Chapter 16

III.ii.107 (309,3) [I have got strength of limit] I know not well how _strength_ of _limit_ can mean _strength to pass the limits_ of the childbed chamber, which yet it must mean in this place, unless we read in a more easy phrase, _strength of_ limb. _And_ now, &c.

III.ii.123 (310,4) [The flatness of my misery] That is, how low, how _flat_ I am laid by my calamity.

III.ii.146 (310,5) [Of the queen's speed] Of the _event_ of the queen's trial: so we still say, he _sped_ well or ill.

III.ii.173 (311,6) [Does my deeds make the blacker!] This vehement retraction of Leontes, accompanied with the confession of more crimes than he was suspected of, is agreeable to our daily experience of the vicissitudes of violent tempers, and the eruptions of minds oppressed with guilt.

III.ii.187 (312,7)

[That thou betray'dst Polixenes, 'twas nothing That did but shew thee, of a fool, inconstant, And damnable ungrateful]

[T: of a soul] [W: shew thee off, a fool] Poor Mr. Theobald's courtly remark cannot be thought to deserve much notice. Or. Warburton too might have spared his sagacity if he had remembered, that the present reading, by a mode of speech anciently much used, means only, _It shew'd thee_ first _a fool_, then _inconstant and ungrateful_.

III.ii.219 (314,9) [I am sorry for't] This it another instance of the sudden changes incident to vehement and ungovernable minds.

III.iii.1 (315,1) [Thou art perfect then] _Perfect_ is often used by Shakeapeare for _certain, well assured_, or _well informed_.

III.iii.56 (317,2) [A savage clamour!--Well may I get aboard--This is the chace] This clamour was the cry of the dogs and hunters; then seeing the bear, he cries, _this is the chace_. or, the _animal pursued_.

IV.i.6 (321,9) [and leave the growth untry'd Of that wide gap] [W: gulf untry'd] This emendation is plausible, but the common reading is consistent enough with our author's manner, who attends more to his ideas than to his words. _The growth of the wide gap_, is some-what irregular; but he means, the _growth_, or progression of the time which filled up the _gap_ of the story between Perdita's birth and her sixteenth year. _To leave this growth untried_, is _to leave the passages of the intermediate years unnoted and unexamined. Untried_ is not, perhaps, the word which he would have chosen, but which his rhyme required.

IV.i.7 (321,1)

[since it is in my power To o'erthrow law, and in one self-born hour To plant and o'erwhelm custom. Let me pass The same I am, ere ancient'st order was, Or what is now receiv'd]

The reasoning of _Time_ is not very clear! he seems to mean, that he who has broke so many laws may now break another; that he who introduced every thing, may introduce Perdita on her sixteenth year; and he intreats that he may pass as of old, before any _order_ or succession of objects, ancient or modern, distinguished his periods.

IV.i.19 (322,2)

[Imagine me, Gentle spectators, that I now may be In fair Bohemia]

_Time_ is every where alike. I know not whether both sense and grammar may not dictate,

--_imagine_ we, Gentle spectators, that_ you _now may be_, &c. Let _us_ imagine that _you_, who behold these scenes, are now in Bohemia?

IV.i.29 (322,3) [Is the argument of time] _Argument_ is the same with _subject_.

IV.i.32 (322,4) [He wishes earnestly you newer may] I believe this speech of _time_ rather begins the fourth act than concludes the third.

IV.ii.21 (323,6) [and my profit therein, the heaping friendships] [W. reaping] I see not that the present reading is nonsense; the sense of _heaping friendships_ is, though like many other of our author's, unusual, at least unusual to modern ears, is not very obscure. _To be more thankful shall be my study; and my profit therein the heaping friendships._ That is, _I will for the future be more liberal of recompence, from which I shall receive this advantage, that as I heap benefits I shall heap friendships, as I confer favours on thee I shall increase the friendship between us._

IV.ii.35 (324,7) [but I have, missingly, noted] [W. missing him] [Hammer; musingly noted] I see not how the sense is mended by Sir T. Hammer's alteration, nor how is it at all changed by Dr. Warburton's.

IV.iii.3 (325,9)

[_Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year; For the red blood reigns in the winter pale_]

Dr. Thirlby reads, perhaps rightly, certainly with much more probability, and easiness of construction;

_For the red blood_ runs _in the_ winter _pale._ That is, _for the red blood runs pale in the winter._ Sir T. Banner reads,

_For the red blood reigns_ o'er _the winter's pale._

IV.iii.7 (326,1) [pugging tooth] Sir T. Hammer, and after his, Dr. Warburton, read, _progging tooth_. It is certain that _pugging_ is not now understood. But Dr. Thirlby observes, that this is the cant of gypsies.

IV.iii.28 (327,7) [Gallows, and knock, are too powerful on the highway; beating and hanging are terrors to me] The resistance which a highwayman encounters in the fact, and the punishment which he suffers on detection, withold me from daring robbery, and determine me to the silly cheat and petty theft. (1773)

IV.iii.99 (330,4) [abide] To _abide_, here, must signify, to _sojourn_, to live for a time without a settled habitation.

IV.iv.6 (331,7) [To chide at your extremes, it not becomes me] That is, your _excesses_, the _extravagance_ of your praises.

IV.iv.8 (331,8) [The gracious mark o' the land] The _object_ of all men's _notice_ and expectation.

IV.iv.13 (332,9) [sworn, 1 think, To shew myself a glass] [Banner: swoon] Dr. Thirlby inclines rather to Sir T. Hanmer's emendation, which certainly makes an easy sense, and is, in my opinion, preferable to the present reading. But concerning this passage I know not what to decide.

IV.ii.21 (333,1) [How would he look, to see his work, so noble, Vilely bound up!] It is impossible for any man to rid his mind of his profession. The authorship of Shakespeare has supplied him with a metaphor, which rather than he would lose it, he has put with no great propriety into the month of a country maid. Thinking of his own works, his mind passed naturally to the binder. I am glad that he has no hint at an editor.

IV.ii.76 (335,2) [Grace and remembrance] _Rue_ was called _herb of grace. Rosemary_ was the emblem of remembrance; I know not why, unless because it was carried at funerals. (see 1765, II,300,5)

IV.iv.143 (338,6)

[Each your doing, So singular in each particular, Crowns what you're doing in the present deeds] That is, your manner in each act crowns the act.

IV.iv.155 (338,8) [_Per_. I'll swear for 'em] I fancy this half line is placed to a wrong person. And that the king begins his speech aside

Pol. _I'll swear for 'em This is the prettiest_. &c.

IV.iv.164 (339,1) [we stand upon our manners] That is, we are now on our behaviour.

IV.iv.169 (339,2) [a worthy feeding] I conceive _feeding_ to be a _pasture_, and a _worthy feeding_ to be a tract of pasturage not inconsiderable, not unworthy of my daughter's fortune.

IV.iv.204 (340,3) [unbraided wares?] Surely we must read _braided_, for such are all the _wares_ mentioned in the answer.

IV.iv.212 (341,5) [sleeve-band] Is put very properly by Sir T. Hammer, it was before _sleeve--hand_.

IV.iv.316 (346,9) [sad] For _serious_. (1773)

IV.iv.330 (346,1) [_That doth utter all mens' wear-a_] To _utter_. To _bring out_, or _produce_. (1773)

IV.iv.333 (347,3) [all men of hair] [W: i.e. nimble, that leap as if they rebounded] This is a strange interpretation. _Errors_, says Dryden, _flow upon the surface_, but there are men who will fetch them from the bottom. _Men of hair_, are _hairy men_, or _satyrs_. A dance of satyrs was no unusual entertainment in the middle ages. At a great festival celebrated in France, the king and some of the nobles personated satyrs dressed in close habits, tufted or shagged all over, to imitate hair. They began a wild dance, and in the tumult of their merriment one of them went too near a candle and set fire to his satyr's garb, the flame ran instantly over the loose tufts, and spread itself to the dress of those that were next him; a great number of the dancers were cruelly scorched, being neither able to throw off their coats nor extinguish them. The king had set himself in the lap of the dutchess of Burgundy, who threw her robe over him and saved him.

IV.iv.338 (347,4) [bowling] _Bowling_, I believe, is here a term for a dance of smooth motion with great exertion of agility.

IV.iv.411 (350,6) [dispute his own estate?] Perhaps for _dispute_ we might read _compute_; but _dispute his estate_ may be the same with _talk over his affairs_.

IV.iv.441 (351,7) [Not hold thee of our blood, no, not our kin, Far than Deucalion off] I think for _far than_ we should read _far as_. We will not hold thee of our kin even so far off as Deucalion the common ancestor of all.

IV.iv.493 (354,2) [and by my fancy] It must be remembered that _fancy_ in this author very often, as in this place, means _love_.

IV.iv.551 (356,3) [Ourselves to be the slaves of chance, and flies] As _chance_ has driven me to these extremities, so I commit myself to _chance_ to be conducted through them.

IV.iv.613 (359,6) [as if my trinkets had been hallowed] This alludes to beads often sold by the Romanists, as made particularly efficacious by the touch of some relick.

IV.iv.651 (360,7) [boot] that is, _something over and above_, or, as we now say, _something to boot_.

IV.iv.734 (362,9) [pedler's excrement] Is pedler's beard, (see 1765, II,323,2)

IV.iv.748 (363,1) [therefore they do not give us the lye] [W: do give] The meaning is, they are _paid_ for lying, therefore they do not give us the lye, they _sell_ it us. (1773)

IV.iv.768 (363,2) [Advocate's the court-word for a pheasant] This satire, or this pleasantry, I confess myself not well to understand.

IV.iv.779 (364,3) [A great man, I'll warrant; I know, by the picking on's teeth] It seems, that to pick the teeth was, at this time, a mark of some pretension to greatness or elegance. So the Bastard in _King John_, speaking of the traveller, says,

_He and_ his pick-tooth _at my worship's mess_.

IV.iv.816 (365,4) [the hottest day prognostication proclaims] That is, _the hottest day foretold in the almanack_.

V.i.14 (368,7) [Or, from the All that are, took something good] This is a favourite thought; it was bestowed on Miranda and Rosalind before.

V.i,19 (368,8) [What were more holy, Than to rejoice, the former queen is well] [W: rejoice the...queen? This will.] This emendation is one of those of which many may be made; It is such as we may wish the authour had chosen, but which we cannot prove that he did chuse; the reasons for it are plausible, but not cogent.

V.i.58 (370,9) [on this stage, (Where we offend her now)] [The offenders now appear] The Revisal reads,

_Were we offenders_ now----

very reasonably. (1773)

V.i.74 (371,1) [Affront his eye] _To affront_, is _to meet_.

V.i.98 (372,2) [Sir, you yourself Have said, and writ so] The reader must observe, that _so_ relates not to what precedes, but to what follows that, _she had not been'_----_equall'd_.

V.i.159 (374, 3) [whose daughter His tears proclaim'd his, parting with her] This is very ungrammatical and obscure. We aay better read,

----_whose daughter His tears proclaim'd_ her _parting with her_.

The prince first tells that the lady came _from Lybia_. the king interrupting him, says, _from Smalus; from him_, says the prince, _whose tears, at parting, shewed her to be his daughter_.

V.i.214 (376, 4) [Your choice is not so rich in worth as beauty] [W. in birth] _Worth_ is as proper as _birth. Worth_ signifies any kind of _worthiness_, and among others that of high descent. The King means that he is sorry the prince's choice is not in other respects as worthy of him as in beauty.

V.ii.105 (380, 5) [that rare Italian meter, Jolio Romano] [Theobald praised the passage but called it an anachronism] Poor Theobald's eucomium of this passage is not very happily conceired or expressed, nor is the passage of any eminent excellence; yet a little candour will clear Shakespeare from part of the impropriety imputed to him. By _eternity_ he means only i_mmortality_, or that part of eternity which is to come; so we talk of _eternal_ renown and _eternal_ infamy. _Immortality_ may subsist without _divinity_, and therefore the meaning only is, that if Julio could always continue his labours, he would mimick nature.

V.ii.107 (381, 6) [would beguile nature of her custom] That is, _of her trade,_--would draw her customers from her.

V.ii.118 (381, 7) [Who would be thence, that has the benefit of access?] It was, I suppose, only to spare his own labour that the poet put this whole scene into narrative, for though part of the transaction was already known to the audience, and therefore could not properly be shewn again, yet the two kings might have met upon the stage, and after the examination of the old shepherd, the young lady might have been recognised in sight of the spectators.

V.ii.173 (383, 8) [franklins say it] _Franklin_ is a _freeholder_, or _yeoman_, a man above a _Villain_, but not a _gentleman_.

V.ii.179 (383 ,9) [tall fellow] _Tall_, in that time, was the word used for _stout_.

V.iii.17 (384,1) [therefore I keep it Lonely, apart] [Hammer: lovely] I am yet inclined to _lonely_, which in the old angular writing cannot be distinguished from lovely. To say, that _I keep it alone, separate from the rest_, is a pleonasm which scarcely any nicety declines.

V.iii.46 (385,2) [Oh, patience] That is, _Stay a while, be not go eager_.

V.iii.56 (386,3)

[Indeed, my lord, If I had thought, the sight of my poor image Would thus have wrought you, (for the stone is mine) I'd not have shew'd it]

[Tyrwhitt: for the stone i' th' mine] To change an accurate expression for an expression confessedly not accurate, has somewhat of retrogradation. (1773)

V.iii.131 (389,6) [You precious winners all] You who by this discovery have _gained_ what you desired may join in festivity, in which I, who have lost what never can be recovered, can have no part.

(300) General Observation, Of this play no edition is known published before the folio of 1623.

This play, as Dr. Warburton justly observes, is, with all its absurdities, very entertaining. The character of Antolycus is very naturally conceived, and strongly represented, (see 1765, II, 349)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

General Introduction Introduction on Comedies Notes to _The Tempest The Two Gentlemen of Verona The Merry Wives of Windsor Measure for Measure The Comedy of Errors Much Ado About Nothing Love's Labour's Lost A Midsummer-Night's Dream The Merchant of Venice As You Like It The Taming of the Shrew All's Well that Ends Well Twelfth-Night The Winter's Tale