Enter BASSANIO, ANTONIO, GRATIANO, and their followers.

BASS. We fhould hold days with the Antipodes, If you would walk in absence of the fun."

POR. Let me give light," but let me not be light; For a light wife doth make a heavy husband, And never be Baffanio fo for me;

But God fort all!-You are welcome home,my lord, BASS. I thank you, madam: give welcome to my friend.

This is the man, this is Antonio,

To whom I am so infinitely bound.

5 We should hold day &c.] If you would always walk in the night, it would be day with us, as it now is on the other fide of the globe. MALONE.

We should bold day with the Antipodes, If you would walk in abfence of the fun.] Thus Rowe, in his Ambitious Stepmother:

"Your eyes, which, could the fun's fair beams decay, Might shine for him, and bless the world with day.' STEEVENS.

"Let me give light, &c.] There is fcarcely any word with which Shakspeare fo much delights to trifle as with light, in its various fignifications. JOHNSON.

Moft of the old dramatic writers are guilty of the fame quibble. So Marston in his Infatiate Countess, 1613:

By this bright light that is deriv'd from thee

"So, fir, you make me a very light creature." Again, Middleton, in A Mad World my Mafters, 1608;

-more lights-I call'd for light: here come in two are light enough for a whole house."

Again, in Springes for Woodcocks, a collection of epigrams, 1606: "Lais of lighter metal is compos'd

"Than hath her lightness till of late difclos'd;
"For lighting where the light acceptance feels,
"Her fingers there prove lighter than her heels."

STEEVENS.

POR. You should in all fenfe be much bound to

him,

For, as I hear, he was much bound for you.

ANT. No more than I am well acquitted of. POR. Sir, you are very welcome to our houfe: It must appear in other ways than words, Therefore I fcant this breathing courtesy.

[GRATIANO and NERISSA feem to talk apart. GRA. By yonder moon, I fwear, you do me wrong; In faith, I gave it to the judge's clerk: Would he were gelt that had it, for my part, Since you do take it, love, fo much at heart. POR. A quarrel, ho, already? what's the matter? GRA. About a hoop of gold, a paltry ring That she did give me; whose posy was For all the world, like cutler's poetry* Upon a knife, Love me, and leave me not.

NER. What talk you of the pofy, or the value? You fwore to me, when I did give it you, That you would wear it till your hour of death; And that it should lie with you in your grave:

8this breathing courtesy.] This verbal complimentary form, made up only of breath, i. e, words. So, in Timon of Athens, a fenator replies to Alcibiades, who had made a long speech,-" You breathe in vain." MALONE.

So, in Macbeth:

-mouth-honour, breath,” STEEVENS,

9 That she did give me; whofe pofy was-] For the fake of meafure, I fuppofe we fhould read

"That she did give to me; &c. STEEVENS.

2-like cutler's poetry-] Knives, as Sir J. Hawkins observes, were formerly infcribed, by means of aqua fortis, with short sentences in diftich. In Decker's Satiromaffix, Sir Edward Vaughan, fays, "You shall swear by Phoebus, who is your poet's good lord and mafter, that hereafter you will not hire Horace to give you poefies for rings, or handkerchers, or knives, which you understand not.” REED.

Though not for me, yet for your vehement oaths, You should have been refpective, and have kept it. Gave it a judge's clerk !-but well I know,

The clerk will ne'er wear hair on his face, that had it, GRA. He will, an if he live to be a man.

NER. Ay, if a woman live to be a man,

GRA. Now, by this hand, I gave it to a youth,A kind of boy; a little fcrubbed boy, No higher than thyfelf, the judge's clerk ; A prating boy,' that begg'd it as a fee;

I could not for my heart deny it him.

2

have been refpective,] Respective has the fame meaning as refpectful. Mr. M. Mafon thinks it rather means regardful. See K. John, Act I. STEEVENS.

Chapman, Marfton, and other poets of that time, use this word in the fame fenfe. [i. e. for respectful.] MALONE,

3

·a youth,—

A kind of boy; a little fcrubbed boy,

No higher than thyfelf, the judge's clerk;

A prating boy, &c.] It is certain from the words of the context and the tenor of the ftory, that Gratiano does not here speak contemptuously of the judge's clerk, who was no other than Nerifla disguised in man's clothes. He only means to defcribe the perfon and appearance of this fuppofed youth, which he does by infinuating what feemed to be the precife time of his age: he reprefents him as having the look of a young ftripling, of a boy beginning to advance towards puberty. I am therefore of opinion, that the poet

wrote:

a little fubbed boy.

In many counties it is a common provincialism, to call young birds not yet fledged stubbed young ones. But, what is more to our purpose, the author of The Hiftory and Antiquities of Glastonbury, printed by Hearne, an antiquarian, and a plain unaffected writer, fays, that "Saunders must be a stubbed boy, if not a man, at the diffolution of abbeys," &c. edit. 1722, Pref. Signat. n. 2. It therefore feems to have been a common expreflion for fripling, the very idea which the speaker means to convey. If the emendation be just here, we should alfo correct Neriffa's fpeech which follows: For that fame fubbed boy, the doctor's clerk,

In lieu of this, did lie with me last night. T. WARTON. Į believe scrubbed and ftubbed have a like meaning, and fignify

POR. You were to blame, I must be plain with

you,

To part fo flightly with your wife's first gift;
A thing ftuck on with oaths upon your finger,
And riveted fo with faith unto your flesh.
I gave my love a ring, and made him fwear
Never to part with it; and here he stands;
I dare be fworn for him, he would not leave it,
Nor pluck it from his finger, for the wealth
That the world mafters. Now, in faith, Gratiano,
You give your wife too unkind a cause of grief;
An 'twere to me, I fhould be mad at it.

BASS. Why, I were beft to cut my left hand off, And fwear, I loft the ring defending it.

[Afide. GRA. My lord Baffanio gave his ring away Unto the judge that begg'd it, and, indeed, Deferv'd it too; and then the boy, his clerk, That took fome pains in writing, he begg'd mine: And neither man, nor mafter, would take aught But the two rings.

POR. What ring gave you, my lord? Not that, I hope, which you receiv'd of me. BASS. If I could add a lie unto a fault, I would deny it; but you fee, my finger Hath not the ring upon it, it is gone.

66

funted, or forub-like. So, in P. Holland's tranflation of Pliny's Nat. Hift. but fuch will never prove fair trees, but skrubs only." STEEVENS.

Stubbed in the fenfe contended for by Mr. Warton was in use fo late as the Reftoration. In the Parliamentary Register, July 30, 1660, is an advertisement enquiring after a perfon defcribed as " a thick fhort fubbed fellow, round faced, ruddy complexion, dark brown hair and eyebrows, with a fad gray fuit." REED.

Scrubbed perhaps meant dirty, as well as fort. Cole, in his Dictionary, 1672, renders it by the Latin word fqualidus. MALONE.

POR. Even fo void is your false heart of truth. By heaven, I will ne'er come in your bed

Until I fee the ring.

NER.

Till I again fee mine.

BASS.

Nor I in yours,

Sweet Portia,

If you did know to whom I gave the ring,
If you did know for whom I gave the ring,
And would conceive for what I gave
the ring,
And how unwillingly I left the ring,
When naught would be accepted but the ring,
You would abate the ftrength of your displeasure,
POR. If you had known the virtue of the ring,
Or half her worthiness that gave the ring,
Or your own honour to contain the ring,+
You would not then have parted with the ring.
What man is there fo much unreasonable,
If you had pleas'd to have defended it
With any terms of zeal, wanted the modesty
To urge
the thing held as a ceremony?"

contain the ring,] The old copies concur in this reading. JOHNSON.

Mr. Pope and the other modern editors read to retain, but contain might in our author's time have had nearly the fame mean ing. The word has been already employed in this fense:

"Cannot contain their urine for affection."

So alfo, in Montaigne's Effaies, tranflated by Florio, 1603. B. II. c. iii." Why doft thou complaine against this world? It doth not containe thee: if thou liveft in paine and forow, thy base courage is the cause of it; to die there wanteth but will." Again, in Bacon's Effaies, 4to. 1625, p. 327: "To containe anger from mifchiefe, though it take hold of a man, there be two things." MALONE,

s What man- -wanted the modefty

To urge the thing held as a ceremony?] This is a very licentious expreffion. The fenfe is, What man could have fo little modefty, or

7