TWO GENTLEMEN OF

VERONA.

180.

ACT I. SCENE. I.

Give me not the boots."

Boot or boots signifies, in language very commonly understood, something in barter, superadded to the principal article-this is called boot or boots. Proteus says-nay, give me not the boots-no, replies Valentine, for it boots thee not, i. e. it is of no advantage to thee.

195. "Poor forlorn Proteus, passíónate Pro

teus."

Pássíónáte a quadrisyllable.

200. "Sweet love! sweet lines! sweet life!"

Something is wanting here: perhaps the verse might have run thus:

"Sweet lines! and now, sweet life! and sweeter

love."

ACT. II.

214. "I am the dog no, the dog is himself, and I am the dog: O the dog is me, and I am myself."

Perhaps the meaning of Lance's dramatic arrangement is this: "I am the dog;" this suggesting the idea of an unlucky fellow, which he conceives himself to be, he says, directly-no: the dog is as he should be, and I am the dog, i. e. the unlucky fellow-O! to me belongs the name of dog, and I am nothing else.

221. "I'll die on him that says so, but yourself."

I'll die on him seems to mean I'll execute death on him; or, perhaps, I will contend with him to death: I will enter the fatal lists with him.

ACT. III. SCENE II.

258. Ay, and perversely she persévers so." This unusual accentuation of persevere or persever, might be avoided thus:

Ay, and perversely does she pérséver so."

In other places we find the accent resting on the first syllable.

Persever not, but hear me mighty king."

And in Hamlet

K. John.

"To do obsequious sorrow, but to pérsěvěr.”

ACT IV. SCENE I.

268. "In my mood."

Mood, says Mr. Malone, is anger or resentment; but this is not a just definition of the word; mood is any arbitrary or capricious disposition of the mind, and may as well be generosity, sullenness, &c.

Fortune is merry,

"And in this mood will give us any thing."

"Her mood must needs be pitied."

Jul. Cæsar.

Hamlet.

Unused to the melting mood."

Othello.

If mood were implicitly anger, Dryden's "ireful mood" would be tautology.

SCENE III.

277. "Váliánt, wise, remorseful, well accom

plish'd."

Valiant a trisyllable.

SCENE IV.

282. "A slave, that, still an end, turns me to

shame."

Still an end is, without deviation-perpetually onward.

288.

My mistress' love."

Sir Th. Hanmer's proposed emendation, his Mistress' Love, is needless; Julia evidently alludes to the part she has been acting; upon which the following line is a direct comment.

"Alas! how love can trifle with itself."

MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM.

317.

Lingers, a verb active.

Long withering out a young man's révenue.”

Revenue has not always this accentuation: in Hamlet we find it

"That no revénue hast, but thy good spirits." 322. "But earthlier happy is the rose," &c.

This anomalous comparison of an adverb is not singular. See the Tempest, Act 2, Scene 1.

"You have taken it wiselier than I meant."

And Milton, more than once, uses the same licence.

"Now amplier known thy Saviour and thy Lord." Paradise Lost. B. 12.

"For aye to be in shady cloister mew'd."

The poet was very good to make a christian of

Theseus.