Mark, how he bears his course, and runs me up; Gelding the opposed continent." "And then he runs straight and even." "And then he will run straight and evenly:" Or else "And then he runs on straight and evenly." 330. "Good father, tell her,—that," &c. "That" is a careless interpolation: "Tell her,-she, and my aunt Percy." But Lady Percy, in the second act, calls Mortimer her brother, as, indeed, he was. We might read: "Good father, say she, and my sister Percy." That pretty Welsh "Which thou pourest down from these swelling heavens." This passage has been misunderstood by the late editors. Language may be said to be "poured forth" from the lips, but not "poured down." The pretty Welsh, the language that Mortimer understands, is the lady's tears, and the "swelling heavens" are her eyes. That this is the meaning is evident, from what follows: "But for shame, "In such a parley I would answer thee." Now this is the only way that Mortimer could answer, or could be ashamed to answer; for, in the Welsh language, literally, he was "ignorance itself." A slight transposition is wanting to the prosody: "Which thou down pourest from these swelling heavens :" Or "Which down thou pourest from these swelling heavens." 331. Nay, if you melt, then will she run mad." Nobody, I suppose, can approve of Mr. Steevens's expedient to repair this line :-(“ Why,) then she will run mad." Yet something is necessary to be supplied. Will this do? Nay, if you melt, then will she (e'en) run mad.” Mr. Malone's attempt to bring this into one line is wholly ineffectual. "On," for "upon,' might certainly, even without the authority of any peculiar copy, be admitted in a case like this, but the measure cannot be made perfect without entirely dismissing another word a word, however, that may well be spared. The use of the epithet "wanton," here, is not suitable to the character of either the lady or her father: "She bids you on the rushes lay you down, 332. "And on your eye-lids crown the god of sleep." Mr. Malone says, this is a strange image; but I believe it will be deemed more strange, that both he and Mr. Steevens should either be slow to perceive or admit the justness of Dr. Warburton's applause of it :-Sleep crown'd on his eyelids, is sleep seated there in the supremacy of delight: "Charming your blood with pleasing heaviness, Making such difference between sleep and wake, "As is the difference betwixt day and night." Mr. Sheridan seems to have had this passage in his thoughts when he was writing the Duenna, and has sweetly amplified it: "Tell me, my lute, can thy fond strain "That, tho' my sleeping love shall know "Her rosy slumbers shall not fly." 333. "Do so; "And those musicians," &c. This may all be comprehended in a legitimate line with the trisyllabic ending: “Do so; and those musicians that shall pláy tŏ you." 334. Neither; 'tis a woman's fault." Dr. Johnson' says he does not see what is a woman's fault. Dr. Farmer, without shewing it to him, or, I believe, to any one else, says the expression is ironical. Mr. Steevens, after finding, in two old books, "a woman's fault," three times, conjectures that Hotspur "slily" means to say, that the usual fault of women is, " they never do what they are bid or desired to do:" and Mr. Holt White, perceiving that Hotspur is in the Welsh lady's bedchamber, luxuriously labours-with a meaning, of which he seems ashamed to be delivered. Now, I suppose, any one, who had not, by such authorities, been obliged to doubt, would readily conclude that a woman's fault is only that "she will neither do one thing nor the other." SCENE II. 340. "So common-hackney'd.". The hyphen here, I believe, is improper; either common" or "hackneyed" would express the sense of the compound. "Hackneyed" I take to be a distinct word, more forcibly expressing the speaker's sentiment. "Opinion, that did help me to the crown, "Had still kept loyal to possession." My character, which assisted me in obtaining the crown, would have continued it to the possessor, who, in that case, would not have been more disreputable than myself. "That men would tell their children." "That," for "insomuch-that," as in other places: "That being daily swallow'd by men's eyes." So-that being, &c.-Vide Macbeth : "That they did wake each other." 341." And then I stole all courtesy from hea ven." I am inclined to understand this passage as Warburton does. Mr. Davies remarks (I think justly) that Mr. Malone explains our author to mean more than he intended. Courtesy, for de-. votion, is surely somewhat strained: the progress from courtesy to humility is natural enough. That Promotheus's stealing fire from heaven was not unfamiliar to Shakspeare, can be proved, from a similar expression in Othello: But once put out thy light, I know not where is that Promethean heat "That can thy light relumine." LORD CHEDWORTH. Carded his state." I cannot well understand this passage, as we have it. Dr. Warburton's emendation appears the most plausible-"discarded." Mr. Steevens says it is a metaphor taken from the wool-combers' trade, and "to card wool," is "to mix it, coarse and fine, together:" but this, as Mr. M. Mason has remarked, is a mistake: mixed wool, indeed, may be carded, but the idea suggested by carding or combing is the very reverse of mixture-it is separation. To say that "to card," is " to mix," because the wool that is mixed may be carded, is not less erroneous than it would be to say, that "to spin," is" to mix," because different fleeces had been combined in the thread; neither can I at all agree with Mr. Ritson, who thinks the allusion is to a game with cards. Perhaps the word should be "carted:"-Staged and exhibited his royalty to vulgar observation, like a common shew at a fair, and openly entered the lists "With every beardless vain comparative." VOL. I. X |