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This is a strange senseless line, and should be read thus:

With vane-like men, of strange inconstancy.
WARBURTON.

This is well imagined, but perhaps the poet may mean, with men like common men. JOHNSON I believe the emendation is proper. So, in Much Ado about Nothing:

"If speaking, why a vane blown with all winds." STEEVENS.

The following passage in King Henry IV. P. III. act iii. sc. 1. adds such support to Dr. Warburton's emendation, that I should not scruple to give it a place in the text:

"Look, as I blow this feather from my face,
"And as the air blows it to me again,
"Obeying with my wind when I do blow,
"And yielding to another when it blows,
"Commanded always by the greater gust;
"Such is the lightness of your common men.”

Strange was first added in the second folio, and consequently any other word, as well as that, may have been the author's; for all the additions in that copy appear manifestly to have been capricious and arbitrary, and are generally very injudicious.

MALONE.

Acute as Dr. Warburton's conjecture is, the old reading should maintain its place. The king and his companions were to shew themselves superior to the rest of mankind by an inflexible perseverance in the

execution

execution of their project; but, having violated their vows, Biron tells them he is betrayed, by associating with men who, notwithstanding all their boasts of superior firmness, are as fickle as the common herd of mankind; nay, whose inconstancy appears the more strange, as they had bound themselves by an oath. HENLEY.

513. In pruning me?-] A bird is said to prune himself, when he picks and sleeks his feathers. So, in King Henry IV. Part I.

"Which makes him prune himself, and bristle up "The crest of youth.". STEEVENS.

567. She, an attending star,] Something like this is a stanza of Sir Henry Wotton, of which the poetical reader will forgive the insertion:

You meaner beauties of the night,

That poorly satisfy our eyes

More by your number than your light:

You common people of the skies,

What are ye when the sun shall rise?

590.

Black is the badge of hell,

JOHNSON.

The hue of dungeons, and the scowl of night;] In former editions,

-the school of night.

But I have preferred the conjecture of my friend Mr. Warburton, who reads,

-the scowl of night,

as it comes nearer in pronunciation to the corrupted reading, as well as agrees better with the other images.

THEOBALD.

592. And beauty's crest becomes the heavens well.] Crest is here properly opposed to badge. Black, says the king, is the badge of hell, but that which graces the heaven is the crest of beauty. Black darkens hell, and is therefore hateful: white adorns heaven, and is therefore lovely. JOHNSON.

And beauty's crest becomes the heavens well, i. e. the very top, the height of beauty, or the utmost degree of fairness, becomes the heavens. So the word crest is explained by the poet himself in King John:

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"The height, the crest, or crest upto the crest
"Of murder's arms."

In heraldry, a crest is a device placed above a coat of arms. Shakspere therefore assumes the liberty to use it in a sense equivalent to top or utmost height, as hẹ has used spire in Coriolanus:

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-to the spire and top of praises vouch'd." So, "the cap of all the fools alive" is the top of them all, because cap was the uppermost part of a man's dress." See All's Well that Ends Well.

TOLLET.

624. Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil.] Quillet is the peculiar word applied to law-chicane. I imagine the original to be this. In the French pleadings, every several allegation in the plaintiff's charge, and every distinct plea in the defendant's answer, began with the words qu'il est ;-from whence

was formed the word quillet, to signify a false charge or an evasive answer.

WARBURTON.

627. affection's men at arms :] A man at arms is a soldier armed at all points, both offensively and defensively. It is no more than, Ye soldiers of affection. JOHNSON.

643. The nimble spirits in the arteries;] In the old system of physick they gave the same office to the arteries as is now given to the nerves; it appears from the name, which is derived from ἄερα τηρεῖν.

WARBURTON.

650. Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye?] i. e. a lady's eye gives a fuller notion of beauty than any author. JOHNSON.

656.

-we have forsworn our books :] i. e. our true books, from which we derive most information -the eyes of women.

658. In leaden contemplation have found out

Such fiery numbers,

MALONE.

-] Numbers are, in this passage, nothing more than poetical measures. Could you, says Biron, by solitary contemplation, have attained such poetical fire, such sprightly numbers, as have been prompted by the eyes of beauty? JOHNSON.

673. -the suspicious head of theft is stopp'd:] "The suspicious head of theft, is the head suspicious of theft.""He watches like one that fears robbing," says Speed, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona. This transposition of the adjective is sometimes met with, Grimme tells us, in Damon and Pythias: "A heavy

"A heavy pouch with golde makes a light hart."

677. For valour, is not love a Hercules,

FARMER.

Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?] The poet is here observing how all the senses are refined by love. But what has the poor sense of smelling done, not to keep its place among its brethren? Then Hercules's valour was not in climbing the trees, but in attacking the dragon guardant. I rather think, that for valour we should read savour, and the poet meant, that Hercules was allured by the odour and fragrancy of the golden apples. THEOBALD.

680. As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair;] This expression, like that other in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, of

"Orpheus' harp was strung with poets' sinews," is extremely beautiful, and highly figurative. Apollo, as the sun, is represented with golden hair; so that a lute strung with his hair, means no more than strung with gilded wire. WARBURTON.

-as sweet and musical

But

As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair.] The author of The Revisal supposes this expression to be allegorical, p. 138. "Apollo's lute strung with sunbeams, which in poetry are called hair." what idea is conveyed by Apollo's lute strung with sunbeams? Undoubtedly the words are to be taken in their literal sense: and, in the style of Italian imagery, the thought is highly elegant. The very same sort F

of

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