To every hymn that able spirit affords, Was it the proud full fail of his great verse, I was not fick of any fear from thence. But when your countenance fil'd up his line, • Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?] So, in Romeo and Juliet : "The earth that's nature's mother, is her tomb "What is her burying grave that is her womb.” Again, in Pericles: "For he's their parent and he is their grave." So alfo, Milton: "The womb of nature, and perhaps her grave." -that affable familiar ghoft MALONE. Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,] Alluding perhaps to the celebrated Dr. Dee's pretended intercourse with an angel, and other familiar fpirits. STEEVENS. 2 -fil'd up his line,] i. e. polish'd it. So, in Ben Jonfon's Verses on Shakspeare: "In his well-torned and true-filed lines." STEEVENS. LXXXVII. LXXXVII. Farewel! thou art too dear for my poffeffing, For how do I hold thee but by thy granting? LXXXVIII. When thou shalt be difpos'd to fet me light, And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forfworn. Of faults conceal'd, wherein I am attainted+; For bending all my loving thoughts on thee, Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me. *In fleep a king,-] Thus, in Romeo and Juliet : 66 -I dreamt &c. "That I reviv'd and was an emperor." STEEVENS. 3 And place my merit in the eye of Scorn,] Our author has again perfonified Scorn in Othello: "A fixed figure, for the time of Scorn "To point his flow unmoving finger at." MALONE. -1 can fet down a fiory Of faults conceal'd, wherein I am attainted;] So, in Hamlet: but yet I could accufe me of fuch things, that it were better my mother had not borne me." STEEVENS. Such Such is my love, to thee I fo belong, That for thy right myfelf will bear all wrong. LXXXIX. Say that thou didst forfake me for fome fault, As I'll myself difgrace: knowing thy will, For thee, against myself I'll vow debate, For I must ne'er love him whom thou doft hate. Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now; Ah! do not, when my heart hath fcap'd this forrow, 5 I will acquaintance ftrangle, fa -] I will put an end to our miliarity. This fingular expreffion is likewife ufed by Daniel in his Cleopatra, 1594: Rocks frangle up thy waves, "Stop cataracts thy fall!" MALONE. This uncouth phrase seems to have been a favourite with Shakfpeare, who ufes it again in Macbeth: 6 "night ftrangles the travelling lamp." STEEVENS. • Be abfent from thy walks ;] So, in A Midsummer Night's Dream: "Be kind and courteous to this gentleman; Hop in his walks." MALONE. Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe ;] So, in Romeo and Juliet: "But with a rearward following Tybalt's death &c." STEEV. Give not a windy night a rainy morrow, If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last, At first the very worst of Fortune's might; XCI. Some glory in their birth, fome in their skill, XCII. But do thy worst to steal thyself away, Richer than wealth, prouder than garments' coft,] So, in Cymbeline: Richer than doing nothing for a bauble; I fee a better ftate to me belongs Than that which on thy humour doth depend. Happy to have thy love, happy to die! But what's fo bleffed-fair that fears no blot ?- XCIII. So fhall I live, fuppofing thou art true, May 8 So fhall I live, fuppofing thou art true, Like a deceived husband; ] Mr. Oldys obferves in one of his manufcripts, that this and the preceding Sonnet" feem to have been addreffed by Shakspeare to his beautiful wife on fome fufpicion of her infidelity." He must have read our author's poems with but little attention; otherwise he would have seen that these, as well as all the preceding Sonnets, and many of those that follow, are not addreffed to a female. I do not know whether this antiquarian had any other authority than his mifapprehenfion concerning these lines, for the epithet by which he has described our great poet's wife. He had made very large collections for a life of our author, and perhaps in the courfe of his researches had learned this particular. However this may have been, the other part of his conjecture (that Shakspeare was jealous of her) may perhaps be thought to derive fome probability from the following circumstances. It is obfervable, that his daughter, and not his wife, is his executor; and in his Will, he bequeaths the latter only an old piece of furniture; nor did he even think of her till the whole was finished, the claufe relating to her being an interlineation. What provifion was made for her by fettlement, does not appear. It may likewife be remarked, that jealoufy is the principal hinge of four of his plays; and in his great performance (Othello) fome of the paffages are written with fuch exquifite feeling, as might lead us to fufpect that the author had himself been perplexed with doubts, though not perhaps in the extreme.-By the fame mode of reafoning, it may be faid, he might be proved to have ftabbed his friend, or to have had a thankless child; because he has fo admirably. described the horror confequent on murder, and the effects of filial ingratitude, in K. Lear, and Macbeth He could indeed affume all fhapes; and therefore it must be acknowledged that the pre fent |