Chapter IV: Part 4

III.i.107 (275,9) [Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand] This image is taken from falconry. She had been charged with being as wild as _haggards of the rock_; she therefore says, that _wild_ as her _heart_ is, she will tame it _to the hand_.

III.ii.31 (277,2) [There is no appearance of fancy in him, unless it be a fancy that he hath to strange disguises] Here is a play upon the word _fancy_, which Shakespeare uses for _love_ as well as for _humour, caprice_, or _affectation_.

III.ii.71 (278,3) [She shall be buried with her face upwards] [T: heels upwards] This emendation, which appears to me very specious, is rejected by Dr. Warburton. The meaning seems to be, that she who acted upon principles contrary to others, should be buried with the same contrariety.

III.iii.43 (282,5) [only have a care that your bills be not stolen] A _bill_ is still carried by the watchmen at Litchfield. It was the old weapon of the English infantry, which, says Temple, _gave the most ghastly and deplorable wounds_. It may be called _securis falcata_.

III.iv.44 (289,3) [Light o' love] A tune so called, which has been already mentioned by our authour.

III.iv.49 (290,4) [you'll look he shall lack no burns] A quibble between _barns_, repositories of corn, and _bairns_, the old word for children.

III.iv.56 (290,5) [For the letter that begins them all, H] This is a poor jest, somewhat obscured, and not worth the trouble of elucidation.

Margaret asks Beatrice for what she cries, _hey ho_; Beatrice answers, for an _H_, that is, for an _ache_ or _pain_.

III.iv.57 (290,6) [turn'd Turk] [i.e. taken captive by love, and turned a renegade to his religion. Warburton.] This interpretation is somewhat far-fetched, yet, perhaps, it is right.

III.iv.78 (291,7) [some morel] That is, some secret meaning, like the _moral_ of a fable.

III.iv.89 (291,8) [he eats his meat without grudging] I do not see how this is a proof of Benedick's change of mind. It would afford more proof of amourosness to say, _he eats_ not _his meat without grudging_; but it is impossible to fix the meaning of proverbial expressions: perhaps, _to eat meat without grudging_, was the same as, _to do as others do_, and the meaning is, _he is content to live by eating like other mortals and will be content, notwithstanding his boasts, like other mortals, to have a wife_.

III.v.15 (293,9) [I am as honest as any man living, that is an old man, and no honester than I] [There is much humour, and extreme good sense under the covering of this blundering expression. It is a sly insinuation that length of years, and the being much _hacknied in the ways of men_, as Shakespeare expresses it, take off the gloss of virtue, and bring much defilement on the manners. Warburton.] Much of this is true, but I believe Shakespeare did not intend to bestow all this reflection on the speaker.

III.v.40 (294,1) [an two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind] This is not out of place, or without meaning. Dogberry, in his vanity of superiour parts, apologizing for his neighbour, observes, that _of two men on an horse, one must ride behind_. The _first_ place of rank or understanding can belong but to _one_, and that happy _one_ ought not to despise his inferiour.

IV.i.22 (296,2) [Interjections? Why, then some be of laughing] This is a quotation from the Accidence.

IV.i.42 (296,3) [luxurious bed] That is, _lascivious_. _Luxury_ is the confessor's term for unlawful pleasures of the sex.

IV.i.53 (297,5) [word too large] So he uses _large jests_ in this play, for _licentious, not restrained within due bounds_.

IV.i.57 (297,6) [I will write against it] [W: rate against] As to _subscribe to_ any thing is to _allow_ it, so to _write against_ is to _disallow_ or _deny_.

IV.i.59 (297,7) [chaste as is the bud] Before the air has tasted its sweetness.

IV.i.75 (298,8) [kindly power] That is, _natural power_. _Kind_ is _nature_.

IV.i.93 (298,9) [liberal villain] _Liberal_ here, as in many places of these plays, means, _frank beyond honesty_ or _decency_. _Free of tongue_. Dr. Warburton unnecessarily reads, _illiberal_.

IV.i. 101 (299,1) [O Hero! What a Hero hadst thou been] I am afraid here is intended a poor conceit upon the word _Hero_.

IV.i.123 (300,2) [The story that is printed in her blood?] That is, _the story which her blushes discover to be true_.

IV.i.128 (300,3) [Griev'd I, I had but one? Chid I for that at frugal nature's frame?] [W: nature's 'fraine] Though _frame_ be not the word which appears to a reader of the present time most proper to exhibit the poet's sentiment, yet it may as well be used to shew that he had _one child_, and _no more_, as that he had a _girl_, not a _boy_, and as it may easily signify _the system of things_, or _universal scheme_, the whole order of beings is comprehended, there arises no difficulty from it which requires to be removed by so violent an effort as the introduction of a new word offensively mutilated.

IV.i.137 (301,4) [But mine, and mine I lov'd, and mine I prais'd, And mine that I was proud on] [W: "as mine" in three places] Even of this small alteration there is no need. The speaker utters his emotion abruptly, But _mine_, _and mine_ that _I loved_, &c. by an ellipsis frequent, perhaps too frequent, both in verse and prose.

IV.i.187 (303,6) [bent of honour] _Bent_ is used by our authour for the utmost degree of any passion, or mental quality. In this play before Benedick says of Beatrice, _her affection has its full bent_. The expression is derived from archery; the bow has its _bent_, when it is drawn as far as it can be.

IV.i.206 (304,8) [ostentation] Show; appearance.

IV.i.251 (305,1) [The smallest twine nay lead me] This is one of our author's observations upon life. Men overpowered with distress, eagerly listen to the first offers of relief, close with every scheme, and believe every promise. He that has no longer any confidence in himself, is glad to repose his trust in any other that will undertake to guide him.

IV.ii.70 (311,6) [_Sexton_. Let them be in hand] There is nothing in the old quarto different in this scene from the common copies, except that the names of two actors, Kempe and Cowley, are placed at the beginning of the speeches, instead of the proper words, (see 1765, III,249,7)

V.i.15 (313,7)

[If such a one will smile and stroke his beard;
And, sorrow wag! cry; hem, when he should groan]

Sir Thomas Hammer, and after him Dr. Warburton, for _wag_ read _waive_, which is, I suppose, the same as, _put aside_ or _shift off_. None of these conjectures satisfy me, nor perhaps any other reader. I cannot but think the true meaning nearer than it is imagined. I point thus,

_If such an one will smile, and stroke his beard,
And, sorrow wag! cry; hem, when he should groan;_

That is, _If he will smile, and cry_ sorrow be gone, _and hem instead_ of groaning. The order in which _and_ and _cry_ are placed is harsh, and this harshness made the sense mistaken. Range the words in the common order, and my reading will be free from all difficulty.

_If such an one will smile, and stroke his beard,
Cry, sorrow, wag! and hem when he should groan._

V.i.32 (314,8) [My griefs cry louder than advertisement] That is, than _admonition_, than _moral instruction_.

V.i.102 (318,4) [we will not wake your patience] [W: wrack] This emendation is very specious, and perhaps is right; yet the present reading may admit a congruous meaning with less difficulty than many other of Shakespeare's expressions.

The old men have been both very angry and outrageous; the prince tells them that he and Claudio _will not_ wake _their patience_; will not any longer force them to _endure_ the presence of those whom, though they look on them as enemies, they cannot resist.

V.i.138 (319,6) [to turn his girdle] We have a proverbial speech, _If he be angry, let him turn the buckle of his girdle_. But I do not know its original or meaning.

V.i.166 (320,7) [a wise gentleman] This jest depending on the colloquial use of words is now obscure; perhaps we should read, _a wise gentle man_, or _a man wise enough to be a coward_. Perhaps _wise gentleman_ was in that age used ironically, and always stood for _silly fellow_.

V.i.231 (322,9) [one meaning well suited] That is, _one meaning is put into many different dresses_; the prince having asked the same question in four modes of speech.

V.ii.9 (326,3) [To have no man come over me? why, shall I always keep below stairs?] [T: above] I suppose every reader will find the meaning of the old copies.

V.ii.l7 (327,4) [I give thee the bucklers] I suppose that _to give the bucklers_ is, _to yield_, or _to lay by all thoughts of defence_, so _clipeum abjicere_. The rest deserves no comment.

V.iii.13 (330,7) [_Those that slew thy virgin knight_] _Knight_, in its original signification, means _follower_ or _pupil_, and in this sense may be feminine. Helena, in All's well that Ends well, uses _knight_ in the same signification.

LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST

I.i.31 (342,2)

[To love, to wealth, to pomp, I pine and die; With all these, living in philosophy]

The stile of the rhyming scenes in this play is often entangled and obscure. I know not certainly to what _all these_ is to be referred; I suppose he means, that he finds _love_, _pomp_, and _wealth_ in _philosophy_.

I.i.75 (344,4) [while truth the while Doth falsly blind] _Falsly_ is here, and in many other places, the same as _dishonestly_ or _treacherously_. The whole sense of this gingling declamation is only this, that _a man by too close study may read himself blind_, which might have been told with less obscurity in fewer words.

I.i.82 (344,5)

[Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed, And give him light, that it was blinded by]

This is another passage unnecessarily obscure: the meaning is, that when he _dazzles_, that is, has his eye made weak, _by fixing his eye upon a fairer eye, that_ fairer _eye shall be his heed_, his _direction_ or _lode-star_,(See Midsummer-Night's Dream) [_and give him light that was blinded by it_.

I.i.92 (345,6)

[Too much to know, is, to know nought but fame; And every godfather can give a name]

[W: "shame" or "feign"] That there are _two ways of setting_ a passage _right_ gives reason to suspect that there may be a third way better than either. The first of these emendations _makes a fine sense_, but will not unite with the next line; the other makes a sense less fine, and yet will not rhyme to the correspondent word. I cannot see why the passage may not stand without disturbance. _The consequence_, says Biron, _of too much knowledge_, is not any real solution of doubts, but mere empty _reputation_. That is, _too much knowledge gives only fame, a name which every godfather can give likewise_. (1773)

I.i.95 (345,7) [Proceeded well to stop all good proceeding] To _proceed_ is an academical term, meaning, _to take a degree_, as _he_ proceeded _bachelor in physick_. The sense is, _he has taken his degrees on the art of hindering the degrees of others_.

I.i.153 (348,1) [Not by might master'd, but by especial grace] Biron, amidst his extravagancies, speaks with great justness against the folly of vows. They are made without sufficient regard to the variations of life, and are therefore broken by some unforeseen necessity. They proceed commonly from a presumptuous confidence, and a false estimate of human power.

I.i.159 (349,2) [Suggestions] Temptations.

I.i.162 (349,3) [quick recreation] Lively sport, spritely diversion.

I.i.169 (349,4)

[A man of complements, whom right and wrong Have chose as umpire of their mutiny]

This passage, I believe, means no more than that Don Armado was a man nicely versed in ceremonial distinctions, one who could distinguish in the most delicate questions of honour the exact boundaries of right and wrong. _Compliment_, in Shakespeare's time, did not signify, at least did not only signify verbal civility, or phrases of courtesy, but according to its original meaning, the trapping, or ornamental appendages of a character, in the same manner, and on the same principles of speech with _accomplishment. Compliment_ is, as Arwado well expresses it, _the varnish of a complete man_.

I.i.174 (350,6) [in the world's debate] The _world_ seems to be used in a monastick sense by the king, now devoted for a time to a monastic life. _In the world, in seculo_, in the bustle of human affairs, from which we are now happily sequestred, _in the world_, to which the votaries of solitude have no relation.

I.i.252 (353,1) [_base minow of thy mirth_] A _minnow_ is a little fish which cannot be intended here. We may read, _the base_ minion _of thy mirth_.

I.ii.5 (355,2) [dear imp] _Imp_ was anciently a term of dignity. Lord Cromwell in his last letter to Henry VIII. prays for _the_ imp _his son_. It is now used only in contempt or abhorrence; perhaps in our authour's time it was ambiguous, in which state it suits well with this dialogue.

I.ii.36 (356,3) [crosses love not him] By _crosses_ he means money. So in As you like it, the Clown says to Celia, _if I should bear you, I should bear no cross_.

I.ii.150 (360,7) [_Jaq_. Fair weather after you!
_Dull_. Come, Jaquenetta, away]

[Theobald had reassigned two speeches] Mr. Theobald has endeavoured here to dignify his own industry by a very slight performance. The folios all read as he reads, except that instead of naming the persons they give their characters, enter _Clown, Constable, and Wench_.

I.ii.168 (361,8) [It is not for prisoners to be silent in their words] I suppose we should read, it is not for prisoners to be silent in their _wards_, that is, in _custody_, in the _holds_.

I.ii.183 (361,9) [The first and second cause will not serve my turn] See the last act of As you like it, with the notes.

II.i.15 (362,1)

[Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye, Not utter'd by base sale of chapmen's tongues]

Chapman here seems to signify the _seller_, not, as now commonly, the _buyer_. _Cheap_ or _cheping_ was anciently the _market_, _chapman_ therefore is _marketman_. The meaning is, that _that the estimation of beauty depends not on the_ uttering or _proclamation of the seller, but on the eye of the buyer_.

II.i.45 (363,2) [Well fitted] is _well qualified_.

II.i.49 (363,3) [match'd with] is _combined_ or _joined_ with.

II.i.105 (365,4) ['Tis deadly sin to keep that oath, my lord; And sin to break it] Sir T. Hammer reads,

Not _sin to break it_.

I believe erroneously. The Princess shews an inconvenience very frequently attending rash oaths, which, whether kept or broken, produce guilt.

II.i.203 (369,6) [God's blessing on your beard!] That is, mayst thou have sense and seriousness more proportionate to thy beard, the length of which suits ill with such idle catches of wit.

II.i.223 (370,7) [My lips are no common, though several they be] _Several_, is an inclosed field of a private proprietor, so Maria says, _her lips_ are _private property_. Of a lord that was newly married one observed that he grew fat; Yes, said sir Walter Raleigh, any beast will grow fat, if you take him from the _common_ and graze him in the _several_.

II.i.238 (370,8) [His tongue, all impatient to speak and not see] That is, _his tongue being impatiently desirous to see as well as_ _speak_.

II. i. 241 (370,9) [To feel only looking] Perhaps we may better read, _To_ feed _only_ by _looking_.

II. i. 262 (371,1) [_Boyet_. You are too hard for me] [Theobald did not end Act II here] Mr. Theobald has reason enough to propose this alteration, but he should not have made it in his book without better authority or more need. I have therefore preserved his observation, but continued the former division.

III.i (372,2) [_Enter Armado, and Moth._] In the folios the direction is, _enter Braggart and Moth_, and at the beginning of every speech of Armado stands _Brag_, both in this and the foregoing scene between him and his boy. The other personages of this play are likewise noted by their characters as often as by their names. All this confusion has been well regulated by the later editors.

III.i.3 (372,3) [Concolinel] Here is apparently a song lost.

III. i. 22 (373,5) [These are complements] Dr. Warburton has here changed _complements_ to _'complishments_, for accomplishments, but unnecessarily.

III. i. 32 (374,8) [but a colt] _Colt_ is a hot, mad-brained, unbroken young fellow; or sometimes an old fellow with youthful desires.

III. i. 62 (375,9) [You are too swift, Sir, to say so] How is he too swift for saying that lead is slow? I fancy we should read, as well to supply the rhyme as the sense,

_You are too swift, sir, to say so, so soon
Is that lead slow, sir, which is fir'd from a gun?_

III. i. 68 (375,1) [By thy favour, sweet welkin] Welkin is the sky, to which Armado, with the false dignity of a Spaniard, makes an apology for sighing in its face.

III. i. 73 (376,3) [no salve in the male, Sir] The old folio reads, _no salve in_ thee _male, sir_, which, in another folio, is, _no salve, in the male, sir_. What it can mean is not easily discovered: if _mail_ for a _packet_ or _bag_ was a word then in use, _no salve in the mail_ may mean, no salve in the mountebank's budget. Or shall we read, _no enigma, no riddle, no l'envoy--in the_ vale, _sir--O, sir. plantain_. The matter is not great, but one would wish for some meaning or other.

III. i.112 (377,5) [how was there a Costard broken in a shin?] _Costard_ is the name of a species of apple.

III. i.136 (378,7) [my in-cony Jew] [W. jewel] I know not whether it be fit, however specious, to change _Jew_ to _jewel_. _Jew_, in our author's time, was, for whatever reason, apparently a word of endearment. So in Midsummer-Night's Dream,

_Most tender Juvenile, and eke most lovely_ Jew. (see 1765, II,144,9)

III.i.182 (381,2) [This signior Junto's giant-dwarf. Don Cupid] Mr. Upton has made a very ingenious conjecture on this passage. He reads,

_This signior_ Julio's _giant-dwarf_--

Shakespeare, says he, intended to compliment Julio Romano, who drew Cupid in the character of a giant-dwarf. Dr. Warburton thinks, that by Junio is meant youth in general.

III.i.188 (382,3) [Of trotting paritors] An _apparitor_, or _paritor_. is an officer of the bishop's court who carries out citations; as citations are most frequently issued for fornication, the _paritor_ is put under Cupid's government.

III.i.189 (382,4)

[And I to be a corporal of his field, And wear his colours! like a tumbler's hoop!]

The conceit seems to be very forced and remote, however it be understood. The notion is not that the _hoop wears colours_, but that the colours are worn as a _tumbler_ carries his _hoop_, hanging on one shoulder and falling under the opposite arm.

III.i.207 (383,5) [Some men must love my lady, and some Joan] To this line Mr. Theobald extends his second act, not injudiciously, but, as was before observed, without sufficient authority.

IV.i.19 (384,6) [Here,--good my glass] To understand how the princess has her glass so ready at hand in a casual conversation, it must be remembered that in those days it was the fashion among the French ladies to wear a looking-glass,' as Mr. Bayle coarsely represents it, _on their bellies_; that is, to have a small mirrour set in gold hanging at the girdle, by which they occasionally viewed their faces or adjusted their hair.

IV.i.35 (385,8) [that my heart means no ill] [W: tho'] _That my heart means no ill_, is the same with _to whom my heart means no ill_; the common phrase suppresses the particle, as _I mean him_ [not _to_ him] _no harm_.

IV.i.41 (386,9) [a member of the commonwealth] Here, I believe, is a kind of jest intended; a member of the _common_-wealth is put for one of the _common_ people, one of the meanest.

IV.i.49 (386,1)

[An' your waist, mistress, were as slender as my wit, One o' these maids girdles for your waist should be fit]

[W: my waste ... your wit ... my waste] This conjecture is ingenious enough, but not well considered. It is plain that the ladies girdles would not fit the princess. For when she has referred the clown to _the thickest and the tallest_, he turns immediately to her with the blunt apology, _truth is truth_; and again tells her, _you are the thickest here_. If any alteration is to be made, I should propose,

_An' your waist, mistress, were as slender as_ your _wit_.

This would point the reply; but perhaps he mentions the slenderness of his own wit to excuse his bluntness.

IV.i.59 (387,3) [Break the neck of the wax] Still alluding to the capon.

IV.i.65 (388,5) [_king_ Cophetua] This story is again alluded to in Henry IV.

_Let king Cophetua know the truth thereof._

But of this king and beggar, the story, then doubtless well known, is, I am afraid, lost. Zenelophon has not appearance of a female name, but since I know not the true none, it is idle to guess.

IV.i.99 (389,7) [ere while] Just now; a little while ago. So Raleigh,

_Here lies Hobbinol our shepherd_, while e'er.

IV.i.108 (390,9) [Come, lords, away] Perhaps the Princess said rather,

--_Come_, ladies, _away_.

The rest of the scene deserves no care.

IV.ii (392,2) [_Enter Dull, Holofernes, and Sir Nathaniel_] I am not of the learned commentator's [Wurburton] opinion, that the satire of Shakespeare is so seldom personal. It is of the nature of personal invectives to be soon unintelligible; and the authour that gratifies private malice, _aniuam in vulnere ponit_, destroys the future efficacy of his own writings, and sacrifices the esteem of succeeding times to the laughter of a day. It is no wonder, therefore, that the sarcasms, which, perhaps, in the authour's time, _set the_ playhouse _in a roar_, are now lost among general reflections. Yet whether the character of Holofernes was pointed at any particular man, I am, notwithstanding the plausibility of Dr. Warburton's conjecture, inclined to doubt. Every man adheres as long as he can to his own pre-conceptions. Before I read this note I considered the character of Holofernes as borrowed from the Rhombus of sir Philip Sidney, who, in a kind of pastoral entertainment, exhibited to queen Elizabeth, has introduced a school-master so called, speaking _a leash of languages at once_, and puzzling himself and his auditors with a jargon like that of Holofernes in the present play. Sidney himself might bring the character from Italy; for, as Peacham observes, the school-master has long been one of the ridiculous personages in the farces of that country.

IV.ii.29 (395,4)

[And such barren plants are set before us, that we
thankful should be,
Which we taste and feeling are for those parts that do fructify
in us, more than he]

Sir T. Hammer reads thus,

_And such barren plants are set before us, that we
thankful should be,
For those parts which we taste and feel do fructify
in us more than he._

And Mr. Edwards, in his animadversions on Dr. Warburton's notes, applauds the emendation. I think both the editors mistaken, except that sir T. Hammer found the metre, though he missed the sense. I read, with a slight change,

_And such barren plants are set before us, that we
thankful should be_,
When _we taste and feeling are for those parts that
do fructify in us more than he_.

That is, _such barren plants_ are exhibited in the creation, to make us _thankful when we have more taste and feeling than he, of those parts_ or qualities _which_ produce fruit _in us_, and preserve as from being likewise _barren plants_. Such is the sense, just in itself and pious, but a little clouded by the diction of sir Nathaniel. The length of these lines was no novelty on the English stage. The moralities afford scenes of the like measure. (1773)

IV.ii.32 (396,5)

[For as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet,
or a fool;
So were there a patch set on learning, to see
him in a school]

The meaning is, to be in a school would as ill become a _patch_, or low fellow, as folly would become me.

IV.ii.99 (399,2) [_Vinegia. Vinegia, Chi non te vedi, ei non te pregia_] [This reading is an emendation by Theobald] The proverb, as I am informed, is this; _He that sees Venice little, values it much; he that sees it much, values it little_. But I suppose Mr. Theobald is right, for the true proverb would hot serve the speaker's purpose.

IV.ii.156 (403,6) [colourable colours] That is specious, or fair seeming appearances.

IV.iii.3 (403,7) [I am toiling in a pitch] Alluding to lady Rosaline's complexion, who is through the whole play represented as a black beauty.

IV.iii.29 (404,8) [The night of dew, that on my cheeks down flows] I cannot think the _night of dew_ the true reading, but know not what to offer.

IV.iii.47 (405,9) [he comes in like a perjure, wearing papers] The punishment of perjury is to wear on the breast a paper expressing the crime.

IV.iii.74 (406,2) [the liver-vein] The liver was anciently supposed to be the seat of love.

IV.iii.110 (408,5) [_Air, would I might triumph so_!] Perhaps we may better read,

Ah! _would I might triumph so!_

IV.iii.117 (409,7) [ay true love's fasting pain] [W: festring] There is no need of any alteration. _Fasting_ is _longing, hungry, wanting_.

IV.iii.148 (410,8) [How will he triumph, leap, and laugh at it?] [W: geap] To _leap_ is to _exult_, to skip for joy. It must stand.

IV.iii.166 (410,9) [To see a king transformed to a knot!] _Knot_ has no sense that can suit this place. We may read _sot_. The rhimes in this play are such, as that _sat_ and _sot_ may be well enough admitted.

IV.iii.180 (412,2) [With men like men] [W: vane-like] This is well imagined, but perhaps the poet may mean, with _men like_ common _men_.

IV.iii.231 (414,3) [She (an attending star)] Something like this is a stanza of sir Henry Wotton, of which the poetical reader will forgive the insertion.

_--Ye stars, the train of night,
That poorly satisfy our eyes
More by your number than your light:
Ye common people of the skies,
What are ye when the sun shall rise_.

IV.iii.256 (415,6) [And beauty's crest becomes the heavens well] [W: crete] This emendation cannot be received till its authour can prove that _crete_ is an English word. Besides, _crest_ is here properly opposed to _badge_. _Black_, says the King, is the _badge of hell_, but that which graces the heaven is _the crest of_ beauty. _Black_ darkens hell, and is therefore hateful; _white_ adorns heaven, and is therefore lovely.

IV.iii.290 (417,8) [affection's men at arms] _A man at arms_, is a soldier armed at all points both offensively and defensively. It is no more than, _Ye soldiers of affection_.

IV.iii.313 (418,2) [Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye] i.e. a lady's eyes gives a fuller notion of beauty than any authour.

IV.iii.321 (418.3) [In leaden contemplation have found out Such fiery numbers] _Numbers_ are, in this passage, nothing more than _poetical measures_. _Could you_, says Biron, _by solitary contemplation, have attained such poetical_ fire, _such spritely numbers, as have been prompted by the eyes of beauty_? The astronomer, by looking too much aloft, falls into a ditch.

IV.iii.358 (422,9)

[Or for love's sake, a word, that loves all men;
Or for men's sake, the author of these women;
Or women's sake, by whom we men are men]

Perhaps we might read thus, transposing the lines,

_Or for love's sake, a word that loves all men;
For women's sake, by whom we men are men;
Or for men's sake, the authours of these women_.

The antithesis of _a word that all men love_, and _a word which loves all men_, though in itself worth little, has much of the spirit of this play.

IV.iii.386 (423,2) [If so, our copper buys no better treasure] Here Mr. Theobald ends the third act.

V.i.3 (423,3) [your reasons at dinner have been sharp and sententious] I know not well what degree of respect Shakespeare intends to obtain for this vicar, but he has here put into his mouth a finished representation of colloquial excellence. It is very difficult to add any thing to this character of the school-master's table-talk, and perhaps all the precepts of Castiglione will scarcely be found to comprehend a rule for conversation so justly delineated, so widely dilated, and so nicely limited.

It may be proper just to note, that _reason_ here, and in many other places, signifies _discourse_; and that _audacious_ is used in a good sense for _spirited, animated, confident_. _Opinion_ is the same with _obstinacy_ or _opinionated_.

V.i.14 (424,4) [He is too picked] To have the beard _piqued_ or shorn so as to end in a point, was, in our authour's time, a mark of a traveller affecting foreign fashions: so says the Bastard in K. John, --_I catechise _My_ piqued _man of countries_.

V.i.29 (425,6) [(_Ne intelligis, Domine._) to make frantick, lunatick?] There seems yet something wanting to the integrity of this passage, which Mr. Theobald has in the most corrupt and difficult places very happily restored. For _ne intelligis domine, to make frantick, lunatick_, I read, (nonne _intelligis, domine?_) to _be_ mad, frantick, lunatick.

V.i.44 (427,6) [_honorificabilitudinitatibus_] This word, whencesoever it comes, is often mentioned as the longest word known. (1773)

V.i.110 (429,6) [dally with my excrement] The authour has before called the beard _valour's excrement_ in the Merchant of Venice.

V.ii.43 (432,5) ['Ware pencils!] The former editions read,

Were _pencils_----

Sir T. Hammer here rightly restored,

'Ware _pencils_-----

Rosaline, a black beauty, reproaches the fair Catherine for painting.

V.ii.69 (434,9) [None are so surely caught when they are catch'd, As wit turn'd fool] These are observation worthy of a man who has surveyed human nature with the closest attention.

V.ii.87 (434,1) [Saint Dennis to St. Cupid!] The Princess of France invokes, with too much levity, the patron of her country, to oppose his power to that of Cupid.

V.ii.117 (435,2) [spleen ridiculous] is, a ridiculous _fit_.

V.ii.205 (439,5) [Vouchsafe, bright moon, and these thy stars] When queen Elizabeth asked an ambassadour how he liked her ladies, _It is hard,_ said he, _to judge of stars in the presence of the sun._

V.ii.235 (440,6) [Since you can cog] To _cog_ signifies _to falsify the dice,_ and _to falsify a narrative,_ or _to lye._

V.ii.281 (442,7) [better wits have worn plain statute-caps] This line is not universally understood, because every reader does not know that a statute cap is part of the academical habit. Lady Rosaline declares that her expectation was disappointed by these courtly students, and that _better wits_ might be found in the common places of education. [Gray had offered a different explanation] I think my own interpretation of this passage right. (see 1765, II,197,3)

V.ii.295 (443,8)

[Fair ladies, mask'd, are roses in their bud;
Dismask'd, their damask sweet commixture shewn,
Are angels vailing clouds, or roses blown]

[Hammer: angels vailing clouds] [Warburton exercised his sarcasm on this] I know not why Sir T. Hanmer's explanation should be treated with so much contempt, or why _vailing clouds_ should be _capping the sun. Ladies unmask'd,_ says Boyet, _are_ like _angels vailing clouds,_ or letting those clouds which obscured their brightness, sink from before them. What is there in this absurd or contemptible?

V.ii.309 (444,1) [_Exeunt ladies_] Mr. Theobald ends the fourth act here.

V.ii.337 (447,4) [--behaviour, what wert thou, 'Till this mad man shew'd thee? and what art thou now?] [These are two wonderfully fine lines, intimating that what courts call _manners,_ and value themselves so much upon teaching, as a thing no where else to be learnt, is a modest silent accomplishment under the direction of nature and common sense, which does its office in promoting social life without being taken notice of. But that when it degerates into shew and parade, it becomes an unmanly contemptible quality. Warburton.] What is told in this note is undoubtedly true, but is not comprised in the quotation.

V.ii.348 (448,5) [The virtue of your eye must break my oath] I believe the author means that the _virtue,_ in which word _goodness_ and _power_ are both comprised, _must dissolve_ the obligation of the oath. The Princess, in her answer, takes the most invidious part of the ambiguity.

V.ii.374 (449,6)

[when we greet
With eyes best seeing, heaven's fiery eye,
By light we lose light: your capacity
Is of that nature, as to your huge store
Wise things seem foolish, and rich things but poor]

This is a very lofty and elegant compliment.

V.ii.419 (450,7) [Write, _Lord have mercy on us_, on those three] This was the inscription put upon the door of the houses infected with the plague, to which Biron compares the love of himself and his companions; and pursuing the metaphor finds the _tokens_ likewise on the ladies. The _tokens_ of the plague are the first spots or discolorations, by which the infection is known to be received.

V.ii.426 (451,8) [how can this be true, That you stand forfeit, being those that sue?] That is, how can those be liable to forfeiture that begin the process. The jest lies in the ambiguity of _sue_, which signifies _to prosecute by law_, or to _offer a petition_.

V.ii.440 (451,9) [you force not to forswear] _You force not_ is the same with _you make no difficulty_. This is a very just observation. The crime which has been once committed, is committed again with less reluctance.

V.ii.471 (452,2) [in will and error. Much upon this it is:--And might not you] I, believe this passage should be read thus,

--_in will and error_.
Boyet. _Much upon this it is_.
Biron. _And might not you_, &c.

V.ii.490 (453,5) [You cannot beg us] That is, we are not fools, our next relations cannot _beg_ the wardship of our persons and fortunes. One of the legal tests of a _natural_ is to try whether he can number.

V.ii.517 (454,6)

[That sport best pleases, that doth least know how.
Where zeal strives to content, and the contents
Dies in the zeal of that which it presents]

The third line may be read better thus,

--_the contents_
_Die in the zeal of_ him _which_ them _presents_.

This sentiment of the Princess is very natural, but less generous than that of the Amazonian Queen, who says, on a like occasion, in Midsummer-Night's Dream,

_I love not to see wretchedness o'ercharg'd_,
_Nor duty in his service perishing_.

V.ii.547 (455,8) [A bare throw at novum] This passage I do not understand. I fancy that _novum_ should be _novem_, and that some allusion is intended between the play of _nine pins_ and the play of the _nine_ worthies, but it lies too deep for my investigation.

V.ii.581 (457,2) [A-jax] There is a conceit of _Ajax_ and _a jakes_.

V.ii.694 (461,4) [more Ates] That is, more instigation. Ate was the mischievous goddess that incited bloodshed.

V.ii.702 (461,5) [my arms] The weapons and armour which he wore in the character of Pompey.

V.ii.744 (463,8) [In the converse of breath] Perhaps _converse_ may, in this line, mean _interchange_.

V.ii.755 (464,2) [which fain it would convince] We must read,

--_which fain_ would it _convince_;

that is, the entreaties of love which would fain _over-power_ grief. So Lady Macbeth declares, _That she will_ convince _the chamberlain with wine_.

V.ii.762 (464,3) [Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief] As it seems not very proper for Biron to court the princess for the king in the king's presence, at this critical moment, I believe the speech is given to a wrong person. I read thus,

Prin. _I understand you not, my griefs are double:
Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief._
King. _And by these badges_, &c.

V.ii.779 (465,4) [Suggested us] That is, _tempted_ us.

V.ii.790 (465,5) [As bombast, and as lining to the time] This line is obscure. _Bombast_ was a kind of loose texture not unlike what is now called wadding, used to give the dresses of that time bulk and protruberance, without much increase of weight; whence the same name is given a tumour of words unsupported by solid sentiment. The Princess, therefore, says, that they considered this courtship as but _bombast_, as something to fill out life, which not being closely united with it, might be thrown away at pleasure.

V.ii.795 (466,7) [We did not quote them so] [We should read, _quote_, esteem, reckon. Warburton] though our old writers spelling by the ear, probably wrote _cote_, as it was pronounced. (see 1765, II,218,5)

V.ii.823 (467,8) [To flatter up these powers of mine with rest] Dr. Warburton would read _fetter_, but _flatter_ or _sooth_ is, in my opinion, more apposite to the king's purpose than _fetter_. Perhaps we may read,

_To flatter_ on _these_ hours of time _with rest_;

That is, I would not deny to live in the hermitage, to make the year of delay pass in quiet.

V.ii.873 (469,2) [dear groans] _Dear_ should here, as in many other places, be _dere_, sad, odious.

V.ii.904 (470,3) [_When daisies pied, and violets blue_] The first lines of this song that were transposed, have been replaced by Mr. Theobald.

V.ii.907 (470,5) [_Do paint the meadows with delight_] [W: much bedight] Much less elegant than the present reading.

(472,7) General Observation. In this play, which all the editors have concurred to censure, and some have rejected as unworthy of him.

Vol. III

A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM

I.i.6 (4,2) [Long withering out a young man's revenue] [W: wintering] That the common reading is not good English, I cannot perceive, and therefore find in myself no temptation to change it.

I.i.47 (5,6) [To leave the figure, or disfigure it] [W: 'leve] I know not why so harsh a word should be admitted with so little need, a word that, spoken, could not be understood, and of which no example can be shown. The sense is plain, _you owe to your father a being which he may at pleasure continue or destroy_.

I.i.68 (6,8) [Know of your youth] Bring your youth to the question. Consider your youth. (1773)

I.i.76 (7,9) [But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd] Thus all the copies, yet _earthlier_ is so harsh a word, and _earthlier happy_ for _happier earthly_, a mode of speech so unusual, that I wonder none of the editors have proposed _earlier happy_.

I.i.110 (8,2) [spotted] As _spotless_ is innocent, so _spotted_ is wicked. (1773)

I.i.131 (9,3) [Beteem them] give them, bestow upon then. The word is used by Spenser.

I.i.157 (10,8) [I have a widow aunt, a dowager] These lines perhaps might more properly be regulated thus:

_I have a widow aunt, a dowager
Of great revenue, and she hath no child,
And she respects me as her only son;
Her house from Athens is remov'd seven leagues,
There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee,
And to that place--_

I.i.169-178 (11,1) [Warburton had reassigned speeches here] This emendation is judicious, but not necessary. I have therefore given the note without altering the text. The censure of men, as oftner perjured than women, seems to make that line more proper for the lady.

I.i.183 (12,3) [Your eyes are lode-stars] This was a complement not unfrequent among the old poets. The lode star is the _leading_ or guiding star, that is, the pole-star. The magnet is, for the same reason, called the _lode-stone_, either became it leads iron, or because it guides the sailor. Milton has the same thought in L'Allegro:

_Tow'rs and battlements he sees
Bosom'd high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps some beauty lies,
The_ Cynosure _of neighb'ring eyes._

Davies calls Elizabeth, _lode-stone_ to hearts, and _lode-stone_ to all eyes, (see 1765, 1,97,9)

I.i.204 (13,6)

[Before the time I did Lysander see,
Seem'd Athens like a paradise to me]

Perhaps every reader may not discover the propriety of these lines. Hermia is willing to comfort Helena, and to avoid all appearance of triumph over her. She therefore bids her not to consider the power of pleasing, as an advantage to be much envied or much desired, since Hermia, whom she considers as possessing it in the supreme degree, has found no other effect of it than the loss of happiness.

I.i.232 (15,8) [Things base and vile, holding no quantity] _quality_ seems a word more suitable to the sense than quantity, but either may serve. (1773)

I.i.240 (15,9) [in game] _Game_ here signifies not contentious play, but _sport, jest_. So Spenser,

_'Twixt earnest and 'twixt_ game.

I.ii (16,2) [_Enter Quince the carpenter, Snug the joiner. Bottom the weaver. Flute the bellows-mender. Snout the tinker, and Starveling the taylor_] In this scene Shakespeare takes advantage of his knowledge of the theatre, to ridicule the prejudices and competitions of the players. Bottom, who is generally acknowledged the principal actor, declares his inclination to be for a tyrant, for a part of fury, tumult, and noise, such as every young man pants to perform when he first steps upon the stage. The same Bottom, who seems bred in a tiring-room, has another histrionical passion. He is for engrossing every part, and would exclude his inferiors from all possibility of distinction. He is therefore desirous to play Pyramus, Thisbe, and the Lyon at the same time.

I.ii.10 (17,4) [grow on to a point] Dr. Warburton read _go on_; but _grow_ is used, in allusion to his name, Quince. (see 1765, I,100,8)

I.ii.52 (18,6)

[_Flu._ Nay, faith, let me not play a woman; I have a beard coming. _Quin._ That's all one, you shall play it in a masque; and you may speak as small as you will]

This passage shews how the want of women on the old stage was supplied. If they had not a young man who could perform the part with a face that might pass for feminine, the character was acted in a mask, which was at that time part of a lady's dress so much in use that it did not give any unusual appearance to the scene: and he that could modulate his voice in a female tone might play the women very successfully. It is observed in Downes's Memoirs of the Playhouse, that one of these counterfeit heroines moved the passions more strongly than the women that have since been brought upon the stage. Some of the catastrophes of the old comedies, which make lovers marry the wrong women, are, by recollection of the common use of masks, brought nearer to probability.

I.ii.98 (20,8) [_Bot_. I will discharge it in either your straw-coloured beard, your orange tawny beard, your purple-in grain beard, or your French crown-coloured beard; your perfect yellow] Here Bottom again discovers a true genius for the stage by his solicitude for propriety of dress, and his deliberation which beard to chuse among many beards, all unnatural.

II.i.2 (21,3) [Over hill, over dale] So Drayton in his Court of Fairy,

_Thorough brake_, _thorough brier_.
_Thorough muck_, _thorough mire_.
_Thorough water_, _thorough fire_.

II.i.9 (22,4) [To dew her orbs upon the green] For _orbs_ Dr. Gray is inclined to substitute _herbs_. The orbs here mentioned are the circles supposed to be made by the Fairies on the ground, whose verdure proceeds from the fairy's care to water them.

_They in their courses make that_ round,
_In meadows and in marshes found_,
_Of then so called the fairy ground_. Drayton.

II.i.10 (22,5) [The cowslips tall her pensioners be] The cowslip was a favourite among the fairies. There is a hint in Drayton of their attention to May morning.

--_for the queen a fitting tow'r_,
_Quoth he, is that fair_ cowslip flow'r.--
_In all your train there's not a fay_
_That ever went_ to gather May,
_But she hath made it in her way_,
_The_ tallest _there that groweth_.

II.i.16 (22,7) [lob of spirits] _Lob_, _lubber_, _looby_, _lobcock_, all denote both inactivity of body and dulness of mind.

II.i.23 (23,8) [changeling] _Changeling_ is commonly used for the child supposed to be left by the fairies, but here for the child taken away.

II.i.29 (23,9) [sheen] Shining, bright, gay.

II.i.30 (23,1) [But they do square] [To _square_ here is to quarrel. _And now you are such fools to_ square _for this_? Gray.]

The French word _contrecarrer_ has the same import.

II.i.36 (24,4)

[Skim milk; and sometimes labour in the quern,
And bootless make the breathless huswife churn]

The sense of these lines is confused. _Are not you he_, says the fairy, _that fright the country girls_. _that skim milk_, _work in the hand-mill_, _and make the tired dairy-woman churn without effect_? The mention of the mill seem out of place, for she is not now telling the good but the evil that he does. I would regulate the lines thus:

_And sometimes make the breathless housewife churn
Skim milk, and bootless labour in the quern._

Or by a simple transposition of the lines;

_And bootless, make the breathless housewife churn
Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern._

Yet there is no necessity of alteration. (see 1765, I,106,1)

II.i.40 (24,6) [Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck, You do their work] To those traditionary opinions Milton has reference in L'Allegro,

_Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,
With stories told of many a feat.
How Fairy Mab the junkets eat;
She was pinch'd and pull'd she said.
And he by Frier's lapthorp led;
Tells how the drudging goblin sweat
To earn his cream-bowl duly set,
When in one night ere glimpse of morn
His shadowy flail had thresh'd the corn
Which ten day-labourers could not end.
Then lies him down the_ lubber _fiend_.

A like account of Puck is given by Drayton,

_He meeteth Puck, which most men call
Hobgoblin, and on him doth fall.--
This Puck seems but a dreaming dolt,
Still walking like a ragged colt,
And oft out of a bed doth bolt,
Of purpose to deceive us;
And leading us makes us to stray.
Long winter's nights out of the way.
And when we stick in mire and clay.
He doth with laughter leave us._

It will be apparent to him that shall compare Drayton's poem with this play, that either one of the poets copied the other, or, as I rather believe, that there was then some system of the fairy empire generally received, which they both represented as accurately as they could. Whether Drayton or Shakespeare wrote first, I cannot discover.

II.i.42 (25,7) [_Puck_. Thou speak'st aright] I have filled up the verse which I suppose the author left complete,

It seems that in the Fairy mythology Puck, or Hobgoblin, was the trusty servant of Oberon, and always employed to watch or detect the intrigues of Queen Mab, called by Shakespeare Titania. For in Drayton's Nynphidia, the same fairies are engaged in the sane business. Mab has an amour with Pigwiggen; Oberon being jealous, sends Hobgoblin to catch them, and one of Mab's nymphs opposes him by a spell.

II.i.54 (26,8) [And _tailor_ cries] The custom of crying _tailor_ at a sudden fall backwards, I think I remember to have observed. He

that slips beside his chair falls as a taylor squats upon his board. The Oxford editor and Dr. Warburton after him, read _and rails or cries_, plausibly, but I believe not rightly. Besides, the trick of the fairy is represented as producing rather merriment than anger.

II.i.56 (26,9) [And waxen] And _encrease_, as the _moon waxes_.

II.i.58 (26,1) [But room, Faery] All the old copies read--_But room Fairy_. The word Fairy or Faery, was sometimes of three syllables, as often in Spenser.

II.i.84 (28,5) [paved fountain] A fountain laid round the edge with stone.

II.i.88 (28,6) [the winds, piping] So Milton,

_While rocking winds are piping loud._

II.i.91 (28,7) [pelting river] Thus the quarto's: the folio reads _petty_.

Shakespeare has in Lear the same word, _low pelting farms_. The meaning is plainly, _despicable, mean, sorry, wretched_; but as it is a word without any reasonable etymology, I should be glad to dismiss it for _petty_, yet it is undoubtedly right. We have _petty pelting officer_ in Measure for Measure.

II.i.92 (28,8) [over-born their continents] Born down the banks that contained then. So in Lear,

_Close pent guilts
Rive their concealing_ continents.

II.i.98 (29,1) [The nine-men's morris] This was some kind of rural game played in a marked ground. But what it was more I have not found.

II.i.100 (29,2) [The human mortals want their winter here] After all the endeavours of the editors, this passage still remains to me unintelligible. I cannot see why winter is, in the general confusion of the year now described, more wanted than any other season. Dr. Warburton observes that he alludes to our practice of singing carols in December; but though Shakespeare is no great chronologer in his dramas, I think he has never so mingled true and false religion, as to give us reason for believing that he would make the moon incensed for the omission of our carols. I therefore imagine him to have meant heathen rites of adoration. This is not all the difficulty. Titania's account of this calamity is not sufficiently consequential. _Men find no winter_, therefore they sing no hymns; the moon provoked by this omission, alters the seasons: that is, the alteration of the seasons produces the alteration of the seasons. I am far from supposing that Shakespeare might not sometimes think confusedly, and therefore am not sure that the passage is corrupted. If we should read,

_And human mortals want their_ wonted year,

yet will not this licence of alteration much mend the narrative;

the cause and the effect are still confounded. Let us carry critical temerity a little further. Scaliger transposed the lines of Virgil's Gallus. Why may not the same experiment be ventured upon Shakespeare.

_The human mortals want_ their wonted year,
_The seasons alter; hoary-headed frosts
Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose;
And on old_ Hyems' _chin, and icy crown,
An od'rous chaplet of sweet summer buds
Is, as in mock'ry set. The spring, the summer,
The chiding autumn, angry winter, change
Their wonted liveries; and the 'mazed world,
By their increase, now knows not which is which.
No night is now with hymn or carol blest;
Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air;
And thorough this distemperature, we see
That rheumatick diseases do abound.
And this same progeny of evil comes
From our debate, from our dissension._

I know not what credit the reader will give to this emendation, which I do not much credit myself.

II.i.114 (31,4) [By their increase] That is, _By their produce._

II.i.130 (32,6) [Which she, with pretty and with swimming gate, Following] [cf: follying] The foregoing note is very ingenious, but since _follying_ is a word of which I know not any example, and the Fairy's favourite might, without much licentiousness of language, be said to _follow_ a ship that sailed in the direction of the coast; I think there is no sufficient reason for adopting it. The coinage of new words is a violent remedy, not to be used but in the last necessity.

II.i.157 (35,8) [Cupid all-arm'd] _All-armed_, does not signify _dressed in panoply_, but only enforces the word _armed_, as we might say _all-booted_. I am afraid that the general sense of _alarmed_, by which it is used for _put into fear or care by whatever cause_, is later than our authour.

II.i.220 (38,4) [For that It is not night when I do see your face] This passage is paraphrased from two lines of an ancient poet,

--_Tu nocte vel atra
Lumen, et in solis tu mihi turba locis_.

(see 1765, I,118,6)

II.i.251 (39,5) [over-canopy'd with the luscious woodbine] All the old editions have,

Quite _over-canopied with luscious woodbine_.

On the margin of one of my folio's an unknown hand has written _lush_ woodbine, which, I think, is right.

This hand I have since discovered to be Theobald's, (see 1765, I,119,4)

II.ii. (41,9) [quaint spirits] For this Dr. Warburton reads against all authority,

----_quaint_ sports.----

But Prospero, in _The Tempest,_ applies _quaint_ to Ariel.

II.ii.30 (42.2) [Be it ounce] The ounce is a snail tiger, or tiger-cat. (1773)

II.ii.45 (43,3)

[O take the sense, sweet, of my innocence;
Love takes the meaning in love's conference]

[Warburton wished to transpose "innocence" and "conference"] I am by no means convinced of the necessity of this alteration. Lysander in the language of love professes, that as they have one heart, they shall have one bed; this Hernia thinks rather too much, and intreats him to _lye further off_. Lysander answers,

_O take the sense, sweet, of my_ innocence.

understand _the meaning of my innocence_, or _my innocent meaning._ Let no suspicion of ill enter thy mind.

_Love takes the meaning, in love's_ conference.

In the conversation of those who are assured of each other's kindness, not _suspicion_, but _love takes the meaning_. No malevolent interpretation is to be made, but all is to be received in the sense which _love_ can find, and which _love_ can dictate.

II.ii.89 (45,6) [my grace] My acceptableness, the favour that I can gain. (1773)

II.ii.120 (46,7) [Reason becomes the marshal to my will] That is, My will now follows reason.