Quite from their fixture? O, when degree is

shak'd,

Which is the ladder of all high designs,

The enterprize' is sick! How could communities,
Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities",
Peaceful commérce from dividable shores,
The primogenitive and due of birth,

Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,
But by degree, stand in authentick place?
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And, hark, what discord follows! each thing meets
In mere oppugnancy: The bounded waters
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores,
And make a sop of all this solid globe 2:

shady groves of noble palm-tree sprays,
"Of amorous myrtles and immortal bays;
"Never unleav'd, but evermore they're new,

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Self-arching, in a thousand arbours grew.

66 Birds marrying their sweet tunes to the angels' lays, Sung Adam's bliss, and their great Maker's praise." The subject of Milton's larger poem would naturally have led him to read this description in Sylvester. The quotation from him I owe to Dr. Farmer.

Shakspeare calls a harmony of features, married lineaments, in Romeo and Juliet, Act I. Sc. III. p. 39. See note on this passage. STEEVENS.

6- O, when degree is shak'd,] I would read:

So, when degree is shak'd. JOHNSON.

7 THE enterprize-] Perhaps we should read: Then enterprize is sick! JOHNSON. 8-brotherhoods in cities,] Corporations, companies, confraternities. JOHNSON.

9 —DIVIDABLE shores,] i. e. divided. So, in Antony and Cleopatra, our author uses corrigible for corrected.

son has the same observation. STEEVENS.

I

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Mr. M. Ma

— MERE oppugnancy:] Mere is absolute. So, in Hamlet:
things rank and gross in nature
"Possess it merely." STEEVENS.

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2 And make a sop of all this solid globe :] So, in King Lear: I'll make a sop o'the moonshine of you." STEEvens. In a former speech a boat is said to be made a toast for Neptune. BLAKEWAY.

Strength should be lord of imbecility,

And the rude son should strike his father dead:
Force should be right; or, rather, right and wrong,
(Between whose endless jar justice resides,)
Should lose their names, and so should justice too.
Then every thing includes itself in power,
Power into will, will into appetite;

And appetite, an universal wolf,

So doubly seconded with will and power,
Must make perforce an universal prey,
And, last, eat up himself. Great Agamemnon,
This chaos, when degree is suffocate,
Follows the choking.

3

And this neglection of degree it is,

4

That by a pace goes backward, with a purpose
It hath to climb 5. The general's disdain'd
By him one step below; he, by the next;
That next, by him beneath: so every step,
Exampled by the first pace that is sick
Of his superior, grows to an envious fever
Of pale and bloodless emulation 6:

And 'tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot,
Not her own sinews. To end a tale of length,
Troy in our weakness stands, not in her strength,
NEST. Most wisely hath Ulysses here discover'd
The fever whereof all our power is sick.

3

this NEGLECTION-] This uncommon word occurs again in Pericles, 1609:

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-if neglection

"Should therein make me vile" MALONE.

4 That by a pace-] That goes backward step by step..

5

with a purpose

JOHNSON!

It hath to climb.] With a design in each man to aggrandize himself, by slighting his immediate superior. JOHNSON. Thus the quarto. Folio-in a purpose. MALONE.

6-bloodless emulation:] An emulation not vigorous and active, but malignant and sluggish. JOHNSON.

AGAM. The nature of the sickness found, Ulysses, What is the remedy?

ULYSS. The great Achilles,-whom opinion

crowns

The sinew and the forehand of our host,-
Having his ear full of his airy fame,

Grows dainty of his worth, and in his tent

Lies mocking our designs: With him, Patroclus, Upon a lazy bed the livelong day

Breaks scurril jests;

And with ridiculous and aukward action (Which, slanderer, he imitation calls,)

He pageants us. Sometime, great Agamemnon,
Thy topless deputation he puts on;

And, like a strutting player,-whose conceit
Lies in his hamstring, and doth think it rich
To hear the wooden dialogue and sound
'Twixt his stretch'd footing and the scaffoldage
Such to-be-pitied and o'er-wrested seeming

7

2

Our POWER -] i. e. our army. So, in another of our author's plays:

8

"Who leads his power?" STEEVENS.

his AIRY fame,] Verbal elogium; what our author, in Macbeth, has called mouth honour. See p. 258, note. MALONE. 9 Thy TOPLESS deputation] Topless is that which has nothing topping or overtopping it; supreme; sovereign. JOHNSON. So, in Dr. Faustus, 1604 :

"Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships,

"And burnt the topless towers of Ilium ?"

Again, in The Blind Beggar of Alexandria, 1598:

"And topless honours be bestow'd on thee." STEEVENS, 'Twixt his stretch'd footing and the SCAFFOLDAGE,] The galleries of the theatre, in the time of our author, were sometimes termed the scaffolds. See The Account of the Ancient Theatres, vol. iii. MALONE.

2

--

O'ER-WRESTED seeming-] i. e. wrested beyond the truth; overcharged. Both the old copies, as well as all the modern editions, have-o'er-rested, which affords No meaning.

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The same error is found in Look To It for I'l Stabbe You, 1604: Lawyers that rest the law to your affection." MALONE. Over-wrested is-wound up too high. A wrest was an instru

He acts thy greatness in: and when he speaks, 'Tis like a chime a mending; with terms un

squar❜d *,

Which, from the tongue of roaring Typhon dropp'd,
Would seem hyperboles. At this fusty stuff,
The large Achilles, on his press'd bed lolling,
From his deep chest laughs out a loud applause;
Cries-Excellent!-'tis Agamemnon just.-

Now play me Nestor ;-hem, and stroke thy beard,
As he, being 'drest to some oration.

That's done ; -as near as the extremest ends
Of parallels; as like as Vulcan and his wife:
Yet good Achilles still cries, Excellent!
'Tis Nestor right! Now play him me, Patroclus,
Arming to answer in a night alarm.

And then, forsooth, the faint defects of age
Must be the scene of mirth; to cough, and spit,
And with a palsy-fumbling on his gorget,

6

Shake in and out the rivet :-and at this sport,
Sir Valour dies; cries, O!-enough, Patroclus;—
Or give me ribs of steel! I shall split all

ment for tuning a harp, by drawing up the strings. See Mr. Douce's note on Act III. Sc. III. STEEvens.

3-a chime a mending;] To this comparison the praise of originality must be allowed. He who, like myself, has been in the tower of a church while the chimes were repairing, will never wish a second time to be present at so dissonantly noisy an operation. STEEVENS.

4

- unsquar'd,] i. e. unadapted to their subject, as stones are unfitted to the purposes of architecture, while they are yet unsquar'd. STEEVENS.

5

as near as the extremest ends Of PARALLELS ;] The parallels to

which the allusion seems to be made, are the parallels on a map. As like as east to west. JOHNSON.

6 -a palsy-fumbling-] Old copies give this as two distinct words. But it should be written-palsy-fumbling, i. e. paralytick fumbling. TYRWHITT.

On seems to be used for-at. So, p. 276: "Pointing on him." i. e. at him. STEEVENS.

In pleasure of my spleen. And in this fashion,
All our abilities, gifts, natures, shapes,
Severals and generals of grace exact,
Achievements, plots 7, orders, preventions,
Excitements to the field, or speech for truce,
Success, or loss, what is, or is not, serves
As stuff for these two to make paradoxes.
NEST. And in the imitation of these twain
(Whom, as Ulysses says, opinion crowns
With an imperial voice,) many are infect.
Ajax is grown self-will'd: and bears his head
In such a rein 9, in full as proud a place
As broad Achilles: keeps his tent like him;
Makes factious feasts; rails on our state of war,
Bold as an oracle: and sets Thersites

(A slave, whose gall coins slanders like a mint 1,) To match us in comparisons with dirt;

To weaken and discredit our exposure,

How rank soever rounded in with danger 2.
ULYSS. They tax our policy, and call it cow-
ardice;

Count wisdom as no member of the war;
Forestall prescíence, and esteem no act

7 All our abilities, gifts, natures, shapes, Severals and generals of GRACE EXACT,

Achievements, plots, &c.] All our good grace exact, means our excellence irreprehensible. JOHNSON.

8 -to make PARADOXES.]

Paradoxes may have a meaning, but it is not clear and distinct. I wish the copies had given : to make parodies."

9

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bears his head

JOHNSON.

In such a rein,] That is, holds up his head as haughtily. We still say of a girl, she bridles. JOHNSON.

I

whose gall coins slanders like a mint,] i. e. as fast as a mint coins money. MALONE.

2 HOW RANK Soever rounded in with danger.] A rank weed is a high weed. The modern editions silently read:

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"How hard soever." JOHNSON.

rounded in with danger." So, in King Henry V. :

How dread an army hath enrounded him." STEEVENS.