This flave-like habit? and thefe looks of care?, Thou gav'ft thine ears, like tapfters, that bid welcome', 8 Hug their difeas'd perfumes,] i. e. their difeas'd perfumed mis treffes. MALONE. 91 the cunning of a carper.] Cunning here feems to fignify counzerfeit appearance. JOHNSON. The cunning of a carper, is the infidious art of a critick. Shame not these woods, fays Apemantus, by coming here to find fault. Maurice Kyffin in the preface to his tranflation of Terence's Andria, 1588, fays; Of the curious carper I look not to be favoured." Again, Urfula fpeaking of the farcafms of Beatrice, obferves, "Why fure, fuch carping is not commendable." STEEVENS. like tapfters, that bid welcome,] So, in our author's Venus and Adonis: "Like fhrill-tongu'd tapfters answering every call, The old copy has-bad welcome. Corrected in the fecond folio. moift trees,] Sir T. Hanmer reads very elegantly, - mofs'd trees. JOHNSON. MALONE. Shakspeare uíes the fame epithet in As you like it, A& IV. "Under an oak, whofe boughs were moss'd with age." STEEV. So alfo Drayton, in his Mortimeriados, no date: "Even as a bustling tempeft rousing blasts "Upon a forest of old branching oakes, "And with his furie eyrs their mossy loaks." Mofs'd is, I believe, the true reading, MALONE. That have outliv'd the eagle3, page thy heels, To cure thy o'er-night's furfeit? Call the creatures,- Of wreakful heaven; whose bare unhoused trunks, Anfwer mere nature,-bid them flatter thee; Tim. A fool of thee: Depart. Apem. I love thee better now than e'er I did. Apem. Why? Tim. Thou flatter'ft mifery. Apem. I flatter not; but fay, thou art a caitiff. Apem. To vex thee. Tim. Always a villain's office, or a fool's. Doft please thyself in't? Apem. Ay. Tim. What! a knave too?? Apem. If thou didst put this four cold habit on To caftigate thy pride, 'twere well: but thou Doft it enforcedly; thou'dft courtier be again, Wert thou not beggar. Willing misery 3 outliv'd the eagle,] Aquilæ fene&us is a proverb. I learn from Turberville's book of falconry, 1575, that the great age of this bird has been afcertained from the circumstance of its always building its eyrir, or neft, in the fame place. STEEVENS. 4 Anfwer mere nature, So, in King Lear, A& II. "And with prefented nakedness outface "The winds," &c. STEEVENS. 5 What! a knave too?] Timon had just called Apemantus fool, in tonfequence of what he had known, of him by former acquaintance; but when Apemantus tells him, that he comes to vex bim, Timon determines that to vex is either the office of a villain or a foel; that to wex by defign is villainy, to vex without defign is folly. He then pro perly afks Apemantus whether he takes delight in vexing, and when he anfwers, yes, Timon replies, What! and knave too? 1 before only knew thee to be a fool, but I now find thee likewise a knave. H 3 JOHNSON. Outlives incertain pomp, is crown'd before": Thou should'ft defire to die, being miferable. Hadft 6 — is crown'd before:] Arrives fooner at bigb wifh; that is, at the completion of its wishes. JOHNSON. So, in a former scene of this play: "And in fome fort these wants of mine are crown'd, Again, more appofitely, in Cymbeline: my fupreme crown of grief." MALONE. 7 Worfe than the worst, content.] Beft ftates contentless have a wretched being, a being worse than that of the worft ftates that are content. JOHNSON. 8 by bis breath,] I believe, is meant bis fentence. To breathe is as licentiously used by Shakspeare in the following inftance from Hamlet: "Having ever feen, in the prenominate crimes, "The youth you breathe of, guilty," &c. STEEVENS. By his breath means in our authour's language, by his voice or speech, and fo in fact by his fentence. Shakspeare frequently ufes the word in this fenfe. It has been twice fo ufed in this play. See p. 65, n. 4. MALONE. 9 Thou art a flave, whom Fortune's tender arm With favour never clasp'd;] In a Collection of Sonnets entitled Chloris, or the Complaint of the paffionate defpifed Shepheard, by William Smith, 1596, a fimilar image is found: Doth any live that ever had fuch hap, "That all their actions are of none effect? MALONE. but bred a dog.] Alluding to the word Cynick, of which fe Apemantus was. WARBURTON. For the etymology of Cynick our authour was not obliged to have recourfe to the Greek language. The dictionaries of this time furnished him with it. See Cawdrey's Dictionary of bard English words, octavo, 1604. "CYNICAL, Doggifb, froward." Again, in Bullokar's English Expofitor, 1616: "CYNICAL, Doggish, or currifh. There was in Greece an old fect of philofophers fo called, because they did ever sharply Had'st thou, like us, from our firft fwath3, proceeded Freely command, thou would't have plung'd thyfelf fharply barke at men's vices," &c. After all, however, I believe Shakfpeare only meant, thou wert born in a low state, and jufed from thy infancy to hardships. MALONE. 2 Hadft tbou, like us, &c.] There is in this fpeech a fullen haughtinefs, and malignant dignity, fuitable at once to the lord and the manhater. The impatience with which he bears to have his luxury reproached by one that never had luxury within his reach, is natural and graceful. There is in a letter, written by the earl of Effex, just before his execution, to another nobleman, a paffage fomewhat refembling this, with which, I believe every reader will be pleafed, though it is fo ferious and folemn that it can scarcely be inferted without irreverence. "God grant your lordship may quickly feel the comfort I now enjoy in my unfeigned converfion, but that you may never feel the torments I have fuffered for my long delaying it. I had none but deceivers to call upon me, to whom I faid, if my ambition could have entered into their narrow breafts, they would not bave been fo bumble; or if my delights bad been once tafted by them, they would not have been fo precife. But your lordship bath one to call upon you, that knoweth what it is you now enjoy; and what the greateft fruit and end is of all contentment that this world can afford. Think, therefore, dear earl, that I have ftaked and buoyed all the ways of pleafure unto you, and left them as fea-marks for you to keep the channel of religious virtue. For shut your eyes never fo long, they must be open at the laft, and then you must say with me, there is no peace to the ungodly." JOHNSON. A fimilar thought occurs in the metrical romance of William and the Werwolf, preferved in the library of King's College, Cambridge: For heretofore of hardneffe hadft theu never, "But were brought forth in bliffe as (witch a burde ought, 3- from our firft fwath-] From infancy. Swath is the dress of a new-born child. JOHNSON. So, in Heywood's Golden Age, 1611: "No more their cradles fhall be made their tombs, "Nor their foft fwatbs become their winding fheets." STEEV. The modern editors have, without authority, read Through, &c but this neglect of the prepofi tion was common to many other writers of the age of Shakspeare. 4 The fweet degrees] Thus the folio. STEEVENS. command,] Qld Copy-command'ft. Corrected by Mr. Rowe, MALONE. In general riot; melted down thy youth The mouths, the tongues, the eyes, and hearts of men precepts of refpect,] Of obedience to laws. JOHNSON. Refpe, I believe, means the qu'en dira't on? the regard of Athens, that strongest restraint on licentiousnefs: the icy precepts, i, e. that cool hot blood. STEEVENS. Perhaps refpe here is put for age, the period of life entitled to refpect. If fo, the icy precepts of refpect, means, the cold admonitions of time-bonour'd age. MALONE. But myself,] The connection here requires fome attention. But is here used to denote oppofition; but what immediately precedes is not oppofed to that which follows. The adverfative particle refers to the two firft lines. Thou art a flave, whom forture's tender arm But myself, Who bad the world as my confectionary, &c. The intermediate lines are to be confidered as a parenthesis of paffion. JOHNSON. than I could frame employment ; i. e. frame employment for. Shakspeare frequently writes thus. Sce Vol. VII. p. 128, n. 8, and p. 237, n. 6. MALONE. 8 with one winter's brush Fell from their boughs, and left me open, bare, &c.] Somewhat of the fame imagery is found in our authour's 73d Sonnet: "That time of year thou may'ft in me behold, "When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang So, in Maffinger's Maid of Honour : “O fummer friendship, Whofe flatt'ring leaves that fhadow'd us in our "Profperity, with the leaft gust drop off "In the autumn of adverfity." STEEVENS MALONE. Thy |