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Again, in Cymbeline, edit. 1623, p. 380,

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"But like a full acorn'd boare, a Jarmen on," &c. Again, in Romeo and Juliet, edit. 1623, p. 66,

"And thou and Romeo press on heavie bier." Again, in The Comedy of Errors, edit. 1623, p. 98, "On, whose hard heart is button'd up with steele."

Again, in All's Well that Ends Well, edit. 1623: "A traveller is a good thing after dinner-but on that lies two thirds," &c.

Again, in Love's Labour Lost, 4to. 1598:

"On, whom the musick of his own vain tongue—”

Again, ibid. edit. 1623:

"On, her hair were gold, chrystal the other's eyes."

I should not have produced so many passages to prove a fact, of which no one can be ignorant, whọ has the slightest knowledge of the early editions of these plays, had not the author of Remarks, &c. on the last edition of Shakspere, asserted, p. 238, with that modesty and accuracy which distinguish his writings, that the foregoing observation was made by one totally unacquainted with the old copies, and that it would be difficult to find a single instance" in which on and one were confounded in those copies. MALONE. 418. -using conceit alone,] Conceit here, as in many other places, signifies conception, thought.

420.

MALONE.

-broad-ey'd-] The old copy readsbrooded. Mr. Pope made the alteration, which, how

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ever elegant, may be unnecessary. All animals while brooded, i. e. with a brood of young ones under their protection, are remarkably vigilant. The king says of Hamlet:

"something's in his soul

"O'er which his melancholy sits at brood."

STEEVENS.

450. A whole armado, &c.] Armado is a Spanish

word signifying a fleet of war.

The armado in 1588

was called so by way of distinction.

STEEVENS, of collected sail] Thus the modern editors.

The old copy reads-conuicted.

STEEVENS.

The true reading, I believe, is, connected: u is constantly used in the folio for v; in the present instance one of the n's might have been turned upside down in the press, an accident which frequently happens. The words scattered and disjoined support this conjecture. Convicted, however, may be right, and might have meant subdued, destroyed, from the Latin participle convictus, or from the French convaincre. To convince is used, with equal licence, in the sense of to conquer:

-This malady convinces

"The great assay of art

451.

"" Macbeth.

MALONE.

-scatter'd and disjoin'd from fellowship.] Fellowship formerly signified the aggregate of a mili❤ tary force under the same commander. Frequent instances of the word, in this acceptation, may be

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seen in Fenn's Collection of the Paston Letters.

HENLEY.

460. -in so fierce a cause,] A fierce cause is a cause conducted with precipitation. "Fierce wretchedness," in Timon, is, hasty, sudden misery.

465.

-a grave unto a soul;

STEEVENS.

Holding the eternal spirit, against her will, In the vile prison of afflicted breath:] I think we should read earth. The passage seems to have been copied from Sir Thomas More: "If the body be to the soule a prison, how strait a prison maketh he the body, that stuffeth it with riff-raff, that the soule can have no room to stirre itself-but is, as it were, enclosed not in a prison, but in a grave." FARMER. Perhaps the old reading is justifiable. So, in Mɛasure for Measure:

"To be imprison'd in the viewless winds.”

STEEVENS.

Mr. Steevens's example is foreign to his purpose, as it refers to the situation of a soul set free from the body, and not imprisoned in it. HENLEY. 471. No, I defy, &c.] To defy anciently signified to refuse. STEEVENS. 480. And stop this gap of breath- -] The gap of breath is the mouth; the outlet from whence the breath issues. MALONE.

483. And buss thee as thy wife!] Thus the old copy. The word buss, however, being now only used in vulgar language, our modern editors have exchanged it

for

for kiss. The former is used by Drayton in the 3d canto of his Barons' Wars, where queen Isabel says,

"And we by signs sent many a secret buss." Again, in Spenser's Faery Queen, B. III. c. 10. "But every satyre first did give a busse

"To Hellenore; so busses did abound."

Again, Stanyhurst, the translator of Virgil, 1582,

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-oscula libavit natæ.

Bust his prittye parrat prating," &c.

STEEVENS. 487. Oh, that my tongue, &c.] So, in The Petite Palace of Pleasure, 4to. bl. let. "O that my mouthe could cause my woordes to mount above the skies to make the gods bend down their eyes." HENDERSON.

491. -modern invocation.] It is hard to say what Shakspere means by modern: it is not opposed to ancient. In All's Well that Ends Well, speaking of a girl in contempt, he uses this word: "her modern grace." It apparently means something slight and inconsiderable.

Modern, I believe, is trite, common.

JOHNSON.

STEEVENS,

493. Thou art unholy-] The old copy has;

Thou art holy

Rowe reads:

"Thou art not holy to believe me so."

510. Bind up those tresses:

MALONE.

-] It was necessary

that Constance should be interrupted, because a passion so violent cannot be borne long. I wish the

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following speeches had been equally happy; but they only serve to shew, how difficult it is to maintain the pathetick long. JOHNSON.

513. wiry friends] The old copy reads, wiry fiends. Wiery is an adjective used by Heywood in his Silver Age, 1613:

"My vassal furies, with their wiery strings, STEEVENS. As the

"Shall lash thee hence."

Fiends is obviously a typographical error. epithet wirey is here attributed to hair; so, in another description, the hair of Apollo supplies the office of wire. -In the Instructions to the commissioners for the choice of a wife for prince Arthur, it is directed" to note the eye-browes" of the young queen of Naples (who, after the death of Arthur, was married to Henry VIII. and divorced by him for the sake of Anna Bulloygn). They answer, "Her browes are of a browne heare, very small, like a wyre of heare.” Thus also, Gascoigne :

"First for her head, the hairs were not of gold,
"But of some other mettall farre more fine,
"Wherof each crinet seemed to behold,

"Like glistring wyars against the sunne that

shine.-"

HENLEY. 530.but yesterday suspire,] To suspire, in Shakspere, I believe, only means to breathe. So, in King Henry IV. P. II.

"Did he suspire, that light and weightless down "Perforce must move." STEEVENS.

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Both instances imply that suspire refers to a reclined

or

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