No, not so much perdition as an hair, Which thou heard'st cry, which thou saw'st sink. Sit down; For thou must now know further. You have often MIRA. PRO. The very minute bids thee The hour's now come; ope thine ear; Obey, and be attentive. Can'st thou remember A time before we came unto this cell? I do not think thou can'st; for then thou wast not Out three years old. MIRA. Certainly, sir, I can. PRO. By what? by any other house, or person? drenched in the sea, keep notwithstanding their freshness and glosses. Of this emendation I find that the author of notes on The Tempest had a glimpse, but could not keep it. JOHNSON. no soul-] Such interruptions are not uncommon to Shakspeare. He sometimes begins a sentence, and, before he concludes it, entirely changes its construction, because another, more forcible, occurs. As this change frequently happens in conversation, it may be suffered to pass uncensured in the language of the stage. STEEVENS. not so much perdition as an hair, Betid to any creature in the vessel-] Had Shakspeare in his mind St. Paul's hortatory speech to the ship's company, where he assures them that, though they were to suffer shipwreck, "not an hair should fall from the head of any of them?" Acts, xxvii. 34. Ariel afterwards says, "Not a hair perish'd." HOLT WHITE. . Out three years old.] i. e. Quite three years old, three years old full-out, complete. So, in the 4th Act: "And be a boy right out." STEEVENS. Of any thing the image tell me, that MIRA. 'Tis far off; And rather like a dream than an assurance PRO. Thou had'st, and more, Miranda: But how is it, That this lives in thy mind? What seest thou else In the dark backward and abysm of time?" If thou remember'st aught, ere thou cam❜st here, How thou cam'st here, thou may'st. MIRA. But that I do not. PRO. Twelve years since, Miranda, twelve years since,1 Thy father was the duke of Milan, and A prince of power. MIRA. Sir, are not you my father? PRO. Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and She said thou wast my daughter; and thy father Was duke of Milan; and his only heir 9 — abysm of time?] i. e. Abyss. This method of spelling the word is common to other ancient writers. They took it from the French abysme, now written abime. So, in Heywood's Brazen Age, 1613: "And chase him from the deep abysms below." STEEVENS. Twelve years since, Miranda, twelve years since,] Years, in the first instance, is used as a dissyllable, in the second as a monosyllable. But this is not a licence peculiar to the prosody of Shakspeare. In the second book of Sidney's Arcadia are the following lines, exhibiting the same word with a similar prosodical variation: "And shall she die? shall cruel fier spill "Those beames that set so many hearts on fire?" STEEVENS. A princess;-no worse issued.2 MIRA. O, the heavens! What foul play had we, that we came from thence? Or blessed was't, we did? PRO. Both, both, my girl: By foul play, as thou say'st, were we heav'd thence; But blessedly holp hither. MIRA. O, my heart bleeds To think o' the teen3 that I have turn'd you to, Which is from my remembrance! Please you, further. PRO. My brother, and thy uncle, call'd Antonio, I pray thee, mark me,-that a brother should Without a parallel; those being all my study, And to my state grew stranger, being transported, MIRA. Sir, most heedfully. PRO. Being once perfected how to grant suits, * A princess;-no worse issued.] The old copy reads " And princess." For the trivial change in the text I am answerable. Issued is descended. So, in Greene's Card of Fancy, 1608: "For I am by birth a gentleman, and issued of such parents," &c. STEEVENS. ] is sorrow, grief, trouble. So, in Romeo and to my teen be it spoken." STEEVens. How to deny them; whom to advance, and whom' To trash for over-topping; new created whom to advance, and whom-] The old copy has who in both places. Corrected by the editor of the second folio. MALONE. To trash for over-topping;] To trash, as Dr. Warburton observes, is to cut away the superfluities. This word I have met with in books containing directions for gardeners, published in the time of queen Elizabeth. The present explanation may be countenanced by the following passage in Warner's Albion's England, 1602, B. X. ch. 57: "Who suffreth none by might, by wealth or blood to overtopp, "Himself gives all preferment, and whom listeth him doth lop." Again, in our author's K. Richard II: "Go thou, and, like an executioner, "Cut off the heads of too-fast-growing sprays "That look too lofty in our commonwealth." Mr. Warton's note, however, on-"trash for his quick hunting," in the second act of Othello, leaves my interpretation of this passage somewhat disputable. Mr. M. Mason observes, that to trash for overtopping, " maymean to lop them, because they did overtop, or in order to prevent them from overtopping. So Lucetta, in the second scene of The Two Gentlemen of Verona, says: "I was taken up for laying them down, "Yet here they shall not lie, for catching cold." That is, lest they should catch cold. See Mr. M. Mason's note on this passage. In another place (a note on Othello) Mr. M. Mason observes, that Shakspeare had probably in view, when he wrote the passage before us, "the manner in which Tarquin conveyed to Sextus his advice to destroy the principal citizens of Gabii, by striking off, in the presence of his messengers, the heads of all the tallest poppies, as he walked with them in his garden." STEEVENS. I think this phrase means "to correct for too much haughtiness or overbearing." It is used by sportsmen in the North when they correct a dog for misbehaviour in pursuing the game. This explanation is warranted by the following passage in Othello, Act II. sc. i: "If this poor trash of Venice, whom I trash VOL. IV. C The creatures that were mine; I say, or chang'd them, Or else new form'd them: having both the key" To what tune pleas'd his ear; that now he was I not: pray thee, mark me.o MIRA. O good sir, I do. PRO. I thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicate It was not till after I had made this remark, that I saw Mr. Warton's note on the above lines in Othello, which corroborates it. DOUCE. A trash is a term still in use among hunters, to denote a piece of leather, couples, or any other weight fastened round the neck of a dog, when his speed is superior to the rest of the pack; i. e. when he over-tops them, when he hunts too quick. C. See Othello, Act II. sc. i. STEEVENS. both the key-] This is meant of a key for tuning the harpsichord, spinnet, or virginal; we call it now a tuning hammer. SIR J. HAWKINS. Of officer and office, set all hearts-] The old copy reads"all hearts i' th' state," but redundantly in regard to metre, and unnecessarily respecting sense; for what hearts, except such as were i' th' state, could Alonso incline to his purposes? 8 I have followed the advice of Mr. Ritson, who judiciously proposes to omit the words now ejected from the text. STEEVENS, And suck'd my verdure out on't.] So, in Arthur Hall's translation of the first book of Homer, 1581, where Achilles swears by his sceptre: "Who having lost the sapp of wood, eft greenenesse cannot drawe." STEEVENS. I pray thee, mark me.] In the old copy, these words are the beginning of Prospero's next speech; but, for the restoration of metre, I have changed their place. STEEVENS. 'I thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicate-] The old copy has-" dedicated;" but we should read, as in the present text, "dedicate." Thus, in Measure for Measure: |