||

=42:)—copesmate-] i. e. companion. So, in Hubbard's Tale: "Till that the foe his copesmate he had found." STEEVENS. = 43:) To wrong the wronger till he render right;] To punish by the compunctious visiting of conscience the person who has done an injury to another, till he has made compensation. The wrong done in this instance by Time must be understood in the sense of damnum sine injuria; and in this light serves to illustrate and support Mr. Tyrwhitt's explanation of a passage in Julius Cæsar, even supposing that it stood as Ben Jonson has maliciously represented it: “Know, Cæsar, doth not wrong, but with just cause, "&c. Dr. Farmer very elegantly would read: "To wring the wronger till he render right." MALONE. = = 44:) To ruinate proud buildings with thy hours,] As we have here no invocation to time, I suspect the two last words of this line to be corrupted, and would read: "To ruinate proud buildings with their bowers." STEEVENS. Hours is surely the true reading. In the preceding address to Opportunity the same words are employed: "Wrath, envy, treason, rape, and murder's rages, "Thy heinous hours wait on them as their pages.' So, in our author's 19th Sonnet: "Devouring Time- "O, carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow." Again, in Davison's Poems, 1021: "Time's young howres attend her still." "To ruinate proud buildings with thy hours" is, to destroy buildings by thy slow and unperceived progress. It were easy to read with his hours; but the poet having made Lucretia address Time personally in the two preceding stanzas, and again a little lower "Why work'st thou mischief in thy pilgrimage." probably was here inattentive, and is himself answerable for the present inaccuracy. MALONE.=45:)|| lation, and her death being a debt which she owes to the To dry the old oak's sap, and cherish springs;] The last two words, if they make any sense, it is such as is directly contrary to the sentiment here advanced; which is concern. ing the decays, and not the repairs, of time. The poet certainly wrote: To dry the old oak's sap, and tarish springs" i. e. to dry up springs, from the French tarir, or tarissement, cxarefacere, exsiccatio: these words being peculiarly applied to springs or rivers. WARBURTON. Dr. Johnson thinks Shakspeare wrote: "--and perish springs;" And Dr. Farmer has produced from the Maid's Tragedy a passage in which the word perish is used in an active sense. if change were necessary, that word might perhaps have as good a claim to admission as any other; but I know not why the text has been suspected of corruption. The operations of Time, here described, are not all uniform; nor has the poet confined himself solely to its destructive qualities. In some of the instances mentioned, its progress only is adverted to. Thus we are told, his glory is "To wake the morn, and sentinel the night-"And turn the giddy round of fortune's wheel.' In others, its salutary effects are pointed out: "To cheer the ploughman with increaseful crops,- || "To unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light, To wrong the wronger till he render right." Where then is the difficulty of the present line, even supposing that we understand the word springs in its common ac ceptation? It is the office of Time (says Lucretia) to dry up the sap of the oak, and to furnish springs with a perpetual supply; to deprive the one of that moisture which She liberally bestows upon the other. In the next stanza the employment of Time is equally various and discordant: "To make the child a man, the man a child-" to advance the infant to the maturity of man, and to reduce the aged to the imbecility of childhood. By springs however may be understood (as has been observed by Vir. Tollett) the shoots or buds of young trees; and then the meaning will be, — It is the oflice of Time, on the one hand, to destroy the ancient oak, by drying up its sap; on the other, to cherish young plants, and to bring them to maturity. So, in our author's 15th Sonnet: "When I perceive that men, as plants, increase, "Cheered and check'd even by the self-same sky-." I believe this to be the true sense of the passage. Springs has this signification in many ancient English books; and the word is again used in the same sense in The Comedy of Errors: "Even in the spring of love thy lovesprings rot." Again, in Venus and Adonis: "This canker, that eats up love's tender spring." MALONE. In Holiushed's Description of England, both the coutested words in the latter part of the verse, occur. "We have manie woods, forrests, and parks, which cherish trees abundantlie, beside infinit numbers of hedge-rowes, groves, and springs, that are mainteined,” &c. TOLLET. 46:) To spoil antiquities of hammer'd steel,] The poet was here, I believe, thinking of the costly monuments erected in honour of our ancient kings and some of the nobility, which were frequently made of iron, or copper, wrought with great nicety; many of which had probably even in his time began to decay. There are some of these monuments yet to be seen in Westminster-abbey, and other old cathedrals. MALONE. 47:) As slanderous death's-man, &c.] i.e. executioner. So, in one of our author's plays: "he's dead; I am only sorry "He had no other death's-man." STEEVENS. = 48:) Out, idle words,] Thus the quarto. The octavo 1607, has our idle words, which has been followed by that of 1616. Dr. Sewel reads without authority: O, idle words. Out is an exclamation of abhorrence or contempt yet used in the north. =49:) For me, I force not argument a straw,] 1 do not value or esteem argument. So, in The Tragical Hystory of Romeus and Juliet, 1562: "But when he, many monthes, hopeless of his recure. "Had served her, who forced not what payues he did endure-," Again, in Love's Labour's

Lost: "Your oath broke once, you force not to forswear."
MALONE. = 50:) A badge of fame to slander's livery ;] In
our author's time the servants of the nobility all wore sil-
ver badges on their liveries, on which the arms of their
masters were engraved. MALONE. 51:) While thou on
Tereus descant'st, better skill.] Philomel, the daughter of
Pandion king of Athens, was ravish'd by Tereus, the hus-
band of her sister Progne. · According to the fable, she
was turned into a nightingale, Tereus into a lapwing, and
Progue into a swallow. There seems to be something want-
ing to complete the sense: - with better skill, but this
will not suit the metre. In a preceding line, however, the
preposition with, though equally wanting to complete the
sense, is omitted, as here: "For day hath nought to do
what's done by night." All the copies have: "While thou
on Tereus descants better skill.” This kind of error (des-
cants for descant'st) occurs in almost every page of our
author's plays. MALONE. Perhaps the author wrote, (I say
perhaps, for in Shakspeare's licentious grammar nothing is
very certain): “—— I'll hum on Tarquin's ill, || "While thou
on Tercus' descant'st better still." STEEVENS, 52:) Who,
if it wink,] Shakspeare seldom attends to the last ante-
cedent. The construction is — 'Which heart, if the eye
wink, shall fall,' &c. MALONE.=53:) When life is sham'd,
and death reproaches debtor.] Reproaches is here, I think.
the Saxon genitive case:- When death is the debtor of
reproach. So, in A Midsummer Night's Dream: "I do
wander every where || "Swifter than the moones sphere."
She debates whether she should not rather destroy herself
than live; life being disgraceful in consequence of her vio-
reproach of her conscience. MALONE. We need not look
for a Saxon genitive here: the genitive of reproach cannot
be pronounced without an additional syl'able. BosWELL. =
54:) The homely villein court'sies to her low;] Villein has
here its ancient legal signification; that of a slave. The
term court'sy was formerly applied to men as well as to
women. MALONE. = 55:) this pattern of the worn out
age] This example of ancient simplicity and virtue. So,
in King Richard 111.: "Behold this pattern of thy but-
cheries." See also note 29. We meet with nearly the
same expression in our author's 68th Sonnet: "Thus is his
check the map of days out-worn." MALONE. So, in As
You Like It:
how well in thee appears "The con-
stant service of the antique world." STEEVENS. 56:) Be-
fore the which is drawn-] That is, before Troy. MALONE.
Drawn, in this instance, does not signify delineated, but
drawn out into the field, as armies are. So, in King
Henry IV.: "He cannot draw his power these fourteen
days." STEEVENS.= 57:) For Helen's 'rape-] Rape is used
by all our old poets in the sense of raptus, or carrying
away by force. It sometimes also siguifies the person forci
bly carried away. MALONE. 58:)— deep regard and smil-
ing government.] Profound wisdom, and the complacency
arising from the passions being under the command of rea-
The former word [regard] has already occurred more
than once in the same sense. MALONE.
59) Another,
smother'd, seems to pelt and swear;] To pelt meant, Í
think, to be clamorous, as men are in a passion. So, in an
old collection of tales, entitled Wits, Fits, and Fancies,
1614: "The young man, all in a pelting chafe." MALONE.
60:) Conceit deceitful, so compact, so kind,] An artful
delineation, so nicely and naturally executed. Kind and
nature, in old language, were synonymous. MALONE.61:)
To break upon the galled shore, and than—] Than for then.
This licence of changing the termination of words is some-
times used by our ancient poets, in imitation of the Italian
writers. Thus Daniel, in his Cleopatra, 1594: "And now
wilt yield thy streames || "A prey to other reames," i. e.
realms. Again, in his Complaint of Rosamond, 1592: “When
cleaner thoughts my weakness 'gan upbray, "Against my-
self, and shane did force me say.' Again, in Hall's Sa-
tires, 15 9: "As frozen dunghills in a winter's morne, || "That
voyd of vapours seemed all beforne, Soone as the sun,
&c. Again, ibid.: "His bonnet vail'd, or ever he could
thinke, "The unruly winde blowes off his periwinke."
Again, in Godrey of Bulloigne, translated by Fairfax, 1000:
"Time was, (for each one hath his doting time, || "These
silver locks were golden tresses than,) || "That countrie life
I hated as a crime, "And from the forests sweet content-
ment ran.' Again, in Drayton's Mortimeriados, sign. Q 1.
410. 1596: "Out of whose top the fresh springs trembling
downe, "Duly keep time with their harmonious sowne."
Again, in Songes and Sonnetes by the earle of Surrey and
others, edit. 1567, f. 81: "half the paine had never
man || "Which had this woful Troyan than." Many other
instances of the same kind might be added. See the next
note. MALONE. Reames, in the first instance produced, is
only the French royaumes affectedly anglicized. STEEVENS.
In Daniel's time the French word was usually written
royaulme. MALONE.=62:) To find a face where all distress
is stel'd.] Thus the quarto, and all the subsequent copies.-
In our author's twenty-fourth Sonnet we find these lines:
"Mine eye hath play'd the painter, and hath steel'd || “Thy
beauty's form in table of my heart. This therefore I sup-
pose to have been the word intended here, which the poet
altered for the sake of rhyme. So before-hild for held,
and than for then. He might, however, have written: "
where all distress is spell'd." i. e. written. So, in The
Comedy of Errors: "And careful hours with time's deformed
hand "Have written strange defeatures in my face." MA-

son.

=

So, in the Comedy of Errors: "That never words were
music to thine ear.' Hear has been printed instead of ear |
in the Taming of the Shrew; or at least the modern editors
have supposed so. MALONE. = 4;) — like a makeless wife;}
As a widow bewails her lost husband. Make and mate were
formerly synonymous. So, in Kyug Appolyn of Tyre, 1510:
"Certes, madam, I sholde have great joy yfe ye had such
a prynce to your make.' Again, in The Tragicall Hystory
of Romeus and Juliet, 1562: "Betwixt the armes of me, thy

=

LONE.= 63:) — the public plague of many mo?] Mo for || more. The word is now obsolete. MALONE. 64:) Here manly Hector faints, here Troilus swounds;] In the play of TroiJus and Cressida, his name is frequently introduced in the same manner as here, as a dissyllable. The mere English reader still pronounces the word as, I believe, Shakspeare did. Swounds is swoons. Swoon is constantly written sound or swound in the old copies of our author's plays; and from this stanza it is probable that the word was anciently pronounced as it is here written. So also Drayton in his Mor-perfect-loving make." MALONE. 5:) -for store,] i. e. to timeriados, 4to. no date: "Thus with the pangs out of this be preserved for use. MALONE. 6:) Save breed, to brave traunce areysed, "As water sometime wakeneth from a him,] Except children, whose youth may set the scythe of swound,As when the bloud is cold, we feele the wound.” Time at defiance, and render thy own death less painful MALONE. 65:) So sober-sad, so weary, and so mild, ||(As || MALONE.=7:) Which husbandry in honour might uphold —} if with grief or travail he had fainted,) || To me came Tar- Husbandry is generally used by Shakspeare for economical quin armed; so beguil'd || With outward honesty,] “To me prudence. So, in King Henry V.: "For our bad neighbours came Tarquin with the same armour of hypocrisy that Sinon make us early stirrers, "Which is both healthful and good wore.' The old copy reads: "To me came Tarquin armed husbandry." MALONE. 8:) By oft predict -] Dr. Sewel to beguild "With outward honesty," &c. To must, I think, reads-By aught predict; but the text is right. So, in the have been a misprint for so. Beguil'd is beguiling. Our Birth of Merlin, 1602: "How much the oft report of this author frequently confounds the active and passive partici- bless'd hermit "Hath won on my desires!" MALONE. The ple. Thus, in Othello, delighted for delighting: "It virtue old reading may be the true cue. "By oft predict" may no delighted beauty lack-" MALONE. I think the reading mean-By what is most frequently prognosticated.' STEEproposed is right; and would point thus: "To me came VENS. 9:) If from thyself to store thou wouldst convert:] Tarquin armed; so beguil'd "With outward honesty, but If thou would'st change thy single state, and beget a soyet," &c. So beguil'd is so cover'd, so masked with fraud, merous progeny. So, before: "Let those whom nature hath 1. e. like Sinon, Thus in The Merchant of Venice, Act III. not made for store." Again, in Romeo and Juliet: “O, she Sc. II.: "Thus ornament is but the guiled shore || “To_a is rich in beauty; only poor, "That when she dies, with most dangerous sea." STEEVENS.= 66:) For every tear he beauty dies her store." MALONE. 10:) So should the lines falls,] He lets fall. So, in Othello: "Each tear she falls of life-] This appears to me obscure. Perhaps the peet would prove a crocodile." MALONE. A similar thought oc- wrote "the lives of life:" i. e. 'children.' MALONE. The curs in Troilus and Cressida: "For every false drop in her "lines of life" perhaps are 'living pictures,' viz. children. bawdy veins, "A Grecian's life hath sunk; for every scru- ANON. This explanation is very plausible. Shakspeare has pleIn her contaminated carrion weight, || "A Trojan hath again used line with a reference to painting in All's Well been slain." STEEVENS.=67:) These water galls in her dim That Ends Well: "And every line and trick of his sweet element--] The water-gall is some appearance attendant favour." MALONE. 11:). --my pupil pen,] This expression on the rainbow. The word is current among the shepherds may be considered as a slight proof that the poems before on Salisbury plain. STEEVENS. = 68:) And then in key-cold us were our author's earliest compositions. STEEVENS, = Lucrece' bleeding stream-] This epithet is frequently used 12:) To give away yourself, keeps yourself still;] To proby our author and his contemporaries. So, in King Ri- duce likenesses of yourself, (that is, children,) will be the chard III.: "Poor key-cold figure of a holy king." MALONE. means of preserving your memory. MALONE. 13:) Some69:) The Romans plausibly-] That is, with acclama- time too hot the eye of heaven, &c.] That is, the sun. So, tions. To express the same meaning, we should now say, in Romeo and Juliet: "Now, ere the sun advance his burnplausively: but the other was the phraseology of Shak- ing eye-." Again, in King Richard II.: "--when the speare's age. So, in Stowe's Chronicle, p. 1426, edit. 1605: searching eye of heaven is hid || "Behind the globe, and This change was very plausible or well pleasing to the lights the lower world." Again, in Tarquin and Lucrece: nobility and gentry." Bullokar in his English Expositor, The eye of heaven is out." MALONE. 14:) Nor lose pos8vo. 1616, interprets plausible thus: "That which greatly session of that fair thou owest;] Of that beauty thou pespleaseth, or rejoiceth." MALONE. Plausibly may mean, sessest. Fair was, in our author's time, used as a substantive. with expressions of applause. Plausibilis, Lat. STEE- To owe in old language is to possess. MALONE. = 15:)— the master-mistress of my passion;] It is impossibile to read this fulsome panegyric, addressed to a male object, without an equal mixture of disgust and indignation. We may remark also, that the same phrase employed by Shakspeare to denote the height of encomium, is used by Dryden to express the extreme of reproach: "That woman, but more daub'd; or, if a man, "Corrupted to a woman; thy man-mistress." Don Sebastian. Let me be just, however, to our author, who has made a proper use of the term male varlet, in Troilus and Cressida. See that play, Act V. Se. L. STEEVENS. Some part of this indignation might perhaps have been abated, if it had been considered that such addresses to men, however indelicate, were customary in our author's time, and neither imported criminality,” nor were esteemed indecorous. To regulate our judgment of Shakspeare's poems by the modes of modern times, is surely as unreasonable as to try his plays by the rules of Aris! totle. Master-mistress does not perhaps mean man-mistress, but sovereign mistress. See Mr. Tyrwhitt's note on the 165th verse of the Canterbury Tales, vol. iv. p. 197. MALONE. 16:) A man in hue all hues in his controlling,] This line is thus exhibited in the old copy: "A man in hew all Hews in his controlling." Hews was the old mode of spelling hues (colours), and also Hughes, the proper name. MALONE =17:) But since she prick'd thee out, &c.] To prick is to nominate by a puncture or mark. So, in Julius Cæsar: "These many then shall die, their names are prick d. Again, in King Henry IV. Part 11.: “Shall I prick him, Sir John? I have given a wrong explanation of this phrase elsewhere. STEEVENS.=18:) Making a couplement - That is, an union. So, in Love's Labour's Lost: "I wish you the peace of mind, most royal couplement." I formerly thought this word was of our author's invention, but I have lately found it in Spenser's Faery Queene: "Allide with bands of mutual couplement." MALONE. 19:) That heaven's air in h this huge rondere hems.] Rondure is a round. Rondeur, Fr. The word is again used by our author in King Henry V.: 1 ""Tis not the roundure of your old-fac'd walls.” Malong. 20:) in death's dateless night,] Shakspeare generally uses the word dateless for endless; having no certain time of expiration. So, in Romeo and Juliet: "— seal with a righteous kiss "A dateless bargain to engrossing death." MALONE. 21:) The region cloud-] i. e. the clouds of this region or country. So, in Hamlet: "I should have faned all the region kites || "With this slave's offal." STEEVENS

VENS.

III. SONNETS.

1:)this glutton be, || To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.] The ancient editors of Shakspeare's works, deserve at least the praise of impartiality. If they have occasionally corrupted his noblest sentiments, they have likewise depraved his most miserable conceits; as, perhaps, in this instance. I read (piteous constraint, to read such stuff at all!) "--this glutton be; "To eat the world's due, be thy grave and thee." i. e. be at once thyself, and thy grave." The letters that form the two words were probably transposed. I did not think the late Mr. Rich had such example for the contrivance of making HarJequin jump down his own throat. STEEVENS. I do not believe there is any corruption in the text. Mankind being daily thinned by the grave, the world could not subsist if the places of those who are taken off by death were not filled up by the birth of children. Hence Shakspeare considers the propagation of the species as the world's due, as a right to which it is entitled, and which it may demand from every individual. The sentiment in the lines before us, it must be owned, is quaintly expressed; but the obscurity arises chiefly, I think, from the aukward collocation of the words for the sake of the rhyme. The meaning seems to me to be this. 'Pity the world, which is daily depopulated by the grave, and beget children, in order to supply the loss; or, if you do not fulfil this duty, acknowledge, that as a glutton swallows and consumes more than is sufficient for his own support, so you (who by the course of nature must die, and by your own remissness are likely to die childless) thus "living and dying in single blessedness," consume and destroy the world's due; to the desolation of which you will doubly contribute; 1. by thy death; 2. by thy dying childless.' 'Our author's plays, as well as the poems now before us, affording a sufficient number of conceits, it is rather hard that he should be answerable for such as can only be obtained through the medium of alteration; that he should be ridiculed not only for what he has, but for what he has not written. MALONE. 2)--whose un-ear'd womb | Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?] Thus, in Measure for Measure: " -her plenteous womb "Expresseth his full tilth and husbandry." STEEVENS. Un-ear'd is unploughed. MALONE. 3:) Music to hear, &c.] O Thou, whom to hear, is music, why, &c. I have sometimes thought Shakspeare might have written- Music to ear, &c. i. e. thou, whose every accent is music to the ear.

22:) Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are:] The old copy here also has their twice, instead of thy. The latter words of this line, whichever reading we adopt, are not very intelligible. MALONE. "Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are," I believe, means only this: 'Making the excuse more than proportioned to the offence.' STEEVENS.

A

=

work; "But, when they seldom come, they wish'd-for
come; "And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents." Again,
ibidem: "______ my state, "Seldom, but sumptuous, shewed
like a feast, "And won by zareness much solemnity." MA-
LONE. "feasts so solemn and so rare." He means the
four festivals of the year. STEEVENS = 32:) Or captain
jewels in the carcanet.] Jewels of superior worth. So, in
Timon of Athens: "The ass more captain than the lion,
and the fellow "Loaden with irons, wiser than the judge."
Again, in the 66th Sonnet: "And captive Good attending
captain III." The carcanet was an ornament worn round
the neck. MALONE. = 33:) The other as your bounty, &c.]
The foizon, or plentiful season, that is, the autumn, is the
emblem of your bounty. So, in The Tempest: "How does
my bounteous sister [Ceres]?" Again, in Antony and Cleo-
patra: "For his bounty, "There was no winter in't;
an autumn 'twas, "That grew the more by reaping." MA-
LONE. - 34:) the world without-end hour,] The tedious
hour, that seems as if it would never cud. So, in Love's
Labour's Lost: "a time, methinks, too short || "To
make a world without-end bargain in." i. e. an everlasting
bargain. MALONE. 35) Show me your image in some
antique book, | Since mind at first in character was done!]
Would that I could read a description of you in the earliest
manuscript that appeared after the first use of letters.
That this is the meaning appears clearly from the next
line: "That I might see what the old world could say.'
Again: "the wits of former days," &c. We yet use
the word character in the same sense. MALONE. This may
allude to the ancient custom of inserting real portraits
among the ornaments of illuminated manuscripts, with in-
scriptions under them. STEEVENS. = = 36:) Nativity once in
the main of light,] In the great body of light. So, the
main of waters. MALONE. 37:) And delves the parallels
in beauty's brow ;] Renders what was before even and smooth,
rough and uneven. So, in the second Sonnet: "When forty
winters shall besiege thy brow, "And dig deep trenches
in thy beauty's field." Again, in the 19th Sonnet:
Swift footed time, "O carve not with thy hours my love's
fair brow, "Nor draw no line there with thine antique
pen." Our author uses the word parallel in the same sense
in Othello: "How am I then a villain, "To counsel
Cassio to this parallel course?" MALONE. 38:) 0 fearful
meditation! where, alack! "Shall time's best jewel from
time's chest lie hid?] I once thought Shakspeare might
have written from time's quest, but am now convinced
that the old reading is right. "Time's best jewel" is the
person addressed, who, the author feared, would not be
able to escape the devastation of time, but would fall a
pray, however beautiful, to his all subduing power. So, in
his 48th Sonnet:
thou, to whom my jewels trifles

=23:) For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense,] Thus || playing holidays, || “To spart would be as tedious as to the quarto. The fine appears to me unintelligible. Might we read: "For to thy sensual fault I bring incense-." jingle was evidently intended; but if this word was occasionally accented on the last syllable, (as perhaps it might formerly have been,) it would afford it as well as the reading of the old copy. Many words that are now accented on an early syllable, had formerly their accent on one more remote. Thus, in A Midsummer-Night's Dream: "It stands as an edict in destiny." Again, in Hamlet: "Did slay this Fortinbras, who by a seal'd compact-. Again, in Measure for Measure: "This is the hand, which with a vow'd contract-." Again, in King Henry V.: ""Tis no sinister, nor no aukward claim-." Again, in Locrine, a tragedy, 1595: "Nor my exile can move you to revenge.' Again, in our author's 50th Sonnet: "As if by some instinct the wretch did find.” Again, in the 128th Sonnet: "Do I envy' those jacks that nimble leap-." Again, in Tarquin and Lucrece: "With pure aspects did him peculiar duties." Again, ibid.: "If in thy hope thou dar'st do such outrage." Again, ibid.: "But her fore sight could not forestall their will.' Again in Troilus and Cressida: "Peaceful commerce from dividable shores." Dryden has concluded a line with the same word, which to our ears sounds as oddly as incense would: "Instructed ships shall sail to quick commerce." MALONE. believe the old reading to be the true one. The passage, divested of its jingle, seems designed to express this meaning. Towards thy exculpation, I bring in the aid of my soundest faculties, my keenest perception, my utmost strength of reason, my sense.' I think I can venture to affirm that no English writer, either ancient or modern, serious or burlesque, ever accented the substantive incense on the last syllable. STEEVENS. 24:) Though in our lives a separable spite,] A cruel fate, that spitefully separates us from each other. Separable for separating MALONE.=25:) So I, made lame by fortune's dearest spite,]|| Dearest is most operative. So, in Hamlet: "Would 1 had met my dearest foe in heaven." A late editor, Mr. Capell, grounding himself on this line, and another in the 89th Sonnet, Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt,—' conjectured that Shakspeare was literally lame: but the expression appears to have been only figurative. So again, in Coriolanus: "--I cannot help it now, "Unless by us. ing means I lame the foot "Of our design.” Again, in As You Like It: "Which I did store to be my foster-nurse, [] "When service should in my old limbs lie lame." In the 89th Sonnet the poet speaks of his friends imputing a fault to him of which he was not guilty, and yet, he says, he would acknowledge it: so, (he adds,) were he to be described as lame, however untruly, yet rather than his friend should appear in the wrong, he would immediately halt. If Shakspeare was in truth Tame, he had it not in his power to halt occasionally for this or any other purpose. The are, || "Thee have I not lock'd up in any chest, "Save where defect must have been fixed and permanent. The context thou art not, though I feel thou art. This allusion is a in the verses before us in like manner refutes this notion. favourite one of Shakspeare, for he has introduced it in If the words are to be understood literally, we must then several places. Thus again, in King Richard II.: "A jewel suppose that our admired poet was also poor and despised,|| in a ten-times-barr'd-up chest || "Is -a bold spirit in a loyal for neither of which suppositions there is the smallest breast." Again, in Tarquin and Lucrece: "She wakes her ground. MALONE. " made lame by fortune's dearest heart by beating on her breast, || "And bids it leap from spite." So, in King Lear: "A most poor man, made tame thence, where it may find "Some purer chest, to close so to fortune's blows. STEEVENS.=26:) Entitled in thy parts pure a mind." Again, in King John: "They found him do crowned sit,] This is a favourite expression of Shak- dead, and thrown into the street, "An empty casket, where speare. So, in King Henry IV. Part I.: "And on thy eye- the jewel of life "By some damn'd villain was robb'd and lids crown the god of sleep." Again, in Twelfth Night: ta'en away!" A similar conceit is found in an Epitaph on It yields a very echo to the seat "Where love is throned." Prince Henry, eldest son of King James I. written in 1613: Again, in Timon of Athens: "And in some sort these wants "Within this marble casket lies "A matchless jewel of rich of mine are crown'd, || "That I account them blessings." price; "Whom nature, in the world's disdain, || "But Entitled means, I think, ennobled. The old copy reads - shrew'd, and then put up again." The chest of Time is in their parts. The same error, as has been already ob- the repository where he lays up the most rare and curious served, has happened in many other places. MALONE. "En-productions of nature; one of which the poet esteemed his titled in thy parts." So, with equal obscurity, in Tar- friend. vobis male sit, malæ tenebræ Orci, quæ omnia quin and Lucrece: "But beauty, in that white intituled, || bella devoratis. Catul. MALONE. Time's chest is the repo"From Venus' doves doth challenge that fair field." I sup-sitory into which he is poetically supposed to throw those pose he means, that beauty takes its title from that fairthings which he designs to be forgotten. Thus, in Troilus ness or white.' STEEVENS. 27:) If I lose thee, my loss and Cressida: "Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, || is my love's gain,] If I lose thee, my mistress gains by "Wherein he puts alms for oblivion." Again, in Sonnet LII.: my loss. MALONE. 28:) so much of earth and water "So is the time that keeps you, as my chest." The thief wrought,] i. e. being so thoroughly compounded of these who evades pursuit, may be said with propriety to lie hid two ponderous elements. Thus, in Antony and Cleopatra: from justice, or from confinement. STEEVENS. 39:) And "I am air and fire, my other elements "1 give to lace itself with his society?] i. e. embellish itself. So, in baser life." STEEVENS. Again, in King Henry V.: "He is Romeo and Juliet: " what envious streaks "Do lace pure air and fire; and the dull elements of earth and water the severing clouds." STEEVENS.=40:) Before the golden never appear in him." MALONE. = 29:) To 'cide this title tresses of the dead, The right of sepulchres, were shorn is impanelled-] To 'cide, for to decide. The old copy away, To live a second life on second. head;] Our author reads-side. MALONE. 30:) Shall neigh (no dull flesh) in has again inveighed against this practice in The Merchant his firy race;] The expression is here so uncouth, that I of Venice: "So are those crisped snaky golden locks, strongly suspect this line to be corrupt. Perhaps we should "Which make such wanton gambols with the wind, "Upon read: Shall neigh to dull flesh, in his firy race." Desire, supposed fairness, often known To be the dowry of a in the ardour of impatience, shall call to the sluggish second head, "The skull that bred them in the sepulchre." animal, (the horse) to proceed with swifter motion. MA- Again, in Timon of Athens: "--thatch your poor thin LONE. Perhaps this passage is only obscured by the auk-roofs "With burdens of the death." So, in Swetnam Arward situation of the words no dull flesh. The sense may raigned by Women, a comedy, 1620: She'll instruct be this: "Therefore desire, being no dull piece of horse- them how-to-use, The mysteries, painting, curling, flesh, but composed of the most perfect love, shall neigh powd'ring, "And with strange periwigs, pin-knots, borderas he proceeds in his hot career. "A good piece of horse-ings, || "To"deck them up, like to a vintner's bush, || "For flesh is a term still current in the stable. Such a profusion of words, and only to tell us that our author's passion was impetuous, though his horse was slow! STEEVENS. 31:) Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare, Since seldom coming, in the long year set, || Like stones of worth, &c.] So, in King Henry IV. Part I.: "If all the year were

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man to gaze at on a midsummer-night." In our author's time, the false hair usually worn, perhaps in compliment to the queen, was of a sandy colour. Hence the epithet golden. See Hentzner's Account of Queen Elizabeth. MALONE. 41:) The solve is this,] This is the solution. The quarto reads: "The solye is this." I have not found the

word now placed in the text, in any author: but have inserted it rather than print what appears to me unintelligible. We meet with a similar sentiment in the 102d Sonnet:

in a

in

119

this time remov'd!] This_time in which I was remote or
absent from thee. So, in Measure for Measure: "He ever
lov'd the life remov'd." Again, in King Henry IV. Part I. :
"nor did he think it meet "To lay so dangerous and
dear a trust ||“On any soul remov'd.” MALONE 57:) The
teeming autumn, big with rich increase, || Bearing the wan-
ton burden of the prime,] So, in A Midsummer-Night's
Dream:
The spring, the summer, "The childing
autumn, angry winter, change "Their wonted livries; and
the 'mazed world "By their increase now knows not which
is which." The prime is the spring. Increase is the pre-
duce of the earth. MALONE. = 58:) Could make me any
summer's story tell,] By a summer's story Shakspeare
seems to have meant some gay fiction. Thus, his comedy
founded on the adventures of the king and queen of the
tairies, he calls A Midsummer-Night's Dream. On the other
hand, in The Winter's Tale he tells us, "a sad tale's best
for winter." So also, in Cymbeline: “— — if it be summer
news, "Smile to it before: if winterly, thou need'st |“Bat
keep that countenance still." MALONE. = 59:) The lily
condemned for thy hand,] I condemned the lily for pre-
suming to emulate the whiteness of thy hand. MALONE. =
60:) So thou prevent'st his scythe, &c.] i. e. so by anticipa-
tion thou hinderest the destructive effects of his weapons.
STEEVENS. = 61:) and death to me subscribes, Since,
spite of him, I'll live in this poor rhyme, While he in-
sults o'er dull and speechless tribes.] To subscribe, is to
acknowledge as a superior, to obey. So, in Troilus and
Cressida: "For Hector in his blaze of wrath subscribes ¦
"To tender objects." MALONE. So, in Dr. Young's Busiris:
“Like death, a solitary king I'll reign, “O'er silent sub-
jects and a desert plain." STEEVENS. = 62:) in love's
fresh case-] By the case of love the poet means his own
compositions MALONE. 63:) And made myself a molicy
to the view,] Appeared like a fool (of whom the dress was
formerly a motley coat). MALONE. = 64:) Gor'd mine ora
thoughts,] I know not whether this be a quaintness, er a
corruption. STEEVENS. The text is probably not corrupt,
for our author has employed the same word in Troilus and
Cressida: "My fame is shrewdly gor'd." The meaning
seems to be, I have wounded my own thoughts; I have
acted contrary to what I knew to be right.' MALONE. We
meet with the same expression in Hamlet: "Till by seme
elder masters, of known honour, ||“] have a voice and pre-
cedent of peace, || "To keep my name ungor'd." BasWELL.
=65:) These blenches gave my heart another youth,} These
starts or aberrations from rectitude. So, in Hamlet:
I'll observe his looks; "I'll tent him to the quick; if he bat
blench, || “I know my course." MALONE.=66:) Than public
means, which public manners breeds.] The author seems
here to lament his being reduced to the necessity of ap-
pearing on the stage, or writing for the theatre. MALONE
See the Preliminary Remarks. BoswELL. = 67:) Potions
of eysell, 'gainst my strong infection;] Eysell is vinegar.
So, in A Mery Geste of the Frere and the Boye: "God
that dyed for us all, "And dranke both eysell and gall."
STEEVENS. Vinegar is esteemed very efficacious in pre-
venting the communication of the plague and other co-
tagious distempers. MALONE. 68:) For what care I who
calls me well or ill, So you o'er green my bad, my good
allow? I am indifferent to the opinion of the world, if
you do but throw a friendly veil over my faults, and ap-
prove of my virtues. The allusion seems to be either is
the practice of covering a bare coarse piece of ground
with fresh green-sward, or to that of planting ivy or jessa-
nine to conceal an unsightly building. To allow, in ancient
language, is to approve. MALONE. I would read: "-- o'er
grieve my bad," í e. I care not what is said of me, so that
you compassionate my failings, and approve my virtues.
STEEVENS. 6:) That my steel'd sense or changes, right |
or wrong ] It appears from the next line but one, that sense
is here used for senses. We might better read: "--ea
changes, right or wrong." MALONE. "None else to me, sar
1 to none alive, "That my steel'd sense or changes, right
or wrong." The meaning of this purblind and obscure stuff
seems to be 'You are the only person who has power to
change my stubborn_resolution, either to what is right, or
to what is wrong.' STEEVENS. 70:)-— that my adder's
sense To critic and to flatterer stopped are] That my
ears are equally deaf to the snarling censurer, and the
flattering encomiast. Critic for cynic. So, in Love's La-
bour's Lost: "And critic Timon laugh at idle toys." Our
author again alludes to the deafness of the adder in Troi-
lus and Cressida: " ears more deaf than adders to the
voice "Of any true decision." MALONE.=71:) That sil
the world besides methinks they are dead.] The quarte has
-"That all the world besides methinks y'are dead.” Y"are
was, I suppose, an abbreviation for they are or th' are.
Such unpleasing contractions are often found in our eld
pocts. MALONE. The sense is this, I pay no regard to i
the sentiments of mankind; and observe how I account fer
this my indifference. I think so much of you, that I have
no leisure to be anxious about the opinions of others. I
proceed as if the world, yourself excepted, were no more
STEEVENS, 72:) Doth part his function, That is, partly
performs his office. MALONE. 73:)- which it deth fatch.)
The old copy reads it doth lack. The corresponding
rhyme shows that what I have now substituted was the
author's word. To latch formerly signified to lay hold of.
So, in Macbeth: "But I have words, "That should
be howl'd out in the desert air, "Where hearing should

sweets grown common lose their dear delight." The modern editions read: "The toil is this." MALONE. 1 believe we should read: “The sole is this." i. e. here the only explanation lies; this is all. STEEVENS. 42:) The ornament of beauty is suspect,] Suspicion or slander is a constaut attendant on beauty, and adds new lustre to it. Suspect is used as a substantive in King Henry VI. Part II. Again, by Middleton in A Mad World my Masters, a comedy, 1008: "And poize her words i'the ballance of suspect." MALONE. 43:) Thy worth the greater, being woo'd of time;] The old copy here, as in many other places, reads corruptly Their worth, &e. I strongly suspect the latter words of this line also to be corrupt. What idea does worth woo'd of [that is, by] time, present? Perhaps the poet means, that however slandered his friend may be at present, his worth shall be celebrated in all future time. MALONE. Perhaps we are to disentangle the transposition of the passage, thus: 'So thou be good, slander, being woo'd of time, doth but approve thy worth the greater, i. e. if you are virtuous, slander, being the favourite of the age, only stamps the stronger mark of approbation on your merit. I have already shewn, on the authority of Ben Jonson, that "of time" means, of the then present one. STEEVEN. Might we not read being wood of time? taking wood for an epithet applied to slander, siguitying frantic, doing mischief at random. Shakspeare often uses this old word. So, in Venus and Adonis: “Life-poisoning pestilence, and frenzies wood." I am far from being satisfied with this conjecture, but can make no sense of the words as they are printed. C.44:) clean starved for a look;] That is, wholly starved. So, in Julius Cæsar: "Clean from the purpose of the things themselves." MALONE. So, in The Comedy of Errors: "While I at home starve for a merry look." STEEVENS.45:) Or gluttoning on all, or all away.] That is, either feeding on various dishes, or having nothing on my board, all being away. MALONE. Perhaps, or all away, may signify, or away with all! i. e. 1 either devour like a glutton what is within my reach, or command all provisions to be removed out of my sight. STEEVENS. = 46:) noted weed,] i. e, in a dress by which it is always known, as those persons are who always wear the same colours. STEEVENS. 47:) Of mouthed graves-] That is, of alldevouring graves. Thus, in King Richard III.: the swallowing gulph || "Of dark forgetfulness and deep oblivion." Again, in Venus and Adonis: "What is thy body but a swallowing grave?" MALONE.=48:) Knowing a better || spirit doth use your name,] Spirit is here, as in many other places, used as a monosyllable. Curiosity will na turally endeavour to find out who this better spirit was, to whom even Shakspeare acknowledges himself inferior. There was certainly no poet in his own time with whom he needed to have feared a comparison; but these Sonnets being probably written when his name was but little known, and at a time when Spenser was in the zenith of his reputation, I imagine he was the person here aliuded to. MALONE. 49:) And therefore have I slept in your report,] And therefore I have not sounded your praises. MALONE. The same phrase occurs in King Henry VIII.: "Heaven will one day open || "The king's eyes, that so long have slept upon "This bold, bad man." Again, in King Henry IV. Part 1.:"-hung their eyelids down || “Slept in his face STEEVENS. 50:) When others would give life, and bring a tomb.] When others endeavour to celebrate your character, while, in fact, they disgrace it by the meanness of their composition. MALONE. = 51:) Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse.] i, e. being fond of such panegyric as debases what is praiseworthy in you, instead of exalting it. On in ancient books is often printed for of It may mean, "behaving foolishly on receiving praise." STEEVENS. Fond on was certainly used by Shakspeare for fond of. So, in Twelfth Night: "--my master loves her dearly: "And I, poor monster, fond as much on him." Again, in Holland's translation of Suetonius, folio, 106, p. 21: "He was enamoured also upon queenes." MALONE. =52:)-fil'd up his line,] i. c. polish'd it. So, in Ben Jonson's Verses on Shakspeare: "In his well-torned and truefiled lines." STEEVENS.=53:) I will acquaintance strangle,] I will put an end to our familiarity. This expression is again used by Shakspeare in Twelfth Night: "it is the baseness of thy fear "That makes thee strangle thy propriety." Again, in King Henry VIII: " - he has strangled "His language in his tears." Again, in The Winter's Tale: "Strangle such thoughts as these with any thing, ! "That you behold the while. Again, more appositely in Antony and Cleopatra: "You shall find the band that seems to tie their friendship together, shall be the very strangler of their amity." So also Daniel, in his Cleopatra, 1594: "Rocks strangle up thy waves, "Stop cataracts thy fall!" MALONE. This uncouth phrase seems to have been a favourite with Shakspeare, who uses it again in Macbeth: night strangles the travelling lamp' STEEVENS,= 54:) Both grace and faults are lov'd of more and less:] By great and small. So, in King Henry IV. Part I.: "The more and less came in," &c. MALONE. = 55:) If like a lamb he could his looks translate!] If he could change his natural look, and assume the innocent visage of the lamb. So, in Timou of Athens: "--to present slaves and servants "Translates his rivals." MALONE. = 56:) And yet

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