to kiss with. Shoots are branches, i. e. horns. Leontes is alluding to the ensings of cuckoldom. A mad-brain'd boy is, however, call'd a mad pash in Cheshire, STEEVENS.

Thou want'st a rough pash, and the shoots that I have, in connection with the context, signifies to make thee a calf thou must have the tuft on thy forehead and the young horns that shoot up in it, as I have.

When in Cheshire a pash is used for a madbrained boy, it is designed to characterize him from the wantonness of a calf that blunders on and runs his head against any thing. HENLEY.

I have lately learned that pash in Scotland signifies a head. The old reading therefore may stand. Many words, that are now used only in that country, were perhaps once common to the whole island of Great Britain, or at least to the northern part of England. The meaning therefore of the present passage, I suppose, is this. You tell me (says Leontes to his son) that you are like me; that you are my calf. I am the horned bull: thou wantest the rough head and the horns of that animal, completely to resemble your father. MALONE.

P. 99, 1. 32. Full is here as in other places, used by our author, adverbially; to be entirely like

me. MALONE.

P. 99, last line but one. As o'er-died blacks,] Sir T. Hanmer understands blacks died too much, and therefore rotten. JOHNSON.

It is common with tradesmen to die their faded

or damaged stuffs, black. O'er died blacks may

mean those which have received a die over their former colour.

It seems that blacks was the common term for mourning.

Black, however, will receive no other hue without discovering itself through it. „Lanarum nigrae nullum colorem bibunt."

Plin. Nat. Hist. Lib. VIII. STEEVENS.

The following passage in a book which our author had certainly read, inclines me to believe that the last is the true interpretation. Truly (quoth Camillo) my wool was blacke, and therefore it could take no other colour.." Lyly's Euphues and his England, 4to. 1580. MALONE.

P. 100, first 1. Bourn is boundary. STEEVENS.

P. 100, 1. 3. welkin-eye:] Blue-eye; an eye of the same colour with the welkin or sky.

P. 100,

JOHNSON.

1. 6. Affection! thy intention stabs the. center:] Affection, I believe, signifies imagination. Intention is; as Mr. Locke expresses it, when the mind with great earnestness, and of choice, fixes its view on any idea, considers it on every side, and will not be called off by the ordinary solicitation of other ideas."This vehemence of the mind seems to be what affects Leontes so deeply, or, in Shakspeare's language,— stabs him to the center. STELEVENS.

Intention, in this passage, means cagerness of attention, or of desire; and is used in the same sense in The Merry Wives of Windsor, where Falstaff says..She did so course o'er my exteriors, with such a greedy intention." etc. M. MASON.

I think, with Mr. Steevens, that affection means here imagination, or perhaps more accurately, ..the disposition of the mind when strongly affected or possessed by a particular idea." MALONE.

P. 100, 1.7. Thou dost make possible, things not so held, i. e. thou

dost make those things possible, which are conceiv ed t

impossible. JOHNSON.

I

To express the speaker's meaning, it is necessary to make a short pause after the word possible. have therefore pu. a comma there though perhaps in strictness it is improper. MALONE.

P. 100, 1. 10.

P. 100, 1. 18.

credent,] i. e. credible.

STEEVENS.

What cheer? how is't with you, best brother?] This line, ih in the old copy is given to Leontes, has been attrit d to Po.ixenes, on the suggestion of Mr. Steevens. Sir T. Hanmer made the same emendation. MALONE.

P. 100, 1. 32. A squash is a pea-pod, in that state when the young peas begin to swell in it.

HENLEY.

P. 100, 1. 33. Will you take eggs for money?] This seems to be a proverbial expression, used when a man sees himself wronged an makes no resistance. Its original, or precise meaning, I cannot find, but I believe it means, will you be a cuckold for hire. The cuckow is reported to lay her eggs in another bird's nest; heere'ore that has eggs laid in his nest is said to be cucullatus, cuckow'd, or cuckold. JOHNSON.

The meaning of this is, will you put up affronts? The Frenc have a proverbial saying, A qui vendez vous coquilles? i. e. whom do you d n t ffront? Mamillius's answer plainly proves it. Mam. No, my Lord, I'll fight. SMITH.

Leontes seems only to ask his son if he would fly fro an en m

Mamillius's reply to his father's question appears so decisive as to the true explanation of this passage, that it leaves no doubt with me even after I read

the following note. The phrase undoubtedly sometimes means what Mr. Malone asserts, but not here. REED.

This phrase seems to me to have meant originally, Are you such a poltron as to suffer another to use you as he pleases, to compel you to give him your money and to accept of a thing of so small a value as a few eggs in exchange for it? This explanation appears to be perfectly consistent with the passage quoted by Mr. Reed. He, who will take eggs for money seems to be what, in As you like it, and in many of the old plays, is called a tame snake. MALONE.

P. 100, last 1. but one. - happy man be his dole! May his dole or share in life be to be a happy man. JOHNSON.

The expression is proverbial. Dole was the term for the allowance of provision given to the poor, in great families. STEEVENS.

The alms immemorially given to the poor by the archbishops of Canterbury, is still called the dole. See the History of Lambeth Palace, p. 31, in Bibl. Top. Brit. NICHOLS.

P. 101, 1. 16. Apparent] That is, heir apparent, or the next claimant. JOHNSON.

P. 101, 1. 25.

m

the neb, The worl S monly pronounced and written nib. It signifies here the mouth. STEEVENS.

.P. 101, 1. 27. Allowing in the old language is approving. MALONE.

P. 101, 1. 28.

o'er head and ears a fork'd one.] That is, a horned one; a cuckold. JOHNSON.

· P. 102, 1.4. And his pond fish'd by his next neigh

bour,] This metaphor

perhaps owed its introduction and currency, to the once frequent depredations of neighbours on each others fish, a complaint that often occurs in ancient correspondence. STEEVENS.

P. 102, 1.25. When you cast out, it still came home.} This is a sea-faring expression, meaning, the anchor would not take hold. STEEVENS.

P. 102,

1. 27. 28. He would not stay at your petitions; made His business more material.] i. e. the more you requested him to stay, the more urgent he represented that business to be which summoned him away. STEVENS.

P. 102, 1. 30. They're here with me already;] Not Polixenes and Hermione, but casual observers, people accidentally present. THIRLBY.

P. 102, 1. 30. To round in the ear is to whisper, or to tell secretly. The expression is very copi ously explained by M. Casaubon, in his book de Ling. Sax. JOHNSON.

P. 102, 1. 31. Sicilia is a so-forth:] This was a phrase employed when the speaker, through caution or disgust, wished to escape the utterance of an obnoxious term. A commentator on Shakspeare will often derive more advantage from listening to vulgar than to polite conversation. At the corner of Flect-market, I lately heard one woman, describing another, say every body knows that her husband is a so-forth." As she spoke the last word, her fingers expressed the emblem of cuckoldom. Mr. Malone reads Sicilia is a so forth. STEEVENS.

In regulating this line I have adopted a hint suggested by Mr. M. Mason. I have more than once observed that almost every abrupt sentence in these plays is corrupted. These words without the break now introduced are to me unintelligible. Leontes