I have no doubt that ingaged (the reading of the folio) is right. Gaged is used by other writers, as well as by Shakspere, for engaged. So in a Pastoral, by Daniel, 1605: "Not that the earth did gage "Unto the husbandman “Her voluntary fruits, free without fees.” Ingaged, in the sense of unengaged, is a word of exactly the same formation as inhabitable, which is used by Shakspere and the contemporary writers for uninhabitable. MALONE. 215. King. Plutus himself, That knows the tinct and multiplying medicine,] Plutus, the grand alchemist, who knows the tincture which confers the properties of gold upon base metals, and the matter by which gold is multiplied, by which a small quantity of gold is made to communicate its qua lities to a large mass of base metal. In the reign of Henry IV. a law was made to forbid all men thenceforth to multiply gold, or use any craft of multiplication. Of which law, Mr. Boyle, when he was warm with the hope of transmutation, procured a repeal. JOHNSON. That you are well acquainted with yourself,} i. e. then if you be wise. A strange way of expressing so trivial a thought! WARBURTON The true meaning of this strange expression is, If you know that your faculties are so sound, as that you have the proper consciousness of your own actions, and are able to recollect and relate what you have done, tell &c. JOHNSON. 236. My fore-past proofs, howe'er the matter fall, me, Shall tax my fears of little vanity, The proofs which I have already had, are sufficient to shew that my fears were not vain and irrational. I have rather been hitherto more easy than I ought, and have unreasonably had too little fear. JOHNSON. 248. Who hath, some four or five removes, come short] Removes are journies or post-stages. JOHNSON. 272. I wonder, sir,- -] This passage is thus read in the first folio: I wonder, sir, sir, wives are monsters to you, And that you fly them, as you swear them lordship, Which may be corrected thus: I wonder, sir, since wives are monsters, &c. The editors have made it-wives are so monstrous to you, and in the next line-swear to them, instead of -swear them lordship. Though the latter phrase be a little obscure, it should not have been turned out of the text without notice. I suppose lordship is put for that protection which the husband in the marriageceremony promises to the wife. TYRWHITT. I read with Mr. Tyrwhitt, whose emendation I have placed in the text. shall cease, STEEVENS. -} i. e. decease, die. So 281. in King Lear: "Fall and cease." "1 I think the word is used used in the same sense in a former scene in this co STEEVENS, medy. 308. —a common gamester to the camp.] The following passage, in an ancient MS. tragedy, entitled The Second Maiden's Tragedy, will sufficiently elucidate the idea once affixed to the term-gamester, when applied to a female: "'Tis to me wondrous how you should spare the day "From amorous clips, much less the general season "When all the world's a gamester.” Again, in Pericles : "Were you a gamester at five or at seven." Again, in Troilus and Cressida: 66 -daughters of the game." STEEVENS. 312. Whose high respect, and rich validity,] Validity means value. So in King Lear: "No less in space, validity, and pleasure." Again, in Twelfth Night: "Of what validity and pitch soever. STEEVENS. 316. Count. He blushes, and 'tis it :] The old copy has : He blushes, and 'tis hit. Perhaps we should read, He blushes, and is hit. Or, He blushes, and 'tis fit. MALONE. HENLEY. 328. He's quoted for a most perfidious slave,] Quoted has the same sense as noted, or observed. STEEVENS. 329. act iii. scene 2. 338. debosh'd,] See a note on The Tempest, STEEVENS. -All impediments in fancy's course -] Every thing that obstructs love is an occasion by which love is heightened. And, to conclude, her solicitation concurring with her fashionable appearance, she got the ring. I am not certain that I have attained the true meaning of the word modern, which, perhaps, signifies rather meanly pretty. JOHNSON. I believe modern means common. The sense will then be this-Her solicitation concurring with her appearance of being common, i. e. with the appearance of her being to be had, as we say at present. Shakspere uses the word modern frequently, and always in this sense. -scorns a modern invocation." K. John. "Full of wise saws and modern instances." As You Like It. "Trifles, such as we present modern friends with." ❝to make modern and familiar things supernatural and causeless." STEEVENS. 397. -But thou art too fine in thy evidence ;—] Too fine, too full of finesse; too artful. A French expression-trop fine. So in Sir Henry Wotton's celebrated Parallel :-"We may rate this one secret, as it was finely carried, at 4000l. in present money." MALONE. 421. in Othello -customer.] i. e. a common woman. So "I marry "I marry her!-what?-a customer!" STEEVENS. 440. -exorcist,] This word is used not very properly for enchanter. EPILOGU E. Line 1. THE king's a beggar, now the play is done:] Though these lines are sufficiently intelligible in their obvious sense, yet perhaps there is some allusion to the old tale of The King and the Beggar, which was the subject of a ballad, and, as it should seem from the following lines in King Richard II. of some popular interlude also: "Our scene is alter'd from a serious thing, "And now chang'd to the beggar and the king." MALONE. 6. Ours be your patience then, and yours our parts ;] The meaning is: Grant us then your patience; hear us without interruption. And take our parts; that is, support and defend us. JOHNSON. THE END. |