In his own change, or by ill officers, Hath given me some worthy cause to wish Pin. I do not doubt But that my noble master will appear Such as he is, full of regard and honour. 506. Bru. He is not doubted. A word, Lucilius: How he received you, let me be resolved. 507. Lucil. With courtesy, and with respect enough; But not with such familiar instances, 508. Nor with such free and friendly conference, Bru. Thou hast described A hot friend cooling: Ever note, Lucilius, There are no tricks in plain and simple faith: 509. Lucil. They mean this night in Sardis to be quartered; [March within. Cas. Most noble brother, you have done me wrong. Bru. Judge me, you gods! Wrong I mine enemies? And, if not so, how should I wrong a brother? Cas. Brutus, this sober form of yours hides wrongs; And when you do them 519. Bru. Cassius, be content : Speak your griefs softly;-I do know you well. Before the eyes of both our armies here, Which should perceive nothing but love from us, Cas. Pindarus, Bid our commanders lead their charges off A little from this ground. 521. Bru. Lucius, do you the like; and let no man Come to our tent, till we have done our conference. [Exeunt Scene II.-The original heading here is "Drum. Enter Brutus, Lucillius, and the Army. Titinius and Pindarus meete them." The modern editors after the name of Lucilius introduce that of Lucius. See the note on 521. 502. What now, Lucilius? is Cassius near?-Here the ius is dissyllabic in Lucilius and monosyllabic in Cassius. 503. To do you salutation.—Another of the old applications of do which we have now lost. Vid. 147. The stage direction about the Letter is modern. 504. He greets me well.-The meaning seems to be, He salutes me in a friendly manner. Yet this can hardly be regarded as a legitimate employment of well. greet see 242. For 504. In his own change, etc.—The meaning seems to be, either through a change that has taken place in his own feelings and conduct, or through the misconduct of his officers. 504. Some worthy cause.- Some reasonable or sufficient cause, some cause of worth, value, or power to justify the wish. Our modern worth is the ancient weorth, wurth, or wyrth, connected with which are weorscipe, worship, and weorthian, to hold in esteem or honour. But there may also perhaps be a connexion with weorthan, or wurthan, to become, or to be, the same word with the modern German werden, and still in a single fragment remaining in use among ourselves in the phrase woe worth, that is, woe be. If this be so, either what we call worth is that which anything emphatically is, or, when we say that a thing is, we are only saying that it is worth in a broad or vague sense, according to a common manner of forming a term of general out of one of particular import. In the latter case worth may be connected with vir, and virtus, and vireo. Vid. 209. 506. He is not doubted.-A word, etc.-Brutus here, it will be observed, makes two speeches; first he addresses himself to Pindarus, then to Lucilius. Even if the prosody did not admonish us to the same effect, it would, in these circumstances, be better to print the passage as I have given it, with two hemistichs or broken lines. 506. Let me be resolved. Vid. 339. 507. But not with such familiar instances.-The word still in use that most nearly expresses this obsolete sense of instances is, perhaps, assiduities. As instance should mean standing upon, so assiduity should mean sitting upon. Assiduitas is used by Cicero; instantia, I believe, is not found in the best age of the Latin tongue. The English word is employed by Shakespeare in other senses besides this that are now obsolete. "To comfort you the more," says the Earl of Warwick to the King, in the Second Part of King Henry the Fourth, iii. 1, "I have received A certain instance that Glendower is dead; that is, a certain assurance. 99 Again, in King Richard the Third, "Tell him," says Lord Hastings in reply to the message from Lord Stanley, iii. 2, "Tell him his fears are shallow, without instance ;". that is, apparently, without any fact to support or justify them. Again, in Hamlet, iii. 2, in the Play acted before the King and Queen we have "The instances that second marriage move Are base respects of thrift, but none of love;" that is, the inducements, as we should now say, are base considerations of thrift, or pecuniary advantage. We now use instance in something like its proper sense only in the phrase "at the instance of," and even there the notion of pressure or urgency is nearly lost; the word is understood as meaning little, if anything, more than merely so much of application, request, or suggestion as the mere mention of what is wanted might carry with it. In another phrase in which it has come to be used, “in the first instance," it is not very obvious what its meaning really is, or how, at least, it has got the meaning which it appears to have. Do we, or can we, say “in the second, or third, instance?" By instance as commonly used, for a particular fact, we ought to understand a fact bearing upon the matter in hand; and this seems to be still always kept in mind in the familiar expression "for instance." Shakespeare's use of the word may be further illustrated by the following passages :-" They will scarcely believe this without trial: offer them instances; which shall bear no less likelihood than to see me at her chamber window; hear me call Margaret, Hero; hear Margaret term me Claudio; " etc. (Much Ado About Noth., ii. 2) ;— "Instance! O instance! strong as Pluto's gates; The bonds of heaven are slipped, dissolved, and loosed; The fractions of her faith, orts of her love, The fragments, scraps, the bits and greasy reliques Of her o'ereaten faith, are bound to Diomed." Troil. and Cress., v. 2. 508. Like horses hot at hand.-That is, apparently, not 66 Or rather, perhaps, when when held by the hand, or led. acted upon only by the rein. So in Harington's Ariosto, vii. 67, Melyssa says that she will try to make Rogero's griffith horse "gentle to the spur and hand." But has at hand" always meant, as it always does now, only near or hard by? That meaning will not do here. The commentators afford us no light or help. Perhaps Shakespeare wrote "in hand." The two expressions in hand and at hand are commonly distinguished in the Plays as they are in our present usage; and we also have on hand and at the hands of in the modern senses, as well as to bear in hand ("to keep in expectation, to amuse with false pretences "—Nares) and at any hand (that is, in any case), which are now obsolete. In The Comedy of Errors, ii. 1, at hand, used by his mistress Adriana in the common sense, furnishes matter for the word-catching wit of Dromio of Ephesus after he has been beaten, as he thinks, by his master:-" Adr. Say, is your tardy master now at hand? Dro. E. Nay, he's at two hands with me, and that my two ears can witness." In King John, v. 2, however, we have "like a lion fostered up at hand,” that is, as we should now say, by hand. In another similar phrase, we may remark, at has now taken the place of the in or into of a former age. We now say To march at the ... head of, and also To place at the head of, and we use in the head and into the head in quite other senses ; but here is the way in which Clarendon expresses himself:-“ They said . . . that there should be an army of thirty thousand men immediately transported into England with the Prince of Wales in the head of them" (Hist., Book x.) ; "The King was only expected to be nearer England, how disguised soever, that he might quickly put himself into the head of the army, that would be ready to receive him " (Id., Book xiv.); "These cashiered officers . . . found so much encouragement, that, at a time appointed, they put themselves into the heads of their regiments, and ... |