So are they all; for every grize of fortune Such emendations as thofe now adopted, thus founded and fupported, are not capricious conjectures, against which no one has fet his face more than the prefent editor, but almoft certainties. This note has run out into an inordinate length, for which I fhall make no other apology than that finding it necessary to depart from the reading of the old copy, to obtain any fenfe, I thought it incumbent on me to fupport the readings I have chofen, in the best manner in any power. MALONE. Let us fee what fenfe the genuine reading will afford. Poverty, fays the poet, bears contempt bereditary, and wealth native bonour. To illuftrate this pofition, having already mentioned the cafe of a poor and rich brother, he remarks, that this preference is given to wealth by those whom it least becomes; it is the pastour that greases or flatters the rich brother, and will grease him on till want make him leave, The poet then goes on to afk, Who dares to say, this man, this pastour, is a flatterer? the crime is univerfal; through all the world the learned pate, with allufion to the paftour, ducks to the golden fool. If it be objected, as it may justly be, that the mention of a paftour is unfuitable, we must remember the mention of grace and cherubims in this play, and many such anachronisms in many others. I would therefore read thus: It is the paftour lards the brother's fides, 'Tis want that makes bim leave. The obfcurity is ftill great. Perhaps a line is loft, I have at least given the original reading. JOHNSON. Perhaps Shakspeare wrote pafterer, for I meet with fuch a word in Greene's Farewel to Follie, 1617: "Alexander before he fell into the Perfian delicacies, refused those cooks and pasterers that Ada queen of Caria fent to him." There is likewife a proverb among Ray's collection which feems to afford much the fame meaning as this paffage in Shakspeare. "Every one bafteth the fat hog, while the lean one burneth." Again, in Troilus and Creffida: "That were to enlard his fat-already pride." STEEVENS. 9 And Jay, This man's a flatterer?] This man does not refer to any particular perfon before mentioned, as Dr. Johnson thought, but to fome fuppofed individual. Who, fays Timon, can with propriety lay his hand on this or that individual, and pronounce him a peculiar flatterer? All mankind are equally flatterers. So, in As you like it: "Who can come in, and fay, that I mean her, "When fuch a one as fhe, fuch is her neighbour?" MALONE. 1 — for every grize of fortune] Grize for step or degree, Pope. See Vol. IV. p. 66, n.4. MALONE. G 3 But But direct villainy. Therefore, be abhorr'd Who feeks for better of thee, fauce his palate Will knit and break religions; blefs the accurs'd; 2-fang mankind!-] i. e. feize, gripe. This verb is used by Decker in his Match me at London, 1631: "bite any catchpole that fangs for you." STEEVENS. 3no idle votarifi.] No infincere or inconftant fupplicant. Gold will not ferve me instead of roots. JOHNSON. 4you clear heavens!] This may mean either ye cloudless skies, or ye deities exempt from guilt. Shakspeare mentions the clearest gods in King Lear. Again, in the Rape of Lucrece Then Collatine again by Lucrece' fide, "In his clear bed might have repofed ftill." i. e. his uncontaminated bed. STEEVENS. See p. 61, n. 9. MALONE. S Why this Will lug your priests and fervants from your fides ;] Aristophanes, in his Plutus, A&t V. fc. ii. makes the priest of Jupiter defert his fervice to live with Plutus. WARBURTON. 6 Pluck stout men's pillows from below their beads :] i, e. men who have ftrength yet remaining to ftruggle with their distemper. This alludes to an old cuftom of drawing away the pillow from under the heads of men in their laft agonies, to make their departure the easier. But the Oxford editor, fuppofing fout to fignify bealtby, alters it to fick, and this he calls emending. WARBURTON. 7 the boar leprofy] So, in P. Holland's tranflation of Pliny's Nat. Hift. b. xxviii. ch. 12. t m the foul white leprie called elephantiafis." STEEVENS. With fenators on the bench: this is it, That makes the wappen'd widow wed again; She, 8 That makes the wappen'd widow wed again;] Waped or wappen'd fignifies both forrowful and terrified, either for the lofs of a good hufband, or by the treatment of a bad. But gold, he fays, can overcome both her affection and her fears. WARBURTON. Of wappened I have found no example, nor know any meaning. To awhape is ufed by Spenfer in his Hubberd's Tale, but I think not in either of the fenfes mentioned. I would read wained, for decayed by time. So our authour in K. Richard III: "A beauty waining and diftreffed widow." JOHNSON. In the comedy of the Roaring Girl, by Middleton and Decker, 1611, I meet with a word very like this, which the reader will easily explain for himself, when he has seen the following paffage : "Moll. And there you shall wap with me. "Sir B. Nay, Moll, what's that wap? "Moll. Wappening and niggling is all one, the rogue my man can tell you." Again, in Ben Jonfon's Mafque of Gypfies Metamorphofed : "Boarded at Tappington, "Bedded at Wappington." Again, in Martin Mark-all's Apologies to the Bel-man of London, 1610. "Niggling is company-keeping with a woman: this word is not used now, but wapping, and thereof comes the name wappingmorts for whores." It must not, however, be concealed, that Chaucer, in the Complaint of Annelda, line 217, ufes the word with the fenfe in which Dr. Warburton explains it: "My fewertye in waped countenance." Wappened, according to the quotations I have already given, would mean-The widow whofe curiofity and passions had been already grati fied. So, in Hamlet: "The inftances that fecond marriage move, "Are base respects of thrift, but none of love." And if the word defunt, in Othello, be explained according to its primitive meaning, the fame fentiment may be difcovered there. There may, however, be fome corruption in the text. STEEVENS. The inftances produced by Mr. Steevens fully fupport the text in my apprehenfion, nor do I fufpect any corruption. Unwapper'd is used by Fletcher in the Two Noble Kinsmen, for fresh, the oppofite of ftale; and perhaps we should read there unwappen'd. Mr. Steevens's interpretation however, is, I think, not quite exact, because it appears to me likely to mislead the reader with respect to the general import of the paffage. Skakfpeire means not to account for the wappen'd widow's feeking a husband, (though her curiofity has been gratified,") but for her finding one. It is her gold, fays he, that induces fome one (more attentive to thrift than lowe) to accept in mar G 4 riage She, whom the fpital-house and ulcerous fores Would caft the gorge at, this embalms and spices riage the hand of the experienced and o'er-worn widow.-Wed is here ufed for wedded. So, in the Comedy of Errors, A& I. sc.i: "In Syracufa was I born, and wed "Unto a woman, happy but for me." If wed is used as a verb, the words mean, that effects or produces her Jecond marriage. MALONE. She, whom the fpital-boufe and ulcerous fores Would caft the gorge at,] Surely we should read: So, in Spenfer's Faery Queen: "And all the way, moft like a brutish beast, The old reading is nonfenfe. STEEVENS. In Antony and Cleopatra, we have bonour and death, for bonourable death. "The fpital-house and ulcerous fores," therefore, may be used for the contaminated fpital-boufe; the fpital-house replete with ulcerous fores. If it be afked, how can the fpital-houfe, or how can ulcerous fores, caft the gorge at the female here defcribed, let the following paffages anfwer the question: "Heaven ftops the nofe at it, and the moon winks." Othello. Again, in Hamlet : "Whofe fpirit, with divine ambition puff'd, "Males mouths at the invifible event." till our ground, "Sindging his pate against the burning zone," &c. Again, in Julius Cæfar: Over thy wounds now do I prophecy "Which, like dumb mouths, do ope their ruby lips,-," Again, in the Merchant of Venice : when the bagpipe fings i' the nose,—”. Again, in the play before us : "6 when our vaults have wept "With drunken fpilth of wine." In the preceding page, all fores are faid to lay fiege to nature; which they can no more do, if the paffage is to be understood literally, than they can caft the gorge at the fight of the perfon here defcribed.—In a word, the diction of the text is fo very Shakspearian, that I cannot but wonder it should be fufpected of corruption. The meaning is, Her, whom the fpital-house, however polluted, would not admit, but reject with abhorrence, this embalms, &c. or, (in a loofer paraphrafe) Her, at the fight of whom all the patients in the fpital-houfe, however contaminated, would ficken and turn away with loathing and abhorrence, difgufted by the view of ftill greater pollution than any they had yet experience of, this embalms and fpices, &c. MALONE. Το To the April day again. Come, damned earth, Do thy right nature'.- [March afar off.] Ha! a drum?— Thou'rt quick, stand: But yet I'll bury thee: Thou'lt go, ftrong thief, [keeping fome gold. Enter ALCIBIADES, with drum and fife, in warlike manner; PHRYNIA, and TY MANDRA. Alc. What art thou there? fpeak. Tim. A beaft, as thou art. The canker gnaw thy heart, For thewing me again the eyes of man! Alc. What is thy name? Is man fo hateful to thee, That art thyfelf a man? Tim. I am mifanthropos, and hate mankind. For thy part, I do with thou wert a dog, That I might love thee fomething. 9 To the April day again.] The April day does not relate to the widow, but to the other difeafed female, who is reprefented as the outcaft of an bofpital. She it is, whom gold embalms and spices to the April day again: i. e. gold reftores her to all the freshness and fweetness of youth. Such is the power of gold, that it will 66 make black, white; foul, fair; A quotation or two may perhaps fupport this interpretation. In Stephens's Apology for Herodotus, 1607. He is a young man, and in the April of bis age. Peacham's Compleat Gentleman, chap. iii. calls youth the April of man's life." Shakspeare's Sonnet entitled Love's Cruelty, has the fame thought: "Thou art thy mother's glafs, and the in thee Daniel's 31ft Sonnet has, " Fenton "fmells April and May." the April of my years." Mafter TOLLET. Do thy right nature.-] Lie in the earth where nature laid thee. 2 JOHNSON. Thou'rt quick,] Thou haft life and motion in thee. JOHNSON. I am mifanthropos,] A marginal note in the old tranflation of Plutarch's Life of Antony, furnished our authour with this epithet: "Antonius followeth the life and example of Timon Mifanthropus, the Athenian," MALONE. Alc. |