vast; and embraced, as it were, from the ends of opposed winds. The heavens continue their loves!

ARCH. I think there is not in the world either malice or matter to alter it. You have an unspeakable comfort of your young prince Mamillius; it is a gentleman of the greatest promise that ever came into my note.

CAM. I very well agree with you in the hopes of him it is a gallant child; one that, indeed, physics the subject," makes old hearts fresh; they that went on crutches ere he was born, desire yet their life to see him a man.

ARCH. Would they else be content to die? CAM. Yes; if there were no other excuse why they should desire to live.

ARCH. If the king had no son they would desire to live on crutches till he had one.

SCENE II.--The same.

[Exeunt.

I'll no gainsaying.

POL. Press me not, beseech you, so;

There is no tongue that moves, none, none i' the world,

So soon as yours could win me: so it should now,
Were there necessity in your request, although
'T were needful I denied it. My affairs
Do even drag me homeward: which to hinder,
Were, in your love, a whip to me; my stay,
To you a charge and trouble: to save both,
Farewell, our brother.
Tongue-tied, our queen? speak you.
HER. I had thought, sir, to have held my peace
until
[sir,
You had drawn oaths from him not to stay. You,
Charge him too coldly. Tell him, you are sure
All in Bohemia's well; this satisfaction
The by-gone day proclaim'd; say this to him,
He's beat from his best ward.

a — shook hands, as over a vast;] So the first folio: that of 1632 reads," over a vast sea." The earlier lection is no doubt the true one; in "The Tempest," Act I. Sc. 2, we have, "vast of night;" and in "Pericles," Act III. Sc. 1,

"The God of this great vast, rebuke these surges." bone that, indeed, physics the subject.-] "Subject," in this place, may import the people generally, as it is usually interpreted; yet from the words which immediately follow," makes old hearts fresh," it has perhaps a more particular meaning-The sight and hopes of the princely boy were cordial to the afflicted, and invigorating to the old.

LEON.
Well said, Hermione.
HER. To tell he longs to see his son, were
strong:

But let him say so then, and let him go;
But let him swear so, and he shall not stay,
We'll thwack him hence with distaffs.--
Yet of your royal presence [To POLIXENES.] I'll
adventure

The borrow of a week. When at Bohemia
You take my lord, I'll give him my commission,
To let him there a month, behind the gest
Prefix'd for's parting: yet, good deed, Leontes,
I love thee not a jar o' the clock behind
What lady-shef her lord.-You'll stay?

to justify my apprehensions, and make me say, "I predicted too truly:" but Mr. Dyce and Mr. Collier suspect, with reason, that the passage is corrupt.

d To let-] To stay.

e-behind the gest-] A "gest" was the name of the scroll containing the route and resting-places of royalty during a "progress;' and Hermione's meaning may be,-when he visits Bohemia he shall have my licence to prolong his sojourn a month beyond the time prescribed for his departure. But gest, or jest, also signified a show or revelry, and it is not impossible that the sense intended was, he shall have my permission to remain a month after the farewell entertainment.

f What lady-she her lord.-] Mr. Collier's annotator suggests, prosaically enough, "What lady should her lord." The difficulty in the expression arises, we apprehend, solely from the omission of the hyphen in "lady-she;" that restored, the sense is unmistakeable,-I love thee not a tick of the clock behind whatever high-born woman does her husband. So in Massinger's play of "The Bondman," Act I. Sc. 3,

"I'll kiss him for the honour of my country,
With any she in Corinth."

As fat as tame things: one good deed dying tongueless,

Slaughters a thousand waiting upon that.
Our praises are our wages: you may ride us
With one soft kiss a thousand furlongs, ere
With spur we heat an acre.
But to the goal;—b
My last good deed was to entreat his stay;
What was my first? it has an elder sister,
Or I mistake you: O, would her name were Grace!
But once before I spoke to the
purpose: when?
Nay, let me have't; I long.

LEON.

Why, that was when Three crabbed months had sour'd themselves to

death,

LEON.

[Giving her hand to POLIXENES. [Aside.] Too hot, too hot! To mingle friendship far, is mingling bloods. I have tremor cordis on me,-my heart dances,But not for joy,-not joy.-This entertainment May a free face put on; derive a liberty From heartiness, from bounty, fertile bosom, And well become the agent: 't may, I grant: But to be paddling palms and pinching fingers, As now they are; and making practis'd smiles, As in a looking-glass;--and then to sigh, as 't

Affection thy intention stabs the centre?
Thou dost make possible things not so held?
Communicat'st with dreams?- How! can this be?-
With what's unreal thou coactive art,

And fellow'st nothing? Then 't is very credent, Thou mayst co join with something; &c.] "Affection" here means imagination; "intention" signifies intencion or intensity; and the allusion, though the commentators have all missed it, is plainly to that mysterious principle of nature by which a parent's features are transmitted to the offspring. Pursuing the train of thought induced by the acknowledged likeness between the boy and himself, Leontes asks, "Can it be possible a mother's vehement imagination should penetrate even to the womb, and there imprint upon the embryo what stamp she chooses? Such apprehensive fantasy, then," he goes on to say, "we may believe will readily co-join with something tangible, and it does," &c. &c.

b And that beyond commission:] "Commission" here, as in a former passage of the scene, "I'll give him my commission," means warrant, permission, authority.

HER. You look as it you held a brow of much distraction:

Are you mov'd, my lord? (2)

LEON. No, in good earnest.[Aside.] How sometimes nature will betray its folly,

Its tenderness, and make itself a pastime
To harder bosoms !-Looking on the lines
Of my boy's face, methought I did recoil
Twenty-three years; and saw myself unbreech'd,
In my green velvet coat; my dagger muzzled,

c

POL.

How, my lord! What cheer? how is 't with you, best brother?] "In the folio, the words What cheer? how is 't with you, best brother?' have the prefix 'Leo.;' Hanmer assigned them to Polixenes. Mr. Collier and Mr. Knight restore them-very injudiciously, I think-to Leontes. (I suspect that the true reading here is,

'POL.

Ho, my lord!
What cheer? how is 't with you?' &c.-

for Leontes is standing apart from Polixenes and Hermione; and 'how,' as I have already noticed, was frequently the old spelling of 'ho.'")-DYCE.

d-methought I did recoil-] Mr Collier, upon the strength of a MS. annotation in Lord Ellesmere's copy of the first folio, prints "my thoughts I did recoil;" but "methoughts" of the original was often used for "methought." So, in the folio text of Richard III." Act I. Sc. 4,

"Me thoughts that I had broken from the tower," &c. And in the same scene,

"Me thoughts I saw a thousand fearfull wrackes," &c.

Lest it should bite its master, and so prove,
As ornaments oft do, too dangerous:
How like, methought, I then was to this kernel,
This squash, this gentleman:-Mine honest
friend,
Will take
you eggs for
MAM. No, my lord, I'll fight.

money

LEON. You will? why, happy man be 's dole-My brother,

Are you so fond of your young prince, as we
Do seem to be of ours?

POL.
If at home, sir,
He's all my exercise, my mirth, my matter:
Now my sworn friend, and then mine enemy;
My parasite, mine soldier, statesman, all:
He makes a July's day short as December;
And with his varying childness cures in me
Thoughts that would thick my blood.
LEON.
So stands this squire
Offic'd with me. We two will walk, my lord,
And leave you to your graver steps.-Hermione,
How thou lov'st us, show in our brother's welcome;
Let what is dear in Sicily be cheap :
Next to thyself and my young rover, he's
Apparent to my heart.

If you would seek us,

HER. We are yours i' the garden: shall's attend you there?

LEON. To your own bents dispose you: you'll be found,

Be you beneath the sky.-[Aside.] I am angling now,

Though you perceive me not how I give line.
Go to, go to!

[Observing POLIXENES and HERMIONE. How she holds up the neb, the bill to him! And arms her with the boldness of a wife To her allowing husband! Gone already !— [Exeunt POLIXENES, HERMIONE, and Attendants.

Inch-thick, knee-deep, o'er head and ears a fork'd

one.

Go play, boy, play;-thy mother plays, and I Play too; but so disgrac'd a part, whose issue Will hiss me to my grave; contempt and clamour Will be my knell.-Go play, boy, play.-There have been,

a This squash,-] A" squash" is an immature pea-pod. The word occurs again in "Twelfth Night," Act I. Sc. 5,

"As a squash before it is a peascod,"

and in "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Act III. Sc. 1.

b Will you take eggs for money?] This was a proverbial phrase, implying, Will you suffer yourself to be cajoled?

Apparent to my heart.] Nearest to my affections.

d To her allowing husband!] That is, probably, her allowed, her lawful husband.

e

Sc. 3,

a fork'd one.] A horned one. So, in "Othello," Act III.

"Even then this forked plague is fated to us

When we do quicken."

Or I am much deceiv'd, cuckolds ere now; And many a man there is, even at this present, (Now, while I speak this) holds his wife by th'

arm,

That little thinks she has been sluic'd in's absence,
And his pond fish'd by his next neighbour, by
Sir Smile, his neighbour: nay, there's comfort in 't
Whiles other men have gates, and those gates
open'd,

As mine, against their will. Should all despair
That have revolted wives, the tenth of mankind
Would hang themselves. Physic for 't there's none;
It is a bawdy planet, that will strike
Where 't is predominant; and 't is powerful,
think it,

From east, west, north, and south: be it concluded,
No barricado for a belly; know't,

It will let in and out the enemy,

With bag and baggage: many a thousand on's Have the disease, and feel't not.-How now, boy! MAM. I am like you, they say.

LEON.

f

Why, that's some comfort.

What, Camillo there?

CAM. Ay, my good lord.

LEON. Go play, Mamillius; thou'rt an honest

man.

[Exit MAMILLIUS.

Didst perceive it ?— [Aside.] They're here with me already; whisp'ring, rounding,

Sicilia is a--so-forth: 'Tis far gone,

When I shall gust it last.-How came't, Camillo,
That he did stay?

CAM.
At the good queen's entreaty.
LEON. At the queen's be't: good should be
pertinent;

But so it is, it is not.h Was this taken
By any understanding pate but thine?
For thy conceit is soaking, will draw in
More than the common blocks :-not noted, is't,
But of the finer natures? by some severals

f I am like you, they say.] So the second folio; the first reads, "I am like you say."

g They're here with me already; whisp'ring, &c.] That is, say the modern editors, "Not Polixenes and Hermione, but casual observers" or "They are aware of my condition"! Strange forgetfulness of a common form of speech. By "They're here with me already," the King means,-the people are already mocking me with this opprobrious gesture (the cuckold's emblem with their fingers), and whispering, &c. So in "Coriolanus," Act III. Sc. 2,

"Go to them, with this bonnet in thy hand;

And thus far having stretch'd it, (here be with them). See also note (8), p. 161 of the present Volume.

h But so it is, it is not.] But as you apply the word, it is not pertinent.