of this description. Shakespeare, however, has ap parently several such. Thus : More active-valiant, or more valiant-young. But pardon me, I am too sudden-bold. Love's Lab. Lost, ii. 1. More fertile-fresh than all the field to see. Mer. W. of Wind. v. 5. So full of shapes is fancy, That it alone is high-fantastical. Twelfth Night, i. I. 130. By this they stay for me. That is, by this time. And it is a mode of expression which, like so many others which the language once possessed, we have now lost. Yet we still say, in the same sense, ere this, before this, after this, the preposition in these phrases being felt to be suggestive of the notion of time in a way that by is not. 130. There is no walking. In another connection this might mean, that there was no possibility of walking; but here the meaning apparently is that there was no walking going on. 130. The complexion of the element. That is, of the heaven, of the sky. North, in his Plutarch, speaks of "the fires in the element." The word in this sense was much in favor with the fine writers or talkers of Shakespeare's day. He has a hit at the affectation in his Twelfth Night, iii. 1, where the Clown, conversing with Viola, says, "Who you are, and what you would, are out of my welkin: I might say, element: but the word is over-worn." `Of course, welkin is, and is intended to be, far more absurd. Yet we have element for the sky or the air in other passages besides the present. Thus: 66 "I, in the clear sky of fame, o'ershine you as much as the full moon doth the cinders of the element, which show like pins' heads to her" (Falstaff, in 2 Hen. IV. iv. 3). It is curious to find writers of the present day who are scrupulous about the more delicate proprieties of expression still echoing Shakespeare's dissatisfaction: "The territorial element, to use that favorite word," says Hallam, Mid. Ages, I. 297 (edit. of 1855), probably without any thought of the remark of the all-observing dramatist two centuries and a half before. son; 130. In favour's like the work. - The reading in all the Folios is, "Is favors" (or "favours" for the Third and Fourth). The present reading, which is that generally adopted, was first proposed by Johnand it has the support, it seems, of Mr. Collier's MS. annotator. [It is adopted by Dyce, Hudson, and White.] Favour (see 54) means aspect, appearance, features. Another emendation that has been proposed (by Steevens) is, "Is favoured." But to say that the complexion of a thing is either featured like, or in feature like, to something else is very like a tautology. I should be strongly inclined to adopt Reed's ingenious conjecture, "Is feverous," which he supports by quoting from Macbeth, ii. 3: "Some say the earth Was feverous and did shake." So also in Coriolanus, i. 4: "Thou mad'st thine enemies shake, as if the world Were feverous and did tremble." Feverous is exactly the sort of word that, if not very distinctly written, would be apt to puzzle and be mistaken by a compositor. It may perhaps count, too, for something, though not very much, against both "favour's like" and "favoured like" that a very decided comma separates the two words in the original edition. 134. One incorporate To our attempts.- One of our body, one united with us in our enterprise. The expression has probably no more emphatic im port. 135. There's two or three. The contraction there's is still used indifferently with a singular or a plural; though there is scarcely would be. [On I am glad on't, see 50.] 136. Am I not staid for? — This is the original reading, which has been restored by Mr. Knight. The common modern reading is, "Am I not staid for, Cinna?" the last word being inserted (and that without notice, which is unpardonable) only to satisfy the supposed demands of the prosody. 137. This speech stands thus in the First Folio: Yes, you are. O Cassius, If you could but winne the Noble Brutus To our party-. The common metrical arrangement [which Hudson follows] is, Yes, You are. O Cassius, if you could but win The noble Brutus to our party. No person either having or believing himself to have a true feeling of the Shakespearian rhythm can believe this to be right. Nor am I better satisfied with Mr. Knight's distribution of the lines, although it is adopted by Mr. Collier : Yes, you are. O, Cassius, if you could but win the noble Brutus which gives us an extended line equally unmusical and undignified whether read rapidly or slowly, followed (to make matters worse which were bad enough already) by what could scarcely make the commencement of any kind of line. I cannot doubt that, whatever we are to do with "Yes, you are," whether we make these comparatively unimportant words the completion of the line of which Cassius's question forms the beginning, or take them along with what follows, which would give us a line wanting only the first syllable (and deriving, perhaps, from that mutilation an abruptness suitable to the occasion), the close of the rhythmic flow must be as I have given it: O Cassius, if you could But win the noble Brutus to our party. [Collier, Dyce, and Staunton adopt Craik's arrangement. White follows Knight, but suspects that the passage is corrupt.] 138. Where Brutus may but find it. — If but be the true word (and be not a misprint for best), the meaning must be, Be sure you lay it in the prætor's chair, only taking care to place it so that Brutus may be sure to find it. 138. Upon old Brutus' statue. - Lucius Brutus, who expelled the Tarquins, the reputed ancestor of Marcus Junius Brutus ; also alluded to in 56, " There was a Brutus once," etc. 139. I will hie. - To hie (meaning to hasten) is used reflectively, as well as intransitively, but not otherwise as an active verb. 139. And so bestow these papers. -This use of bestow (for to place, or dispose of) is now gone out; though something of it still remains in stow. [Conr pare 2 Kings v. 24; Luke xii. 17, 18.] 140. Pompey's theatre. The same famous structure of Pompey's, opened with shows and games of unparalleled cost and magnificence some ten or twelve years before the present date, which has been alluded to in 130 and 138. 142. You have right well conceited. To conceit is another form of our still familiar to conceive. And the noun conceit, which survives with a limited meaning (the conception of a man by himself, which is so apt to be one of over-estimation), is also frequent in Shakespeare with the sense, nearly, of what we now call conception, in general. So in 348. Sometimes it is used in a sense which might almost be said to be the opposite of what it now means; as when Juliet (in Romeo and Juliet, ii. 5) employs it as the term to denote her all-absorbing affection for Romeo : Conceit, more rich in matter than in words, Brags of his substance, not of ornament: They are but beggars that can count their worth; I cannot sum the sum of half my wealth. Or as when Gratiano, in The Merchant of Venice, i. I, speaks of a sort of men who do a wilful stillness entertain, With purpose to be dressed in an opinion that is, deep thought. So, again, when Rosaline, in Love's Labour's Lost, ii. 1, speaking of Biron, describes his "fair tongue" as "conceit's expositor," all that she means is, that speech is the expounder of thought. The scriptural expression, still in familiar use, " wise in his own conceit," means merely wise in his own thought, or in his own eyes, as we are told in the |