P. 57, 1. 13. Usurping hair alludes to the fashion, which prevailed among ladies in our author's time, of wearing false hair, or periwigs, as they were then called, before that kind of covering for the head was worn by men. MALONE.

P 58, 1. 24. 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.

P. 58, 1. 28. A man at arms, is a soldier arred at all points both offensively and defensi vely. It is no more than, Ye soldiers of affection. JOHNSON.

P. 59, 1. 7. 8. Why, universal plodding prisons up

The nimble spirits in the arteries;] In the old system of physic they gave the same office to the arteries as is now given to the nerves; as appears from the name, wich is derived from μερα τηρεῖν. WARBURTON.

P. 59, 1. 15. For where is any author in the world,

Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye;] A lady's eyes give a fuller notion of beauty than any author. JOHNSON.

P. 59, L. 21. And in that vow we have for. sworn our books;] Our true books, from which we derive most information; the eyes of women. MALONE. P. 59, 1. 24. Numbers are, nothing more than poetical measures.

in this passage,

Could

you, says Biron, by solitary contemplation, have

attained such poetical fire, such spritely numbers as have been prompted by the eyes of beauty. JOHNSON.

P. 59, 1. 26. Other slow arts entirely keep the brain;] As we say, keep the house, or keep their bed. M. MASON. P. 60, 1. 2. When the suspicious head of theft is stopp'd;] i. e. a lover in pursuit of his mistress has his sense of hearing quicker than a thief (who suspects every sound he hears) in pursuit of his prey.

WARBURTON.

,,The suspicious head of theft is the head suspicious of theft." ,,He watches like one that fears robbing," says Speed, in The Two Gentle men of Verona. This transposition of the adjective is sometimes met with. Grimme tells us, in Damon and Pythias:

,,A heavy pouch with golde makes a light hart." FARMER. The thief is a watchful on his part, as the person who fears to be robbed, and Biron poeti cally makes theft a person. M. MASON.

Mr. M. Mason might have countenanced his explanation, by a passage in the third part of K. Henry VI:

,,Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind:

,,The thief doth fear each bush an officer: " and yet my opinion concurs with that of Dr. Farmer; though his explanation is again controverted, by a writer who signs himself Lucius, in The Edinburgh Magazine, Nov. 1786. ,,The suspicious head of theft (says he) in the suspi cious head of the thief. There is no man who listens so eagerly as a thief, or whose ears are so acutely upon the stretch." STEEVENS,

I rather incline to Dr. Warburton's interpretation. MALONE.

P. 60, 1. 4. cockled snails;] i. e. inshelled, like the fish called a cockle. STEEVENS.

P. 60, 1. 8. Still climbing trees in the Hespe rides?] Our author had heard or read of ,,the gardens of the Hesperides," and seems to have thought that the latter word was the name of the garden in which the golden apples were kept; as we say, the gardens of the Tuileries, etc.. Our poet's contemporaries, I have lately observed, are chargeable with the same inaccuracy. MALONE.

P. 60, 1. 9. 10.

-

as sweet, and musical, 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 poet's 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.

and

The author of the Revisal supposes this expres sion to be allegorical, p. 138. ,,Apollo's lute strung with sunbeams, which in poetry are called hair." But what idea is conveyed by Apollo's lute strung with sunbeams? Undoubtedly the words are to be taken in their literal sense; in the stile of Italian imagery, the thought is highly elegant. The very same sort of conception occurs in Lyly's Mydas, a play which probably preceded Shakspeare's. Act IV.. sc. i. Pan tells Apollo:,,Had thy lute been of lawrell, and the

strings of Daphne's haire, thy tunes might have been compared to my notes." etc. T. WARTON. P. 60, l. 11-15. And, when love speaks, the voice of all the gods

Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.] This nonsense we should read and point thus: And when love speaks the voice of all the gods,

Mark, heaven drowsy with the harmony. i. e. in the voice of love alone is included the voice of all the gods. Alluding to that ancient theogony, that Love was the parent and support of all the gods. Hence, as Suidas tells us, Palaephatus wrote a poem called, Αφροδίτης και Έρωτος Qwvỳ xxì híyos. The voice and speech of Venus and Love, which appears to have been a kind of cosmogony, the harmony of which is so great, that it calms and allays all kinds of disorders: alluding again to the ancient use of music, which was to compose monarchs, when, by reason of the cares of empire, they used to pass whole nights in restless inquietude. WARBURTON. The ancient reading is,

I cannot find any reason for Dr. Warburton's emendation, nor do I believe the poet to have been at all acquainted with that ancient theogony mentioned by his critick. The former reading, with the slight addition of a single letter, was, perhaps, the true one. When love speaks, (says Biron,) the assembled gods reduce the element of the sky to a calm, by their harmonious ap plauses of this favoured orator.

Mr. Collins observes, that the meaning of the passage may be this. That the voice of all the gods united, could inspire only drowsiness,

when compared with the cheerful effects of the voice of Love. That sense is sufficiently congruous to the rest of the speech.

Dr. Warburton has raised the idea of his author, by imputing to him a knowledge, of which I believe, he was not possessed; but should either of these explanations prove the true one, I shall offer no apology for having made him stoop from the critick's elevation. I would, however, read,

„Makes heaven drowsy with its harmony." Though the words mark! and behold! are alike used to bespeak or summon attention, yet the former of them appears so harsh in Dr. Warburton's emendation, that I read the line several times over before I perceived its meaning. To speak the

as defective in

voice of the gods, appears to me the same way. Dr. Warburton, in a note on All's Well that ends Well, observes, that to speak a sound is a barbarism.. To speak a voice is, I think, no less reprehensible.

STEEVENS.,

The meaning is, whenever love speaks, all the gods join their voices with his in harmonious concert. HEATH.

Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.] The old copies read make. The emendation was More correct writers

made by Sir T. Haumer. than Shakspeare often fall into this inaccuracy when à noun of multinde has preceded the verb. In a former part of this speech the same

Occurs

each of you have forsworn --.“

For makes, г. make. MALONE.

error

Few passages have been more canvassed than this. I believe, it wants no alteration of the words, but only of the pointing,