249. and the tide?] I should suppose these three words to be repeated through some error of the Printer. STEEVENS. 275.. -how quote you my folly?] To quote is to observe. So, in Hamlet: "I am sorry that with better heed and judgment "I had not quoted him.” 315. STEEVENS. -not without desert-] And not dignified with so much reputation without proportionate merit. 344. cite- -] i. e. incite. JOHNSON. 375. No; that you are worthless.] I have inserted the particle no, to fill up the measure. JOHNSON. I believe the particle which Dr. Johnson has inserted to supply the metre of this line, is unnecessary, worthless having been probably used, like many other words of the same kind, as a trisyllable. Thus tick ling, changeling, humbled, juggling, and many more. MALONE. 403. -no woe to his correction,] No misery that can be compared to the punishment inflicted by love. Herbert called for the prayers of the liturgy a little before his death, saying, None to them, None to them. JOHNSON. The same idiom occurs in an old ballad quoted in Cupid's Whirligig, 1616: "There is no comfort in the world MALONE. 418. —a principality,] The first or principal of women. So the old writers use state. "She is a lady, a great state." Latymer. "This look is called in states warlie, in others otherwise." Sir T. More. JOHNSON. There is a similar sense of this word in St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, viii. 38, " nor angels nor principalities." STEEVENS. 429. -summer-smelling flower,] I once thought that the poet had written summer-swelling; but the epithet which stands in the text I have since met with in the translation of Lucan, by Sir Arthur Gorges, 16:4, B. VIII. p. 354. 66 -no Roman chieftaine should "Come near to Nyles Pelusian mould, “But shun that summer-swelling shore.” The original is, ripasque æstate tumentes," 1. 829. May likewise renders it summer-smelled banks. The summer-swelling flower is the flower which swells in summer, till it expands itself into bloom. STEEVENS. 434. She is alone.] She stands by herself. There is none to be compared to her. JOHNSON. Or as one nail by strength drives out another, Is by a newer object quite forgotten.] Our author seems here to have remembered The Tragical Hystory of Romeus and Juliet, 1562: "And "And as out of a planke tayle a nayle a nayle doth drive, "So novel love out of the minde the auncient love doth rive." So also in Coriolanus: "One fire drives out one fire; one nail one nail.” MALONE. 469. -a waxen image 'gainst a fire,] Alluding to the figures made by witches, as representatives of those whom they designed to torment or destroy. STEEVENS. King James ascribes these images to the devil in his treatise of Daemonologie: "to some others at these times he teacheth how to make pictures of waxe, or claye, that by the roasting thereof the persons that they bear the name of, may be continually melted, and dried away by continual sicknesse." See Servius on the 8th Eclogue of Virgil, Theocritus Idyl. ii. 22. Hudibras, P. II. 1. ii. v. 331. S. W. 475. with more advice,] With more advice, is on further knowledge, on better consideration. So, in Titus Andronicus: "The Greeks, upon advice, did bury Ajax.” The word, as Mr. Malone observes, is still current anong mercantile people, whose constant language is, "we are advised by letters from abroad," meaning informed. So in bills of exchange the conclusion alWithout further advice." So, in this very ways is play: "This pride of hers, upon advice," &c.` Again, in Measure for Measure: "Yet did repeat me after more advice.” STEEVENS. 477. 'Tis but her picture- -] Protheus, as yet, had seen only her outward form, without having known her long enough to have any acquaintance with her mind. So, in Cymbeline : "All of her, that is, out of door, most rich! Again, in The Winter's Tale, act ii. sc. 1. "Praise her but for this her without-door form." STEEVENS, 478. And that hath dazzled so my reason's light:] So, a word as hurtful to the sense, as unnecessary to the metre, was introduced by the editor of the second folio, who did not perceive that dazzled was used as a trisyllable. The authentick copy should certainly be adhered to; and a semicolon placed after light. The plain meaning is, Her mere outside hath dazzled me;-when I am acquainted with the perfections of her mind, I shall be struck blind. MALONE. 484. It is Padua in the former editions. See the note on act iii. 509. My staff understands me.] This equivocation, miserable as it is, has been admitted by Milton in his great poem, R. VI.. " →The terms we sent were terms of weighty "Such as, we may perceive, amaz'd them all, C "And "And stagger'd many; who receives them right, "Had need from head to foot well understand; "Not understood, this gift they have besides, "To shew us when our foes stand not upright." JOHNSON. The same quibble occurs likewise in the second part of the Three Merry Coblers, an ancient ballad : "Our work doth th' owners understand, "Thus still we are on the mending hand." 539. STEEVENS. -] Added in the second folio. MALONE. -the ale-house-] The old copy reads only the ale; and Ales were merry meetings instituted in country places. Thus Ben Jonson : "And all the neighbourhood, from old records "Of antique proverbs drawn from Whitson lords, "And their authorities at wakes and ales, “With country precedents and old wives tales, "We bring you now." STEEVENS. 542. It is to be observed, that, in the first folio edition, the only edition of authority, there are no directions concerning the scenes; they have been added by the later editors, and may therefore be changed by any reader that can give more consistency or regularity to the drama by such alterations. I make this remark in this place, because I know not whether the following soliloquy of Protheus is so proper in the street. JOHNSON. |