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85. Were all address'd- -] To address is to prepare. So, in Hamlet:

66 -it lifted up its head, and did address
"Itself to motion."

STEEVENS. 108. And sin to break it:] The princess shews an inconvenience very frequently attending rash oaths, which, whether kept or broken, produce guilt.

147.

and not demands,

JOHNSON.

On payment, &c.] The former editions read; and not demands

One payment of a hundred thousand crowns,

To have his title live in Aquitain.

I have restored, I believe, the genuine sense of the passage. Aquitaine was pledged, it seems, to Navarre's father, for 200,000 crowns. The French king pretends to have paid one moiety of this debt (which Navarre knows nothing of), but demands this moiety back again : instead whereof (says Navarre) he should rather pay the remaining moiety, and demand to have Aquitaine re-delivered up to him. This is plain and easy reasoning upon the fact suppos'd; and Navarre declares, he had rather receive the residue of his debt, than detain the province mortgaged for security of it... THEOBALD.

150. depart withal,] To depart and to part were anciently synonymous. So, in K. John : "Hath willingly departed with a part."

Again, in Every Man out of his Humour:

"Faith, sir, I can hardly depart with ready

money."

STEEVENS

195. Non poynt,-] So, in the Shoemaker's Holliday,

1600:

-tell me where he is.

No point. Shall I betray my brother?”

STEEVENS!

199. -What lady is that same?] It is odd that Shakspere should make Dumain inquire after Rosaline, who was the mistress of Biron, and neglect Katharine, who was his own. Biron behaves in the same manner. No advantage would be gained by an exchange of names, because the last speech is determined to Biron by Maria, who gives a character of him after he has made his exit. Perhaps all the ladies wore masks but the princess. STEEVENS. They certainly did, where Biron says to Rosaline, -Now fair befall your mask !"

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MALONE,

208. God's blessing on your beard!] That is, may'st thou have sense and seriousness more proportionate to thy beard, the length of which suits ill with such idle catches of wit. JOHNSON.

227. unless we feed on your lips.] Shakspere has the same expression in his Venus and Adonis:

"Feed where thou wilt, on mountain or on dale, "Graze on my lips."

MALONE.

231. My lips are no common, though several they be.] Several is an enclosed field of a private proprietor; so Maria says, her lips are private property. Of a lord that was newly married, one observed that he grew fat; "Yes," said Sir Walter Raleigh,

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any beast will grow fat, if you take him from the common and graze him in the several.”

So, in The Rival Friends, 1632:

86 -my sheep have quite disgrest

JOHNSON.

"Their bounds, and leap'd into the severall." Again, in Green's Disputation, &c. 1592: "rather would have mewed me up as a henne, to have kept that severall to himself by force," &c. Again, in Șir John Oldcastle, 1600:

"Of late he broke into a severall

"That does belong to me."

Again, in Fenton's Tragical Discourses, 4to. bl. let. 1597.- ——" he entered commons in the place which the olde John thought to be reserved severall to himself." p. 64. Again, in Holinshed's History of England, B. VI. p. 150,-"not to take and pale in the commons to enlarge their severalles." STEEVENS.

My lips are no common, though several they be.] In the note upon this passage it is said that SEVERAL is an enclosed field of a private proprietor.

Dr. Johnson has totally mistaken this word. In the first place it should be spelled severell. This does not signify an enclosed field or private property, but is rather the property of every landholder in the parish. In the unenclosed parishes in Warwickshire

and

and other counties, their method of tillage is thus: The land is divided into three fields, one of which is every year fallow. This the farmers plough and manure, and prepare for bearing wheat. Betwixt the lands, and at the end of them, some little grass land is interspersed, and there are here and there some little patches of green swerd. The next year this ploughed field bears wheat, and the grass land is preserved for hay; and the year following the proprietors sow it with beans, oats, or barley, at their discretion; and the next year it lies fallow again; so that each field in its turn is fallow every third year; and the field thus fallowed is called the common field, on which the cows and sheep graze, and have herdsmen and shepherds to attend them, in order to prevent them from going into the two other fields which bear corn and grass. These last are called the severell, which is not separated from the common by any fence whatever; but the care of preventing the cattle from going into the severell, is left to the herdsmen and shepherds; but the herdsmen have no authority over the town bull, who is permitted to go where he pleases in the severell. Dr. JAMES. Holinshed's Description of Britain, p. 33, and Leigh's Accidence of Armourie, 1597, p. 52. spell this word like Shakspere. Leigh mentions the town "all severals to him are common."

bull,

and

says,

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TOLLET.

247. His tongue, all impatient to speak and not see,]

That

That is, his tongue being impatiently desirous to see as well

as speak.

250. To feel only looking

may better read:

To feed only by looking

JOHNSON. -] Perhaps we

JOHNSON

270. Boyet. You are too hard for me.] Here, in all the books, the 2d act is made to end: but in my opinion very mistakenly. I have ventured to vary the regulation of the four last acts from the printed copies, for these reasons. Hitherto the ed act has been of the extent of seven pages; the 3d of but five; and the 5th of no less than twenty-nine. And this disproportion of length has crowded too many incidents into some acts, and left the others quite barren. I have now reduced them into a much better equality; and distributed the business like wise (such as it is), into a more uniform cast.

THEOBALD.

Mr. Theobald has reason enough to propose this alteration, but he should not have made it in his book without better authority or more need. I have therefore preserved his observation, but continued the former division. JOHNSONA

ACT

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