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Fearful guard, is a guard that is not to be trufted, but gives caufe of fear. To fear was antiently to give as well as feel terror. "I tell thee, Lady, this aspect of mine hath fear'd the valiant." JOHNS. & REVIS. Kind words, good language.

Ibid. I like not fair terms.]

JOHNS.

P. 353. 1. 7. To prove whofe blood is reddeft, his or mine] To understand how the tawney Prince, whofe favage dignity is very well supported, means to recommend himself by this challenge, it must be remembered that red blood is a traditionary fign of courage: Thus Macbeth calls one of his frighted foldiers, a lilly liver'd Lown; again in this play, Cowards are faid to have livers white as milk; and an effeminate and timorous man is termed a milk-fop. JOHNS. L. 18. And bedg'd me by bis wit-I fuppofe we may fafely read, and bedg'd me by his will. Confined me by his will. JOHNS.

P. 354. 1. 1. That flew the Sophy, &c.] Shakespear fel

dom efcapes well when he is entangled with Geography. The Prince of Morocco muft have travelled far to kill the Sophy of Perfia. JOHNS.

L. 11. So is Alcides beaten by his Rage] Though the whole fet of editions concur in this reading, it is corrupt at bot tom. Let us look into the poet's drift, and the hiftory of the perfons mentioned in the context. If Hercules (fays he) and Lichas were to play at dice for the decifion of their fuperiority, Lichas, the weaker man, might have the better caft of the two. But how then is Alcides beaten by his rage? The poet means no more, than, if Lichas had the better throw, fo might Hercules himself be beaten by Lichas. And who was he, but a poor unfortunate fervant of Hercu les, that unknowingly brought his mafter the envenomed fhirt, dipt in the blood of the centaur Neffus, and was thrown headlong into the fea for his pains? This one circumftance of Lichas's quality known, fufficiently afcertains the emendation I have substituted, page instead of rage.

THEOB.

L. 19. Therefore be advised.] Therefore be not precipitant; confider well what we are to do. Advis'd is the word oppofite to rafb.

JOHNS.

P. 355. 1. 12. 13. Confcience, fay I, you counsel ill; fiend, fay I, you counfel ill.] Thus Read THEOB. WARE. JOHNS. But HANM. and CAPELL in both places read counTel well.

P. 406. Try conclufions] Two of the quarto's read confufions, which is certainly right, because the first thing Launce does, is to confufe his father by the directions he .gives him.

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STEEV.

L. 29. Turn up, on your right hand, &c.] This arch and perplexed direction, to puzzle the enquirer, feems to imitate that of Syrus to Demea in the Brothers of Terence

ubi eas praterieris,

Ad finiftram bac rectâ plateâ: ubi ad Diane veneris,
Ito ad dextram: prius quam ad portam venias, &c.

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THEOB.

P. 408. 1. 22. Your child that fall be] Launce, by your child that fhall be, means, that his duty to his father fall, for the future, thew him to be his child. It was rather become neceflary for him to fay fomething of that fort, after all the tricks he had been playing him. STEEV. L. 18. My fill-borfe] We fhould read, thill-horfe, the horfe which draws in the fhafts or Thill of the carriage. THEOB. fill-borfe CAPELL. P. 359. 1. 3. Thou fpeak ft it well;] I fhould choose to read, Thou fplit'ft it well, i. e. divideft the two parts of the proverb between thy master and me. WARB.

L. 15. Well, if any man in Italy have a fairer table, which doth offer to fwear upon a book] The pofition of the words makes the fentence fomewhat obfcure: Their natural order fhould be this. "Well if any man in Italy, which doth offer to fwear upon a book, have a fairer table, I fhall have good luck." And the humour of the paffage feems to be this. Launcelot, a joker, and defignedly a blunderer, fays the very reverse of what he should do: which is, "That if no man in Italy, who would offer to take his oath upon it, hath a fairer table than he, he fhall have good fortune." The banter may, partly, be on Chiromancy in general: but it is very much in character for Launcelot, who is a hungry ferving man, to confider his table before his line of life, or any other points of fortune.

THEOB.

L. 16. Fairer table.] The chiromantic term for the lines of the hand. So Ben Jonson in his mask of Gipfies to the lady Elizabeth Hatten;

Miftrefs of a fairer table,
Hath not biftory nor fable.

JOHNS. Which doth offer to fwear upon a book, &c.] This nonfenfe feems to have taken its rife from the accident of a loft line in tranfcribing the play for the prefs; fo that the paffage, for the future, fhould be printed thus," Well, if any man in Italy have a fairer table, which doth ****** offer to fwear upon a book I fhall have good fortune." It is impoffible to find, again, the loft line; but the loft fenfe is eafy enough. "if any man in Italy have a fairer table, which doth (promise good luck, I am mistaken. I durft almoft) offer to swear upon a book, I shall have good fortune.

It

WARB.

Ibid.] Mr. Theobald's note is as obfcure as the passage. may be read more than once before the complication of ignorance can be completely difentangled. Table is the palm expanded. What Mr. Theobald conceives it to be cannot eafily be difcovered, but he thinks it fomewhat that promifes a full belly.

Dr. Warburton understood the word, but puzzles himself with no great fuccefs in purfuit of the meaning. The whole matter is this: Launcelot congratulates himself upon his dexterity and good fortune, gnd, in the height of his rapture, infpects his hand, and congratulates himself upon the felicities in his table. The act of expounding his hand puts him in mind of the action in which the palm is fhewn, by raifing it to lay it on the book, in judicial atteftations. "Well, fays he, if any man in Italy have a fairer table, that doth offer to fwear upon a book."- Here he ftops with an abruptnefs very common and proceeds to particulars. JOHNS.

A cer

L. 20. In peril of my life with the edge of a feather bed.] A cant phrafe to fignify the danger of marrying. tain French writer ufes the fame kind of figure, O mon Ami, j'aimerais mieux être tombée fur la pointe d'un Oreiller, & m'etre rompu le Cou. WARB.

360. 1. 13. Something too liberal.] Liberal I have already

fhewn to mean, grofs, coarse, licentious.

L. 25.

JOHNS.

JOHNS.

-fad oftent] Grave appearance; fhew of

ftaid and serious behaviour.

P. 362. 1. 3. 'Tis vile, unless it may be quaintly ordered] Ut gratas inter menfas Symphonia difcors,

Et craflum unguentum, & Sardo cum melle papaver Offendunt; poterat duci quia Cena fine iftis. Hor. WARE. P. 364. 1. 5. Laun. Then it was not for nothing that my nofe fell a bleeding on black monday laft] Black-monday, "is a moveable day, it is eafter-monday, and was fo called on this occafion. In the 34th of Edward III. (1360) the 14th of April, and the morrow after eafter-day, king Edward, with his hoft, lay before the city of Paris; whi h day was full. dark of mift and hail, and fo bitter cold, that many men died on their horfes backs with the cold. Wherefore, unto this day, it hath been called the black-monday." Stowe, p. 264-6. GRAY.

P. 365. 1. 12. O, ten times fafter Venus' Pidgeons fly.] This is a very odd image, of Venus's Pigeons flying to feal the bonds of love. The fenfe is obvious, and we know the dignity due to Venus's Pigeons. There was certainly a joke intended here, which the ignorance or boldness of the first tranfcribers has murdered: I doubt not, but Shakespeare wrote the line thus:

O, ten times fafter Venus' Widgeons fly

To feal, &c.

For widgeon is not only one fpecies of pigeons but fignified metaphorically, a filly fellow, as goofe, or gudgeon, does now. The calling love's votaries, venus's widgeons, is in high humour. Butler ufes the fame joke in fpeaking of the prefbyterians. Th' apoftles of this fierce religion,

Like Mahomet's, were afs and Widgeon. Mahomet's afs or rather mule was famous: and the monks in their fabulous accounts of him faid, he taught a pigeon to pick peas out of his ears to carry on the ends of his imposture. WARE.

Ibid] I believe the poet wrote as the editors have printed. How it is fo very high humour to call lovers Widgeons rather than Pigeons I cannot find. Lovers have in poetry been alway called Turtles, oa Doves, which in lower language may be Pigeon.

JOHNS.

Ibid] Dr. Warburton doth not fee that it is not the pigeons who are understood to feal the bonds of love, any more than to keep obliged faith unforfeited; but that it is Venus herself (who is drawn by them, and regulates their flight according to her own good pleafure) who is fuppofed to be affiftant in both. It is plain therefore, that he misunderstood the fenfe of the paffage. As to a widgeon being one fpecies of pigeons, this is a point of natural hiftory utterly unknown to the western part at least of this ifland, where a widgeon is univerfally used to denote a particular fpecies of water-fowl, of a middle fize between a duck and a teal. REVIS. P. 367. 1. 1. a Gentile and no Few] A jeft rifing from the ambiguity of Gentile, which fignifies both a Heathen, and One well born.

JOHNS.

L. 26. As blunt.] That is, as grofs as the dull metal.

JOHNS.

P. 369. Gilded wood may worms infold.] In Editions this line is written thus:

all the old

Gilded timber may worms infold.

From which Mr. Rowe and all the following Editors have made "Gilded wood may worms infold."

A line not bad in itself, but not fo applicable to the occafion as that which, I believe Shakespear wrote.

Gilded tombs do worms infold.

A tomb is the proper repository of a death's head. JOHNS. P. 370. L. 1. Your anfever had not been inferol'd;] Since there is an answer inferol'd or written in every casket, I believe for your we fhould read this. When the words were written yr and ys the mistake was easy. JOHNS.

L. 8. Chufe me fo.] The old quarto edition of 1600 has no diftribution of acts, but proceeds from the beginning to the end in an unbroken tenour. This play therefore having been probably divided without authority by the publishers of the first folio, lies open to a new regulation if any more commodious divifion can be propofed. The story is itself fo wildly incredible, and the changes of the scene fo frequent and capricious, that the probability of action does not deserve much care; yet it may be proper to obferve, that, by concluding the fecond act here, time is given for

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