78. So, fo; rub on, and kifs the miftrefs.] The allufion is VOL. IX. to bowling. What we now call the jack, feems in Shak- TRO. AND fpeare's time to have been termed the mistress. A bowl that CRESSID. kiffes the jack or mistress, is in the most advantageous fitua tion. Rub on is a term at the fame game. So, in No Wit 66 -So, a fair riddance; "There's three rubs Again, in Vittoria Corrombona, a tragedy, by Webster, 1612: Cam." That noblemen bowl booty; 'faith his cheek "Hath a moft excellent bias; it would fain jump Again in Decker's Satiromaflix, 1602: "Mini. Since he hath hit the mistress so often in the foregame, we'll even play out the rubbers. "Sir Vaugh. Play out your rubbers in God's name; by Jefu I'll never bowl in your alley" MALONE. 83. As true as feel] It fhould be remembered that mirrors, in the time of our author, were made of plates of polished fteel. So, in The Renegado, by Maflinger: "Take down the looking-glafs;-here is a mirror Again, in The Downfal of Robert Earl of Huntington, by "For thy feel-glass wherein thou wont'st to look, "Thy chryftal eyes gaze in a chryftal brooke." One of Gascoigne's pieces is called the Steel-glafs; a title, which, from the fubject of the poem, he appears evidently to have used as fynonymous to mirror. The fame allufion is found in an old piece entitled The Pleafures of Poetry, no date, but printed in the time of queen Elizabeth: "Behold in her the lively glaffe, "The pattern true as fteel As true as feel therefore means—as true as the mirror, which faithfully reprefents every image that is prefented before it. MALONE. 84.as iron to adamant-] So, in Greene's Tu Quo que, 1599: MALONE. "That 242 VOL. IX. TRO. AND -That no man is the lord of any thing, "(Though in and of him there is much confifting) "Till he communicate his parts to others." So, Perfius: "Scire tuum nihil eft, nifi te fcire, hoc fciat alter." Ajax renown. MALONE. him The paffage as it ftands in the folio is hardly fenfe. If renown'd be right, we ought to read: 94. By an act &c. MALONE. -The cry went once on thee.] The folio has: out on thee. MALONE. 99. After Johnfon's note.] Question is frequently used in this fenfe by Shakspeare and his contemporaries. So, in The Two Noble Kinfmen, by Shakspeare and Fletcher, 1634: 66 -Be pleas'd to fhew "In gen'rous terms your griefs, fince that "Your question's with your equal." MALONE. 103. And dreaming night will hide our joys.] The folio reads: hide our eyes. MALONE. Ibid. With wings more momentary-swift than thought.] The fecond folio reads: With wings more momentary, fwifter than thought. MALONE. 106. At the end of note 7.] The fecrets of nature could hardly have been a corruption of the fecrets of neighbour Pandar." Perhaps the alteration was made by the author, and that he wrote: Good, good, my lord; the fecreteft of nature So, in Macbeth: -the fecreteft man of blood." MALONE. 107. If ever he leaves Troilus. Time, force, and death-] The fecond folio reads: -Time and death. MALONE. 110. Diftafted with the falt of broken tears.] Folio: III. -The Grecian youths The The Grecian youths are full of qualitie, I fuppofe the author wrote: They're loving The quarto omits the middle line: The Grecian youths are full of quality, And fwelling o'er with arts and exercife- MALONE. 133. To follow Steevens's note .] May we not rather fuppofe, that Shakspeare, who is fo frequently licentious in his language, meant nothing more by this epithet than borned, the bull's horns being crooked or oblique? MALONE. 143. That cause fets up with and against itself!] The folio reads: -against thyself. MALONE. 144. To follow Johnson's note ] So, in The Fatal Dowry, by Maflinger, 1632: ་ Your fingers tie my heart-ftrings with this touch, MALONE. VOL. IX. TRO. AND CYMBELIN E. 175. You speak him far.] or as it ftands in the old copy- CYMBE farri. Surely we ought to read: You fpeak him fair. which was formerly written faire. MALONE. 175. I do extend him, Sir, within himself.] To extend means here, as in many other places, to eflimate, or appretiate. However highly I eftimate him, my eftimation is fill fort of his real value. So, in a fubfequent scene of this play: "The approbations of those that weep this lamentable divorce, under her colours, are wonderfully to extend him." The term is, originally, legal. MALONE. 193. After note 7.] Dr. Warburton's alteration makes perfect fenfe, but the word not is not likely to have crept into the text without foundation. Printers fometimes omit, and fometimes mifrepresent an author's words, but I believe, scarcely ever infert words without even the femblance of authority R 2 from LINE. LINE. VOL. IX. from the manufcript before them; and therefore, in my ap CYMBE- prehenfion, no conjectural regulation of any paffage ought to be admitted, that requires any word of the text to be expunged, without fubftituting another in its place. Omiffions in the old copies of our author, are, I believe, more frequent than is commonly imagined. In the prefent inftance, I fufpect he wrote: I could not but believe &c. Thus the reafoning is exact and confequential.-If fhe exceeded other women that I have feen, in the fame proportion that your diamond furpaffes others that I have beheld, I could not but acknowledge that he excelled many; but I have not feen the most valuable diamond, nor you the most beautiful woman; and, therefore, I cannot allow that the excels all. As the paffage now ftands, even with Mr. Steevens's explanation, the latter member of the fentence-but I have not jeen &c. is not fufficiently oppofed to the former. MALONE. My fupreme crown of grief! ]The completion of my diftrefs. So, in K. Lear: "This would have feem'd a period "To fuch as love not forrow; but another, "To amplify too much, would make much more, "And top extremity." MALONE. Ibid. but most miferable, Is the defire that's glorious: bleed be thofe How mean foe'er, that have their honeft wills, Which feafon's comfort.] To follow Steevens's note, p. 202.-Imogen's fentiment, is in my apprehenfion, fimply this:-Had I been flolen away in my infancy, or (as fhe fays in another place) born a neat-herd's daughter, I had been happy. But instead of that, I am in a high, and, what is called, a glorious flation; and most miferable is fuch a fituation! Wretched is the wifh of which the object is glory! Happier far are those, how low foever their rank in life, who have it in their power to gratify their virtuous inclinations: a circumftance that gives an additional zeft to comfort itself, and renders it fomething more; or, (to borrow our author's words in another place) which keeps comfort always fresh and lasting. A line in Timon may perhaps prove the best comment on the former part of this paffage : "O the fierce wretchedness that glory brings!" Of the verb to feafon, as explained by Mr. Steevens, fo many inftances occur, that there can, I think, be no doubt of of the propriety of his interpretation. So, in Daniel's Cleo- VOL. IX. patra, a tragedy, 1594: "This that did feafon all my four of life" Again, in our author's Romeo and Juliet: "How much falt water thrown away in hafte, "To season love, that of it doth not tafte!" Again, in K. Richard III. : -This fuit of yours, "So feafon'd with your faithful love to me— Again, in The Merchant of Venice: "But being feafon'd with a gracious voice" Again, in Twelfth Night: All this to feafon "A brother's dead love, which the would keep fresh "And lafting in her remembrance." MALONE. 203. Upon the number'd beach ?] After Farmer's note, p. 204.-Theobald's conjecture is fupported by a paffage in K. Lear: "the "That on th' unnumber'd idle pebbles chafes Th' unnumber'd, and the number'd, approach fo nearly in found, that it is difficult for the ear to distinguish one from the other. MALONE. 204. Should make defire vomit emptinefs] To follow Johnson's note, p. 205.-No one who has been ever fick at fea, can be at a lofs to understand what is meant by vomiting emptiness. MALONE. 208. The remedy then born-] We should read, I think: MALONE. 211. He fits 'mongst men, like a defcended God:] The reading of the text, which was furnished by the fecond folio, is fupported by a paffage in Hamlet: "A ftation like the herald Mercury, "New lighted on a heaven-kiffing hill." The first folio reads: Did foftly prefs the rushes] This fhews that Shakspeare's idea was, that the ravishing ftrides of Tarquin were foftly ones, and may serve as a comment on that paffage in Macbeth. -E. CYMBE- |