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, 282. SCENE V. The wry-neck'd fife." 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. ACT. III. SCENE I. 308. "Turquoise.” See Mr. Steevens's note.-From this imputed 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." "(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, 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, 329. "The Duke cannot deny the course of law; "For the commodity that strangers have "With us in Venice, if it be denied, Will," &c. This is foul construction; the relative does not clearly refer to its antecedent-If what be denied? the commodity? no, nor yet the course of law, but the forfeiture, the fulfilment of the bond:the sense of the passage, perhaps, might be obtained by reading emphatically" if that be denied," The word "commodity" will, by no means, support such a ponderous definition as Mr, Malone would impose upon it, "the denial of those rights to strangers, which render their abode at Venice, so commodious and agreeable to them." "The commodity that strangers have with us" is merely the confidential deposits of foreigners, SCENE IV. 330. "I never did repent for doing good, "Nor shall not now." Expressions like this are often censured on account of what is called a double negative, but it is not so; "nor" is only the appropriate negative conjunction. In companions "That do converse," &c. "There must needs be a like proportion Mr. Steevens seems not to have done justice to the sense of this passage: the speaker's meaning is, what many an observer of life will acknow |