408.

What shall be done

"To him that victory commands ?"

This is equivocally expressed: "him that victory commands," may as well imply "him who is subdued," as him who conquers. The succeeding words, however, shew that here the latter is the sense.

Another word peculiar, I believe, to this play. Addition."

413.

Addition is title, distinction, &c. as in many other places.

415. "The issue is embracement :-Ajax, farewell."

An easy transposition would procure measure: Farewell, Ajax!”

417. "Venus" glove."

Venus' glove, I suppose, means no more than a token of amorous assignation; as a man's glove or gauntlet is a chivalrous signal for combat.As to a glove made of flowers, I have as little conception of it as Mr. Steevens.

423. "

The general state, I fear, "Can scarce entreat you to be odd with

him."

Suspend (says Ajax) your threats, until accident or agreement bring you together in the field:

"You may have every day enough of Hector, "If you have stomach :".

But upon your caprice only, not any regard to the general good, must such a meeting depend.

Butt, I suppose, is put for " buttress," as expressive of deformity.

430. "A A herring without a roe.". This expression occurs in Romeo and Juliet: "Without his roe, like a dried herring."

SCENE II.

433. "She will sing any man at first sight." Ther. "And any man may sing her, if he can take her cliff."

"Sing," as well as "cliff," appears to have a second covert meaning, which the commentators have omitted to explain. I am unable to supply the deficiency, with respect to the former word, and unwilling to furnish the suggestion in the latter.

443. "If there be rule in unity itself."

If there be any such thing as consistency in nature, if any individual thing be really and unchangeably itself.

“ Rule in unity.”

"Unity" is God.

446. "Shall dizzy."—

B. STRUTT.

This verb, with a ludicrous application, occurs in Hamlet :

447.

"And they'll seem glorious."

This thought occurs in Cymbeline :

It is I

"That all th' abhorred things o' the earth amend, "By being worse than they."

And again

Every villain be call'd

"Posthumus Leonatus, and be villany

"Less than it was.".

450.

،،

SCENE III.

Do not count it holy

"To hurt, by being just."

"Just," for "faithful to a vow."

451.

،،

The weather of my fate.”

The command of the wind, the weather-gage. Rosalind says, of her heart, that it keeps “ the windy side of care."

452. "-The fan and wind of your fair sword."

"Fair sword," your honourable sword. In Hamlet we meet with a line like this:

"But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword."

455. "Who should withhold me ?"

Some words are wanting; perhaps these: "Who is there, brother, tell me, should withhold me ?"

I myself

"Am like a prophet suddenly enrapt.” Thus says John of Gaunt, in K. Richard II. "Methinks I am a prophet, new-inspir'd.”

479.

SCENE XI.

"A goodly med'cine for my aching bones." The nurse in Romeo and Juliet exclaims: "Is this the poultice for my aching bones ?"

Upon many pages of this play the stamp of Shakspeare is distinctly impressed: but an attentive examination will, I believe, convince the discriminating reader, that, here, as upon other occasions, the genius and taste of our poet have been exercised upon the work of some former writer. The versification and the diction have frequently no more resemblance to the style of Shakspeare, than has that multitude of uncouth words, phrases, and accentuations peculiar to this play, and to the list of which, set down by Mr. Tyrwhitt, may be added these:-orgulous, primogenitive, oppugnancy, neglection, to-bepitied, fat-already, subsequent, prescience, disme, propend, transportance, commérce, violenteth, maculation, impair, (adjective) vindicative, commixtion, mirable, seld. (seldom) convive, recordation, constring'd, frush.

CORIOLANU S.

ACT I. SCENE I.

6. "If they would yield us but the superfluity, while it were wholesome, we might guess, they relieved us humanely.”

There would, in that case, be room for a supposition that they were influenced by humanity, in relieving us.

7. "And could be content to give him good report for't, but that he pays himself with being proud."

He prevents the applause that is due to his great actions, by his own arrogant estimation of them.

What he hath done famously, he did it to that

end."

To the end, or with the motive of fame, or vain glory.

"He did it to please his mother, and to be partly proud."

But Marcius was not partly proud; he was thoroughly and extremely proud, even to the altitude of his virtue." The sense is" and partly to indulge his pride." Perhaps incorrectness of expression was designed.