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LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST.

ACT I. SCENE I.

5. "Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives, "Be register'd upon our brazen tombs."

1

All, here, is evidently to be understood in an abstracted, and not an absolute sense. Milton gives occasion for a similar remark, in these words of Paradise Lost:

6.

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Doleful shades, where peace

"And rest can never dwell; hope never comes "That comes to all.".

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Dainty bits

"Make rich the ribs, but bankerout quite

the roits."

Dr. Johnson derives the noun bankrupt from the French banqueroute.

Bankeroute, as appears from Minshew, was the ancient way of spelling bankrupt: respecting the etymology of the word, see Blackstone, 26th commentary, p. 472, note.

LORD CHEDWORTH.

“ With all these living in philosophy.”

Dumain means to say, that he shall find in philosophy an equivalent to all the pleasures which, as themselves, he renounces, and is weary of.

7.

To study where I well may dine, "When I to feast expressly am forbid."

The quarto has fast, which is right: "forbid" is commanded, as in other places. See The Merchant of Venice:

"You may as well forbid the mountain pines "To wag their high tops, and to make no noise "When they are fretted," &c.

And Chaucer:

"Moses law forbode it, tho',

"That priests should no lordships welde, "Christ's gospel willeth also

"That they should no lordships helde."

Theobald's not perceiving this sense of forbid, is less remarkable than that Mr. Steevens should have overlooked it.

31.

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SCENE II.

The rational hind Costard."

I incline to think we should read irrational, with Mr. Tyrwhit and Dr. Farmer; I do not think the passages produced by Mr. Steevens prove that for which they are cited. I do not see why hind, in the passage quoted from Henry IV. does not mean peasant, used as a term of contempt; as when Petruchio calls Grumio peasant swain ! LORD CHEDWORTH.

ACT II. SCENE I.

46. "God's blessing on your beard."

Longueville, I believe, was not so profoundly moral in this place as Dr. Johnson would make him he seems merely to utter a sarcasm, God's blessing on your extraordinary wisdom.

73.

ACT IV. SCENE I.

"When for fame's sake, for praise, an outward part,

"We bend to that the working of the heart."

Upon this couplet is this wonderful note, which I need not tell you is by Warburton :The harmony of the measure, the easiness of the expression, and the good sense in the thought, all concur to recommend these two lines to the reader's notice. The lines will, I doubt not, strike you, and every man of common sense, not to say common taste, as utterly destitute of every quality this apostolic alchymist recommends, who, in his dream, tries to convert the very dirt of Shakspeare into gold. The preservation of such nonsensical comments much arraigns the taste of his various editors.

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Mr. Steevens calls this the dew that nightly falls down his cheeks; but then it were better called the nightly dew: besides, we cannot suppose that the King's sorrows were confined to

the night. I rather think the meaning is, Dews equal to what night discharges, the whole night. The hyperbole is not more extravagant than ocean of tears, a sea of blood, &c.

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I incline to think the meaning is, Tears that have thrown a night or obscurity on my face.This agrees with the context, especially this line:

"As doth thy face, thro' tears of mine, give light." B. STRUTT.

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Perjure, a noun, for perjurer, occurs again in King Lear:

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Hide thee thou bloody hand,

"Thou perjure and thou simular of virtue," &c.

ACT V. SCENE I.

134. "D-e-t for de-b-t," &c.

It is not very easy to determine whether Armado or Holofernes is here the object of ridicule.

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Cupid a boy,

"Ay, and a shrewd unhappy gallows too."

I had not supposed that gallows, in this sense of it, was of such antiquity.

MERCHANT OF VENICE.

DRAMATIS PERSONE.

Salerio.

I see no occasion for the insertion of this name. Gratiano calls the bringer of his letter his old Venetian friend, which exactly suits Salanio, who had appeared before to be the friend both of Gratiano and Lorenzo.

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I rather incline to believe, with Pope, that Argosy is from Jason's ship Argo, which, being employed to fetch the Golden Fleece, merchants' ships, which brought home rich freights, were called Argosies. LORD CHEDWORTH.

236. "Some that will evermore peep thro' their eyes."

Thomson seems to have had this image in view :

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O'er his eyes the drowsy liquor ran, "Thro' which his half-wak'd soul would fondly Castle of Indolence.

peep."

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