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I feel too much thy bleffing, make it less,

For fear I furfeit!

BASS.

What find I here? 4

[Opening the leaden cafket.

Fair Portia's counterfeit? What demi-god
Hath come fo near creation? Move these eyes?
Or whether, riding on the balls of mine,
Seem they in motion? Here are fever'd lips,
Parted with fugar breath; fo fweet a bar

I believe Shakspeare alluded to the well-known proverb, It cannot rain, but it pours.

So, in The Laws of Candy, by Beaumont and Fletcher :

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pour not too fast joys on me,

"But fprinkle them fo gently, I may stand them.”

The following quotation by Mr. Malone from King Henry IV. P. I. confirms my fense of the paffage :

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but in fhort fpace

"It rain'd down fortune fhow'ring on thy head,

"And fuch a flood of greatnefs fell on you," &c.

Mr. Tollet is of opinion that rein is the true word, as it better agrees with the context; and more especially on account of the following paffage in Coriolanus, which approaches very near to the prefent reading:

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being once chaf'd, he cannot "Be rein'd again to temperance." So, in Love's Labour's Loft, Act V. fc. ii.

"Rein thy tongue." STEEVENS.

• What find I here?] The latter word is here employed as a diffyllable. MALONE.

Some monofyllable appears to have been omitted. There is no example of-here, ufed as a diffyllable; and even with fuch affiftance, the verfe, to the ear at least, would be defective. Perhaps our author defigned Portia to fay

For fear I furfeit me.' STEEVENS.

5 Fair Portia's counterfeit?] Counterfeit, which is at prefent used only in a bad fenfe, anciently fignified a likeness, a refemblance, without comprehending any idea of fraud. So, in The Wit of a Woman, 1604: "I will fee if I can agree with this stranger, for the drawing of my daughter's counterfeit."

Again, (as Mr. M. Mafon obferves) Hamlet calls the pictures he fhows to his mother,

"The counterfeit prefentment of two brothers."

STEEVENS,

Should funder fuch fweet friends: Here in her hairs
The painter plays the spider; and hath woven
A golden mesh to entrap the hearts of men,
Faster than gnats in cobwebs: But her eyes,-
How could he fee to do them? having made one,
Methinks, it should have power to steal both his,
And leave itself unfurnish'd: Yet look, how far
The substance of my praise doth wrong this fhadow
In underprizing it, fo far this fhadow

Doth limp behind the fubftance.-Here's the fcroll,
The continent and fummary of my fortune.
You that choofe not by the view,

Chance as fair, and choofe as true!

6 Methinks, it should have power to fteal both his,
And leave itfelf unfurnish'd:] Perhaps it might be:
And leave himfelf unfurnish'd. JOHNSON.

If this be the right reading, unfurnished muft mean " unfurnished with a companion, or fellow." M. MASON.

Dr. Johnson's emendation would altogether fubvert the poet's meaning. If the artist, in painting one of Portia's eyes, fhould lofe both his own, that eye which he had painted, muft neceffarily be left unfurnished, or deftitute of its fellow. HENLEY.

And leave itself unfurnifh'd:] i. e. and leave itfelf incomplete; unaccompanied with the other ufual component parts of a portrait, viz. another eye, &c. The various features of the face our author feems to have confidered as the furniture of a picture. So, in As you like it: "" he was furnish'd like a huntsman;" i. e. had all the appendages belonging to a huntsman. MALONE.

The hint for this paffage appears to have been taken from Greene's Hiftory of Faire Bellora; afterwards published under the title of A Paire of Turtle Doves, or the Tragicall Hiftory of Bellora and Fidelio, bl. 1: " If Apelles had beene talked to have drawne her counterfeit, her two bright-burning lampes would have fo dazled his quickefeeing fences, that quite difpairing to expreffe with his cunning penfill fo admirable a worke of nature, he had been inforced to have staid his hand, and left this earthly Venus unfinished.”

A preceding paffage in Baffanio's fpeech might have been fuggefted by the fame novel.

A golden mesh to entrap the hearts of men: "What are our curled and crifped lockes, but fares and nets to catch and entangle the bearts of gazers," &c. STEEVENS.

Since this fortune falls to you,
Be content, and feek no new.
If you be well pleas'd with this,
And hold your fortune for your blifs,
Turn you where your lady is,
And claim her with a loving kiss.

A gentle fcroll;-Fair lady, by your leave;

[Kifing ber.

I come by note, to give, and to receive.
Like one of two contending in a prize,
That thinks he hath done well in people's eyes,
Hearing applaufe, and univerfal fhout,
Giddy in fpirit, ftill gazing, in a doubt
Whether those peals of praise be his or no;
So, thrice fair lady, ftand I, even so;
As doubtful whether what I fee be true,
Until confirm'd, fign'd, ratify'd by you.

POR. You fee me, lord Baffanio, where I ftand, Such as I am though, for my felf alone,

I would not be ambitious in

my wifh,
To with myself much better; yet, for you,
I would be trebled twenty times myself;
A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times
More rich;

That only to ftand high in your account,

I might in virtues, beauties, livings, friends,
Exceed account: but the full fum of me

peals of praife] The fecond quarto reads-pearles of praife. JOHNSON.

This reading may be the true one. So, in Whetstone's Arbour of Virtue, 1576:

"The pearles of praise that deck a noble name.” Again, in R. C's verfes in praife of the fame author's Rock of Regard:

* But that that bears the pearle of praise away."

STLEVENS.

8

Is fum of fomething; which, to term in grofs,
Is an unleffon'd girl, unfchool'd, unpractis'd:
Happy in this, fhe is not yet fo old

But the may learn; and happier than this,
She is not bred fo dull but she can learn ;
Happiest of all, is, that her gentle spirit
Commits itself to yours to be directed,
As from her lord, her governor, her king.
Myself, and what is mine, to you, and yours
Is now converted: but now I was the lord
Of this fair manfion, mafter of my fervants,
Queen o'er myself; and even now, but now,
This house, these fervants, and this fame myself,
Are yours, my lord; I give them with this ring
Which when you part from, lofe, or give away,
Let it prefage the ruin of your love,

And be my vantage to exclaim on you.

BASS. Madam, you have bereft me of all words, Only my blood speaks to you in my veins : And there is fuch confufion in my powers, As, after fome oration fairly spoke

By a beloved prince, there doth appear

Is fum of fomething;] We fhould read-fome of fomething. i. e. only a piece, or part only of an imperfect account; which the explains in the following line. WARBURTON.

Thus one of the quartos. The folio reads:

"Is fum of nothing."

The purport of the reading in the text seems to be this:

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the full fum of me

Is fum of fomething, i. e. is not entirely ideal, but amounts to as much as can be found in-an unlesson'd girl, &c. STEEVENS.

9 But he may learn;] The latter word is here used as a diffyllable. MALONE.

Till the reader his reconciled has ear to this diflyllabical pronunciation of the word learn, I beg his acceptance of—and, a harmlefs monofyllable which I have ventured to introduce for the fake of obvious metre. STEEVENS.

Among the buzzing pleafed multitude;

Where every fomething, being blent together,*
Turns to a wild of nothing, fave of joy,
Exprefs'd, and not exprefs'd: But when this ring
Parts from this finger, then parts life from hence;
O, then be bold to say, Baffanio's dead.

NER. My lord and lady, it is now our time,
That have ftood by, and feen our wifhes profper,
To cry, good joy; Good joy, my lord, and lady!
GRA. My lord Baffanio, and my gentle lady,
I wish you all the joy that you can wish;
For, I am fure, you can wifh none from me : 3
And, when your honours mean to folemnize
The bargain of your faith, I do befcech you,
Even at that time I may be married too.

BASS. With all my heart, fo thou canft get a wife. GRA. I thank your lordfhip; you have got me one. My eyes, my lord, can look as fwift as yours: You faw the miftrefs, I beheld the maid; You lov'd, I lov'd; for intermiffion + No more pertains to me, my lord, than you. Your fortune ftood upon the cafkets there; And fo did mine too, as the matter falls: For wooing here, until I fweat again; And fwearing, till my very roof was dry With oaths of love; at laft,-if promife laft,I got a promife of this fair one here,

To have her love, provided that your fortune

2

3

being blent together,] i. e. blended. STEEVENS.

-you can with none from me :] That is, none away from me; none that I shall lofe, if you gain it. JOHNSON.

4

for intermiffion] Intermiffion is paufe, intervening time, delay. So, in Macbeth:

- gentle heaven

"Cut fhort all intermiffion!" STEEVENS,

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