Doth teach me anfwers for deliverance!
But let me to my fortune and the caskets.
POR. Away then: I am lock'd in one of them;
If you do love me, you will find me out.-
Neriffa, and the reft, ftand all aloof.-

Let mufick found, while he doth make his choice;
Then, if he lose, he makes a swan-like end,
Fading in mufick: that the comparison

May ftand more proper, my eye fhall be the stream,
And wat'ry death-bed for him: He may win;
And what is mufick then? then mufick is
Even as the flourish when true fubjects bow
To a new-crowned monarch: fuch it is,
As are those dulcet founds in break of day,
That creep into the dreaming bridegroom's ear,
And fummon him to marriage. Now he goes,
With no lefs prefence, but with much more love,
Than young Alcides, when he did redeem
The virgin tribute paid by howling Troy
To the fea-monster: I stand for facrifice,
The reft aloof are the Dardanian wives,
With bleared vifages, come forth to view
The iffue of the exploit. Go, Hercules!
Live thou, I live:-With much much more dismay
I view the fight, than thou that mak'ft the fray."

4 With no less prefence,] With the fame dignity of mien,

JOHNSON.

5 To the fea-monster:] See Ovid. Metamorph. Lib. XI. ver. 199, et feqq. Shakspeare however, I believe, had read an account of this adventure in The Deftruction of Troy::-" Laomedon caft his eyes all bewept on him, [Hercules] and was all abashed to see his greatness and his beauty." See B. I, p. 221, edit. 1617.

6 Live thou, I live :-With much much more difmay

MALONE.

I view the fight, than thou that mak'ft the fray.] One of the

quartos [Roberts's] reads:

Live then, I live with much more dismay

To view the fight, than &c.

BASS. So may the outward fhows' be leaft them

felves;

The world is ftill deceiv'd with ornament.
In law, what plea fo tainted and corrupt,
But, being feafon'd with a gracious voice,'
Obfcures the fhow of evil? In religion,
What damned error, but fome fober brow
Will blefs it, and approve it with a text,

The folio, 1623, thus:

Live thou, I live with much more difmay

I view the fight, than &c.

Heyes's quarto gives the prefent reading. JOHNSON,

6

Dream:

-fancy- i. e, Love, So, in A Midfummer-Night's

"Than fighs and tears, poor fancy's followers," STEEVENS, Reply] The words, reply, reply, were in all the late editions, except Sir T. Hanmer's, put as verfe in the fong; but in all the old copies ftand as a marginal direction. JOHNSON.

8 So may the outward shows -] He begins abruptly; the first part of the argument has paffed in his mind. JOHNSON.

9 —gracious voice,] Pleafing; winning favour. JOHNSON, -approve it] i. e. juftify it. So, in Antony and Cleopatra:

2

"That he approves the common liar, fame." STEEVENS,

Hiding the groffness with fair ornament?
There is no vice3 so fimple, but affumes
Some mark of virtue on his outward parts.
How many cowards, whofe hearts are all as falfe
As ftairs of fand, wear yet upon their chins
The beards of Hercules, and frowning Mars;
Who, inward fearch'd, have livers white as milk?
And these affume but valour's excrement,*
To render them redoubted. Look on beauty,
And you shall fee 'tis purchas'd by the weight;"
Which therein works a miracle in nature,
Making them lightest that wear most of it: "
So are thofe crifped' fnaky golden locks,
Which make fuch wanton gambols with the wind,
Upon fuppofed fairness, often known

To be the dowry of a fecond head,

The fcull that bred them, in the fepulchre.

3 There is no vice-] The old copies read-voice. The emendation was made by the editor of the fecond folio. MALONE. valour's excrement,] i. e. what a little higher is called pedler's excrement," in The Winter's the beard of Hercules. So, "

4

Tale.

MALONE.

5 by the weight;] That is, artificial beauty is purchafed fo; as, falfe hair, &c. STEEVENS.

6 Making them lighteft that wear most of it:] Lighteft is here ufed in a wanton fenfe. So afterwards:

66

Let me be light, but let me not seem light." MALONE. crifped] i. e. curled. So, in The Philofopher's Satires, by Robert Anton :

7

8

"Her face as beauteous as the crisped morn." STEEVENS.

in the fepulchre.] See a note on Timon of Athens, A& IV. fc. iii. Shak fpeare has likewife fatirized this yet prevailing fashion in Love's Labour's Loft. STEEVENS.

The prevalence of this fashion in Shakspeare's time is evinced by the following paffage in an old pamphlet entitled The Honeftie of this Age, proving by good circumftance that the world was never honeft till now, by Barnabe Rich, quarto, 1615:-" My lady holdeth on upon fuch artiher way, perhaps to the tire-maker's fhop, where she shaketh her fome new fashioned attire, upon crownes to bestow ficial deformed periwigs, that they were fitter to furnish a theatre, Hh 4

Thus ornament is but the guiled fhore'
To a moft dangerous fea; the beauteous fcarf
Veiling an Indian beauty; in a word,

The feeming truth which cunning times put on
To entrap the wifeft. Therefore, thou gaudy gold,
Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee:

Nor none of thee, thou pale and common drudge
'Tween man and man: but thou, thou meager lead,
Which rather threat'neft, than doft promife aught,
Thy plainnefs moves me more than eloquence,3
And here choose I; Joy be the confequence!

or for her that in a stage-play should reprefent fome hag of hell, than to be used by a chriftian woman.' Again, ibid," These attire-makers within thefe fortie yeares were not known by that name; and but now very lately they kept their lowzie commodity of periwigs, and their monftrous attires clofed in boxes;—and thofe women that used to weare them would not buy them but in fecret, But now they are not ashamed to fet them forth upon their stalls,— fuch monftrous mop-powles of haire, fo proportioned and deformed, that but within thefe twenty or thirty yeares would have drawne the paffers-by to ftand and gaze, and to wonder at them."

MALONE. 9the guiled hore] i. e, the treacherous fhore. I should not have thought the word wanted explanation, but that fome of our modern editors have rejected it, and read gilded. Guiled is the reading of all the ancient copies. Shak fpeare in this inftance, as in many others, confounds the participles, Guiled ftands for guiling. STEEVENS.

2

Indian beauty;] Sir Thomas Hanmer reads;

·Indian dowdy. JOHNSON,

3 Thy plainnefs moves me more than eloquence,] The old copies read-palenefs. STEEVENS.

Baffanio is difpleafed at the golden cafket for its gaudinefs, and the filver one for its palenefs; but what! is he charmed with the leaden one for having the very fame quality that difpleafed him in the filver? The poet certainly wrote

Thy plainness moves me more than eloquence:

This characterizes the lead from the filver, which paleness does not, they being both pale. Befides, there is a beauty in the antithefis between plainness and eloquence; between paleness and eloquence none. So it is faid before of the leaden cafket:

" This third, dull lead, with warning all is blunt."

WARBURTON,

POR. How all the other paffions fleet to air,
As doubtful thoughts, and rafh-embrac'd despair,
And fhudd'ring fear and green-ey'd jealousy.
O love, be moderate, allay thy ecstasy,

In measure rain thy joy, fcant this excefs;

It may be that Dr.Warburton has altered the wrong word, if any alteration be neceffary. I would rather give the character of filver, Thou ftale, and common drudge

" "Tween man and man.".

The paleness of lead is for ever alluded to.

"Diane declining, pale as any ledde,"

Says Stephen Hawes. In Fairfax's Tallo, we have

"The lord Tancredie, pale with rage as lead,"

Again, Sackville, in his Legend of the Duke of Buckingham :
"Now pale as lead, now cold as any stone."
And in the old ballad of The King and the Beggar:
She blushed fcarlet red,

"Then ftraight again, as pale as lead."

As to the antithefis, Shakspeare has already made it in A Midfummer-Night's Dream:

"When (fays Thefeus) I have feen great clerks look pale,
"I read as much, as from the rattling tongue

"Of faucy and audacious eloquence." FARMER.

By laying an emphafis on Thy, [Thy palenefs moves me, &c.] Dr. W's. objection is obviated. Though Baffanio might object to filver, that" pale and common drudge," lead, though pale alfo, yet not being in daily ufe, might, in his opinion, deferve a preference. I have therefore great doubts concerning Dr. Warburton's emendation. MALONE.

4 In measure rain thy joy,] The firft quarto edition reads:
In measure range thy joy.

The folio, and one of the

quartos:

In meafure raine thy joy.

I once believ'd Shakspeare meant ;

In measure rein thy jay,

The words rain and rein were not in thefe times diftinguished by regular orthography. There is no difficulty in the prefent reading, only where the copies vary, fome fufpicion of error is always raifed.

JOHNSON.

Having frequent occafion to make the fame obfervation in the
perufal of the first folio, I am alfo ftrongly inclined to the former
word;
but as the text is intelligible, have made no change. Rein
in the second inftance quoted below by Mr. Steevens is fpelt in the
old copy as it is here;-raine. So, in The Tempeft, edit. 1623:
do not give dalliance

"Too much the raigne," MALONE,