* that the speech of Lafeu will bear as it now stands is this, that Helena, who was a young girl, ought to keep up the credit which her father had established, who was the best physician of the age, and she, by her answer, O were that all / seems to admit that it would be no difficult mat- ter for her to do so. The absurdity of this is evi- dent, and the words will admit of no other inter- pretation. Some attention, therefore, is necesi- sary, and that which I propose is, to read uphold^ instead of must hold^ apd then the meaning will be this : — Lafeu observing that Helena had shed a torrent of tears, which he and the countess both ascribe to her grief for her father, says, that she upholds the credit of her father, on this principle, that the surest proof that can be given of the merit of a person deceased are the lamentations of those v/ho survive him. But Helena, who knows her own heart, wishes she liad no other cause of grief except the loss of her father, whom she thinks no ijiore of." — M. Mason. I cannot see the necessity of the emendation proposed by Mr. Mason, or that the text peed be altered at all. all's WELL THAT ENDS WELL. 93 By holding the credit of her father no reference may be intended to his medical abihties, but to his character as a good man, and in this hght M. Mason himself sees it, as Lafeu cannot suppose Helena's torrent of tears only flow for her father, because he was an excellent physician. He may mean to say do not disgrace the memory of your father as a virtuous man, by actions unworthy of a virtuous woman. This seems to me so easy an interpretation of the words, that I should not put it hypothetically, were I perfectly clear that Lafeu does not allude to his medical skill, and his own knowledge that he had some specific for the cure of the king's disorder, which might be in the possession of his daughter. It must be remem- bered, after he has been told in this scene that Helena is daughter of Gerard de Narbon, and the king's disorder is spoken of, he again asks, Was this gentlewoman the daughter of Gerard de Narbori? and that after he has spoken the words which arc the subject of the note (though, according to the editions, he enters in the next scene) his next speech is to tell the king (Act 2. Scene 1.) that 94 AIl's well THAt ENDS WELl. he bad a young woman to introduce to him, whj had the means of curing him. There shall your master have a thousand loves, A 7nothci\ and a mistress, and a friend^ I am here glad to notice Warburton with appro* bation. 1 would certainly omit all that comes between these lines and God send him xvelL If ^ the connection iflay be a little loose, we have ma* ny such faults as these in our poet ; but neither he, noT any man in his senses, could have pos- sibly written the intervening stuff. ACT I. SCENE IlL Daughter and mother So strive upon your ptdse — — ■" ' ■' ' now I see The mystery of your loneliness , andjind Your salt tears headP\ When I read these lines without looking at the notes, and saw two marks^ of reference, I ^sked myself wlrat could possibly be said on this passage, where sense is so plainj, but on casting my eye down, I found we are obliged to Mr. Steevens for the information that all's well that ends well. 9^ to strive is to contend, and to Dr. Johnson for telling us that head here means smcrce OTjbimfain, and to Mr. Tyrwhit for commending a certain Mr. Hall for making nonsense of part of it by substituting lowliness for loneliness. A person agitated, pale, and in tears, from hopeless love, might naturally enough seek solitude, but how loving a person greatly superior in rank should be a proof of lowliness is not very clear to me, ACT II. SCENE 1. I am Cressid^s imcle.'] " I am like Pandarus.'* —Johnson. If this explanation is not super- fluous (which it must be to a reader of Shake- spear) it explains too little. Any person at all acquaiir*.ed with the romance of the siege of Troy, will not require to be told the name of Cressid's uncle. The mere classical reader, if such a one can be supposed, will know nothing either of Crcs- sida or her uncle Pandarus; in whom he will hard- ly recognize the 96\ all's ^r£LL THAT ENDS WELt^ of Homer, or the hero whom Virgil thus apos- trophises ; ■Clarissme Pandare qui quondam jussus confundere foedas In medios telum torsisti primus Achivos. The greatest grace lending grace.'] " I should have thought the repetition of grace to have been superfluous, if the gt-ace of grace had hot occurred in the speech with which the tragedy of Macbeth concludes",— Steevens. Notwithstand- ing the authority of the poet ih Macbeth, I should? as an editor, however unwilling to distrust the text in general, have omitted the (ir?it grace here, as the sense is much clearer w ithout it, and it is a redundant syllable, entirely destroying the mea- sure, a thing which very seldom occurs in Shake- spear's blank verse ; fievery I believe, in his rhymed versL\ ACT 11. SCENE II. Tib^s rusk.] Messrs. Steevens, Malone, Rit- son, and M • Mason, give us much more learn- ing about Tib and ber rusk than it is necessary to cite. But part of Sir John Hawkins's note all's WELL THAT ENDS WELL. 97 deserves observation. He says, " Richard Poore, Dishop of Salisbury, in his Constitutions anni !217, forbids the putting of rush rings, or any other like matters, on women's fingers, in order to the debauching them more readily, and he insi- nuates as the reason of the prohibition, that there were some people weak enough to believe that what was thus done in jest, was a real marriage. But notwithstanding this censure, the practice was not abolished, for it is alluded to in a song written by Sir William D'Avenant, called the Rivals. 1 11 crown thee with a garland of straw then. And I'll marry ihee with a rush ring." Now certainly the pious bishop was very right to give this admonition, if his flock thought the re- ; jceiving a ring of itself constituted a legal mar- i riage, as rush rings (the common manufactory j of children in the country) were much more ccj?/^^- I at-ahle than gold, or- even brass ones. But he could also have told them, that a gold ring was equally inefficient i^ithnut the legal ceremony, H 98 all's well that ends well. and with the legal ceremony a rush ring would be as effectually binding as one made of adamant.* The quotation from the mad song rather proves too much, as by coupling the rush ring with the garland of straiv, they shew both in the same predicament, either to have been customary orna- ments, or (as is really the case) the dreams of a lunatic. ' ACT II. SCENE III, Your dolphin is not lustier.^ " By dolphin is meant the heir apparent and the hope of the crown of France. His title is so translated in all the old books."— Steevens. " What Mr. Stee- vens observes is certainly true, and yet the addi- tional word your induces me to think that by dolphin in the passage before us, the fish so called is meant."— M ALONE. " In the colloquial lan- guage of Shakespear's time your was frequently * A friend of mine, who was married at Gretna Green, told me, that not finding the ring readily, the operator toJd him the key of the door weuld do as well. all's well that ends well. 99 employed as it is in this passage. So, in Ham-' let, the grave-digger observes, * that your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body."— Steevens. I have no doubt but that Steevens is right as being the word for the heir apparent of France. A Frenchman would say ^owr or owr dauphin, as we should say ijour or our prince. I do not exactly see the consistency of Mr. Malone's observation, that what Steevens says is certainly true, with his subsequent dissent. And Steevens'S second note completely destroys the sense of tha first, and confirms the dissent of Mr. Malone; for ijour water and your dead body, in the autho- rity cited, mean water and dead bodies in general, not this water or tlih dead body. , Good alone Is good xmthout a name vileness is jo.] " Shake- spear may mean that external circumstances have no power over the real nature of things. Good alone (by itself) without a name (^without the addition of titles) is good. Vileness is so (ij itself)''~STEEVENS. " Steevens's interpretation 100 all's well that ends well. of this passage is very near being right, but 1 think it should be pointed thus, ■ -Good alone Is good — without a name vilencss is so. Meaning that good is good without any addition, and vileness would still be vileness, though we had no name to distinguish it by." — M. Mason. Both Steevens and M. Mason seem to understand (what indeed could not be well misunderstood) the real drift of this passage, but they are neither vei:Y happy in their illustration. Vileness is so^ is very improperly explained by vileness is itself \ neither is there any necessity for the change of punctuation suggested by M. IMasorL Good, in itself, without addition of title, \sgood\ vileness is so (i.e. is in the same predicament) is vileness in itself, without any addition of name or title. This seems the sense of the words taken together. Honor's born.] " Honor's born, child of honor. Born is here used as hairne still is m the north." — Hex LEY. Why this absurd observation ? Is not honor's born exactly equivalent with born of all's well that ends well. lOl honor? Suppose it had been honor's first born, would there have been any difficulty ? Dryden -in his Virgil always translates Nafe Dea^ goddess horn. Shall seem expedient on the noio horn brief P\ This line, and the attempted illustrations of Johnson, M. Mason, Steevens, Henley, and Malone, are to me equally unintelligible. ACT III. SCENE II. When thou canst get the ring upon myjinger^ *• When thou canst get the ring zt^hich is on my Jin" ger into thy possession. The Oxford editor, who took it in the other way, to signify when thou canst get it on upon my finger, very sagaciously alters it to, when thou canst get the x'mg from my finger." — M'ARiiUHTON. " Dr. Warburton's explanation is confirmed incontestibly by these lines in the fifth act, when Helena again repeats the substance of this letter. Here is the ring. And look you, here's your letter, this it says. When from my finger you can gel this ring."— -Mai-One. 102 all's well that ends well. "Warburton is here (mirabile dicfu/J right, and shews the same sense may be deduced, vvithoi^t the change proposed by the Oxford editor ; but how the very words of the proposed change in a second recital of the letter, prove Warburton to be right in rejecting it, Mr. Malone would do well to explain. ACT III. SCENE VI. Leaguer.'l " Camp. They will not vouchsafe in their speeches or writings to use our ancient terms relative to matters of warre, but do call a camp by the Dutch name of legar, nor will they afford to say such a town is besieged, but that it is beleaguered. Sir John Smith's Discourses, 1590, fol. 2."— Douce. This is really a very curious note. At present all our military terms are in French, and I imagined leaguer to be the original English word, and siege the adopted French term, but here is proof positive to the contrary. John Drum.^ Theobald has a long foolish dis- sertation here about Tom Drum and John ALL^S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. 103 Drum., It is odd that neither he nor Malone should advert to its obvious allusion to the drum which Parolles is so anxious to recover, and to which Lafeu also alludes when he afterwards calls him Tom Drum. / zvould either have that drum or another, or hicjaeet.'] " i. 6. Here lies, the usual beginnings of epitaphs. * I would/ says Parolles, ' either re- cover the drum 1 have lost, or another belonging to the enemy, or die in the attempt." — Malone. It is very kind in Mr. Malone to elucidate this ver?/ obscure passage, to explain the meaning of Hicjacit to those gentlemen who have forgotten their Latin, and to tell those who have never seen a tombstone that here lies is the usual beginning of an epitaph. Dilemmas.^ " By this word Parolles is made to insinuate that he had several ways all equally certain of recovering his drum : for a dilemma is an argument that concludes both ways." — War- RURTON. " I think that by penning down his dilemmas, Parolles means that he will pen down his plans on the one side, and the probable ob- 104 all's well that ln'ds well. structioiis he was to meet with on the other. "-■'- iNI. Masox. At AYarburton's note I am n(.t sur^ prised, it is exactly in his manner ; but I am sur- prised that \M. Mason should be more absurd than Warburton. Dilemma here means simply di^culty, a sense in which it is now frequently used in common discourse. Johnson, in his Dictionary (and he cites the authority of Pope for it j, gives ' a difficult or doubtful choice,' as one of the senses of dilemma. ACT IV. SCENE III. The Coimfs a fool and full of gold ^ When he sicears oaths, &C.'] Johnson thinks a line is lost here, and Steevens proposes golden store or ore to complete the rhyme; but I think Malone is right in supposing the beginning, like the conclusion, of the letter to be prose. He'^s a cat still.] Johnson sa3'S, and defends liis opinion in a subsequent note, that it means, " throw him how you will he lights on his legs." Steevens and Malone at some length' give- ttie 'alL^S WELL THAT ENDS WI^L. 105 true sense, i. e. that Bertram having before ?aid he hates Parolles as he does a cat, only te! is us that he continues iii the same opinion. ACT V. SCENE 111. / :c/// bifi/ me a son-in-laiv in a fair and toll him for this, I xi'ill nozd of him~\ So in this edition; in that I fijst read, the first Iiiin was omitted as it is in the first foho. When 1 first read Shakespear I never thought of notes, neitlier did I find any difficulty here ; I understood it in this sense — " I will buy me a son-in-law in a fair, and let this be sold, at the same time paying the toll for his being put up to sale," and in this opinion I still conti- nue. By 31 Eliz. cap. 12, it is enacted that no liorse can be put up to sale without his marks and colour being entered with the toll , gatherer. This act was passed in 1589, and Malone fixes 159S as the date of this play, and perhaps at that time this regulation might be a common subject of conversation. Failh^ sir^ //C did love her^ hut Jioiv P^^ " Jlnt hoxv perhaps belongs to the king's speech. But 106 all's WELL THAT ENDS WELL. how ? how I pray you ? This suits better with the king's apparent impatience and sohcitude for Helena." — M alone. " Surely all transfer of the words is needless ; Hamlet addresses such another flippant interrogatory to himself—" The mouse- trap." Marry how ? Tropically. ' — Steevens. Steevens is surely in the right. TAMING OF THE SHREW INDUCTION. SCENES The Sites are 720 rogues.] " That is, vagranfs no mean fellows, but gentlemen." — Johnson. *' One Sly was a performer in the plays of Shakespear, as appears from the list of comme- dians prefixed to the folio 1623. This Sly is likewise mentioned in Heywood's Actor's Vindi- cation, &c." — Steevens. As these gentlemen think this wonderful passage worthy of a note. 1 will propose a various reading ; for Slies read Slys. Sic corrige meo periculo. Sly is a proper name. Third borough ; and in the next scene, Led.'] We are much obliged to the critics for turning their comments into a law dictionary. 1 lOS TAMING OF THE SHREW. ACT I. SCENE. I. , He that runs fastest gets the ring.] " An allusion to the sport of running at the ring/' — Douce. I think not, and for two reasons : first be- cause at that sport the prize is not given to the fastest runner; and secondly, because the ring is not the prize any more than the wicket is at cricket, ACT I. SCENE II. What he 'leges in Latin.'] " i. e. 1 suppose, what he alleges in Latin. Petruchio has just been speaking Italian to Hortensio, which Grumio mistakes for the other language." — Steevens. To this sensible remark Mr. M. Mason objects with some petulance, because the characters are Italian, forgetting himself, as is retorted by Steevens, that these Italians are completely anglicized in the play. l-AMING OF THE SHREW. 109 ACT II. SCENE I. TiOangUng Jach^^ *' Tvvaiigling Jack is mean paltry lunatisi.^' — Malone. " I do not see with Mr. ]Malone that Tvvangling Jack means paltry hinatisi, though it may paltry musician." — Douce. Mr. Douce might have seen, I should think, that lanaiht is a manifest error of the press for lutist^ which the present editor would have done well to have corrected, and to have omitted Mr. Donee's sage remark on it. ACT III. SCENE I. Old Pa}iialoon.] " The Old Cully in Italian farces."' — Johnson. The Pantaloon was not the cully, but the father of the young women in the Itahan farces as he is in the English pantomimes. The name is too common to want explanation. ACT IV. SCENE II. To pass assurance of a do-icer in inai^riage.'] Here again we are obliged to Mr. jNIalone for sup- plying the want of a law dictionary . i iO TAMIN6 OF THE SHREW. Tailor.'] *' In our poet's time, women's gowns were usually made by men.^' — Steevens. Yes, and much later. In Dryden's Wild Gallant, Bib- ber offers to measure Isabella. This practice has been well altered ; unluckily, in general, the al- teration has been reversed, as in tyre women, mid- wives, &c. The long dissertation of Hurd on the refined satire couched in the induction, asShakespear calls it, is truly worthy of the Warburtonian school. To the number of similar stories may be added The Sleeper aioakened^ in the Arabian Nights, WINTER'S TALK ACT I. SCENE IL Meeting noseSj'\ " Dr, Thurlby reads meting noses, i. e. measuring noses." — Johnson. Was it worth the trouble of Dr. Johnson to record the curious emendation ? If I could example Of thousands that had struck anointed kings.} *' An allusion to the death of the Queen of Scots. This play was, therefore, written in King James's time/'---BLACKSTONE. 1 by no means see the certainty, or even the probability of what Sir W. Blackstone asserts so roundly, any more than I am convinced by the introductory note of Walpole, that the Winter's Tale is an historic play, and ia reality a second part of Henry VIII. and that it was certainly intended as a compliment to Queen Elizabeth. ]J2 winter's TALE. ACT II. SCENE L Land damn him.'] All the united efforts of ilanmer, Johnson, Steevens, and Malone, do not throw a gleam of light on this word ; but the reading proposed by Farmer, Laudanum Idm^ i.e. poison him by laudanum seems quite inadmissible. ACT II. SCENE III. A mankind zoltchi] "I shall offer an etymology of the adjective mankind, which may perhaps more fully explain it. Dr. Hickes's Anglo Saxon Grammar, p. 119. Ed. 1705, observes, ^ Saxonice man est a meiu quod C/mbric^ est nocumenfum. Fra?icice, est no fas, scelus.'' So that mankind may signify one of a wicked and pernicious nature, from the Saxon man, mischief, and from kind, na- ture.'"— To llet. How could any man who walks about without a keeper, write such abomi- nable stuff about an obvious and not uncommon epithet, which, as M. Mason says, '• certainly means nothino- more than masculine." WIN^TER's TALE. US Baseness.] " A base son was a common term in our author's time." — Malone. Is it very un- common now ? ACT 111, SCENE II. T/ie crozcn and comfort of my Ife.] *' The su- preme blessing of my life." — Malone. Thou wouldst have poisoned good Camillo^s honor To have him hill a hing?[ *' How should Pau- lina know this ? No one charged the king w^th this crime except himself, while Paulina was ab- sent attending on Hermione. The poet seems to have forgotten this circumstance."— Malone. Considering the good terms on which Camillo miist have been on with Paulina (for when Leontes gives Pauhna to him for a wife in the last act, he hints at his regard for her), is it improbable that he should have seen her just before he went off with Polixenes. The critic may often say in the words of Pope : '• It is not Shakespear nods, tut we that dream-" I 114 WINTERS TALE. ACT IV. SCENE II. The red blood reigns in the winters pale.'] " The ^ meaning is, the red, the spring blood, now reigns over the parts lately under the dominion of win- ter. The English pale and the Irish pale were frequent expressions in Shakespear's time ; and the words red and pale were chosen for the sake of the antithesis."— Farmer. " Dr. Farmer is certainly right. I had oftered this explanation to Dr. Johnson, who rejected it." — Steevens. I think Dr. Johnson is certainly right in the rejec- tion. The most obvious sense is always most likely to be that of Shakespear ; and I will ven- ture to say that nine out of ten of common readers would understand it as meaning the red blood of spring now, has dominion over the pale occasioned by the coldness of winter. It is true the construction is something harsh, but the other is full as much so ; the making pale a substitute for paleness is no great liberty for our poet, especially in his songs. If it is not an error of the press, Dr. winter's tale. 1 15 Farmer saying it implies that the red blood of spring has dominion over^ not in, the parts, ^c. is a kind of tacit acknowledgment of this sense of the passage, especially when coupled with the re- mark, on the intended antithesis between red and pale. ACT IV. SCENE III. There is an art which in their piedness shares With great creating nature,^ " That is,'' as Mr. T. Warton observes, " there is an art which can produce flowers with as great a variety of colors as nature herself.^ This art is pretended to be taught at the ends of some of the old books that treat of cookery, &c. but being utterly im- practicable is not worth exemplification."— Stee- YENS. Surely there is no reference in the speech ofPerdita, to the impracticable pretence of pro- ducing flowers by art to rival those of na- ture; but to the very common practice of pro- ducing by art particular varieties of color on flowers, especially carnations, for which prize? I 2 116 winter's tale, are oiven at what are called florists' feasts in o all parts of England, and which this passage shews was at least coeval with Shakespear. Steevens' subsequent note on, Gilly Flowers is iu liis^r^^ manner. He has his health and ampler strength, indeed^ Than most have of his age.^ This would im- ply that Polixenes though hearty was very old ; but it appears from a speech of Leontes in the first act, that he (and Polixenes was of the same age), could not then be. above six or seven-and- twenty ; for he says, speaking of his son "Looking on the lines Of my boy's face methought I did recoil Twenty- three years .' And as sixteen years elapse between the third and fourth acts, he must be under forty-five at thi* time. Rut it is a common fault in the comic drama to give the fathers of the young characters the costumi of grandfathers. I do not remem- ber to have heard this remark made by any one ; but, what is singular, it struck every body in the excellent picture of the Angry Father, by WINTERS TALE. 117 Opie in this year's (1804) exhibition. This can- not be accounted for from the observation of Horace — " Segnius irritant animos demlssa per aurem Q.uam quae sunt oculis subjecta fidilibus." Since no imitation is so faithfully submitte-d to the eye as in the drama. Placket. 1 " Placket is properly the opening in a woman's petticoat."— St eev ens. Where did Steevens learn this > Placket is an old word for petticoat, and the opening was called the Placket- ihole. COMEDY OF ERRORS- ACT I. SCENE II. For she imll score your fault upon mjj pale.] " Perhaps before writing was a general accom- plishment a kind of rough reckoning concerning wares issued out of a shop was kept by chalk or notches on a post." — Steevens. There is really no reading such stuff as this with patience. Is not the word sco?'e as familiar now as a}?d or the ? Is there a door-post in London now without a inilk score in chalk on it ? ACT IV. SCENE 11. Siigmatical in making worse in mind.] " That is marked or signahzed by nature with deformity as a token of his vicious disposition." — Johnson. COMEDY OF ERRORS. 110 Surely no such meaning can be drawn from thesG words, which simply state that he was deformed in body, and more so in mind. In Henry Vf. Fart IT. Clifford calls Richard Plantagenet foul stigmatic. Fain/.] " // is true that there is a species of malevolent and mischievous fairies."^ — T. War- ton. Is not this rather too positive an assertion ? 1 confess I have my doubts as to i\i\'^ Juct. ACT V. SCENE I. Aitd Careful Jiours zoith times deformed hand Have zvritten strange defeatures in my fcice.'\ " Deformed for deforming."— St ee yens. " De- feature is the prevertive of feature. The meaning is, time hath cancelled my features "--Johnson " Defeatures are undoings, miscarriages, misfor- tune from defamed — Steevens. " Defeatures are certainly neither more nor less than features, as demerits are neither more nor less than merits." -— RiTsoN. It is strange these gentlemen, with the word deformed before their eyes, should be in doubt about X.[\e. aiymoXo^y oi defeature. John- son, in his Dictionary, does not agree with Ritson \i\ the certain meaning of demerit. MACBETH. ACT I. SCENE L Passim.] The labors of the critics to explain the conversation of the witches and their profound investigation of the anile creed of the age of Shakespear reminds one of what Hotspur says of Glendower, ** He held mc but last night at least nine hours In recKonuig up the several devils' names." ACT I. SCENE II. Bellonas bridegroom.~\ " This passage may be_ added to the many others which shew how little Shakespear knew of an tient mythology." Hen- ley. By Bellona Shakespear only means war personified, and Macbeth is called her bride- groom by the same figure that a lucky man may be said to be wedded to fortune. Surely Mr. Henley could not suppose that Shakespear meant Mars by Bellona's bridegroom, and that he, like MACBETH. 121 Jupiter, was married to his own sister. Till that Bellonas bridegroom should be read with the em- phasis on that^ meaning tiil that bridegroom of Bellona, ille sponsus Bellonae, not merely as a kind of expletive joined to till, as usque dam. To use his own words, this note may be added to the many others which prove how little Mr. Hen- ley was qualified to explain Shakespear. ACT I. SCENE III. The Thane of Cawdor lives, A prosperous gentleman.^ This is certainly a slip of the poet's memory, for in the preceding scene Ross informs the king that Cawdor was a traitor, in these words, ——Norway himself, with terrible numbers. Assisted by that most disloyal traitor. The Thane of Cawdor, 'gan a dismal conflict. Till that Bellona's bridegroom, lapt in proof, Confronted him with self comparisons. Point against point rebellious. In an anonvmous note on the words confronted him in this passage, Mr. Nichols (for to him, ac- cording to the preface to this edition, anonymous notes are to be given) tries to vindicate the poet I I 122 MACBETH. from this charge. " By him in this verse is meant Norway, as the plain construction of the English requires. And the assistance the Thane of Cawdor had given Norway was understood (which Ross and Angus indeed had discovered, but which was unknown to Macbeth) Cawdor being in the court all the while, as appears from Angus's speech to Macbeth when he meets him to salute him with the title, and insinuates his crime to be lining the rebel with hidden help and vantage. That him applies to Norwa}', and not to Cawdor I perfectly allow, but point rebellious must only apply to the vassals of Cawdor, who assisted the enemy. That Ross and Angus should find out the treason of Cawdor on their way to court from the army Tlike some of the supposes in the Rehearsal) is much more improbable to be the intention of Shakespear, than that he should have been a little foro:€tful in the manas:ement of his fable, in which Virgil in his ^neid was in several places remarkably deficient. And if he left his iEneid without its last finish, which the high perfection of the verse renders incredil)le, MACBETH. l^o Still no one will dispute its comparative correct- ness with the most finished work of Shakespear. ACT II. SCENE I. COURT WITHIN THE CASTLE. " The place is not marked in the old edition, nor is it easy to say where this encounter can be ; it is not in the hall, as the editors have all sup- posed, for Banquo sees the sky ; it is not far from the bed chamber, as the conversation shews ; it must be in the inner court of the castle, which Banquo might properly cross in his way to bed." — JoHNSO.^r. Notwithstanding the musi be of Dr. Johnson, I see no reason to deviate from all the editors, unless we were certain the hall of Mac- beth had no window in it. Offices.'] " Offices are the rooms appropriated to servants and culinary purposes: Duncan was pleased with his entertainment, and dispensed his bounty to those who had prepared it. All the modern editors have transferred this largess to the officers of Macbeth, who would more properly have been rewarded in the field, or at their return l'24f MACBETH. to court.'' — Steevens. It surely is more natu- ral to mention the largess as sent to the persons than to the places where they performed their work. Officer may be well applied to the upper servant of a feudal lord, and is by no means ap- propriated exclusively to a military leader. Ravishing strides.] " A ravishing stride is an action of violence, impetuosity, and tumult, like that of a savage rushing on hii prey; whereas the poet is here attempting to exhibit an imyge of secrecif and caution "-^ob.'SSON . Steevens has so clearly proved that a long stride is what every person would take who wished to tread with se- a^ecy and cautinn^ that an editor who wished to admit no more notes than were necessary, would have done v/ell to have omitted Johnson's note entirely. ACT II. SCENE 11. Mahing the green — one red^ How could the editor insert this foolish affected punctuation in his text, and at the same time give this imanswer- able confutation of it at the foot of the page. MACBETH. 125 " Tlieline before us, on the suggestion of the in- genious author of the Gray's Inn Journal, has been printed in some late editions as above. Every part of this line, as it is thus regulated, appears to me exceptionable. Ojie red does not sound to my ear as the phraseology of the age of Eliza- beth, and the green for the green one, or for the green sea, is, I am persuaded, unexampled. The quaintness introduced by such a regulation is of an entirely different colour from the quaintnesses of Shakespear. He would have here written, I have no doubt, ^ Making the green sea red,' if he had not used the word seas m the preceding line, which forced him to employ another word here. '^ — iMaloxe. This reading is, I believe, now estabhshed on the stage, but whenever the author of these observations is at the theatre, it is always received with one hiss at least. ACT II. SCENE III. The murderers sliaft that sJiot Hath not yet lighted ] " The design to fix the murder upon some innocent person has not yet 1*^6 MACBETH. taken effect." — Johnson. Out of regard to the character of Dr. Johnson and the patience of his readers, the editor should have suppressed this strange misapprehension of the passage, which obviously means as is explained at some length by Steevens. The shaft has not yet done all its intended mischief; 1 and my brother are yet to be destroyed before it will light on the ground and do no more harm. ACT II. SCENE IV. A mousing ozi)l.\ " i. e. An owl that was hunt- mg for mice as her proper prey." — Wh alley 1 ! ! ACT III. SCENE I. We'll take to-mot-rozi\'] What could induce Mr. M alone to puzzle at this common expression, or Mr. Steevens to write a long note to shew the proper sense of it } ACT III. SCENE II. Shard'boime beetle] " The shard-borne beetle is the beetle borne along the air by its shards or MACBETH. 127 scaly wings. In Cymbeline Shakespear again applies this epithet to the beetle. ■We find The sharded beetle in a safer hold Than is the full-winged eagle." — Stejevens. This is sufficient. A great deal of what Steevens adds is superfluous, but ail that is said by War- burton, Tollett, and Ritson, is ridiculous, and should have been omitted. We are, however, obliged to Mr. Holt White for telling us that the chaffer and the beetle are distinct insects. ACT III. SCENE III. Lated traveller.'] " i. e. Belated, benighted." — Steevens ! ! ACT III. SCENE IV. Who maij I rather challenge for unkhidness. Than pity for mischance] In confutation of a very sensible remark of Malone and Wheatlcy, Douce gives us the proof of his total inability to comprehend what one would think could not 133 MACBETH. possibly be misunderstood. " Macbeth means to say I have more cause to accuse him of unkind- ness for his absence than to pity him for any acci- dent or mischance that may have occasioned it.^' — Douce. May obviously here implies a msh^ not an assertion. May is not an awkward inver- sion of / maij^ but the regular optative. The table s J'ull.'] We have seen the ghost of Banquo dismissed by Mr. Kemble on the authority of a passage in Lloyd's Actor. Why, in a play full of supernatural persons, the ghost of Banquo should alone be objected to is not very obvious, but it is sufficiently so from the context, that. Shakespear meant the ghost should really appear to Macbeth, and not be merely the creation of his distempered conscience. The first observation that Macbeth makes is, that the tablets fulU that is, without discerning the person, he found no place reserved for him ; for when Lenox says there is a place reser-od^ Macbeth answers were? and, on Lenox pointing to the place, and, saying here, my lord, he first sees the ghost and betrays his agitation- Besides we may take Macbeth 's own word, he was Macbeth. 129 tectlv sensible that thedasfger that seemed to lead him to Duncan was imaginary ; and when Lady Macbeth tells him here that the ghost was also the painting of his Jeai\ as well as the air-clnwn dagger^ he is, being then fully collected, sensi- ble of the difference, and answers firmly, as I live I saw him. ]\Ir. Seymour here, not content with restoring the ghost of Banquo in the first appari- tion, contends that the second apparition was the ghost of Duncan: siirel}', without t lie least sha- dow of real support from the context. The ghost appearing immediately on Macbeth's wishing that his dear friend Banquo was present, would be a confirmation of its being his ghost, if any could possibly be necessary. Neither can I see any possible ground for the supposition of Mr. Sey- mour and his ingenious friend Mr. Strutt, that Banquo's ghost did not appear with the visionary kings, but should appear in another part of the stage of his own motive. The reason given for this is curious, viz. that Mr. Seymour ''believes it was beyond the power of these weird women to disturb and conjure up the noble-minded Ban- 130 MACBETH. quo at their pleasure." I have read a long dis- sertation, I believe, in Glanville on Witches, where Jt is disputed whether the witch of Endor reall}^ raised the ghost of Saul, or a spirit in his form, but I did not expect to find such a conjuror in a critique on Shakespear. O proper sttiffer.] " This speech is rather too long for the circumstance in which it is spoken ; it had begun better at Shame itself.'' — ^Johnson. This piece of intolerably false criticism is very justly refuted by M. Mason. Golden time.'\ " Mr. M. Mason proposes to read the golden time, meaning the golden age ; but the ancient reading may be justified by Holings- kead, who, speaking of the witches, says they re- semble creatures of the elder world." — Steevens. Here again we have Steevens with his hypotheti- cal defence of the old reading, which is obvious to every one, and a quotation to support it from Holihgshead. Mr. M. Mason is generally right, but surely here his usual sagacity forsook him when he proposed to alter the text for the purpose ©f imputing murder to the golden age. MACBETH. IS I Gentle weal] "The gentle weal is the peace- able community, the state made quiet safe by hu- man statues."— Johnson. In my opinion it means that state of innocence which did not re- quire the aid of human laws to render it quiet and secure."— M. Mason. If the reading in the text is right Dr. Johnson's explanation is the true one, M. Mason only follows up his former error; but I would adopt the more usual reading, general iceal. A one of them.'] " This, however uncouth the phrase, signifies an individual.^' — Steevens. This hardly needed explanation when such a one is so very common a phrase. The phrase is, how- ever, uncouth here, and is a curious proof of the great attention our poet had paid to the correct- ness of his verse. Scann'cL] " To scan is to examine nicely."— Steevens. ACT IV. SCENE I. Double double toil and trouble.] " As this was a very extraordinary incantation they were to 13S MACBETH. double their pains about it. 1 think, therefore, it should be pointed as I have pointed it — " Double, double toil and trouble.'' Otherwise the solemnity is abated by the imme- diate recurrence of the rhyme." — ^Steevens. If it were worth while to criticize so childish an ob- servation, we could tell the critic that to double, double toil, would quadruple their pains. Though b laded com be lodged.'] *' Corn pros- trated by the wind in modern language is said to belaid, but lodged had anciently the same mean*- ing." — RiTSON. Lodge is very generally used in this sense at present. The apparition of an armed head rises.] "The armed head represents symbolically Macbeth's head cut off and brought to' Malcolm by Macduff. The bloody child is Macduff untimely ripp'd from his mother's womb. The child with a crown on his head and a bough in his hand is the royal Malcolm who ordered his soldiers to hew them down a bough and bear it before them to Dunsinane. This observation I have adopted from INIr. Upton . ^'—Stee- V£Ns. This wonderful discovery must have MACDETH. \53 given " double double toil and trouble'' to these sagacious critics. Surely it must be obvious to every child of common capacity the first time he reads the play. Blood-bolter d.^ Steevens's note, tracing this obscure word to the neighbourhood of Stratford on Avon, exactly used in the sense it is here, is curious, and is a specimen of what notes should be^ and a proper application of terms realhj pro^ vincial to the elucidation of Shakespear. ACT IV. SCENE II. But cruel are the times when zve are traitors And do not knozv ourselves, when vje hold ru- mour From what zaejear, yet know not what wefear\ " When we are led by our fears to believe every rumour of danger we hear ; yet are not conscious to ourselves of any crime for which we should be disturbed by those fears.^'— Steevens. For this explanation of a very obscure passage, I am happy again to give my thanks to the critic. The emendation proposed by Oxford JMlitor of knowU ourselves renders it plainer ; but considering the carelessness of the poet is not necessary 13i MACBETH. ACT IV. SCENE III. Summer seecUng.'\ The old copy has, sutJimer seeming. Summer seeming may signify lust as hotas summer.'^--ST£EVENS. " Summer f^erming is, I believe, the true reading. \n Jones's Poems we have Vv i...«-i-secming." Malonk. With these observations of his own and Malone's, vi^hy would Steevens, alter the original text to insert the far- fetched and fanciful change proposed by Black- stone, and supported by Henley. IMacduff. — See zcho comes here ? Malcolm. — My countniman ; but yet I know him not.^ "Malcolm discovers Rosse to be his countryman by his dress. This circumstance loses its propriety on our stage as all the charac- ters are uniformly represented in English habits." — Steevens. Hoav could this remark get into an Edition published in 17^7- The use of the Scottish dress in Macbeth was first introduced b\' Macklin about the year 177t), when he ventured to act that character, and the distinction has been ever since retained at both the theatres. .MACBETH. I'3v5 Rent the (?//'.] " To rent is an ancient verb, which has long been disused."— Steevens. Ra- ther an error of the press for rend, or the poet put the past tense for the present, as to clad is some times incorrectly used for to cLthe, an instance of which occurs in Mr. Drummond's first edition of his Persius, and which was pointed out to him by the author of these remarks. He has no children.'] " It has been observed by an anonymous critic, that this is not said of Macbeth, who had children, but of Malcolm, who> having none, supposes a father can be so easily comforted." — Johnson-. " That Macbeth had children at some period appeal's from what Lady Macbeth says in the first act — / have given suck, SjC. I am still more confirmed in thinking these words relate to jNIalcolm and not to Macbeth, be- cause Macbeth had a son alive named Lulah, who, after his father's death, was proclaimed king by some of his friends, and slain at Straith- bolgie, about four months after the battle of Dun- sinane. See Ford une." — Malone. Is it possible that any person can read the passage with itf 1^5 MACBETH. context, and for a moment suppose it can relate to Malcolm and yet fancy himself a fit person to comment on the plays of our poet. Let him lay down his Shakespear and set about publishing a correct edition of Anderson's geneological tables. Shakespear, in the ardor of composition, little thought of Lulah, or of what he had made Lady Macbeth say in a former scene. In a passage of Henry VL Part III. (which Blackstone very pro- perly observes, " contains the same sentiment as this, and may serve as a comment on it,") where Margaret says — " You have no children, butchers, if ye had. The thought of them would have stirr'd up remorse." Did Shakespear think in necessary to enquire if King Edward, Gloster, or Clarence, had then any children ? ACT V. SCENE III. My way of life Is fallen into the sear, theyelloxD leaf] Though this passage and the proposed emendation of ?}tay for zvaij has employed the pens of Johnson, War- MACBETH. 137 burton, Langton, Colman, Steevens, and Malone, the conclusion of the last mentioned gentleman's long note seems perfectly satisfactory. " With- out going further into the subject it is sufficient for our purpose that the text, as it is exhibited in the ancient copy, affords an obvious easy sense without any emendation whatever." When Steevens says immediately afterwards that sear is dry, he should have added that it is particularly applied to the autumnal leaved. KING JOHN. ACT I. SCENE I. Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France-t For ere thou canst report I will be there, The thunder of my cannon shall be heard.] " The simile suits not well ; the lightning, indeed, appears before the thunder is heard, but the light- ning is destructive and the thunder is innocent/' — Johnson. This note is followed by superflu- ous proofs of what is evident from Ritson and M. Mason, to shew that it is a common error that the thunder is destructive, and that this error has been adopted by the poets. But, in truth, the objee« tion of Johnson, and the solution of the other gentlemen are equally superfluous. There is no allusion whatever to the destructive power of thunder ; but King John merely adverts to the swiftness of the lightning at KING JOHN. 139 first, and, having used the word, adds, " As the lightning precedes the thunder, so you shall pre- cede the thunder of my artillery." Shakespearis shewn by Ritson to have imputed a distructive quality to thunder in several passages ; but this is certainly not one of them, for if it is, he must also impute a destructive quality to the report of the cannon, and not the ball. ACT II. SCENE I. Give grandam hingdom, and it grandam zmll Give it a plum, ^c.~\ On this Mr. Seymour ob- serves, " This is still the language of nurses to children."' I did not imagine it had been of such high antiquity ! ACT II. SCENE II. If not compleat, O say he i% not she^ And she again wants nothings to name want If want it be not, that she is nut /?i. One would think it impossible for any person to mistake so grossly the meaning ISO KING JOHN, of these Irhes ; but to see it done by such a man as Johnson really hurts one. Steevens gives the true and obvious meaning, prefacing it by saying, " Dr. Johnson is, / believe mis- taken." ACTV. SCENE II. Stranger march.] " Our author often uses stranger as an adjective." — Malone. So does every author who writes in verse. It is, in fact, a Gallicism. ACT V. SCENE III. Sir Richard Fakonbridge.] " And yet the king a little while before (Act III. Scene II.) calls him by his original name, Philip.".^STEE- YENs. If the reader will go back to the note on that place, it will also serve for one on this, ACT V. SCENE VII. The shrouds.'] " Shakespear here uses the word ^ shrouds in its true sense. In modern poetry the word frequently signifies the sails KINGJOHN. 151 of a ship." — Malone. " This latter use of the word shrouds, has hithierto escaped me." — Steevens. I believe Mr. Malone has confound- ed shrouds with sheet, which, though it nieans a rope is often mistaken by fresh-water sailors for the KING RICHARD II, ACT I. SCENE IL Caitiff'.'] " Caitiff originally signified a prisoner^ next a slave, from tlie condition of prisoners ; then a scoundrel from the quahties of a slave. In this passage it partakes of all these significa- tions." — JoHNSOx. " 1 do not believe that caitifi in our language ever signifies a prisoner. I take it to be derived not from captif^ but from cJietif, poor, miserable." — Tyrwhit. Tyrwhit is un- doubtedly right as to the immediate derivation ; but chetif'in French is derived from cattiva in Italian, which signifies, it is. true, base, or mean ; but it also signifies a captivCi and therefore the KlSG RICHARD 11. 1^3 spirit of Johnson's note is right. Holt White observes, that " Johnson has compressed a coup- let of Homer into a single line. To misquote a Greek poet without injury to the sense or the ifneasure, is a strong proof of accuracy in the lan- guage." A member of the House of Commons, who was much in the habit of quoting the clas- sics, has been suspected of studying changes of this kind beforehand, to shew his facility of coiHt position. Johnson was above such quackery, ACT I. SCENE HI. Advised.'] *' i. e, concerted, deliberated."--^ Steevens. This was hardly necessary to be told, as I suppose there are few persons who are igno^ rant of the words in which the royal assent is re- fused to a bill. Measttre.'] *^ A measure was a formal court ^ance." — Steevens. Ecce ilerum Crispimis! ACT I. SCENE IV. ffadilie tribute of Ids supple knee.'] " To illus- trate this phrase it should be remembered, that 154 KING RICHARD 11^ courtse^ing (the act of reverence novp confined to women) was anciently practised by men."— Stee- VENs. Though bowing and courtseying are now equally out of fashion, it may yet be full as easily remembered, that the bow taught by the dancing- master was always accompanied by a motion of the foot, which could not be performed without some degree of genuflexion. ACT II. SCENE I. Music at the close^ " This I suppose to be a musical term." — Steevens ! ! ! Jiash.] " That is, hasty, violent. — Johk- soN ! .^ ! Imp out our drooping country^s broken wmg?)^ " When the wing feathers of a hawk were drop- ped, or forced out by any accident, it was usual to supply as many as were deficient : this was called to imp a hawk." — Steevens. This note is absolutely necessary to explain the metaphor to the generality of readers: it is exactly what a note on Shakespear should be. The same praise ; KING RICHARD II* 155 maybe given to all the notes which point out the real characters throughout the historical plays. ACT III. SCENE I. Dispark'd my parks.'] " To dispark is to throw- down the hedges of an inclosure.*' — Steevens. Where did Mr. Stevens pick up this curious piece of information ? To dispark a park, is, to put it to some other use than that of keeping deer, whe- ther the fences are thrown down or not. What it is may be seen around the houses of nine- tenths of the old country gentlemen of this kingdom. ACT III. SCENE II. And when iheij from thy bosom pluck ajio'as proverbial. See Ray's Pioverbs, 163." — Reed. To quote Ray to prove that a phrase, now in very common use, xo as former Iy^vo\et\i\?i\, is an absurdity that I should have laughed at, where I not hurt to see it from the pen of a person so truly re-^ spectable as ^Ir. Reed. Ayid gave the tongue a helpful ornaments] *' The English language."— Johnson. " Glen- ' dower means that he graced his own tongue with the art of singing.""— Ritson. " I think Dr. -Johnson's explanation is the true one.'^ —Malone. 1 think they are both mistaken ^nd that Glendovver sugges.ts that by writi-ng HENRY IV. PART I. l67 Verse he had improved his style. Hotspur's an- swer is levelled at verse not at music or speaking English. OnCy no persuasion can do good upon.'] *' A cOmmon ellipsis for ' one that no persuasion, &c." — Steevens. So common, surely, that it needed not a note. / tinders tajid thij kisses and thou min^y And thafs a feeling disputation.'] i. «. " A contest of sensibility, a reciprocation in which we engage on equal terms." — Stelvens. What makes this critic so unceasonably delicate on a sudden ? 1 doubt if the use of feeling for sensi- bility is as old as the age of Elizabeth. The lat- ter part of the note, or at least its application to this passage, I do not comprehend. Be still. — ' — Neither, tis a tcomati^s fault.'] " This is spoken ironically."— FaRiMEr. This is so obvious that I should have marked the elucidation with my usual signs of admiration; did not the extreme ab- surdity of the other critics make it necessary. Johnson says he does not understand it. Steevens 168 HENRY IV. IPART I. gives such a meaning as no one but hinfiself could have given, and the sagacious and modest Mr. White has found out that it is baudy, T'ls the next way to turn tailor P\ This passage is to me inexphcable, even after all the learning of Johnson, Steevens, Malone, and my old friend Dains Barrington, By the way all the critics suppose Percy is dissuadmgh'is w'lie from singing, when he is really persuading her to sing. ACT III. SCENE II. Lord Mortimer of Scotland.'] Steevens's note on this is curious and satisfactory. ACT III. SCENE III. Yea tzi.10 and tzao, Nengaie jasJuon,] "As prisoners are conveyed to Newgate two and two together."— Johnson ! Stew'd Prunes^ Mr. Steevens, as Dr. Farmer observes, has indeed fully discussed the subject of stew'd prunes. Much of his learning on this beastly subject might have been spared. JH^NRY IV. PART L 1 69 ACT IV. SCENE I. His heaver ow.] Warburton proposes beaver up, which ^coduces much altercation among the other critics. Shakespe^r clearly means when he uses the expression ' the beaver up/ that the face is uncovered, as in the passage in Henry IV. Parts, " Their armed staves iii charge, their beavers down." And in Hamlet, when Horatio tells Hamlet that his father's ghost was armed cap-a-pee, he says, *' Then saw you not his face ?" To which his friend replies, " O yes, my lord, he wore his beaver up." But Douce is certainly right in say- ing the beaver sometimes was fixed to the bottom and sometimes to the top of the helmet ; for, in a note on Mr» Macauley's History of England, vol. 5, p. 437, chap. 5, 4to. Lord Brokers being killed is mentioned as extraordinary because his beaver W5^s up and he was armed to the knee. 170 HENRY IV. PART I. ACT V. SCENE III. Skot-free?[ " A play upon shot, as it means the part of a reckoning, and a missive xceapon dis- charged from artilleryr — Johnson, Was it worth while to explain this very obvious pun. The concluding diffinition of shot almost rivals the celebrated explanations (if they may be called so) of nehinork and shooing horn, inthe dic- tionary. Here's that will sack a citij.'] " A quibble on the word sack/'- — Johnson. Again I ! I ACT V. SCENE IV, Amaze ij our friends.'] i. e. " Throw them into consternation. '^—.Steevens. The critic is never tired of explaining this word. /// weaved ambition how much art thou shriinlx^ " A metaphor taken frpni cloth v.hich shrinks when it is ill-weaved, when its texture is loose." Johnson ! ! ! ,. But let my favors hide thy mangled face."] " We should ready^wr, face, or countenance. He is JlENRY IV. PART I. 171 Stooping down to kiss Hotspur." — Warburton. The proposed emendation and the supposition on which it is grounded are so completely absurd that I cannot avoid noticing it, though it comes from Warburton. Powder me.'} To powder is to salt,"— -JoHN^ SON ! ! ! HENRY IV. PART IL ACT I. SCENE I. And darkness be the bulkier of the deadS[ Con- sidering how often the commentators on Shake- spear step out of their way, one of them I think might have remarked (considering how very popu- lar Cibber's alteration of Richard the Third is), that this, and some of the preceding Imes, are given there -as the dying words of Richard. ACT IL SCENE II. Kin to the king.1 This is a curious circum- stance, and deserves notice more than a thousand of the trifles enlarged on by the critics. It shews that from the princes of the blood marrying the heiresses of great families, it was no uncommon thing for persons of inferior rank to be related to the royal family* HENRY IV. PART II. 175 Put on tzao leathern jerkins and aprons and let us wait on him at his table as dra7s. Budge should certainly be m the text ; the emendation is equally confirmed by the sense of Malone and the nonsense of Steevens. She wolf of France.^ It is remarkable, that Mr. Mason, when he cites Gray's imitations of other poets, omits this. Last line of the Scene.'] '' This gallant noble- man." — Malone. This is said of the Duke of York, but is erroneously said, '* he was not a gal- lant nobleman." He was either a monarch fight- ing for his crown against an usurper, or a traitor. HENRY VI. PART III. 205 rebelling against his lawful sovereign. This, and the future succession of the crown, was finally determined by the battle of Tewksbury. Though perhaps the battle of Bosworth field might have reversed the decree, had Henry VII been the real heir of the house of Lancaster. While we eon- template the reigns of Elizabeth, the second Mary, and Anne, we are not anxious for a Salique law, though no Englishman can reflect without some dread on what may happen from female sovereigns and their connections, when he sees Philip and Mary on the statute book. ACT II. SCENE I. Methougld he bore him w the thickest troop As. doth a lion in a herd 0/ neat.'] " i. e. he de- meaned himself. — Ma lone. Was this expla- nation necessary ? Mr. Home thought the fol- lowing passage in Douglas sufficiently clear far an English audience without a note : • For whose dear sake 1 will not bear myself as I resolv'd. ^06 HENRY VI. PART III. ACT 111. SCENE I. Brake] " A brake anciently signified a thick' et." — Steevens. What does it signify now? We have hed this very common word investigated before in a note on Midsummer Night's Dream. ACT IV, SCENE III. And come noto to create you Diihe of YorJcl *' Might we not read, with a slight ahera*ion, and come to new-create you Duke of York?" — Johnson. We certainly might, but 1 do not see why wc should. ACT IV. SCENE VII. Now brother Richard, Lord Hastings, and the rest.'] " Mr. M. Mason recommends the omis- sion of Lord, which is objected to by Mr. Malone, on the notion of modern and ancient phraseology being different. But Steevens so clearly shews the general correctness of Shakespear's verse, that I am surprised that any editor wiio printed his note could retain the word lord in the text. HENRY VI. PART III. 207 ACTV. SCENE II. Which sounded like a clamour in a vauli.'] " That is, like the noise of a cannon in a vault. Shake- spear's alteration here is perhaps not so judicious as many others that he has made. In the old play, instead of cmmon we have clamour J"* — Malone. " The indistinct gabble of undertakers while they adjust a coffin in 2i family vault, will abundantly illustrate the preceding simile. Such a peculiar hubbub of inarticulate sounds might have attract- ed our author's notice ; it has often forced itself on mine. Shakespear means a vault in general, not a burying place. — Steevens. The old read- ing clamour seems the best, but there does not appear to be much weight in JNIr. Steevens s abun- dant illustration. ACT V. SCENE V. 'Devil" s butcher.'] Theobald, with a peculiar happiness of mis-comprehension, says devil's but- cher is equivalent wit4i kill devil, and proposes to read devil butcher; but Dr. Johnson justly 209 HENRY VI. PART III. says, " Devil's butcher is a butcher set on by the devil ; either reading may serve, without so long a note." ACT V. SCENE VII. Triumphs,'] " Triumphs are public shews; the word has occarred too frequently to need exem- plification in the present case." — Steevens. Theg whv is it noticed here ? RICHARD III. ACT I. SCENE I. Sun of York.'] " Alluding to the cognizance of Edward the Fourth, which was a sun/' — Steevens. I cannot think any such allusion intended. He capers nimhlij in a lady's chamber.] ' ' War capers, this is poetical, though a little harsh ; if it be York that capers, the antecedant is at such a distance that it is almost forgotten." — Johnson. [ am inclined to think that neither York nor war is the antecedent ; but that the poet, with his not unusual negligence of arrangement, meant a warrior in general, without considering he had omitted the antecedent. Descant an my own infirmity^ " Descant is a term in music, signifying in general that kind of harmony wherein one part is broken, and formed 310 RICHARD III. ^nto a kind of paraphrase on th« other. The propriety and elegance of the above figure, with- out such an idea of the nature of descant, cannot be discerned." — Sir J. Hawkins. " That this is the original meaning of the term is certain; but Ihelieve the word is here used in its secondary and colloquial sense, without any reference to music." — Malone. Of the justice of Mr. Ma- lone's belief there can be no doubt. One wonders how such an idea as that expressed in the pre- ceding note could possibly have entered into any human brain, Weie it to call king Edx has given the true one. To peel is the common word f6r taking ofF the rind of fruit all over the kingdom, and Mr. Henley might have spared him- self the trouble of telHng us how it is pronounced in the dialect of Devonshire. Ah gentle villain ] Warburton very pleasantly)' suggests ungentle ; but 1 think, with Mr. M. Ma- son, that it is said ironically, and that no oppo- sition is meant between villain and gentleman m their feudal sense, as Dr, Johnson supposes. p 2 512 RICHARD rii. ACT II. SCENE IL Think you my uncle did dissemble /" *' Shake- spear uses dissemble in the sense of acting fraudu- lently, feigning what we do not feel or think ; though strictly it means to conceal our real thoughts or affections.''— Malone. Here seems to me a distinction without a difference. Lord Chesterfield, I know, takes some pains to distin- guish simulation from dissimulation, but surely he who feigns what he does not feel or think, must conceal his real thoughts and affections, and vice versa, ACT II. SCENE IV. Pitchers have ears^ " Shakespear has not quoted this proverbial saying correctly. It ap- pears, from a dialogue ' both pleasant and pitiful, by William Bulleyn, 1^6i.' that the old proverb is, Small pitchers have great ears.'' — Malone. Is this a serious note of Mr. Malone's, or is he ironically ridiculing some of the notes of his coadjutors ? RICHARD III. 513 ACT III. SCENE. I And in good time here comes the swsafing lord.] ** De bonne heure." — Steevens. Bravo ! INlons. Steevens. Nevertheless, if it is necessary to trans- late Shakespear into French, I would rather ad- vise the translator to render this apropos than de bonne heure. ^ ACT III. SCENE II. Have with you.l " A familiar phrase in parting, as much as take something with you ; or, I have something to say to ijou.^^ Johnson. " This phrase so frequently occurs in Shakespear, that I wonder Johnson should mistake its meaning. It signifies merely I will go along imth you, and is an expression in use at this day." — M. Mason. I perfectly agree with Mr. M. Mason in every part of this note, except his wonder that Dr. Johnson should mistake the meaning of Shake- spear. 214 RICHARb HI. ACT IV. SCENE IV. Pewfellow^ '* It is a word yet in use."-!-Sir X Hawkins. It has never been my fortune to hear it used. This note, by the way, runs directly counter to the generality of the notes of this sort, which state expressions to be obsolete that are now in constant use. Humphnj Hour.~\ The only possible sense that can be extracted from this (and a very lame one it is), must be an allusion to some known servant of the Duchess of York, familiar to the minds of the people at the time Shakspear wrote, either from tradition or some popular story. It does, however, knight s service to the critics, by giving them an opportunity of expatiating on the origin of the proverbial saying,' to dine with Duke Humphrey. - Shall I go win my daughter to thy xvill^ Surely Shakespear could not mean to repeat so impro- bable a circumstance in the same play as the courtship of Lady Anne, and yet no hint is drop- ped of this compliance of the queen being feigned. RICHARD III. "^15 Iii this, as in many other parts of this play, the alterations of Gibber are highly deserving of praise. ACT ly. SCENE. V. Sir Chmtopher Atiwicke.] Here we have again a dissertation on tlie title of Sir annexed to the clergy ; it has occurred once before in this play, Act III. Scene II. where Hastings calls a priest Sir John, and is accompanied there by a short note of iNIalone. It is clear to every one who has consulted the buttery books, either of Oxford or Cambridge, or, as Mr. M. Mason has informed us, of Dublin. ACT V. SCENE 111. Braved f he east.] " Made it splendid," — Ste^- VENs. Is it so ? 1 think not; it appears to me exactly explained, if explanation were needed, by a passage spoken by the same character in th« same play. " We aiust be brwf when rcbcU brave the &cli- HENRY VIII. Dr. Johnson has a note on this, play, wherein he expresses his doubt if the theatre is not as in- adequate to the representation of a coronation as of a battle. This might be, in some degree, the case in the time of Shakespear; but surely our modern theatres are fully adequate to represent the procession of a coronation in all its splendor. The coronation of his present majesty had many errors in the conducting of it. And as both the theatres vied with each other in imitating it, and at that time Covent Garden was more celebrated for pantomimic pageantry than Drury-lane, and was besides the larger theatre, the late Duke HENRY VIII. 217 oi York is reported to have said, that the coro- nation at Drury-lane was represented as it ac- tually was, and at Covent Garden as it ought to have been. Mr. Sej^mour, who is very fond of discovering what parts of all the plays belong to Shakespear, and what to others, has ascribed great part of this play to Ben Johnson, and proves, as usual with his promp ipse dixit. To this we may apply the words of the satiric poet, ]But veteran critics are not so deceived. If veteran critics are to be believed ; Once seen, they know an author ever more. Nay, swear to hands they never saw before : How doth it make judicious readers smile. When authors are detected by their style; When every one, who knows the author, knows |-Ie shifts hi; style much oftener than his clothes, ACT I. SCENE I. No mans pie is freed From his ambitious Jinger^ To have a finger in the pie is a proverbial phrase. See Ray, 244."— Reed. Of the truth of tliis learned note I am 218 HENRY viir. convinced, without referring to the authority of Ray ; but that Mr. Isaac Reed could have writ- ten such a note, hardly can be convinced. ♦ ACT I. SCENE IL The mamj.~\ " The many is the meiny^ the train, the people. — ^Johnson. This is really too bad. To cope malicious censurersJ] "• To engage, to encounter. The word is still used in some coun- ties." — Johnson. The word is now in general use ; but so far from being provincial, it is oftener written than spoken : the only singularity here, is, its not bei«g followed hy with. By day and night.'] This, Mr. Steevens gravely tells us, he believes was " a phrase anciently sig- nifying at all timeSi every iVhitehead. 220 HENRY VIII. Mark our bright youths, how gallant and how gay. Fresh plumed and powder'd in review array. Yet vain, while prompt to arras by plume and pay. He takes the soldier's name from soldier's play. The laced boy may strut the soldier's part, Bedeck'd yv'ithfeathersy tho' unarmed in heart. I suppose these feathers were on the heads, and not in the hands of the officers. ACT II. SCENE IV. Where powers are your retainers^ and your words Domestics to you.'] No possible sense can be struck out from words; the emendation sug- gested by Mr. Tyrwhit is very happy (wards); it is effected by the change of one letter only, and gives complete sense. HENRY VIII. 221 ACT III. SCENE I. In a passage in this scene, and elsewhere in this play, but nowhere else, though it frequently occurs in every book in the English language, Mr. Seymour disputes the use of ye for you^ in the oblique case of the pronoun plural. Though we must say, with one of the first of critics, that, in such cases, universal practice is authority. If absurd refinement chose to adopt the absurd substitute of the plural for the singular, in the pronoun of the second person, after such a gross violation of the rules of grammar, no pedantic grammarian has a right to step in and say, you sliail not even be permitted to make the only alteration you can make for it, by using j/ozt for the singular, andj/-3. Here we have two notes of Steevens, in direct j opposition to each odier ; for the second shews that the word plaguy is not here a vulgar epithet, derived from the figurative application of plague ' to anv thin?: that is tedious and tiresome, but that it sismifies simply pesteiential. Ajax. Shall I call you Jaiher P Nestob, Aye, my good son.'] " In the folio and in the modem editions, Ajax desires to give the title of father to Ulysses ; in the quarto more naturally to Xestor.'^ — Johxsox. I must dissent ftom the quarto. Surely it is most natural that lEOILUS AKD CRESSIDA 297 Ajax should express his regard to die petscHi vi ho had just been fiattehi^ him ib the grossest manner. ACT III. SCENE I. Loie'i ui-^Lsible souJ.j '• Tiio may niciiii tne soul of Love invisible every where else." — Johx- sox. But what does * the soul of Love invisibl* every where else' mean r 3J^ disposer^ Cre$-sid.'\ This is perfectly unin- telligible, and all the labours of all the coomien- tators have not thrown a gleam of light on it : the word being repeated twice immediately after- wards, forbids all conjectural emendatioa. Had this not been the case, all difficulty would h^ve been removed bv rr^r^cn?. hb dhpo^r'- ■ e r^.e ACT III. SCEXE II. A.i Ljnsiofi: ;/itHy J r^:.'.i<:>fi.^ Xot Withstanding all the reasoning of the critics, the emendation of Hanmer (inconstant J 'i$ not only plausible., but absolateiy necessary. Pandams is not utteiin? a Q '2 228 TROILUS AND fiRESSIDA. prophecy, but an imprecation on the lovers and himself in case Troilus and Cressida are false one to the other. Nor why Troilus should always be called constant, if he proved false to Cressida, these critics would have done well to explain. M. Mason s objection to constant, which, by the waj'-, I have almost transcribed, is unanswerable : though attempted, in vain, to be answered by Malone. ACT IV. SCENE II. How mij achievements mock me.^ Here ^Ir. Seymour takes occasion to censure Mr. Steevens for his frequent use of the word so, in his refer- ing from one passage of the poet to another, and tells you, as what he thinks a pleasant jest of Bannister's, on many of Steevens' notes being so so, (in which 1 agree without a joke) ; but why the thus, w4iich is as frequently used by Mr. Seymour on the same occasion, is better than the so of Mr. Steevens, I cannot discern. TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. 2^29 ACT V. SCENE II. Polatoe.^ " Potatoes were anciently regarded as provocatives. See Mr. CoUins's note, which, on account of its length, is given at the end of the play/' — Steevens. This note, or rather dis- sertation, is singularly curious and instructive: to be told the idea our ancestors entertained of a root at its first introduction, which is now almost in as general use as bread, and is an excellent substitute for it when wheat is scarce, cannot but be highly interesting ; and yet when this note first appeared, all the periodical writings of the day were outrageous against it, taxing the writer with immorality for pointing out this stimulus in a food which is, I believe, as innocent of it as bread, or any thing that is nutritious. * I remember meet- ing with a just censure of this violent attack, in a book which I happened to take up by accident, where it was not very likely to be found — "Wes- ley's Journal. * This illiberal attack has been since followed up in the Pursuits of Literature. 230 TROILFS AND CRESSIDA. ACT V. SCENE IX. ^ven with the vail and darkening of the sun.'\ " The vail is, I think the sinking of the sun, not the veil or cover." — Johnson. I much doubt this : it is not the decline, but the occultation of the sun that darkens it. Besides, is vail, in this sense, ever used as a substantive ? ACT V. SCENE XI. Make wells and Niobes of the maids and wives. ^ " I adopt the conjecture of a deceased friend, who would read welland, i. e. weeping Niobes. The Saxon termination of and for mg is common in our old poets, and often corrupted at the press."— Wh ALLEY. I believe such Saxonisms are seldom found in poets of Shakespear's time, except perhaps in Spencer, who affected obsolete words. The emendation might have been plau^ sible in Chaucer or Gower, TIMON OF ATHENS, ACT 11. SCENE I. No porter at the gate. But rather one that smiles, and still invites All that pass by.^ *' I imagine a line is log* here, in which the behaviour of a surly porter was described.'^ — Johnsox. " There is no occa- sion to suppose the loss of a line ; sterness was the characteristic of a porter. There appeared at Killingworth Castle (157^5) ' a porter tall of par- son, big of lim, and stearne of countinauns^'' — Farmer. " The word one in the second line does not refer to porter, but means a person. He has no stern forbidding porter at the gate to keep people out, but a pers'on who invites them in.^' — M. Mason. Dr. Farmer is right, but not explicit 232 TIMOy OF ATHENS. enough. M. Mason gives the true sense, with clearness and precision. The truth is, Dr. Far- mer's hobby-horse was ready, and he must up and ride, though he left the sense of the passage unexplained, and Steevens immediately mounted behind him; or, to speak plainly, Dr. Farmer could not resist the opportunity of proving from an old book with obsolete sj^elling, that porters were surly, and therefore neglected his duty as an explainer of the difficulties in Shakespear; and Steevens was so pleased with following up the learning of his friend by a quotation from Decker, that he quite forgot there was any such a person as Shakespear existing. I go^ SirP^ " This last speech is not a cap^ tious repetition of what Caphis says, but a further injunction to him to go. /, in the old dramatic wntt-rs, stands for aye., as it does in this place."--^ M. Mason. 1 have left Mr. M. Mason's opinion before the reader, though I do not heartily concur- in it."— Steevens. 1 applaud Pvir, Steevens both for his candour in inserting this remark, and his hesitation in concurring with it. TIMON OF ATHENS. 233 Wasteful cock. ^ Dr. Johnson and Mr. Collins have been put to what I should have thought the unnecessary trouble of explaining this, had not the absurd misrepresentation of it by lianmer and Pope rendered it necessary. Hakmer says, i. e. '* A cockloft, a garret, and a wasteful cock, signifies a garret lying in waste, neglected, put to no use;" and Pope, it seems from Mr. Malone's note (for I never have seen Pope's Shakespear) boldly reads for tvasteful cock, lonely room. Dr. Johnson, in refutation of Hanmer, says, " I do not know that cock is ever used fur coclloft^ or ivastcful for Itfwg in ivaste^ or that lying in xi'ciste is at all a phrase.'^ To the last of this Dr. Far- mer replies, '* It is certain that lying in waste is still a very common phrase.^' I confess I am not so certain of this, nor do I recollect to have ever met with it : 'to lay waste,' is, I know, a very common phrase. / knew it the most general zvay^ " General is not speedy, but compendious; the way to try Hiany at a time."— Johnson* General, we all must know, cannot mean speedy, since it never 234 TIMON OF ATHENS. has or can have that meaning, neither do I think that it has here the other meaning suggested, but is used here as it commonly, usually^ and generally is, for common and usual. Ingeniously I speak.^ ' 'Ingenious was anciently used instead of ingenuous. A course of learning and ingenious studies." — Reeb. • The words are now confounded by ignorant speakers ; and so they might have been in Shake- spear's time, by ignorant printers. Though surely the line quoted is not a proof of this, for ingeni- ous would be to the full as proper there as in- genuous. How nnluchily if happened that I should pur- chase the day before for a little part, and undo a great deal of honor.'] This has been a great crust for the critics. Theobald proposes to read a little dirt\ Johnson a little park,^Y\6. M. Mason a little port, to shew magnificence. Steevens de- fends the old reading thus, " by purchasing what brought me but little honor, I have lost the more honorable opportunity of supplying the wants of my friend :" and he is certainly right. Neither 1 TIMON OF ATHENS. 93S does the phrase, purchase for^ want the extjuse brought by Malone from Shakespear's careless phraseology, for / that purchased, laid out my money in the purchase of something (what is not meant to be specified, whether estate, park, or equipage) for the sake of a little part of honor, have thus lost a great deal of honor. Dr. Far- mer must have had a very keen eye for a quibble to find one here between honor in its usual sense, and honor the legal term for a manor. Spirit.'} " The word was frequently pronounced as one syllable, and sometimes, / think, written sprite.'' — Malone ! ! ! ACT II. SCENE IV. A prodigal course Is like the sun's, but not like his recoverable^ *' That is, like him in blaze and splendor. Soles occidere et redire possunt. Catul." — Johnso»- ,1 think, from the context, the shortness and swift- ness of the sun's course is more alluded to than its splendor. The sun is splendid, but not its course, and that the »ame allusion is meant in 256 TIMON OF ATHENS. the illustration from Catullus, appears from what immediately follows. Nobis cam semel occ'idit brevis lux Nox est perpetua una dormienda. Enter Servilius.'] " It may be observed, that Shakespear has unskilfully filled his Greek storY with Roman names." — Johnsoist. Shakespear's negligence in this respect is so glaring, that the remark is superfluous, and surely it is very oddly placed here, in the middle of the third act, when we have had Lucius and LucuUus and Sempro- nius, &c. before. If the remark was necessary, it should have been made on the dramatis per- sonam ACT III. SCENE V. ^Tis honor with most lands to he at odds.] This passage has created much difficulty among the critics, and consequently several emendations have been suggested. Warburion, who is fol- lowed by Johnson, proposes /lands. Steevens de- fends the old reading, but does not give, I think, the exact ground on which it is defencible. The TIMON OF ATHENS. 2^7 question is not whether it is really honorable to quarrel or be at odds with most of the lapds or kingdoms of the earth, as Mr. Malone objects, but surely it is very natural for a soldier, on the point to take up arms against his own country, to inveigh against national ingratitude in general ; if he thought it honorable to fight against Athens, it was no reflection on his honor to suppose that most other states deserved the same treatment. I will agree with Mr. Malone that, " to say it is honorable to fight with the greatest part of the world is very wild," but Alcibiades is very wild when he says it. King David tells us that when he was angry he said ' All men are liars.' ACT IV. SCENE I. Thou art guicky But yet ril bury thee.~\ " Thou has life and motion in thee. — Johnson. To be quick and* ently was simply equivalent with alive, and so it is used here. The opposition between quick and dead is marked in the creed. It is also used by Hamlet exactly as it is. here. Be buried quick with her, and so will I. 238 TIMON OF ATHENS, Tub fast.'] How the critics like to dwell on these beastly explanations ! Be no turn-coats.'] " By an old statute, those women who lived in a state of reprobation, were, among other articles of dress, enjoined to wear their garments with the wrong side outward, on pain of forfeiting them. Perhaps there is in- this passage a reference to it." — Hem ley. This ex- planation, as Mr. Steevens justly observes, can never accord with the sense of the passage, which is preceded by these words, * be whores still. Surely there is no necessity to remark that tmii- coat is a common term of reproach to a person who changes his party or opinion. Hadst thou like us from our first swath, ^c] " There is in this speech a sullen haughtiness and malignant dignity, suitable at once to the lord and the man-hater. The impatience with which he bears to have his luxury reproached by one that never had luxury within his reach, is natural and graceful." — Johnson. In the conception and expression of this note we trace the mind and the pen of the author : a collection of such notes by TIMON OF ATllEKS. 239 Johnson, would have been indeed a commentary worthy the critic and the poet. If thou hadst not been born the zmrst of men Thou hadst been a knave and a Jlatterer.l r^ Dryden has quoted two verses from Virgil to shew how well he could have written satire." From the way in which this note is printed, I do not know whether it come from Mr. Nicholson, or Dr. Johnson — "I wish the lines had been quoted, as I am at a loss where to find them.'^* The observation, is, however, just : the style of Juvenal seems to me formed on that passage of the second Georgie which begins Si HOQ ingentem, &c. If he had not read Ut gemm^ bibat et sarrano indormlet ostro Possibly he would not have written Ut pueris placeas, et declamatio fies. * These, I find, are the lines j surely a very indifferent specimen of satire, unless gross rustic abuse may be deemed satire. I, however, do not retract ray opinion of the justice of the general observation. * Non tu in triviis'indocte solebas * Strident! raiserum stipulii disperdere carmen ! 240 TIMON OF ATHENS, All thy safety inhere remotion.~[ i.e. " Removal from place to place." — SteevEns. " Remotion means, 1 apprehend, not a frequent removal from place, but merely remoteness, the being placed at a distance from the lion." — Ma lone. Malone is clearly in the right. The sun's a thief. \ What a mass of notes about this passage, which is obviously an imitation of one of the odes attributed to Anacreon, and which is shown by Dr. Farmer to have been within the reach of Shakespear. ACT V. SCENE V. No more.'] " I wish the reader may not find himself affected m the same manner by our com- mentaries, and often concur in a similar exclama- tion." SiEEYENS. This remark is perfectly iusL CORIOLANUS. ACT I. SCENE I. We are reckoned poor citizens^ the Patricians goodq " Good is here used in the mercantile sense. So Touchstone, in Eastward Hoe, Known good men, well monled men."— Farmer. " Again, in the Merchant of Venice, Antonio's a good man."— -Malone. I am rather inclined to think, it is not used in the mercantile sense here, but merely to mark the strong distinction between the poor and the pow- erful ; good is never, I believe, used in the sense of rich, except it is coupled with man, as in both the instances here cited, a good citizen, or a good merchant, is never used for a rich one. As I could pick my lance.'] " And so the word (pitch) is still pronounced in Staffordshire, where R 542 CORIOLANUS. theysaypickemesuchathing, thc\t is pitch or throw any thing that the demander wants/' — Tolt.ett. ** The word is used again (read before) in Henry Vlir. with a slight variation in the spelling, * I'll peek you o er the pales/' — Malone It may be very proper for the porter in Henry VIIL to talk slang, but as it is very improper to make Coriolanus talk in the Staffordshire dialect, I would certainly correct the error of the press, and 'write, as every one reads, and as the actors always speak, pitch. In what fashion ^ More than his singularity he goet.'] " We \^iii learn what he is besides going himself, what are his powers, and what is his appointment.'' — Johnson. " Perhaps the word singularity im- plies a sarcasm on Coriolanus, and the speaker means to sa}'^, after what fashion beside that in which his own singularity invests him he goes into the field." — Ste evens. The passage is very obscure, and wants explanation, which is very properly given by Dr. Johnson. There seems no meaniHg in the question, according to the sug- 1 CORIOLANUS. 2+3 gestion of Steevens. There.is also an inaccuracy of construction in his note, he goes should be either does he go^ ox goes he, ACT I. SCENE II. T/iei/ have pre^s^d a power.] " Thus the mo- dern editors. The old copy reads, They have prest a power, which may signify have a power ready, from pret, French.*' — Steevens. " The spelling of the old copy proves nothing, for parti- ciples were generally so spelt in Shakespear's time, so distrest^ dlesL* I believe press'd, in its usual sense, is right: It appears to have been used in Shakespear's time in the sense of im- press'd." — Malone. The conjecture of Steevens is too absurd to need refutation. It is a little odd that Mr. Malone should say trhat press'd is ap- plied in its ttsiial sense, and then refer us for this sense to the age of Shakespear. But, in fact, press'd is the usual, and impressed only the legal ■word now. Have we not in the song, 'Tis to honor we call you, not press you like slaves. sAnd who ever heard of' an impress gang ? * So the vTord is generally spelt nONv. ^44 tORlOLANUS. ACT I. SCENE III.— IV. His mailed hand.'] i. e, " His hand covered or armed with mail." — Douce ! I ! Our fielded friends.] " Our friends who are in the field of battle.'^ — Steevens ! ! ! ACT I. SCENE VIII. Hector^ Who xms the whip of ijour bragg'd progeny.] Dr. Johnson objects to this as meaning the whip with which the Trojans were chastised ; but surely, as Mr. Malone observes, it may, without any difficulty, mean the whip they used : so, in the celebrated soliloquy of Hamlet, The whips and scorns of time. Time is the agent, not the patient. And again in this play. Act 4, Scene 6, Not a hair upon a soldier's head Which will not prove a whip. Change whip for sword or spear ^ would there be any difficulty ? CORIOLANUS. 245 A charier to extol her son,'\ " A privilege to praise her own son/' — Johnson ! ! ! If he was her son, surely he was her oec^w son. ACT I. SCENE X. Fotch.'X Read poach with Mr. Heath, or poche with Mr. Malone. " From pocher, French, to pierce, to stab, to pierce." — Johnson's Dict. In Dryden's Troilus and Cressida we find, *' Some sturdy Trojan will poach me up with a long pole." 'Tis south the city mills.'] " But where could Shakespear have heard of these mills ? I believe we should read, 'Tis south of the city a mile." — TmwHix. How could Steevens and Malone think it worth the trouble to answer such an objection as this ? Men. Brings a {he) victory in his pocket? The wounds become him. Vol. On^s brows ^ Menenius. He comes the third time home with th^ oaken garland^ " Mr. M. Mason proposes that there shall be a 2 946 CORIOLANUS. comma after Menenius. ' On's brows, Menenius/ he comes the third time home with the oaken garland/ for, says the commentator, ' it was the oaken garland, not the wounds, that Volumnia says he had on his brows.' In Julius Caesar we find a dialogue exactly similar. Cas. No, it is Casca, one incorporate To our attempt. Am not I staid for Cintia? Civ. I am glad on't. J. e. 1 am glad that Casca is incorporate, &c. But he appears to me to have mis-apprehended the passage. Volumnia answers Menenius, with- out taking notice of his last words, ' T/ie wounds become him.'' Menenius had asked, Brings he victory in his pocket } He brings it, says Volum- nia, on his brows, for he comes the third time home brow-bound with the oaken garland, the emblem of victory."— Maloxe. Mr, Malone appears to ine to have mis-apprehended the note of Mr. M. Mason, who seems to give precisely the same meaning with Mr. Malone. Indeed I read both the notes several times over with very great atten* tion, before I could find what other meaning CORIOLAXUS. 247 could be adckiced from Mr. M. Mason's* note, but at last 1 found that he must suppose Mr. M. Mason explains the passage thus : *' lie comes the third time home, with the oaken garland on's brows," a construction, as express'd, very uncon- genial with Shakespear's prose style. But the illustration from Julius Caesar exactly corresponds with the idea of Mr. Malone. Cinna answers Cassius without taking notice of his last words, am I not staid fo)\ Cinna 1 Exactly as Vplumniai answers Menenius, without taking notice of his last words, the wounds become him. Proud to do't.1 •' Proud to do is the same as proud of doing." — Johnson. It is not the same. Proud to do is common, unaffected, colloquial English. Proud of doings in common discourse, would be pedantic affectation. We might as well substitute / shaii be glad of seeing you^ for glad to see you. * By comma I conceive he meant generally a skip ; there is a colon in this edition, 1 prefer a period. This direction should have convinced Mr. Malone that there was no idea of connecting so closely his brows wirti what follows ; if he had said only a comma, there might Iiavc been some ground for- the supposition. 248 CORIOLANUS. ACTIL SCENE II. Lurch^ " To lurch, in Shakespear's time, sig- nified to win a maiden, set at cards, &c/' — Ma- lone. Here again we have one of the most com- mon phrases of the present day referred to the age of Shakespear. Did Mr. Malone never play, or sit by when others have played, at whist, picquet, or cribbage ? He must then have known what a lurch is, and also that what he calls a maiden game, though it is a lurch, is distinguished from a common lurch by the appellation of a love game. I wish the critics woi^ld think that a little ac- quaintance with the common language and habits of life is almost as necessary as black letter read- ing to a commentator on Shakespear. Having said this, I must add, that the drift of the whole sentence cannot be better explained than it is in the conclusion of this note. ACT III. SCENE I. 'Twas from the canon.'] This, Dr. Johnson explains, " contrary to the established rule." and- CORIOLANUS. 2^9 Mr. M. Mason, as being in consequence of the veto, "the established rule of the tribunes." I am rather inclined to the last opinion, if qanon is meant for rule ; but it is very probable that Shakespear (considering his little attention to this sort of propriety) might mean, that the absolute shall oi the tribune came as loudly as if from the mouth of a cannon. Clean clayn.'] These words, which to a common reader are nonsense, are very well explained by Steevens and Reed. This is the proper applica- tion of obsolete reading to the illustration of Shakespear • not using Shakespear as the mean's of displaying obsolete reading. ACT III. SCENE II. Noxv humble as the ripest mulberry^ That will not hold the handling.'] " iEschylus, (as appears from a fragment of his ^PTFES n EKTOP02 AXrPA preserved by Athenaeus, lib. ii. says of Hector, that he was softer than mulber- ries 'Av«^ ^'hiivQi m TTBTTaiTE^Oi fxo^uv." — MuSGRAVE. In a note on Troilus and Cressida, Act V. S. III. 250 CORTOLAKUS. Mr. Steevens observes, that Shakespear seems not to have studied the Homeric character of Hector, whose disposition was by no means inclined to clemency. Will any fanciful advocate for the learning of Shakespear, contend, from this cir= cumstance, that he v/as acquainted with the frag- ments of yEschylus } ACT IV. SCENE V. If so be. ] This phrase, which seems now only equivalent with z/", was formerly in general use; it now is the common phrase of the vulgar, I cannot specify in what particular counties, I can only answer for Berkshire and Middlesex. That it was formerly in general use (besides the au- thority of our poet) is proved from the 1 Cor. chap. XV. V. 13. Whom He raised not y if so be* that the dead rise not. ACT IV. SCENE VI. It turns their countenances.] i. e. " Ren- ders their aspect sour. This allusion to the * If so he that, Gr. tiTn^ «f«. CORIOLANU3. $51 ascescence of milk occurs again in Timon of Athens. His friendship forrft a faint and milky heart, It turns in less than two nights."--MALOKE. " I believe nothing more is memt than change their countenances." — Steevens. Steevens is surely right. Turn, for ascescence, as applied to milk, is very natural in the passage quoted, but not in the passage commented on. To melt your cUtj leads about your pates.'\'-- Our author, I believe, was here thinking of the old city gates of London.''— Ma lone. What an idea ! ! We are obliged, however, to Mr. Stee- vens for confuting it, and for telling us, ** that leads were not peculiar to the old city gates, and that iew ancient houses of consequence were without them.'' — What a pity it is that they sliould be now out of use, though I must confess I have seen such things. ACT V. SCENE V. For certain drops of salt.'] *• Certain tears."— Malone I ! ! JULIUS C^SAR. ACT I. SCENE I. That Tiber trembled underneath his hanlcs.'] " As Tiber is represented by the figure of a man, ihe feminine gender is improper.'' — Steevens. This is very just, but let us hear Mr. Malone : "^ Drayton, in his Folyolbion, frequently describes the rivers of England as females, even when he speaks of the presiding powers of the stream ; Spencer, on the other hand, represents them more classically as males." Mr. Steevens replies, " The presiding power of some of Drayton's rivers were female, like Sabina, &c." And Mr. Steevens is clearly right. Though Thames and Tiber are male, to apply Ae to Isis, Sabina, or Arethusa, would be a gross false concord, notwithstanding the rule in propria quce maribiis ; this distinction is observed both by Spencer and Drayton. A JULIUS C^SAR. 253 passage in T. "Warton's poem of Mons ^atharina always appeared to me as highly improper, not- withstandmg it may possibly be justified by the strict rules of Latin grammar. Having mentioned Tsis, he adds, ille — se jaciat pulcherimus amnis. I presume Mr. Warton thought so afterwards ; for in the last edition the whole passage stands thus ; Promissas Isidis undas j Ipsos ilia licet foccundo flumine lucos Pieridura ■■■ Irriget. ACT I. SCENE 11. Anfonius.'] " The old copy generally reads Antonio, Octavio, Flavio. The players were more accustomed to Italian than Roman terminations." Seeevens. The players may be pardoned for calling Antonius, Antonio, when he is called by the gravest poets and historians Mark Anthony. Eternal devil. '] " I should think our author rather wrote infernal devil.^' — Johnson. "I would continue to read eternal devil. ' L, J. Brutus,' says Cassius,-* would as soon have sub- mitted to the perpetual dominion of a daemon as fS4f JtTLItJS C^SAR. to the lasting government ofa king/^-~ST£EVE i^s- I agree with Steevens. No true ?nan.'] " No honest man."— Ma lone. This difficult passage has been explained at some length before. // / xoere Brutus, now, and he tcere CassiuSf He should not humour we.] " This is a reflec- tion on Brutus's ingratitude, which concludes, as is usual on such occasions, on his own better con- dition. ' If I were Brutus,' says he, ' and Brutus Cassius, he should not cajole me as I do him." — Warburton. *' The meaning, I think, is this : ' Cassar loves Brutus ; but if Brutus and I were to change places, his love should not humour me;' should not take hold of my affection so as to make me forget my principles."— Johnson, Warburton's notion, here, seems the just one , from what Cassius says immediately before, he shews he plumes himself, not for having per- suaded Brutus to do a meritorious act, but for having seduced him to do a vicious one. The poet is clearly a partisan of Caesar s throughout the play. JULIUS C^SAR. 255 ACT I. SCENE III. Why old men^ jhols, and cliildren^ calculate.^ Calculate, here, as is justly observed by John- son and Warburton, alludes to prophecy, and who so likely to listen to prophecies as children, fools, and the " superstitious eld.' Clackstone, sup- posing this not applicable to age in general, pro- poses to point it thus: Why old men fools, (i. e. old men who are fools) and children^ &c. ; and this absurd pointing is admitted into the text of this edition. ACT II. SCENE I. Orchards^ *'The number of treatises on horti- culture, even in the beginning of Queen Eliza- beth's reign, very strongly controvert ^Ir. Malone's supposition relative to the unfrequency of gardens at so early a period." — Steevens. If the editor thought it right to insert this note, he should also have inserted the note it is intended to controvert. S55 JULIAS CiESlR. ACT II. SCENE 11. Death, a necessary end^ Willcomewhen it will come.] "This is a sentence derived from the stoical doctrine of predestination, and is therefore improper in the mouth of Ceesar.' — ^Johnson. There is no reading such silly pe- dantry as this with patience. Shakespear thought no more of stoicism here, than King William did, when he used to say every ball had its billet. The next note is equal to it. " The ancients did not place courage but wisdom in the heart." — Johnson. Let us hear what Virgil says, * Lectos Juvenes fortissima corda * Defer in Italiam. '^Q.uid gravidem bellis urbem et corda aspera tentas,' ' Teucrum mirantur inertia corda.' ACT III. SCENE I. Doth not Brutus bootless hneel.'] " I would read, 'Do not Brutus, &c." — Johnson. I would not, for the reasons given in the note of Steevens. JULIUS C^SAR. 257 ACT V. SCENE I. Even hij the rule of that plnlosopliy^ &c.] The contradiction of Brutus in this and the following speech has occasioned a controversy between the critics too long for insertion here, but it is well accounted for both by Mr. Mason and Mr. Ritson. There are fewer notes on this play than on any t have vet examined. ANTHONY & CLEOPATRA. ACT I. SCENE II. Quklc winds.'] The labours of the commenta- tors, and they have not been sparing of them here, throw no light on this passage. The fol- lowing observation, however, of Steevens, on one of his colleagues, considering some of his own notes, is curious. " Mr. Henley is not apt to suspect there is any thing which, at a single glance, he does not perfectly understand; and therefore his remarks are ushered in with as little difBdence as can possiblybe expected." And get her love to part.} " I have no doubt we should read leave instead of love. So after- wards — 'Would she had never given you leave to come." — M. Maso», *' The old reading may mean^ * and prevail on,- ANTHO^'y AND CBEOPATRA. Q59 her love to consent to our separation.'' — Stee- YEXS, Tlie alteration is also confirmed by Ma- LOXE. When hardly any sense can be brought, with the utmost refinement of conjecture, from the word as it is, and when a very easy and ob- vious one is produced by so slight a change, jqo one surely who is acquainted with the inaccuracy even of the best printing, need hesitate at insert- inff it in the text. o ACT L SCENE III. A race of heai-en.'] Warburton and Johnson consider this as meaning a taste or flavour of heaven, as we say, the race of wine; but I am inchned to think with Malone, that it may mean of heavenly origin. Ca7i Fulvia die P) '• That Fulvia was mortal, Cleopatra could have no reason to doubt ; the meaning of the question, therefore, seems to be ' \yill there ever be an end to your excuses ? As often as you want to leave me, will not some Ful- via, some new excuse be found for your depar- ture ?' She has already said, that though age 260 ANTHONY AND CLEOPATRA. could not exempt her from follies, at least it free$ her from a childish belief in all he says.'' — Stee- VENS. " I am inclined to think Cleopatra means no more than this: 'Is it possible that Fiilvia should die? I will not believe it." — Ritson. " Though age has not exempted me from folly, I am not so childish as to have apprehensions from a rival that is no more: and is Inilvia dead, in- deed ?' Such, I think, is the meaning." — ]Ma- LONE. JNlr. Ritson gives the clear plain meaning of the question ; Steevens's note is too far-fetched, but ingenious; Malonc is, to me, unintelligible. Oh m!j, oblivion^ Of all the ingenious observa- tions on this passage, I shall only cite that of Mn Henley, on oh me! being suggested as the proper reading by Steevens. " Perhaps nothing more is necessary here than a change of punc- ruation. Oh my ! being an exclamation fre- quently in use in the West of England." Here we have, as usual, a vulgarism confined to the West of England, which is as much in use in Middlesex as it is in Cornwall ,- and which it is very unlikely Shakespear should put into the mouth of Cleopatra. ANTHONY AND CLEOPATRA, 26 i ACT I. SCENE ly. One great competitor.'] " Perhaps, ' Our great competitor/' — Johnson. " Johnson is certainly right in his conjecture that we ought to read ' Our great competitor,' as this speech is addressed to Lepidus, his partner in the empire. Compe- titor means here, as it docs whenever the word occurs in Shakspear, associate or partner." — M. Mason. After inserting these unansvyercd and unanswerable reasons in favor of the alteration, how could the editor retain one in the text ? Which thetj €ar?[ " To ear is to plow, a com- mon metaphor."— Johnson. " To ear is not, however, at this time, a common word."-— Steevens. The question is, was it so in Shake- spear's time ? Termagant steed.] In ajl the old copies arm- guant. On this word the conjectures are nume- rous ; but as termugant., proposed by IM. jNIason and adopted by Steevens, seems no very appro- propriate epithet to a horse, it is, I think, too bold in the editor to admit it into the text, 262 ANTHONY AND CLEOPATRA, ACT II. SCENE IL Your considerate stone.] This is surely wrong, and Johnson's proposed change to you considej^ate ones is very satisfactory, and certainly better de- serves the adoption of the editor than the last. Blackstone proposes, without changing a letter, considatest one., but I cannot think with him that such a superlative may be pardoned, even in the 111 c u I h of Enobarb u s . Other women Cloy the appetites they feed ; hut she makes hungrij Where most she satisfies.'] On this Steevens ob- serves, that the majority of ladies who have inost successfully enslaved the hearts of princes have been less remarkable for personal than mental qualifications. The observation is strictly just ; but why confine it to princes? Every day's ob- servation will shew us that those women who most strongly attach men are not remarkable for beauty ; but the attachments of princes do not fall under our every day's observation. ANTHONY AND CLEOPATRA. 263 ACT II. SCENE III. In-hooped at odds.'] Dr. Johnson proposes in whooped at odds ; but I think that the following uote of Dr. Farmer decisi^-e in favour of the old reading — Shakespear gives us the practice of his own time, and there is no occasion for in whooped at, or any other aleration. John Davis begins one of hio epigrams on proverbs : — " He sets his cock on the hoop, in you will say, For cocking \\\ hoops is now all the play." To be cock-a-Jioop is a proverbial saying not now quite out of use ; itjs used in the burlesque opera of Midas — •' To every fop They're coclcTa-hoop." ACT II. SCENE V. Ram thou thy fruit fall tidings in my ears.] *' liara is a vulgar word, never used in our au» thor's plays but once by FalstafF, where he de- scribes his situation in the buck-basket ; in the passage before us, it is evidently a misprint for 264 ANTHONY AND CLEOPATRA. rain. The quotation from Julius Ccesar does 7ioi support the old reading at all, the idea being per- jectly distinct.''' — Ritson. There is, I tbU^k, little douht of Mr. Ritson being in the right. The latter p^rt relates to a note \yhich is not in this edition, and therefore should have been omitted. . Submerged.'] " Submerged is whelmed undei^ water." — Steevens. For what description of readers does Mr. Steevens write his notes ? I doubt if these who do not understand submerge will not be a little puzzled at whelm. The color of her hair. ] " This is oi>e of Shake- spear's masterly touches ; Cleopatra, after bid- ding Charmian to enquire of the messenger con- cerning beauty, age, and temperament of Octa- via, adds, ' Let him not leave out the color of her hair,' as from thence she might be able to judge for herself of her rival's propensity to those plea- su es upon which her passion for Anthony was founde '/' — Henley. I am at a loss which to admire most, the ingenuity or the decency of this note. ■ ANTHONY AND CLEOPATRA. 965 ACTir. SCENE VII. S/riJce the vessels, Ho/] This Dr. Johnson supposes to mean sounding the casks to find if they are empty. Steevens to mean chinking the glasses; and Holt White sounding the kettle- drums. The last is the most natural, as it h (from the interjection ho!) clearly spoken loud- ly to some persons not on the stage. Cut I think Dr. Johnson helps us to a better sense in his Dic- tionary, where he gives, as one ot'the explanations of strihe-y " To paij homai{e, as hij lowering the sa'dJ'^ ACT III. SCENE II. The elements he kind to thee?\ " This is ob- scure ; it seems to mean, May the different ele- ments of the body, or principles of life, maintain such a proportion and harmony as may keep you cheerful." — Johnson. " The elements be kind, &c. I believe means only, May the four elements of which this world is composed unite their influ- ences to make thee cheerful." — Steevens. " Dr. ^66 ANTHONY AND CLEOPATRA. Johnson's explanation of this passage is too pro- found to be just. Octavia was about to make a long journey, both by land and by water ; her l3rother wishes that both these elements may prove kind to her : and this is all." — M. ]\Iason. Of the absurdity both of Johnson and Steevens there can be no doubt ; but I cannot think Mr. Mason hap- py in his explanation. Let usiiear a more reason- able critic. " Surely this expression means no more than, / wish you a good voijage.''^ — Holt White. It can only relate to the sea voyage, for there only is the state of the elements a subject of serious concern ; the seamen alone experiences the combined force of all the elements. — Una Eurus Notu<:que raunt, cxc:ht(\\xc procellis ^fricus, el vastos volvunt ad lltorajliictus, Intoimere poli et crebris micat ignibus aether. ACT II. SCENE III, She is iozv voiced?^ " The quality of the voice is referred taas a criterion, similar to that al- ready noticed of the hair." — Henley. Exactly 1 and my admiration of the critic's note there will apply equally to thisr AKTHONY AXD CLEOPATRA. ^6j Harried him.] " To harry is literally to hunt; hence the \\:ord harrier."— Henley. It is never too late to learn. I have been a sportsman all my life, and vet never knew that fox-hounds were harriers ; Dr. Johnson, however, though he was no sportsman, was as ignorant as myself ; for he says, in his Dictionary, " Harrier, (so he spells the word) from hare, a dog for hunting hares." ACT HI. SCENE 17. Or did it fro)ii Ids tccth^ " Whether this means, as we now say, in spite of his teeth, or that he spoke through, his teeth so as to be purposely indistinct, I am unable to deter- mine." — Steevkns. Surely there is no difficulty here ; the meaning is to appearance onhj^ not sc- rioushj. I presume Steevens was too deep an an- tiquary to consult so modern a writer as Drydcn, or he might have found in his Wild Gallant^ ' I am confident she is only angry from the teeth outwards.' ACT HI. SCENE XI. One that looks on feeders?^ •* One that waits at the table while others are eating."— -Johnson. 26S ANTHONY AND CLEOPATRA, *' A feeder or an eater was anciently tie term of reproach for a servant." — Steevens. " 1 incline to think Dr. Johnson's interpretation of this pas- sasrethe true one." — Malone. I think Malone and Dr. Johnson right. I do not see how it cau be a reproach to look on servants. ACT ly. SCENE II. Omo72-ei/ed.'] " I have my eyes as full of tears as if they had been fretted by onions." — John- son ! I 1 ACT IV. SCENE, IIL Bof] " To do off, to put oif.'"— Steevens. This is the third time this common vulgarism has been already explained, and we meet with it again in Hamlet, ACT lY. SCENE X. T/iai sj)a7iierd me at heels.'] I must think spaniel'd a very happy substitution for paunerd, though I do not think it is happily illustrated by Mr. Toilet's observation, that to doi^ at the heels is not an uncommon expression in Shakespcar, ANTHONY Al^D CLEOPATRA. 269 since that means to follow^ as a hound does his game, by the scent, while to spaniel, here, is to follow fawningly, as a spaniel does his master. ACT IV. SCENE XII. And false plaif d my glorij Unto an enemy s triumph.'] This is very whist- like, indeed. If Hoyle were to turn commenta- tor, he would have proposed a various reading — into for tirJo, ACT IV. SCENE XIII. Here's sport, indeed.] '• I suppose the mean- ing of these strange words is, here's trifling, you do not work in earnest." — Johnson. " Perhaps rather, ' here's a curious game, the last we shall ever play with Anthony;' or, perhaps, she is thinking of fishing with a line, a diversion of which we have been already told she was fond. Shakspear has introducied ludicrous ideas with as much incongruity in other places." — Malone. " Cleopatra, perhaps, by this affected levity, this phrase, which has no determined signification, only wishes to inspire Anthony with cheerfulness, QfO ANTHDlSY AND CLEOPATRA. and encourage those who were engaged in tke melancholy task of drawing him up into the mo- nument. "~St£eve>s. The passage is so glaring- ly absurd and out of character, that it hardly merits so much investigation ; but I think the conjecture of Steevens the best. . ACT V. SCENE IL A room in ike moniimeiit.'] " Our author here has attempted to exhibit at once the outside and the inside of a building. It would be impossible to represent this scene in any way on the stage, but by making Cleopatra and her attendants speak all their speeches^ till the queen is seized, within the monument.'' — IMalone. This obser- vation is very just. The same confusion of place occurs in the last scene of Romeo and Juliet, which represents, at the same time, both the inside and the outside of the monurrient. The duel between Pvomeo and Paris is in the church- yard ; the death of Romeo, and the awakening of Juliet, must be within the monument, the inside of which could not be seen from the ANTHONY AND CLEOPATRA, 271 church-yard, as on the entry of Friar Lawrence he only discovers a light in it, and, on a nearer approach, he discerns the blood of Paris on the stony entrance. This is obviated in the repre- sentation, by the alteration of Garrick ; for Juliet awakens ^nd comes out of the tomb as Romeo is about to enter it. C Y M B E L I N E. ACT h SCENE V. Makes him.l " In the sense in which we say, this will make or w^^r you."— --Johnson. " Makes him, in the text, means forms him." — 1\[. Mason. 1 think M. Mason clearly right. / XL'as then a tjoiing traveller ; rather shim7ied to go C'cen zoith ivhat I heardy than in my everij action to he guided by other's experience.'] *' This is expressed with a kind of fantastic perplexity: lie means, I was then willing to take for my dncction the experience of others, more than such intelligence as I had gathered myself."— Johnson. " This passage cannot bear the mean- ing that Dr. Johnson contends for. Posthumus is describing a presumptuous young man, as he acknoU'ledges himself to have been at that time, CYMBELINE. 273 and means to say, that he rather studied to avoid conducting himself by the opinions of other people than to he guided by their experience. To take for direction the opinion of others would be a proof of wisdom, not presumption,"' — M. M^sok. Here Mr. M. Mason is obviously right ; neither the propriety of the idea, nor the construction of the words, can have any other sense. Confound,'] " To confound, in our author's time, signified to destroy." — Malone. So we have been told several times before. ACT I. SCENE Vr. Your highness Shall from this practice hut make hard your heart.'] " There is in this passage nothing that much requires a note, yet I cannot forbear to push it forward into observation. The thought would probably have been more amplified, had our author lived to be shocked with such experi- ments as have been published in later times, by a race of men who have practiced tortures without pity, and related them without shame, and arc T 274 CYMBELINE. yet suffered to erect their heads among human beings." — Johnson. This excellent note is in every respect worthy of the pen that wrote it : the consequences of this love for cruel experi- ment are happily alluded to by a writer of equal humanity. " These philosophers consider men in their experiments, no more than they do mice in the air-pump, or in a recipient of mephetic gas.^' Burke'5 Letter to a Noble Lord. ACT I. SCENE VII. This hand^ Whose every touch would Jorce the feeler s soul ; To the oath of loyalty^ " There is, I [think, ^j here a reference to the manner in which the te- nant performed homage to his lord." Holt White. We have then a quotation from Coke on Litdeton, telling us how the homage was per- formed, and then the note concludes thus : " Un- less this allusion be allowed, how has touching the hand the slightest connection with taking the oath of i<^yalty ?" Did Mr. White never hear of a loyal lover? the coloring is too warm in this CYMBELINE. ^75 passage to have any allusion to the cold ceremony of doing homage to a feudal lord. Let me my service tender on your UpsS\ " Per- haps this is an allusion to the ancient custom of swearing servants into noble families/^ — Stee- YENS. Yes, exactly as the last-cited passage al- ludes lo feudal homage. ACT ir. SCENE. IL Our TarqiiinJ] " The speaker is an Italian." — Johnson ! ! ! ACT II. SCENE V. And pray* d me oft forbearance. Did it with A pudencif so rosi/, the sz&eet view on't Might well have warmed old Saturn.] " It cer- tainly carries with it a very elegant sense to sup- pose that the lady's denial was so modest and de- licate as even to enflame his desires. But may we not read it thus : * And pray'd me oft forbearance. Did it, &c.' i, e. complied with his desires in the sweetest re- serve, taking did in the acceptation in which it is T '2 970 CYMBELINE. used by Jonson and Shakespear in many other places." — Whalley. This elegant display of Mr. Whalley's prurient fancy, Mr. Malone eluci- dates by the quotation of one of the grossest pas- sages in Juvenal. ACT III. SCENE VI. J were best noi call, I dare not call; ytt famine. &c.] " Mr. Pope was so little acquainted with the language of Shakespear's age, that instead of this, the original reading, he substituted, ' 'Twere besj; not call." The alteration rather proceeded from Pope's correct ear for versification, than his igno- rance of the language of the age of Shakespear. ACT IV. SCENE I. Jovial face. ^^ " Jovial face signifies, in this place, such a face as belongs to Jove."— -Stee- vENs. As foot Mercurial, Martial thigh, and the brawn of Hercules, immediately precede, I think Mr. Steevens might have spared this piece of in- formation. J CYMBELINE. 977 ACT IV. SCENE II. O Melancholy ! Who ever ijet could soimd thy bottom ! find The oose to shew what coast thy sluggish crave Might easliest harbor in.'] Mr. Seymour says, ^^ Crare, which has caused so much controversy, I take to mean the person afflicted with melan- choly.'^ Why should the critic shew a wish to coin a new word, which, when coined, would make nonsense of the passage, after the proper meaning is established by Mr. Henley and JNIr. Tyrwhit ? Crayer, for a small vessel and at sea, occurs in two acts of James I. and one of Cha. 11. and craiera, from which it is derived is in John- son's Law Dictionary, and in the law Latin terms in Ainsworth. Warburton, who proposed to sub- stitute carrach for care, as it is in the folio, was right by guess. The true reading, Steevens says, was suggested by Mr. Simpson, in his notes on Beaumont and Fletcher ; I wish the commentators had cited the place, that I might have turned to one good note of th^t gentleman on the joiat poets. 978 CYMBELINE. ACT IV. SCENE IL Who otherwise than noble nature did Hath altered this good picture.) " To do a pic- ture, and a picture is well done^ are standing phrases ; this question, therefore, is, ' Who has altered this picture, so as to make it otherwise than nature did it."— Johnson. " Olivia, speak- ing of her own picture, asks Viola if it is not well done.— Steevens. " Fecit was till lately the technical term universally annexed to pictures and engravings." — Henley. Notwithstanding these notes, I cannot but think the word did is used here only as an auxiliary verb ; that the op- position is intended between a natural and violent death, and that the proper construction is, ' Who hath altered the picture otherwise than Nature did?' ACT V. SCENE III. This is a lord.] " Read—' This a lord."— Rit- soN. Both the sense and the measure require this change. CYilBELINE. 979 ACT V. SCENE IV. Mo more thou thunder^ master, &c.] " One would think that Shakespear's style being too re- fined for his audiences, the managers had employ- ed some playwright of the old school to regale them with a touch of ' King Cymbyses' vein ;' the margin would be too honourable a place for so impertinent an interpolation. — Ritsox. I en- tirely agree with Mr. Ritson : it should not have a more honorable place than the beautiful song of Collins, which is printed at the end of the play. ACT V. SCENE IV, Tho' he have served a Homan.'] Here it is justly observed by Mr. Seymour, that " it should be, • « Tho' hehas; the particles, though and of, de- noting sometimes the subjunctive mood, are often carelessly mistaken for the absolute sign of it.'* This is a practice now very prevalent, but pro- ! ceeds more from pedantry than carelessness. 280 CYMBELINE. ACT V. SCENE V. Imog. Why did you throw your wedded lady from you P Think that you are upon a rock^ and now Throw me again. PosTH. Hang there like fruit, my soul. Till the tree die ^ "In this speech, or in the answer, there is little meaning. I suppose she would say, ' Consider such another act as equally fatal to me with precipitation from a rock, and now let me see if you will repeat it." — Johnson. " Perhaps only a stage direction is wanting to clear this passage from obscurity. Imogen first upbraids ■ her husband for the violent treatment she has just experienced ; then, confident of the return of ^ passion which she knew must succeed to the dis- covery of her innocence, the poet might have meant her to rush into his arms, and, while she clung about him fast, to dare him to throw her off a second time, lest that precipitation should prove as fatal to them both as if the place where they stood had been a rock. To which he replies, i CYMBELINE. 281 * Hang there, i. e. round my neck, till the frame that now supports you shall decay.'' — SxEEVENSe To me the only difficulty in explaining this whole passage arises from the utter impossibility of put- ting it in a clearer light than is done by the words of the poet. If it were necessary to give a stage direction for every action with which the poet requires the player to accompany his words, those directions would exceed in bulk tliese variorum notes, Imogen comes up to Posthu- mous as soon as she knows the error is cleared up, and, hanging fondly on him, says, not as up, braiding him, but with kindness and good humour, '• How could you treat your wife thus,' in that kind of endearing tone which most of my readers, who are husbands and fathers, will understand* who will add poor to wife. She then adds, now you know who I am, suppose we were on the edge ol" a precipice, and throw me from you ; meaning, in the same endearing irony, to say, I am ' sure it is as impossible for you to be intentionally unkind to me, as it is for you to kill me. Perhaps some very wise persons may smile at part of \\m ?82 CYMEELINE. note ; but, however much black-letter books may be necessary to elucidate some parts of Shake- spear, there are others which require some ac- quaintance with those familiar pages of the book of Nature. * Which learning may not understand. And wisdom may disdain to hear.' Johnson's concluding remark on the gross incon- gruity of names and manners in this play is just, but it was the common error of his age ; in The Wife for a Month of Beaumont and Fletcher, we have Frederick and Alphonso among a host of Greek names, not to mention the firing a pistol by Demetrius Poliorcetes, in The Humourous LieU' tenant. TITUS ANDllONICUS. As I can find no trace of Shakespear in this composition, I shall not make any remark on its commentators. 1 do not, however, blame the editor for inserting it, as he has in this the autho- rity of all his predecessors to support him ; but if he chose to be singular, he surely would have done better to have omitted this than to have in- serted Pericles. In both these plays there would have been ample room to notice absurd criticism; but it is o» absurd criticism on Shakespear only that I am employed. KING LEAR. ACT I. SCENE I. Now hy Apollo.'] " Bladud, Lear's father, ac- cording Geoffrey of Monmout attempting to fly fell on the temple of Apollo, and was killed." — Malone. " Are we to understand from this circumstance that the son swears by Apollo be- cause his father broke his neck on the temple of that Deity ?^' — Steevens. One really wonders how a man of Mr. Malone's sense could have written so childish a note. ACT 1. SCENE II. I would unstate myself] " I take the meaning to be this — Do you frame the business who can act with less emotion. It would in me be a de- parture from the paternal character to be in a due resolution to be settled £nd composed on such KING LEAR. 285 an occasion, the words would and should are in old language often confounded." — Johnson. " It seems to me that, * I would unstate myself,' in this passage means simply, I would give my estate, including rank as well as fortune." — Tyrwhit. I think Tyrwhit evidently right. Should and itould, shall and xmlly are confounded by all foreigners as well as by the Scots and Irish, but I do not recollect an instance of it in Shakespear. ACT IV. SCENE IV. To eat nojish.i To Warburton's note on this passage, which is a very good one, it may be ad- ded that such was the dislike to fish after the re- formation that the legislature were so apprehen,- sive of the neglect of the fisheries and the scarcity of other food that an act of parliament was made to compel all persons to have fish at their tables on Wednesdays and Fridays, declaring, at the same time, that it did not arise from any super- stitious motive. Fish is now so universally a fa- vourite food, wherever it can be procured, that there is no cause to enforce this law, which is 286 KING LEAli* yet unrepealed. This does not appear to have the case so lately even as the beginning of the eighteenth century; for in a little poem of King's called the Vestry, we find — ** On Wednesdays only fast by parliament ; And Friday is a proper day for fish." At the table of the king's chaplains, which fol- lowed the custom of the old kitchen, fish was only served on Wednesdays and Fridays. Bo Peejj.l " Little more of this game, except its mere denomination remains. It is mentioned, however, in Churchyard's Charity, 1593, in com- pany with two other childish plays, which it is not my office to explain. — ** Cold parts men play, much like old plain lo peep. Or Counterfeit, m-dock-out-nettle still." — Steevens. Of all the absurd notes on our poet, this is (and it is a bold word to say) facile princeps. Every nurse in the kingdom could have told Mr. Stee- vens how to play bo peep. And In dock I out nettle ! are the mystic words that aqcompany the application of a dock leaf to the tetters occasioned by a stinging-nettle, in the Old Woman's Dispen- KING LEAH. 287 sary. Counterfeit (obviously a verb like play in the first line), Steevens takes for another inexpli- cable game. If this note had been written like the Virgilius Restauratiis of Martinus Scriblerus piirposel}^ to ridicule the foolish comments on Shakespear, it would be blamed for being too grossly absurd, even for avowed irony. ACT II. SCENE I. Capahle.l i. e. " Capable of succeeding to my land notwithstanding the legal bar of thy illegiti- macy." — Steevens ! ! ! ACT II. SCENE IV. Tell it crij, sleep to death.'] " This, as it stands, appears to be a more nonsensical rhapsody. Per- haps we should read, ' Death to sleep." — M. Ma- son. The construction is not verv correct ; but of the meaning I never had the least doubt ; sleep till you die,' wake no more ; as we say bleed to death. Than she to scant Jier duty.'] Some of the critics have proposed to read scan^ and Johnson 2SS KING LEAR. asserts that even scant may have the meaning of scan ; but as Steevensjustly observes, scant means to be deficient or wanting in duty, the exact thing that is implied in the text. ACT III. SCENE IV. Lear. Wilt break my heart ? Kent. F d rather break my own^ " I beheve that Lear does not address this question to Kent but to his own bosom. Perhaps, therefore, we should point the passage thus : * "■ Wilt break, my heart ? •' The tenderness of Kent, indeed, induces him to reply as to an interrogation that seemed tore- fleet on his own humanity.'* — Steevens. Taking the words of Lear by themselves, the sense and punctuation proposed by Steevens is very judi- cious, but is confuted by what Kent says, who must know how Lear spoke it ; and there seems no sort of reason why, as is suggested, he should affect to misunderstand him. Nothing is more natural than for a person absorbed in the contem- KING LEAR. 289 Jjlation of his own misery to answer offers of as- sistance that interrupt him, with petulance. Ha no nonnij dolphin my hoij^ ^-c] On this passage, which would be totally unintelligible without it, Steevens has a very curious and enter- taining note ; he observes that Hey no nonny is the burthen of a ballad in the Two Noble Kins- men, which produces the following note from Mr. Henley : " It is observeable that the two songs to which Mr. Steevens refers for the burthen of Hey no nonny are both sung by girls distracted from disappointed love." In the note of Steevens no other song with the burthen of Hey no nonny is quoted than that in The Noble Kinsmen. It does occur in a song sung by Balthazar in Much Ado about Nolhiug. But Balthazar is not a girl mad for love, neither does he surely mean to ad- vise the ladies who are forsaken by tlieir lovers to run distracted when he advises them to convert their notes of woe to Hey nonny nonny. Saint Sioith'mjooted thrice the zoold. He met the night-mxire and her nine fold. ] " Wold is still used in the north of England, sig- u §90 KING LEAH. iiifying a kind of down near the sea. A large tract of country in the East Riding of Yorkshire is call- ed the Woulds." — Colman. In Leicestershire, Kent, and some other counties, large tracts of land are in like manner distinguished." — Nichols. Perhaps we may trace this, like many other such words, through all the counties in England ; it is used for a large tract of country on the borders of Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire ; and there is a tovvn in Gloucester called Stow on the Wold. '' Her nine fold seems to be put (for the sake of the rhyme) instead of nine foals.'' — Tyrwhit, "Lest the reader should suppose the compound night mare has any reference to horse-flesh, it may be observed that mara in Saxon signifies an Incubus. "—Steevens. I believe, with Mr. Tyr» whit, thatShakespear, like these ignorant readers, did suppose that night-mare had some reference to horse-flesh. Tythiiig to Ti/f/ihig.] J^Ir. Steevens here show© hi« knowledge of the law, and quotes,, in form, Stat 39,Eiiz. ch. 4. to explain this very difiqult passage I ! / / Kr^'u LEAR, 29 1 ACT III. SCENE VI. Nero is an angler in the Lake of DarhiessJ] ** Nero is introduced in the present play above eight hundred yeai^ before he was born.'^— Ma- lone. Shakespear is guilty enough of anachro- nisms, but to censure him for thisj isavours a little of Cardanus Rider^ who tells us London was built, SS56 A. C. York, 2737, and Rome, 2-501. See Rider's Almanac, A. D. 1749. I find he has since altered this chronology deposing York from its priority to Rome, but still maintaining that of London. Brache.] This word, like vice and sir^ when applied to the clergy, is a never failing source of learned conjecture whenever it occurs. ACT IV. SCENE I. Looks fearfully in the conjined deep. ^ " Mr. Rowe, and all the subsequent editors for in read oriy I see no need of change ; Shakespear consi- dered the sea as a mirrpr. To look in a glass is yet our colloquial phraseology.*'— Ma lone- 1 $92 KING LEAR. must approve the change. Neither can I think, supposing Shakespear did consider the sea as a mirror, that he would represent it as looking at itself in it, (for so we colloquially use looking in a glass), but rather as looking tremendous when re- flected in it. ACT IV. SCENE IT. I have heenworth the whistle.'] " This expres- sion is a proverbial one. Heywood, in one of his dialogues, consisting entirely of proverbs, says,' It is but a poor dog that is not worth the whistling." — Steevens. Was it necessary to cite Heywood to authenticate this veiy common proverb ? ACT IV. SCENE III. As pearls from diamonds dropp'd^ " The harshness of the foregoing line in the speech of the gentleman induces me to believe that our au- thor might have written ' Like pearls from dia- monds dropping.' The idea might have been taken from the ornaments of the ancient carcanet, or necklace, which frequently consisted of table KING LEAR. $93 diamonds, with pearls appended to them, or, in the jeweller's phrase, dropping from them. Pen- dants for the ears are still called drops."— Stee- VENS. This conjecture, as well as the proposed emendation, which restores the verse, is very l?appy, ACT IV. SCENE V. Let me unseal the letter, ^c] " I know not well why Shakespear gives the steward, who is a mere factor of wickedness, so much fidehty. He now , refuses the letter, and afterwards, when he is dying, thinks only how it may be safely deli-, vered." — Johnson. Surely when Dr. Johnson made this note he did not recollect the character jEdgar gives of this steward after he is dead •. — *' As duteoue to the vices of thy mistress As badness could require." X^idelily in agents of wickedness is, I fear, not so uncommon as to be unfit for the general prob%- t^ility of dramatic m^nTierSo ^9^ KING LEAR, ACT IV. SCENE VI. Havgs one who gathers samphire.'] " This per- sonage is not a mere creature of Shakespear's imagination for the gathering of samphire was literally a trade, or common occupation in his time, it being carried and cried about the streets, and much used as a pickle."-— Ma lone. And this is supported by the authority of Venaer s via recfa, 4to, 10:^^2. This practice of referring the niosl common things of the present day to the time of Shakespeav is quite a mania in this other- wise very ingenious critic. I will venture to say at this moment in any of our towns on the south coast from Dover to Lymington, if a traveller or- ders pickles to his mutton steak, the odds are two to one in favour of samphire against cucumbers or walnuts. The same critic, in his notes on Dryden, observes that, in the i7th. century, the largest room on the first floor in London used to-be called the dining room. It certainly had no other name till within these thirty years in any house in Lon- don ; and in ordinary lodging houses it retains KING LEAS. 29J that name to the present moment, and the dining- room floor is the name usually given to the first floor. Vide^ half the auction catalogues in the metropolis. To say ay and no to evenj thing I said. Ay and fio too was no good divinity.'] Besides the inaccu- racy of construction in this passage it does not appear how it could be flattery to dissent from, as well as to assent to, every thing he said. The following reading was suggested to me by an inge- nious friend, by only a change in the pointing and the ornission of a single letter, " To say ay and no, to every thing 1 said ay and no to, was no good divinity." Handy dandij.] On this Mr. 3iIalone has a long note, in which he cites Florio's Italian Dic- tionary, Cole and Ainsvvorth's Latin Dictionaries, and Dr. Johnson's English Dictionary. It is a pity he should have omitted the authority of Mar- tinus Scriblerus, who tells us handy dandy is mentioned by Plato, Aristotle, and Aristophanes, 996 XING LEAR. ACT IV. SCENE VII. Ch ild changed father. ] '* C h an ged to a c h i Id by his years and wrongs, or perhaps reduced to, this condition by his children.'— 'Steevens. " Lear is become insane, and this is the change referred to. Insanity is not tlie property of second child- hood, but dotage. "^ — Hexley. " Changed by his children ; a father whose jarring senses have been untuned by the monstrous ingratitude of his daughters. So care-crazed, for crazed by care ; wave-worn, worn by waves ; woe-wearied, weari- ed by woes.*^ — Malone. Mr. Malone has seen the proper meaning of the passage, and express- ed it with clearness and precision. Mr. Henley appears also to have seen the meaning, but is every thing but clear and precise. Steevens may say with Medea -Video meliora, proboque, Deteriora sequor.'' To icatcJi (poor perdu) With this thin hehn.'] With this thin covering of air." — Malone. This is certainly rioht; but KING LEAR. f 297 Warburton is also right in supposing it alludes to the enfam perdus, or forlorn hope, of an army; though he is wrong, as Steevens justly observes, in supposing those ordered on such service were lightly ox badly armed ; the contrary is clearly the fact, and to such a fact is the allusion of the poet. Pour per da, you are exposed to the most dan- gerous situatioai, not with the proper arms, but with a mere helmet of air. ACT V. SCENE I. When I could not be honest I never yet zi;as valiant ; for this business It toucheth us as France invades our countrijy Not holds the king.^ with others whom I fear Most just and heavy causes make oppose.'] Why Colman omitted these lines I cannot conceive, as they area necessary justification of Albany's con- duct, as is well observed by Warburton in his note. One of the greatest faults in Tales altera- tion of this play is, the want of a motive in so virtuous a character as Albany to resist the king, especially as he is declared to be at enmity with U9^ KlKG LtAR Cornwall ; tut here a motive is given, wliicb I hope will always actuate the bosom of every En- glishman. Sir, you speak nobly.'] " This reply must be understood iromcalhj.'^ — AIalone. Rather say, hypocritically. ACT V. SCENE 11. Alb. The let alone lies not in your good icilL Edm. Nor in thine, Lord. Alb. flalf-bhoded felloxv ! yes.'\ " Whether he shall not or shall depends not on your choice."^ —Johnson. " Albany means to tell his wife, that, however she might want the power, she evi- dently did not Want the incunation to prevent the match." — RiTSON. " To obstruct their unior^ lies not in your good pleasure. Your veto will avail nothing." — Ma lone. The sense suggested by Ritson would be plausible enough, if the first line stood singly ; but the answer of Edmund, and the retort of Albany, completely establish the opinion of Johnson and Maloqe, KING LEAR. 299 Enter Edg(n\ armed.'] The spirit of this scene evaporates in the alterations of Tate and Colmatt, from Edgar being known immediately. The theatre was then afraid to hazard a warrior on the stage with his visor closed. It has, however, since b.een done, without any bad effect, in Mr. Lewis't Tragedy of Alfonso. And my poor fool is hanged.] Notwithstanding the arguments of Sir Joshua Reynolds, I have no doubt in my mind but that Steevens and Malone are rioht in referrifis: this to Cordelia. In John- son's concluding note on this play and the change of the catastrophe, he gives this strong testimony in favor of the alteration :—" In the present case, the public has decided. Cordelia, from the time of Tate, has always retired with victory and feli- city. And, if my sentiments coisld add any thing to the general sufTiage, I trJght relate, I was many yearis ago so shocked by Cordelia's death, that I know not whether I ever endured to read the last scenes of the play, till I undertook to revise them as an editor." Here Steevens has a note, not on the poet, but on the critic. " Dr. 300 KING LEAR. Johnson should rather have said, the managers of the Theatre Royal had decided, and the public has been obliged to acquiesce in their decision. The altered play has the upper gallery on its side, and the original drama was patronized by Ad- dison. * Victrix causa diis placuit sed victa Catoni/* This fool's bolt was shot for the sake of the wretched pun drawn from the line of Lucan, Steevens puts the ppinion of Johnson himself as nothing; perhaps some of his readers may think, it equivalent, at least, with that of Addison. Johnson speaks from his own feelings here. Ad- dison from a blind deference to the opinion of Aristotle, which he has mistaken. Let the Sta- gyrite speak for himself: — nPHTON f/sv ^Uxov oti oute ovrv^iav ov yao (poC^POv ou^s £\esivov touto a^^:s /^.lajov IriV. " In the first place, the change from pvosperity to adversity should not be represented as happening to a virtuous character (i. e. eminently virtuous or good), for this raises disgusf, rather than /;//// or compc(ssion.''—TwiiiiiiG. The latter part of this; KING LEAR. ^0/ IS rendered, in a note, still more literally, by the same judicious critic : " For this is neither terrible noT piteous, but shocking ;" and he illustrates this by what we feel on reading Clarissa, in which he is followed by the author of the Commentary on the Poetic; surely Cordelia is as strong an ex- ample. ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT I. SCENE I. Is the day so young.'] i. e, " Is it so early in the day/' — Steevens ! ! ! ACT I. SCENE IIL That book — That in gold clasps lochs in the golden story.'] " The golden story is, perhaps, the Golden Le- gend, a book, in the dark ages of popery much read, and doubtless often exquisitely embellished^ but of which Canus, one of the Popish doctors^ proclaims the author to have been homoferrei oris plumbei cordis /' — J OHNSoy;. " Tiie poet may mean nothing more than to say, that those books are most esteemed by the world, where valuable contents are embellished by as valuable binding/^ Steevens. I am inclined to agree with the last critic. aOMEO AND JULIpT. 303 ACT I. SCENE IV. Pleasure.] i.e. "Dance." — Ma lone. This unnecessary remark occurs here for about the twentieth time. Come, ive ham dayUght ; ho /] " To burn day- light is a proverbial expression, used when can- dles, &c. are lighted in the day time." — Stee- VENS !!!!!!! Fairies^ michoife.'] Here Stevens has a very sen- sible note, proving that it does not mean midwife to the fairies, but the midwife employed by the fairies to deliver the fancies of sleeping men, Mr. T. Warton has a note after this, too long for insertion, and too absurd for confutation. Com- menting on Shakespear has a strange faculty of exposing men of real and acknowledged genius. ACT II. SCENE IV. Top gallant. 'I " The top-gallant is the highest extremity of the mast of a ship." — Seeevens. Surely maritime terms are too common in Great Britain to need this' explanation, which, by the S 304 JlOMi^O AND JULIET. Way, is not correctly given; for the top-gallant» mast has two extremities, ohe bf which must be the whole length of that mast from the highest extremity; ACT ill. SCENE I. Amazed.'] " Confounded."- — — Ste evens. Again ! ! I 1 AJfection makes him false. "] ** This charge of falsehood, though produced at hazard, is very just. The author who seems to intend the tharacter of Benvolio as good, meant, jDcrhaps, to shew hovv the best minds in a state of faction and discord are detorted to criminal partiality." — Johnson". That Lady Capulet, who was irritated by the loss of a kinsman, should accuse Benvolio of par- tiality, is very natural, but that Johnson should do it is very extraordinary, since he. relates every circumstance exactly as it passed before the eyes of the spectators. ACT III. SCENE y. Dry sorrow drinks our blood.^ " This is an uUusion to the proverb; sorrozv is dry."— Stee-* RDMEO AND JUJ;lET. SQ5 TENS. But, according to vi prior note, this allu= sion coiild no:o be only understood in the midland counties. See a note on a passage in the Tetn- pest, tiie second that is mentioned in these re- marks. iieno:v}id Jor JhilL] " This Rqmeo, so re- nowned for faith, was but the day before dying for love of another woman: yet this is natural. Ptomeo was the darhng object of Juliet's love, and Romeo was, of course, to have every excellence," — M. Masox. Women, I believe, are not apt to dishke their lovers for infidelity to other women ; but, though they would be proud of the triumph, they would not be likely to say such lovers were gene- rally renowned for faith, when the breach of that faith is a proof of the superiority of their own at- tractions. Romeo hardly made Juliettheconfidante of his passion for Rosalind, and she was not likely to hear of it from any other quarter. How now, a conduit, g^''^-] " Conduits, in the foriifi of human figures, as has been already ob- served, were common, in Shakespear's time.'' — - Ma LONE. I believe they are not uncommon X 306 ROMEO AND JULIET. aovv ; but to suppose any such particular allusion here, converts a very natural metaphor into a very childish, conceit. ACT IV. SCENE I. Evening mass.} " Juliet means vespers. There is no such thing as evening mass, which our author must necessarily have known, if, as there is some reason to believe^ he had been bread a papist." — RiTSON. This is a strange note; it proves he zisas not^ what it says there is some rea- son to beheve he was. For, there is some reason to believe, read, some persons have believed, ACT IV. SCENE IL We shall be short.] " That is, we shall be de- fective." — Johnson I ! I ! ACTV. SCENE III. Engrossing.] " Engrossing seems to be use'd here in its clerical sense." — Malone. Is clerical ever applied to any other clerks than those styled x«t' E^oxm the clergy ? 1 perfectly agree with Mr. Seymour in the wish that this play had been ter- ItOMEO AND JULIET. 307 minated happily, neither was there any occasion for the apothecary, as Mr. Seymour suggests, to imitate the friar, and give a harmless medicine in- stead of poison, to affect the change in the catas- trophe ; it would have been quite sufficient for the friar to have arrived at the tomb a few minutes sooner. As for the further objection to the im- probability of the prince upbraiding Romeo for his return from banishment, and the further affair of killing Paris, the last might be easily dispensed with, as quite unnecessary; and there is certainly sufficient dramatic probability for a man of the prince's character to pardon the return of Romeo, ■when attended by a circumstance so much desired bv him as the reconciliation of the two families. X 9 HAMLET. ACT I. SCENE I. Long live tJie King.^ " This sentence appears to have been the watch word." — Steevens. Not exactly so. The common challenge in France used to be Qui vive P and the answer Vive le Roi, just like the common challenge in the park, Who goes there? A friend. Batified hi) law and her alar ij.'] " Mr. Upton says that Shakespear sometimes expresses one thing by two substantives-, iviw}. that law and he- raldry means by the herald law," — Steevens. '' Futtenham, in his Art of Poesie, speaks of the Jigure of tzi'i/nnes^ horses and barbs, for barbed horses, vcnim and darts, for venomous durtsT — .Farmer, i.e. " To be well ratified by the rules of law and the forms prescribed /wrf^j^cz^/t^, such ^HAMLET. Si)9 as proclamations, &c.'' — Ma lone. The sense of this passage is so obvious, that I should have marked Mr. JMalone's note with my signs of ad- miration ! ! ! had not the zvisdom of his colleagues made it necessary. ACT I. SCENE II. Mereli/.'] " Absolutely, entirely." — Steevens. It is very true, but why repeat the information so often ? Hyperion.'] Steevens says the only instance he Jias met with among all the English poets where Hyperion has its proper quantity is in the old tra- gedy of Fuimus Troes, but it Occurs in A ken- side's Hymn to the Naids : •■ When the mis;ht ' Of Hyperion, from his noon tide throne, Sec. Dearest Joe.] " Dearest for direst, most dread- Jul, most dangerous^ — Johnson. " Dearest is most immediate, consequential, importa)if.'^—\lA. L')NE. Maloneis obviously right. So in Othello, dearest action, which Mr. Malone there also pro- perly explains by most important action. 310 HAMLET. / shall not look upon his like again.] *' Mr. Holt proposes to read, from an emendation of Sir Thomas Samvvel, bart. of Upton, in Northamp- tonshire, Eye shall not look upon his lite again. And thinks it more in the true spirit of Shakesprnr ihan the other. "r~STEEVENs. I cannot agree with Mr. Holt in preferring the baronet's emendation. To write naturally is the general characteristic of Shakespear, and if he is occasionally induced to write otherwise, do not let us mutilate the text to multiply the examples. Did you not speak to i/.] Mr. Steevens contends, and 1 think properly, for the emphasis being laid on speak, but were it laid on you it would not, as he contends, imply that Hamlet entertained the vulgar prejudice that a ghost would only answer a man of learning; but this would then be the force of the expression : 1 am not surprised that these ignorant soldiers should be afraid to speak to it, but I am that you who are more intelligent and more interested in the investigation of such an ex- HAMLET. 311 traordinary appearance, should not have had the curiosity to do it. ACT I. SCENE 111. Hooks of steell I have no doubt that this, and not hoops of steel, is the proper reading, though I do not think it derives any additional support from the following observation of Mr. Malone ; " it may also be observed, that hooks are some- times made of steel, but hoops never." 1 believe hoops are at least as often made of steel as hearts are, or as foreheads are of brass. Are most select and generous chief in ihat.^ Chief here, as is suggested both by Steevens and Ritson, is clearly used adverbially. How Mr. Malone could give any sanction to the idea that chief here has any relation to heraldry, is really wonderful. ACT I. SCENE IV. Easi and west.'] Here Messrs. Edwards, John- son, and Malone, combine their efforts to explain what no explanation can make clearer than it is. 312 HAMLET. They clepe us drunkards Pi^ " And well our tln- glishmen might, for ui Queen Elizabeth's time there was a Dane in London, of whom the fol- lowing mention is made in a collection of charac- ters, entitled Looke to it, for FU stab ijou. You that will drink Reynaldo unto death, The Dane, that would carouse out of his boot,--STEF.VENS. Though this observation is confirmed by Reed and M. Mason, lago tells us another story; ac^ cording to him, ' your Englishmen will with fa- cility drink your Dane dead drunk;' therefore there was no great wonder in the triumph over poor Reynakio and his boot. Dout.~\ Something of this too much. I'll call thee Hamlet, King, Father, Royal Dane ; O ausiver me.] It is thus pointed in all the editions I hav^e ever seen of the play, but there i,3 something so convincing to me in the change of punctuation proposed in the following anonymous observation, published in the St. James's Chroni- cle, Oct. 15, 176 1, -that I shall, without hesita- tion, adopt it. '^ This seems to be a strange climax (if not an anticlimax. ) But a slight alteration i« HAMLET. 313 the pointing will remove all objections, preserve the boauty of the climax, and perhaps give an additional force to the whole passage. I'll call thee Hamlet King, Father, — lioj'al Dane O answer me! The young prince, being impatient to know why the ghost appeared, first addresses him by his par- ticular name Hamlet, then by his title of King, and lastly by the endearing appellation of Father, "with which the climax naturally and beautifully ends. He then proceeds to address the ghost by a general appellation, ' Royal Daf?e, O answer me.'' This seems the criticism of no mean critic. It must be remembered that the St. Jamcb' Chro-r nicle, when it first came out, received the assist- mice of Lloyd, Thornton, and Colman. Nemean,] Why is there an accent here? It is jmeant to shew that the accent required by the verse is different from the quanity, but it is not so; Pindar's Nemean Odes are stiled Ns^wEa;, not ACT L SCENE V. Orchard^ " Orchard forgarden/'-SrEEVENS^!! 314 HAMLET. V n effect ual jire?^ i. e. " Shining without heat." — Warburton. " Uneffectual fire, I believe, rather means fire that is no longer seen when the light of nwrning approaches." — ^Steevens. That Steevens should be wrong is not extraordinary, but that Warburton should be right is very extra- ordinary. Between the notes of Warburton and Steevens, we find this note, without any name, on the verb to pule, " To pale is a verb used by Lady Elizabeth Carew in her tragedy of Alariam, 1613." This is like citing Anna Comnena for the authorit}' of a word in Homer. Rest, rest, perturbed spirit, 1 I once saw an ac- tor (I will not mention his name) lay his hand on his bosom as he spoke these words, applying them to hiiBself. Mr. Steevens has a most excellent note here on the whole preceding scene. ACT IL SCENE I. All his hiilk.l " All his body."— Malone ! ! ! The 7^ugged Pt/rrkus.'] Mr. Seymour's observa- tions on this speech are in general just; and I agree with him that " there can bardiv be a serious doubt ilAMLET. 315 that the praise bestowed on it by Hamiet himself is sincere;" but the reason he gives for this is erro- neous, that " he must be mad, not in craft, but reaHty, if he had dehberately selected, for the purpose of probing the king's co-nscience, a com- position that was nothing but contemptible bom- bast." But the play from whence this speech is supposed to be taken, was not that which Hamlet selected to be played before the court. ACT II. SCENE II. Jn the full bent.'] " The full bent is the ut- most extremity of exertion. The uliubion is to a bow bent as far as it will go."-.— Ma lone. 1 can- not conceive this word has any relation to archery, the technical terms of which were coo well known in Shakespear's time to be misapplied ; to bend the bow is \.o fasten the string to the horns that it maybe ready for