Love's feeling is more foft, and fenfible, Than are the tender horns of cockled fnails; Still climbing trees in the Hefperides? 3 As bright Apollo's lute, ftrung with his hair; + bead of theft (fays he) is the fufpicious head of the thief. There is no man who liftens fo eagerly as a thief, or whofe ears are so acutely upon the ftretch." STEEVENS. I rather incline to Dr. Warburton's interpretation. MALONE. cockled-] i. e. infhelled, like the fish called a cockle. 2 STEEVENS. 3 Still climbing trees in the Hefperides?] Our author had heard or read of the gardens of the Hefperides," and feems to have thought that the latter word was the name of the garden in which the golden apples were kept; as we fay, the gardens of the Tuilleries, &c. Our poet's contemporaries, I have lately observed, are chargeable with the fame inaccuracy. So, in Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, by Robert Greene, 1598: "Shew thee the tree, leav'd with refined gold, "Whereon the fearful dragon held his feat, "That watch'd the garden, call'd HESPERIDES." The word may have been used in the fame fenfe in The Legend of Orpheus and Eurydice, a poem, 1597: And, like the dragon of the Hefperides, "Shutteth the garden's gate,-." MALONE. 4 As bright Apollo's lute, ftrung with his hair;] This expreffion, like that other in The Two Gentlemen of Versna, of "Orpheus' harp was ftrung with poets` finers," is extremely beautiful, and highly figurative. Apollo, as the fun, is represented with golden hair; fo that a lute ftrung with his hair, means no more than ftrung with gilded wire. WARBURTON. as fweet and mufical "As bright Apollo's lute ftrung with his kair.” The author of the Revifal fuppofes this expreffion to be allegorical, p. 138. "Apollo's lute ftrung with funbeams, which in poetry are called hair." But what idea is conveyed by Apollo's fute ftrung with funbeams? Undoubtedly the words are to be taken in their literal fenfe; and in the ftile of Italian imagery, the thought is highly elegant. The very fame fort of conception occurs And, when love speaks, the voice of all the gods Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.' in Lyly's Mydas, a play which moft probably preceded Shakspeare's. Act IV. fc. i. Pan tells Apollo: "Had thy lute been of lawrell, and the firings of Daphne's haire, thy tunes might have been compared to my notes," &c. T. WARTON. Lyly's Midas, quoted by Mr. Warton, was published in 1592. The fame thought occurs in How to chufe a Good Wife from a Bad, 1602: "Hath he not torn thofe gold wires from thy head, "Wherewith Apollo would have ftrung his harp, "And kept them to play mufick to the gods ?" Again, in Storer's Life and Death of Cardinal Wolfey, a poem, 1599: "With whofe hart-ftrings Amphion's lute is ftrung, STEEVENS. And, when love speaks, the voice of all the gods Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.] This nonsense we fhould read and point thus: And when love fpeaks the voice of all the gods, Mark, heaven drowfy with the harmony. i. e. in the voice of love alone is included the voice of all the gods. Alluding to that ancient theogony, that Love was the parent and fupport of all the gods. Hence, as Suidas tells us, Palæphatus wrote a poem called, Apoding "Egal wun xj 207. The voice and Speech of Venus and Love, which appears to have been a kind of cofmogony, the harmony of which is fo great, that it calms and allays all kinds of disorders: alluding again to the ancient ufe of mufic, which was to compofe monarchs, when, by reason of the cares of empire, they ufed to pafs whole nights in reftlefs inquietude. WARBURTON. The ancient reading is, "Make heaven" JOHNSON. I cannot find any reafon for Dr. Warburton's emendation, nor do I believe the poet to have been at all acquainted with that ancient theogony mentioned by his critick. The former reading, with the flight addition of a fingle letter, was, perhaps, the true one. When love fpeaks, (fays Biron,) the affembled gods reduce the element of the fky to a calm, by their harmonious applauses of this favoured orator. Mr. Collins obferves, that the meaning of the paffage may be this. That the voice of all the gods united, could infpire only drochnefs, when compared with the cheerful effects of the voice of Love. That fenfe is fufficiently congruous to the reft of the speech; and i Never durft poet touch a pen to write, much the fame thought occurs in The Shepherd Arfileus' reply to 1600: "Unleffe mild Love poffeffe your amorous breasts, "If you fing not to him, your fongs do wearie." Dr. Warburton has raised the idea of his author, by imputing to him a knowledge, of which, I believe, he was not poffeffed; but fhould either of thefe explanations prove the true one, I fhall offer no apology for having made him ftoop from the critick's elevation. I would, however, read, "Makes heaven drowsy with its harmony." Though the words mark! and behold! are alike used to bespeak or fummon attention, yet the former of them appears fo harth in Dr. Warburton's emendation, that I read the line feveral times over before I perceived its meaning. To speak the voice of the gods, Dr. Warburton, in a appears to me as defective in the fame way. note on All's Well that ends Well, obferves, that to speak a found is a barbarifm. To speak a voice is, I think, no lefs reprehenfible. STEEVENS. The meaning is, whenever love fpeaks, all the gods join their voices with his in harmonious concert. HEATH. More Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.] The old copies readmake. The emendation was made by Sir T. Hanmer. correct writers than Shakspeare often fall into this inaccuracy when a noun of multitude has preceded the verb. In a former part of each of you have forthis fpeech the fame error occurs: fworn-." For makes, r. make. So, in Twelfth Night: of these letters are in my name." Again, in K. Henry V. 151 for every one "The venom of fuch looks, we fairly hope, Again, in Julius Cæfar: The pofture of your blows are yet unknown." Again, more appofitely, in K. John: "How oft the fight of means to do ill deeds So Marlowe, in his Hero and Leander: "The outfide of her garments were of lawn." "The number of the names together See alfo the facred writings: MALONE. were about an hundred and twenty." Acts i. 15. Few paffages have been more canvaffed than this. I believe, it wants no alteration of the words, but only of the pointing: O, then his lines would ravish favage ears, And when love fpeaks (the voice of all the gods Love, I apprehend, is called the voice of all, as gold, in Timon, is faid to speak with every tongue; and the gods (being drowsy themfelves with the harmony) are fuppofed to make heaven drowfy. If one could poffibly fufpect Shakspeare of having read Pindar, one fhould fay, that the idea of mufic making the hearers drowsy, was borrowed from the first Pythian. TYRWHITT. Perhaps here is an accidental tranfpofition. We may read, as I think, fome one has proposed before: "The voice makes all the gods "Of heaven drowsy with the harmony." FARMER. That harmony had the power to make the hearers drowsy, the prefent commentator might infer from the effect it usually produces on himself. In Cinthia's Revenge, 1613, however, is an inftance which should weigh more with the reader: "Howl forth fome ditty, that vaft hell may ring "With charms all potent, earth afleep to bring." Again, in A Midsummer-Night's Dream: mufic call, and ftrike more dead "Than common fleep, of all these five the fenfe." So alfo, in King Henry IV. P. II. foftly pray; STEEVENS. "Let there be no noife made, my gentle friends, Will whisper mufick to my wearied fpirit." Again, in Pericles, 1609: 66 Moft heavenly mufick! "It nips me into listening, and thick flumber 66 Hangs on mine eyes.-Let me rest." MALONE. 6 From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:] In this speech I fufpect a more than common inftance of the inaccuracy of the first publishers: From women's eyes this doctrine I derive, and feveral other lines, are as unneceffarily repeated. Dr. Warburton was aware of this, and omitted two verfes, which Dr. Johnfon has fince inferted. Perhaps the players printed from piece-meal parts, or retained what the author had rejected, as well as what They fparkle ftill the right Promethean fire; had undergone his revifal. It is here given according to the regulation of the old copies. STEEVENS." This and the two following lines, are omitted by Warburton, not from inadvertency, but because they are repeated in a fubfequent part of the fpeech. There are alfo fome other lines repeated in the like manner. But we are not to conclude from thence, that any of thefe lines ought to be ftruck out. Biron repeats the principal topicks of his argument, as preachers do their text, in order to recall the attention of the auditors to the subject of their discourse. M. MASON. 7 a word that loves all men ;] We should read: a word all women love." 66 The following line: "Or for men's fake (the authors of these women ;)" which refers to this reading, puts it out of all question. WARBURTON, Perhaps we might read thus, tranfpofing the lines: The antithefis 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. JoHNSON. There will be no difficulty, if we correct it to " men's fakes, the authors of thefe words." FARMER. I think no alteration fhould be admitted in thefe four lines, that deftroys the artificial ftructure of them, in which, as has been obferved by the author of the Revifal, the word which terminates every line, is prefixed to the word fake in that immediately following. TOLLET. a word that loves all men ;] i. e. that is pleafing to all men. So, in the language of our author's time,-it likes me well, for it pleafes me. Shakspeare uses the word thus licentiously, merely for |