321. "Allowance"

Is "rate," valuation, or estimation, as in Hamlet: "The censure of which one must, in your allowance," &c. And in Othello:

322.

His pilot,

"Of very expert and approv'd allowance." Whate'er praises itself but in the deed, devours the deed in the praise." Even in the act or "deed" of self-praise, the merit of the action, so praised, is countervailed. Thus one of the Plebeians says of Coriolanus's pride, which is a kind of silent self-applause, “I could be content to give him good report, but pays himself by being proud."

that he

Things small as nothing, for request's sake only,

"He makes important."

i. e. Merely because they were requested.

"Speaks not to himself but with a pride
"That quarrels with self-breath.”

He cannot, though his own flatterer, find terms of eulogy suited to the inordinate claims of his pride. This I suppose is the meaning:

"He speaks to himself," &c.

He is fearful that his own familiarity with himself should be a disgrace. B. STRUTT.

323. Kingdom'd Achilles.

Achilles, comprehending in himself a haughty state, detached and independent of the rest of

mankind.

"He is so plaguy proud that the death tokens of it.

Plaguy" should, doubtless, as Mr. Steevens observes, be removed from the line, which it only encumbers.

Make his honours, his military trophies so cheap, common and familiar.

His fat-already."

As well as "to-be-pitied," in the 1st Act, might be added to Mr. Tyrwhitt's list of strange words occurring in this play.

I'll pash him

"Over the face."

"To pash," I believe, means to crush and confound by sudden violence: thus Lee applies the word in the Massacre of Paris:

"Your subtle engines have with labour rais'd
My anger, like a mighty engine, up,
"To fall and pash thee dead."

325. "I'll pheeze his pride."

I believe" to phecze" is to thump, to beat with the fist as boxers do.

326. "He'd have ten shares."

An allusion to the distribution of theatrical profits which are still, in some country companies, divided into parts that are called shares.

327. "Emulous."

"Emulous," Mr. Malone says, is envious, but I believe it is, rather, overweening.

ACT III. SCENE I.

331. "Love's invisible soul."

The servant would call Helen "the soul of love," and "soul" being invisible, he adds "invisible soul:" this appears to me to be the meaning.

334. "

My disposer, Cressida."

To whatsoever speaker these words may be assigned, it seems impossible to ascribe a meaning to them.

SCENE II.

340. "The imaginary relish is so sweet

"That it enchants my sense; what will it be

"When that the watry palate tastes, indeed,
"Love's thrice-reputed nectar!”

This thought occurs in Romeo and Juliet:
"Ah me! how sweet is love itself, possess'd,
"When but love's shadows are so rich in joy!"

Watry" is lickerish, eager to taste.

343. "A kiss in fee-farm."

Mr. Steevens exclaims, here, "How much more poetically is the same idea expressed in Coriolanus, when the jargon of the law was absent from our author's thoughts!" Was the critic lamenting that Pandarus did not think and speak like Coriolanus?

353. "And mighty states charácterless are granted."

4

The same accentuation of "character" we find in Hamlet:

"Look thou charácter; give thy thoughts no tongue."

357.

SCENE III.

Through the sight I bear in things, to Jove

"I have abandon'd Troy."

Mr. Steevens's defence of "love," supposing that word to stand in the place of Jove (for the printing, in the quarto, leaves it dubious), is much strained; and Mr. M. Mason, who calls the present reading nonsense, because Juno, and 'not Jupiter, was the persecutor of Troy, is rather trifling in sophistry than rationally arguing. Though Calchas had prudently withdrawn from the ruin which he saw impending, but could not avert, and had even rendered some services to the Greeks; it does not appear that he had any such hatred to Troy, as to render probable his saying, he willingly gave her up to the fury of her implacable enemy, though he might, with perfect propriety, and suitably to the decorum of his sacerdotal character, declare that, bowing to the divine will, he had abandoned Troy to the supreme disposer of events and kingdoms. With respect to the words, "the sight I bear in things," Mr. Mason's objections are easily removed; "in" is commonly, throughout these works, put for into; and " sight into things" very clearly implies foresight.

362. "In most accepted pain."

Pain means pains, assiduous endeavours.

"Why such unplausive eyes are bent, why turn'd on him."

After Sir T. Hanmer had so properly marked the exuberant and interpolated words here, (a correction that Mr. Steevens himself approves of), it is really surprising to find them again deforming the text. Sir T. Hanmer read,

Why such unplausive eyes are bent on him." 364. "And not a man for being simply man, Hath any honour; but honour for those honours."

66

The second honour" in this line, which spoils the metre and perplexes the sense, was, I think, evidently, a slip of the transcribers, much more excusable than all the editors are who have retained the mistake.

"The love that lean'd on them as slippery too, "Do one pluck down another; and together, "Die in the fall."

How such vicious construction as this should be gravely reprinted, without a note, through successive editions, by editors generally tenacious of accuracy, is astonishing. Concord imperiously requires some correction:

"Not a man, being simply man, "Hath any honour; but for those hon'oúrs "That are without him; as place, riches, favour, "Which, when they fall, as being slippery standers,

"The loves that lean'd on them, as slippery too: "Do not pluck down another," &c.

367. "How some men creep in skittish fortune's

hall,

"While others play the ideots in her eyes."