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214. Lucius, who's that knocks ?—Who is that who knocks? The omission of the relative is a familiar ellipsis. Vid. 34. Who's, and not who is, is the reading of all the Folios. It is unnecessary to suppose that

the two broken lines were intended to make a whole between them. They are best regarded as distinct hemistichs. Mr. Collier, however, prints "Who is't that knocks ?" Does he follow his MS. annotator in this?

217. The Lig. (for Ligarius) is Cai. throughout in the original text.

218. To wear a kerchief.—Kerchief is cover-chief, the chief being the French chef, head (from the Latin Cap-ut, which is also the same word with the English Head and the German Haupt). But, the proper import of chief being forgotten or neglected, the name kerchief came to be given to any cloth used as a piece of dress. In this sense the word is still familiar in handkerchief, though both kerchief itself and its other compound neckerchief are nearly gone

out.

218. Would you were not sick!-I do not understand upon what principle, or in what notion, it is that the Shakespearian editors print would in such a construction as this with an apostrophe ('Would). Even if it is to be taken to mean I would, the I will not be a part of the word which has been cut off, like the i of it in the contraction 'tis.

221. Thou, like an exorcist.-" Here," says Mason, "and in all other places where the word occurs in Shakespeare, to exorcise means to raise spirits, not to lay them; and I believe he is singular in his acceptation of it." The only other instances of its occur

rence, according to Mrs. Clarke, are ;-in the Song in Cymbeline, iv. 2:

"No exorciser harm thee!

Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!

Nothing ill come near thee!"

in All's Well that Ends Well, v. 3, where, on the appearance of Helena, thought to be dead, the King exclaims,

"Is there no exorcist

Beguiles the truer office of mine eyes ?"

and in the Second Part of King Henry the Sixth, i. 4, where Bolingbroke asks, "Will her ladyship [the Duchess of Gloster] behold and hear our exorcisms ?” meaning the incantations and other operations by which they were to raise certain spirits. In Mr. Collier's one-volume edition, in this speech, at the words "Soul of Rome," we have the stage direction, “Throwing away his bandage."

221. My mortified spirit, etc.-Mort-ti-fi-ed here makes four syllables, spirit counting for only one. And mortified has its literal meaning of deadened.

224. As we are going To whom it must be done.— While we are on our way to those whom it must be done to. The ellipsis is the same as we have in 105, "From that it is disposed." I do not understand how the words are to be interpreted if we are to separate going from what follows by a comma, as is done in most editions.

225. Set on your foot.-This was probably a somewhat energetic or emphatic mode of expression. In Scotland they say, "Put down your foot" in exhort

ing one to walk on briskly.-At the end of this speech the old copies have Thunder as a stage direction.

Scene II. The same. A Room in Casar's Palace.This is not in the old editions; but the stage direction that follows is, only with Julius Cæsar (for Cæsar). 227. Nor heaven nor earth, etc.-This use of nor nor for the usual neither. nor of

or ...or for either.

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prose (as well as of or) is still common in our poetry. On the other hand, either was sometimes used formerly in cases where we now always have or; as in Luke vi.

42:

:- "Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye ?"—The strict grammatical principle would of course require" has been at peace;" but where, as here, the two singular substantives are looked at together by the mind, it is more natural to regard them as making a plurality, and to use the plural verb, notwithstanding the disjunctive conjunction (as it is sometimes oddly designated).

229. Do present sacrifice. In this and a good many other cases we are now obliged to employ a verb of a more specific character instead of the general do. This is a different kind of archaism from what we have in the "do danger" of 147, where it is not the do, but the danger, that has a meaning which it has now lost, and for which the modern language uses another word.

229. Their opinions of success.-That is, merely, of the issue, or of what is prognosticated by the sacrifice as likely to happen. Johnson remarks (note on Othello,

iii. 3) that successo is also so used in Italian. So likewise is succès in French. In addition to earlier examples of such a sense of the English word, Boswell adduces from Sidney's Arcadia :— "He never answered me, but, pale and quaking, went straight away; and straight.my heart misgave me some evil success ;" and from Dr. Barrow, in the latter part of the seventeenth century :-" Yea, to a person so disposed, that success which seemeth most adverse justly may be reputed the best and most happy." Shakespeare's ordinary employment of the word, however, is accordant with our present usage. But see 735, 736. Sometimes it is used in the sense of our modern succession; as in A Winter's Tale, i. 2 :-" Our parents' noble names, In whose success we are gentle." In the same manner the verb to succeed, though meaning etymologically no more than to follow, has come to be commonly understood, when used without qualification, only in a good sense. We still say that George II. succeeded George I., and could even, perhaps, say that a person or thing had succeeded very ill; but when we say simply, that any thing has succeeded, we mean that it has had a prosperous issue.

233. I never stood on ceremonies.-Vid. 194.

233. Recounts most horrid sights.—Who recounts. As in 34 and 214.

233. Which drizzled blood.-To drizzle is to shed (or to fall) in small drops. The Dictionaries bring it from the German rieseln (of the same signification); but the English word probably derives a main part of its peculiar effect from the same initial dr which we have in drip, drop, drivel, etc.

233. The noise of battle hurtled in the air.-The

three last Folios substitute hurried for hurtled. Hurtle is probably the same word with hurl (of which, again, whirl may be another variation). Chaucer uses it as an active verb in the sense of to push forcibly and with violence; as in C. T. 2618 :

"And he him hurtleth with his hors adoun;"

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"O firste moving cruel firmament!

With thy diurnal swegh that croudest ay,
And hurtlest all from est til occident,
That naturally wold hold another way."

Its very sound makes it an expressive word for any kind of rude and crushing, or "insupportably advancing," movement. Hustle and justle (or jostle)

may be considered, if not as other forms, or somewhat softened modifications, of the same vocal utterance of thought, as at least fashioned upon the same principle.

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233. Horses did neigh, and dying men did groan.— This is the reading of the Second and subsequent Folios. The First has "Horses do neigh, and dying men did grone." We may confidently affirm that no degree of mental agitation ever expressed itself in any human being in such a jumble and confusion of tenses as this, not even insanity or drunkenness. The Fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds," which we have a few lines before, is not a case in point. It is perfectly natural in animated narrative or description to rise occasionally from the past tense to the present; but who ever heard of two facts or circumstances equally past, strung together, as here, with an and, and enunciated in the same breath, being presented the one as now going on, the other as only

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