that strong and strange have sometimes by printers been confounded. The truth is, miraculous ice and miraculous snow were to be expressed, the ice was said to be "hot," and an epithet appropriate and sufficiently forcible not beeing at hand, the quality of the snow was given under a more general character, it was wonderous strange

snow.

"A play there is," &c.

The four first lines of this speech end, alternately, with the words, "long," and " "play." They could not, surely, be meant as rhymes.

469. "Hard-handed men, that work in Athens

here,

"Which never labour'd," &c.

The neuter relative, "which," to men, was common anciently,-we find it frequently in the translation of the Scriptures. In Julius Cæsar we meet with the hard hands of peasants, and in Cymbeline,

"Hands made hard with hourly falsehood-
"Unless you can find sport in their intents."

This, Dr. Johnson remarks, is obscure; and he supposes that a line has been lost. Mr. Steevens, to clear up the difficulty, observes, that as to attend, and to intend were formerly synonymous, intents here may have been put for the objects of attention but as the objects of attention in the present instance can be no other than the Duke and court, we are still unfurnished with the sense; which yet I suppose to lurk in the word intents. Unless you can be amused by the

preposterousness of their designs, and the absurd pains they take to shew their duty.

470. "The kinder we, to give them thanks for nothing."

This sentiment occurs, on a similar occasion, in Hamlet, "the less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty."

"And what poor duty cannot do,

"Noble respect takes it in might, not

merit."

Might," perhaps, implies labour, effort, attempt, and the meaning may be, Generosity accepts the endeavour for the worth of the performance but the defective measure in the first line, and in the other the want of perspicuity, which none of the commentators has been able to supply, is an unquestionable evidence of corruption. I am inclined to think a rhyme has been lost, and that the couplet ran thus, at least this affords a meaning,

"And what poor duty cannot do aright,
Respect takes it in merit, not in might."

483.

Well moused, lion."

This, I apprehend, has no reference to mammocking, as Mr. Malone supposes, nor to mouthing, as Mr. M. Mason would have it, but simply to the action of the lion, in pouncing on the garment, as a cat would on a mouse-in Macbeth

"An eagle, towering in his pride of place,

"Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at, and kill'd."

MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.

ACT I. SCENE I.

27. My book of songs and sonnets."

Mr. Malone's gratuitous supposition that Lord Surrey's poems are here meant, reminds me of an old story in a jest book :-A student of Oxford shewing the Museum to some company, one of them enquired the history of an old rusty sword which was there. This, says the student, is the sword with which Balaam was just going to kill his ass. I never knew, said the stranger, that Balaam had any sword, but that he wished for one. You are right, replied the Oxonian, and this is the very sword he wished for.

LORD CHEDWORTH.

SCENE II.

37. "Let me see thee froth, and lime."

This may be an allusion to the combustion in Bardolph's face, which the host calls froth and lime. The tricks, though practised, of frothing and liming the liquors, would not, probably, be thus openly acknowledged and uselessly proclaimed by the host.

ACT II. SCENE I.

70. "A drawling, affecting rogue."
We now say affected; perhaps less properly.

SCENE II.

97. "Mechanical salt-butter rogue.”

I cannot discover the signification of this latter epithet, unles it mean one who, pursuing a sordid economy, used salt butter instead of fresh.

"I will aggravate his style."

i. e. I will load his addition, extend his titles.

SCENE III.

104. "Monsieur Muck-water."

Mock-water, the old reading, appears sufficiently intelligible; and preferable to Dr. Farmer's emendation, muck-water: the host seems to be sneering at the affected mystery or mockery in use with medical men, of inspecting the urine of their patients.

"Monsieur Mock-water."

I have sometimes thought, that, by mock-water, the host, availing himself, as Mr. Malone says, of the doctor's ignorance of English, means to call Doctor Caius a counterfeit, that is to insinuate

that he is an empiric, and not a regular physician the colour or complexion of a diamond is called its water, and a counterfeit stone may very well be said to have a mock-water, i. e. a false lustre; or the host may mean that, notwithstanding all Doctor Caius's vapouring, his courage is counterfeited: in the scene where Prince Henry acquaints Falstaff with the detection of his cowardice, Falstaff says, "Dost thou hear, Hal, never call a true piece of gold a counterfeit." The host's reply to the doctor's enquiring after the meaning of mock-water seems to countenance the latter explanation: I am not pleased with the emendation proposed by Dr. Farmermuck-water; still less do I like Mr. Malone's make water. LORD CHEDWORTH.

ACT III. SCENE III.

128. "I see how thine eye would emulate the diamond."

Mr. Mason has used this expression in his Elfrida.

127.

"Whose brightest eye

"But emulates the diamond's blaze."

Why now let me die, for I have liv'd long enough."

I see no profaneness nor indecency in this passage, and do not believe that Shakspeare in