Again, for anger, in Romeo and Juliet: “Come, come, thou art as hot a jack in thy mood as any in Italy."

Again, in the old Taming of a Shrew, 1657:

66 -This brain-sick man,

"That in his mood cares not to murder me.".

All the expressions mentioned by Dr. Warburton agree sufficiently well with the text, without any alteration. MALONE.

There is another sense of the word mood, which agrees better with the context, than any hitherto cited. In the west of England, the subsiding or mother of vinegar, &c. is called the mood of it. HENLEY. -allow the wind.] i. e. stand to the windSTEEVENS.

53.

ward of me.

57. Indeed, sir, if your metaphor stink, I will stop my nose; or against any man's metaphor.] Nothing could be conceived with greater humour or justness of satire, than this speech. The use of the stinking metaphor is an odious fault, which grave writers often commit. It is not uncommon to see moral declaimers against vice, describe her, as Hesiod did the fury Tristitia:

Τῆς ἐκ ρἴνων μύξαι ρέον.

Upon which Longinus justly observes, that, instead of giving a terrible image, he has given a very nasty one. Cicero cautions well against it, in his book De Orat. "Quoniam hæc, says he, vel summa laus est verbis transferendis, ut sensum feriat id, quod translatum sit z fugienda est omnis turpitudo earum rerum, ad quas eorum

animos,

1

animos, qui audiunt, trahet similitudo. Nolo morte dici Africani castratam esse rempublicam: nolo stercus curiæ dici Glauciam:"Our poet himself is extremely delicate in this respect; who, throughout his large writings, if you except a passage in Hamlet, has scarce a metaphor that can offend the most squeamish reader.

WARBURTON.

69. -I do pity his distress in my smiles of comfort, We should read—similies of comfort, such as the calling him fortune's cat, carp, &c.

WARBURTON. The meaning is, I testify my pity for his distress, by encouraging him with a gracious smile. The old reading may stand. REVISAL.

Dr. Warburton's proposed emendation may be countenanced by an entry on the books of the Stationers-Company, 1595: "A booke of verię pythie similies, comfortable and profitable for all men to reade.'

77. her ?

STEEVENS.

-] Added in the second folio. MALONE.

85. You beg more than one word then.] A quibble is intended on the word Parolles, which in French is plural, and signifies words. One, which is not found in the old copy, was added, perhaps unnecessarily, by the editor of the third folio. MALONE.

99 -you shall eat;· -] Parolles has many of the lineaments of Falstaff, and seems to be the character which Shakspere delighted to draw, a fellow that had more wit than virtue. Though justice re

3

quired

quired that he should be detected and exposed, yet his vices sit so fit in him, that he is not at last suffered JOHNSON.

to starve.

101. esteem] Esteem is here reckoning or estimate. Since the loss of Helen with her virtues and qualifications, our account is sunk; what we have to reckon ourselves king of, is much poorer than before. JOHNSON.

104. home.] That is, completely, in its full exJOHNSON.

tent.

107. -blade of youth ;] In the spring of early life, when the man is yet green. Oil and fire suit but ill with blade, and therefore Dr. Warburton reads, blaze of youth. JOHNSON.

120. Of richest eyes;- -] Shakspere means that ́her beauty had astonished those, who, having seen the greatest number of fair women, might be said to be the richest in ideas of beauty. So in As You Like It: i -to have seen much and to have nothing, is to have rich eyes and poor hands."

126.

-the first view shall kill

STEEVENS.

All repetition:] The first interview `shall put an end to all recollection of the past. Shaksperė ́is now hastening to the end of the play, finds his mat ́ter sufficient to fill up his remaining scenes, and therefore, as on other such occasions, contracts his dialogue and precipitates his action. Decency required that Bertram's double crime of cruelty and disobedience, joined likewise with some hypocrisy, should raise more resentment; "and that though his mother might

easily forgive him, his king should more pertinaciously vindicate his own authority and Helen's merit. Of all this Shakspere could not be ignorant; but Shakspere wanted to conclude his play. JOHNSON.

138. I am not a day of season.] That is, of uninterrupted rain: one of those wet days that usually happen about the vernal equinox. A similar expression occurs in The Rape of Luerece:

"But I alone, alone must sit and pine,

"Seasoning the earth with showers."

The word is still used in the same sense in Virginia, in which government, and especially on the eastern shore of it, where the descendants of the first settlers have been less mixed with later emigrants, many expressions of Shakspere's time are still current.

174.

HENLEY. 143. My high-repented blames,] High-repented blames, are faults repented of to the height, to the utmost. Shakspere has high-fantastical in the following play. STEEVENS. Our own love, waking, &c. -] These two lines I should be glad to call an interpolation of a player. They are ill connected with the former, and not very clear or proper in themselves. I believe the author made two couplets to the same purpose; wrote them both down that he might take his choice, and so they happened to be both preserved.

For sleep I think we should read slept. Love cries to see what was done while hatred slept, and suffered mischief to be done. Or the meaning may be, that

hatred

hatred still continues to sleep at ease, while love is weeping; and so the present reading may stand.

JOHNSON.

179. Which better than the first, O dear heaven bless, Or, ere they meet, in me, O nature, cease!] I have ventured, against the authorities of the printed copies, to prefix the countess's name to these two lines. The king appears, indeed, to be a favourer of Bertram but if Bertram should make a bad husband the second time, why should it give the king such mortal pangs? A fond and disappointed mother might reasonably not desire to live to see such a day: and from her the wish of dying, rather than to behold it, comes with propriety. THEOBALD.

188. —she—] So the old copy. The correction by Mr. Rowe. MALONE.

806. In Florence was it from a casement thrown me,] Bertram still continues to have too little virtue to deserve Helen. He did not know indeed that it was Helen's ring, but he knew that he had it not from a window. JOHNSON.

208.

-noble she was, and thought

I stood engag'd ;

-] The plain meaning is, when she saw me receive the ring, she thought me engaged to her. JOHNSON. The first folio reads-ingag'd, which perhaps may be intended in the same sense with the reading proposed by Mr. Theobald, i. e. not engaged; as Shakspere in another place uses gag'd for engaged.. Merchant of Venice, act i, sc. 1.

TYRWHITT.