doubt, had we access to that author, that we should find he had "His land mortgag'd he sea beat in his way Hall's Satires. (63) No place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize; Revenge should have no bounds] i. e. throw a sacred and inviolable fence over. So blind or hardy are guilt and passion, that they will often, by distinctly acknowledging the justice of any revenge for one foul crime, while they are contriving and instigating another equally atrocious, or propounding maxims that justify their future fate, become parties to their own condemnation. See Timon. "An you begin to rail on society once." I. 2. Tim. And M. for M. II. 1. Ang. (64) unbated] i. e. not blunted, as foils are by a button fixed to the end. "That honour, which shall bate his scythe's keen edge." L. L. L. MALONE. Steevens cites North's Plutarch: "he shewed the people the cruel fight of fencers, at unrebated swords.” And see V. 2. Laert. "Nenna, (65) for the nonce] i. e. " the present purpose." nenning Suio-Goth. a se impetrare posse. to prevail with oneself to do a thing, to have a mind to do it. Rich. of Gloster and Chaucer wrote nones. In the old romance of Ywaine and Gawin, it is nanes. Serenius." Todd's Dict. See I. H. IV. I. 2. Poins. (66) and long purples] By long purples is meant a plant, the modern botanical name of which is orchis morio mas, anciently testiculus morionis. The grosser name by which it passes, is sufficiently known in many parts of England, and particularly in the county where Shakespeare lived. Thus far Mr. Warner. Mr. Collins adds, that in Sussex it is still called dead men's hands; and that in Lyte's Herbal, 1578, its various names, too gross for repetition, are preserved. One of the grosser names of this plant Gertrude had a particular reason to avoid. MALONE. (67) That liberal shepherds] That, to which free spoken shepherds, &c. Puttenham, speaking in his Arte of Engl. Poesie of the Figure, Parisia or the Licentious, says, when the "intent is to declare in broad and liberal speeches, which might breede offence or scandall, he will seeme to bespeake pardon before hand, wherby licentiousness may be the better borne withall." 4to. 1589, p. 199. "He gives her liberall scandal a deafe eare.” Heywood's Britaine's Troy, p. 107. Malone cites Field's Woman's a Weathercock, 1612 : "Of your neglect, and liberal-talking tongue, "Which breeds my honour an eternal wrong." See Othel. II. 1. Desd. i. e. uncon (68) As one incapable of her own distress] scious, insensible of." In III. 4. Haml. we have " making stones capable;" but a more apt instance occurs in Henry Brereton's Newes of the present Miseries of Rushia, 4to. 1614. "The wretched state and miserable condition of this untimely widdowed lady, and two sonnes, both so young, that they were not capable of their calamity." P. 29. See also "alongst the galupin or silver paved way of heaven, conducted into the great hall of the gods, Mercury sprinkled me with water, which made me capable of their divine presence." Greene's Orpharion, 4to. 1599, p. 7. "Poore little brat, incapable of care." Drayton's Moses his Birth, 4to. 1630. (69) Or like a creature native and indu'd Unto that element] i. e. " with qualities naturally adapted to." Malone says, our old writers used indued and endowed indiscriminately. "To indue," says Minshieu in his Dict. " sæpissime refertur ad dotes animo infusas, quibus nimirum ingenium alicujus imbutum et initiatum est, unde et G. instruire est L. imbuere. Imbuere proprie est inchoare et initiari." 66 In Cotgrave's French Dict. 1611, instruire is interpreted to fashion, to furnish with." So Othel. "For let our finger ache and it endues "Our other healthful members, ev'n to that sense where it means fashions, moulds, adapts by communicating or imparting congenial sensations; makes to participate of. (70) I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze, But that this folly doubts it] i. e. "douts, does out, extinguishes." "My rage had flamed, if this flood of tears had not extinguished it." The quartos and folio of 1632 read drowns for doubts. In this sense, so spelt, it is found, as was the orthography of that age, I. 4. Haml.: but see H. V. IV. 2. Dauph. ACT V. (1) an act hath three branches; it is to act, to do, and to perform: Argal, &c.] Warburton says, this is ridicule upon scholastic divisions without distinction and distinctions without difference. The quartos, instead of "perform: argal," read "perform, or all; she," &c. 66 : (2) Even christian] i. e. equal, fellow. The phrase occurs throughout Chaucer. 'Despitous is he that hath disdain of his neighbour, that is to sayn, of his even cristen." The Persones Tale, Tyrwh. III. 181, and ib. 207, 209, 236, 237. Steevens quotes also Chaucer's Jack Upland, and Gower's Confess. Amant.: "Of beautie sighe he never hir even." Lib. V. p. 102. And the Paston Letters, III. 421, &c. as does Malone Hall's Chronicle, fo. 261, H. VIII. to his parliament : you might say that I, beyng put in so speciall a trust as I am in this case, were no trustie frende to you, nor charitable man to mine even christian,—." And see Chapman's Works and Days of Hesiod, "Give never to thy friend an even respect (3) Was he a gentleman] Undoubtedly, says Douce, a ridicule this of heraldry. He cites Gerard Leigh's Accedence of Armourie, 4to. 1591, p. 13. “For that it might be known, that even anon after the creation of Adam, there was both gentlenes and ungentlenes, you shall understand, that the second man that was born was a gentleman, whose name was Abell;" and elsewhere," Jesus Christ, a gentleman of great linage." Ib. He adds the very ancient proverbial saying: "When Adam delv'd, and Eve span, Illustr. II. 262. See Gerv. Markham's Gentleman's Academie in Hawking, Hunting, and Armourie 1595, republished from Juliana Barnes and cited by Dr. Farmer elsewhere. The first ch. of the B. of Armourie is the difference 'twixt "Chorles and Gentlemen ;" and it ends thus" From the offspring of gentlemanly Japhet came Abraham, Moyses, Aaron and the Prophets; and also the King of the right line of Mary, of whom that only absolute Gentleman, Jesus, was borne-Gentleman, by his Mother, Mary, Princesse of coat armour." Mr. Hamper observes that in her Boke of St. Albans Dame Juliana says "Criste was a gentylman of his moder be halve, and bare Cotarmure of an aūseturys." 66 (4) a stoup of liquor] i. e. a jug. Stoup, stoip. A deep and narrow vessel for holding liquids. S. A. S. stoppa. Jamieson's Sc. Dict. Stoppa batiolus (batiola, Adam's Dict.) a kind of cup or bowl. Benson's A. S. Vocab. Stoup is a common word in Scotland at this day, and denotes a pewter vessel, resembling our wine measure, but of no determinate quantity; that being ascertained by an adjunct, as gallon-stoup, pint-stoup, mutchkin-stoup. The vessel, in which they fetch or keep water, is also called the water-stoup. A stoup of wine is therefore equivalent to a pitcher of wine." RITSON. See Tw. N. II. 3. Sir Toby. (5) In youth, when I did love, did love, Methought, it was very sweet, To contract, 0, the time, for, ah, my behove O, methought, there was nothing meet] This is part of Lord Vaux's " Sonnet" of "The aged Lover renounceth Love," published in Lord Surrey's Poems; or rather scraps of it, ill strung together, and put into the mouth of a clown, and purposely, as Dr. Percy has observed, in this mangled state, the better to sustain the character: neither was it very likely or fitting that he should be found more at home in the department of elegant poetry, than he was in crowner's-quest law. Upon this subject see Warton's Hist. of Engl. Poetry, III. p. 45, and for the entire Sonnet, Percy's Reliques, I. 180, 1794. Injudicious reforms and amendments of such incoherencies have been offered by the modern editors, as masters for his servant. Two G. of V. IV. 4. Launce. and "confusion" M. of V. II. 2. Launcel. and in the beginning and end of the Clown's song in Tw. N. IV. 2., and are given too under the authority of Dr. Farmer. Behove is behoof. (6) But age, with his stealing steps, Hath caught me in his clutch, And hath shipped me intill the land As if I had never been such] Instead of caught and intill, the quartos read and into claw'd. The originals of this, and the preceding stanza, are thus given in Dr. Percy's Ancient Songs: "I lothe that I did love; "In youth that I thought sweete : "For age with stealing steps "Hath claude me with his crowche; Another passage in the original, as given by Lord Surrey, in Surrey and Wyatt's Poems, 1717, 8vo. p. 155, runs thus: K "For beauty with her band, "These croked cares hath wrought, "And shipped me into the land, "From whence I first was brought." : The deviations in the text are very natural strokes of our great artist for so that the clown relieves his labour, and prevents those impressions or uneasy sensations, which the nature of that labour might subject him to, he is utterly regardless of the rhyme and sense; and accordingly is made to introduce a line that consists with neither. This line not being found in Lord Vaux, but being taken from another author, Lord Surrey, the clown could only be made to depart from the original, in order to be more in character. The same observations apply as well to passages in the M. W. of W. III. 1. Sir Hugh, as to Lear, come o'er the broom," III. 6. Edg. over. (7) the pate of a politician, which this ass now o'er-offices; one that could circumvent God] i. e. has official superiority "O'er-reaches," the reading of the quarto, gives an idea more closely and immediately corresponding with the whole of this sentence, and the beginning of the next but one. Upon those readings Johnson has well observed, "I believe, both these words were Shakespeare's. An author, in revising his work, when his original ideas have faded from his mind, and new observations have produced new sentiments, easily introduces images which have been more newly impressed upon him, without observing their want of congruity to the general texture of his original design." (8) This might be my lord such-a-one, that prais'd my lord such-a-one's horse, when he meant to beg it] See Tim. I. 2. T. my lord, you gave "Good words the other day of a bay courser STEEVENS. (9) but to play at loggats with them] i. e. but to be used, to be thought fit materials, to play with at a rustic game. This is a game played in several parts of England even at this time. A stake is fixed into the ground; those who play, throw loggats at it, and he that is nearest the stake, wins: I have seen it played in different counties at their sheep-shearing feasts, where the winner was entitled to a black fleece, which he afterwards presented to the farmer's maid to spin for the purpose of making a petticoat, and on condition that she knelt down on the fleece to be kissed by all the rusticks present. So Jonson's Tale of a Tub, Act IV. sc. vi : "Now are they tossing of his legs and arms, Again, in an old collection of Epigrams, Satires, &c. |