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 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 : 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 : 66 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: 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 Doth limp behind the fubftance.-Here's the fcroll, Chance as fair, and choofe as true! 6 Methinks, it should have power to fteal both his, 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, A gentle fcroll;-Fair lady, by your leave; [Kifing ber. I come by note, to give, and to receive. 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, That only to ftand high in your account, I might in virtues, beauties, livings, friends, 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, But the may learn; and happier than this, 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: 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,* NER. My lord and lady, it is now our time, 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, |