Mr. Tyrwhitt, in extricating the poet from a supposed difficulty, appears to have entangled himself: Morochus is still boasting of his own prowess and of his scimitar, that won three fields of Sultan Solyman, besides having slain the Sophy, &c. so that he was not in the army of the Sultan, but opposed to him. This oversight of Mr. Tyrwhitt's is, I find, avoided in the last edition by Mr. Reed. SCENE II. 265. "Away, says the fiend, for the heavens." "For the heavens" may be an adjuration for heaven's sake! or perhaps the fiend would suggest that while Launcelot remained with the Jew, he was out of the pale of Grace, and that by running away only he could hope for heaven; if so, it is a very friendly fiend. 270. "It should seem, then, that Dobbin's tail grows backward." Launcelot quibbles upon grows backward," as growing behind, and, decreasing a conceit that Hamlet also indulges in, "Yourself shall be as old as I am, if, like a crab, you could go backward." SCENE III. 277. "If a Christian do not play the knave, and get thee, I am much deceived." The reading of the second folio, "did not get thee," though so severely reprobated by Mr. Malone, appears more congenial to Launcelot's humour: he would compliment Jessica with a Chris tian father, at the expence of her mother's chastity. If the old reading must stand, Mr. Steevens has suggested the true meaning.-Mr. Malone's I cannot but consider as a feeble interpretation-it required no extraordinary sagacity in Launcelot, at this time, to predict that Lorenzo would carry Jessica away from her father's house. If a Christian do not play the knave and get thee." I am very strongly of opinion with the ignorant editor of the second folio, that we ought to read did; and in this I am confirmed by the passage in the 3d Act, to which Mr. Malone himself refers. I shall patiently submit to whatever imputation of folly and absurdity the avowal of this opinion may bring on me. LORD CHEDWORTH. SCENE IV. 279. "Break-up this." I do not perceive here any allusion to carving, as Mr. Steevens supposes. Every one knows what it is to break-up a letter, as in the Winter's Tale, "Break up the seal and read." LORD CHEDWORTH. "Whiter than the paper it writ on, "Writ" for "wrote " is a corruption that some of our most careful writers are chargeable with, I could not have thought it possible for any one so to mistake the sense of this expression as Mr. Monk Mason has done, in ascribing the wry-neckedness, not to the performer, but the instrument, which he supposes was crooked formerly. Lord Chedworth offers to read actively, wry-neck fife, i. e. the fife which wries the neck of him who plays on it. SCENE VI. 286. "Iam glad 'tis night, you do not look on me, "For I am much asham'd of my exchange." Juliet consoles herself with the same circumstance "I am glad the mask of night is on my face, "Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek." 287. "Too light This was an opportunity for a quibble too tempting to be omitted. SCENE VII. 292. "Let all of his complexion chuse me so.” Dr. Johnson's suggested regulation should be adopted, and the 2nd Act end here. property of the stone, I suppose it was that Massenger formed his device of the Magick Picture. SCENE II. 309. "But lest you should not understand me well." 66 (And yet a maiden hath no tongue but thought.)" Does this mean that she utters nothing but what her heart suggests, and that, therefore, she ought not to be misunderstood? or that, being a maiden, she cannot speak freely, and must only think? I believe the first is the sense. 310. "Let Fortune go to hell for it, not I." It is the duty of an editor at once to correct in the text a grammatical inaccuracy so gross as this I for me;-which Mr. Heath himself has committed in his explanation. 315. "The beauteous scarf, "Veiling an Indian beauty." This Indian beauty seems to be veiled in impenetrable obscurity.-Sir T. Hanmer would disclose her, but exhibits only "a dowdy," and all the other annotators have left her to "dwell in her necessity:"-Iwish it were in my power to extricate her. "The beauteous scarf, "Veiling an Indian beauty." Ornament, says Bassanio, is but a gilded shore that tempts to a most dangerous sea: it is a beaute ous alluring scarf, covering the graceful form of an Indian woman, whose love is destruction.-The women of India are reported to be vindictive and treacherous, but Shakspeare might only mean to refer to the certain destruction which attends upon an amorous conduct to women in Eastern countries. B. STRUTT. "Thou common drudge 'tween man and man." "'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands." 328. ፡፡ SCENE III. I wonder, "Thou naughty gaoler that thou art so fond "To come abroad with him, at his request." "Fond," undoubtedly, sometimes means foolish or weak-minded; a sense in which it is at this day, in Yorkshire, commonly used: but here, I believe, it means willing to comply.-So fond of coming with him is an expression that would be clearly understood. I find that Lord Chedworth is of my opinion, and adds, "if it be objected that this sense requires a different construction from what is in the text, I may answer, that a much later, and more correct writer than Shakspeare, has used this mode of construction, though (as his lordship admits) improperly." "Should such a one, too fond to rule alone,” For too fond of ruling. |