other, and so numerous that no one counts or discriminates them? and can we not, etc. “Not so allur'd to feed"-Iachimo, in this counterfeited rapture, has shown how the eyes and the judg ment would determine in favour of Imogen, comparing her with the supposed mistress of Posthumus, and proceeds to say, that appetite too would give the same suffrage. Desire, says he, when it approached sluttery, and considered it in comparison with such neat excellence, would not only be not so allured to feed, but, seized with a fit of loathing, would vomit emptiness, would feel the convulsions of disgust, though, being unfed, it had no object.-JOHNSON. "Thus RAPS you"-i. e. Absorbs and carries away your thoughts: a word familiar to the older poets, but now obsolete except in the participle, which is still used in poetic and oratorical language; as, in Pope, “Rapt into future times, the bard began," and "the rapt seraph." "then BY-PEEPING in an eye"―This is the original reading of the folios, and seems a bold and not inexpressive phrase for sideway or clandestine glances: it is a compound, resembling "under-peep," in act ii. scene 2, though of another meaning. Nearly all the ordinary editions follow Johnson, who changed it to lie peeping. "Base and ILLUSTROUS as the smoky light"-We have not hesitated to accept Collier's restoration of this word "illustrous," which, on Rowe's authority, all modern editors change to unlustrous; but the word is "illustrous" (misprinted illustrious) in all the folios, and it ought on every account to be preferred, as that which came from the author's pen, being the phrase of his age; while unlustrous has never been found in any author until conjecturally manufactured by the Poet's editors. The prefix il or in is of course here used in its negative sense, as in illiterate, illiberal, &c. "and fasten'd to an empery"-Empery is a word signifying sovereign command: now obsolete. Shakespeare uses it in RICHARD III.: Your right of birth, your empery, your own. ACT II.-SCENE I. "Was there ever man had such luck! when I kissed the jack upon an up-cast, to be hit away!" "Cloten is here describing his fate at bowls. It is objected by Stevens to the character of Cloten, that 'he is represented as at once brave and dastardly, civil and brutish, sagacious and cruel, without that subtlety of distinction, and those shades of gradation between sense and folly, virtue and vice, which constitute the excellence of such mixed characters as Polonius in HAMLET, and the Nurse in ROMEO AND JULIET.' Such inconsistency is, however, far more puzzling than unnatural. Miss Seward assures us, in one of her letters, that singular as the character of Cloten may appear, it is the exact prototype of a being she once knew:-The unmeaning frown of the countenance; the shuffling gait; the burst of voice; the bustling insignificance; the feverand-ague fits of valour; the froward tetchiness; the unprincipled malice; and, what is most curious, those occasional gleams of good sense amid the floating clouds of folly which generally darkened and confused the man's brain, and which, in the character of Cloten, we are apt to impute to a violation of unity of character; but in the some time Captain C-n I saw the portrait of Cloten was not out of nature.""-Illust. Shak. "-undertake every COMPANION"-This is used here, and in other passages by Shakespeare, in the same sense as fellow is at present. Sir Hugh Evans denounces the host of the Garter as a "scurvy, cogging companion." "More hateful than the foul expulsion," etc. The reading of the original is in the following man Der: -By the light he spics Lucretia's glove, wherein her needle sticks; "Again: Iachimo says of Imogen— O sleep, thou ape of death, lie dull upon her! "Lucretia is in the same way described as a monumental figure reposing upon a pillow : Where, like a virtuous monument she lies. "The best illustration of this beautiful image is presented by Chantrey's exquisite monument of The Sleeping Children.'"-KNIGHT. We may add, with Judge Blackstone, that this phrase, of Tarquin's "softly" treading, shows the author's meaning, in MACBETH, of " Tarquin's ravishing strides." "To see the enclosed lights, now canopied Under these windows; white and azure," etc. "This celebrated passage has produced differences of opinion among the commentators. Capell says, of the word windows, 'the Poet's meaning is shutters.' Hanmer changed the word to curtains. The window is the aperture through which light and air are admitted to a room-sometimes closed, at other times opened. It is the wind-door. We have the word in ROMEO AND JULIET, similarly applied Thy eye's windows fall Like death, when he shuts up the day of life. "Capel then says that the "white and azure" refer to the white skin, generally, laced with blue veins. Secondly, Malone thinks that the epithets apply to the 'enclosed lights,' the eyes. Lastly, Warburton decides that the eyelids were intended. The eyelid of an extremely fair young woman is often of a tint that may be properly called white and azure;' which is produced by the net-work of exceedingly fine veins that runs through and colours that beautiful structure. Shakespeare has described this peculiarity in his VENUS AND ADONIS Her two blue windows faintly she upheaveth. But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes. But in the text before us, the eyelids are not only of a 'white and azure' hue, but they are also 'lac'd with blue of heaven's own tinct,' marked with the deeper blue of the larger veins. The description is here as accurate as it is beautiful. It cannot apply with such propriety to the eye, which certainly is not lac'd with blue; nor to the skin generally, which would not be beautiful as 'white and azure.' It is, to our minds, one of the many examples of Shakespeare's extreme accuracy of observation, and of his transcendent power of making the exact and the poetical blend with and support each other."-KNIGHT. "Swift, swift, you dragons of the night!"-"The task of drawing the chariot of night was assigned to dragons, on account of their supposed watchfulness. Milton mentions 'the dragon yoke of night,' and 'the dragon womb of Stygian darkness.'"-Illust. Shak. "May BARE the raven's eye"-The folios have "beare the raven's eye," which Theobald corrected to bare: the raven being a very early bird, the wish is that the dawn may awaken him. Knight prefers the original, as meaning that there may be light enough to sustain that acute vision. The reading of the text, followed by all other editors, strikes me as clear, and the sense just stated as correct and poetical; but Mr. Barron Field thinks that this expression has been understood too literally, as meaning that the "raven's eye" is bared or opened by the "dawning:" he apprehends that night is here poetically described as "the raven." SCENE III. "Hark! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings"-The same hyperbole occurs in Milton's "Paradise Lost," book v.:- -ye birds That singing up to heaven's gate ascend. And in Shakespeare's twenty-ninth Sonnet:-Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate. And again in VENUS AND ADONIS: Lo, here the gentle lark, weary of rest, From his moist cabinet mounts up on high, And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast Perhaps Lily's "Alexander and Campaspe" suggested this song: What bird so sings, yet so does wail? Cuckoo to welcome in the spring. Passages in Chaucer, Spenser, Skelton, etc., have been pointed out by Mr. Douce, which have parallel thoughts. "On chalic'd flowers that LIES"-This apparently false concord is in truth a touch of old English idiom. See note in ROMEO AND JULIET, act ii. "With every thing that pretty Is"-So all the old copies, and not "pretty bin," as Hanmer altered the text. In this kind of ballad-measure, it was not required that each line should have its rhyme; the more usual practice was the reverse. "Diana's rangers FALSE themselves"-In this instance, false is not an adjective, but a verb; and as such is also used in the COMEDY OF ERRORS, "Nay, not sure, in a thing falsing :" act ii. scene 2. Spenser often has it: "Your mother too: She's my good lady." "This is said ironically. My good lady' is equivalent to my good friend.' So in HENRY IV., Part II., Falstaff says to Prince John:-'And when you come to court, stand, my good lord, pray, in your good report.'" Illust. Shak. SCENE IV. "(Now MINGLED with their courages)”—In the folio, 1623, the word is wing-led, but altered to "mingled" in the folio, 1632, and adopted by Rowe and most modern editors. Stevens, Knight, and the German translator Tieck, prefer the compound word, as a bold Shakespearian image, descriptive of borrowing wings from courage. "Was Caius Lucius," etc.-In the folios, and the editions before Stevens, this speech is given to Posthumus, but by a mistake, owing to the same initial belonging to Philario. Philario takes up the conversation, while Posthumus is employed in eagerly reading his letters. 66- the story, Proud Cleopatra, when she met her Roman," etc. Johnson observes, that "Iachimo's language is such as a skilful villain would naturally use,-a mixture of airy triumph and serious deposition. His gayety shows his seriousness to be without anxiety; and his seriousness proves his gayety to be without art." "SINCE the true life on't was"-In this edition the original reading is retained, with the dash, added by the editors to signify a broken or interrupted sentence, which is very intelligible. Yet an error of the press is not improbable, and perhaps M. Mason's correction ought to be received into the text: -Then, if you can Be pale, I beg but leave to air this jewel. Iachimo has produced no effect upon Posthumus as yet, but he now says, "If you can be pale, I will see what this jewel will do to make you change countenance." "-her attendants are All sworn, and honourable." Dr. Percy shows, that it was anciently the custom for attendants on the nobility (as it is now for the servants of the sovereign) to take an oath of fidelity, on their entrance into office. "See also, Rhodomont's invective against women, in the Orlando Furioso,' and, above all, a speech which Euripides has put into the mouth of Hippolytus, in the tragedy bearing his name."-STEVENS. Of these great poets, Milton was the only imitator, and he was familiar alike with Shakespeare, Euripides, and Ariosto, and frequently interwove their thoughts and images with his own solemn lay. It is as unquestionable that the three last named were all equally original in this thought. "The very devils cannot plague them better." This is the same idea expressed by Sir Thomas More-" God could not lightly do a man more vengeance than in this world to grant him his own foolish wishes."-MORE'S "Comfort against Tribulation." ACT III.-SCENE I. "Yearly three thousand pounds"-The computation of the amounts of plunder, tribute, wealth of conquered kings, &c., not in Roman sesterces, or the foreign money of account, but in pounds of gold or silver, is of such frequent occurrence in ancient writers, that it is not ascribing any great learning or antiquarian accuracy to Shakespeare, who was well read in the translations at least of several of the classics, to understand him here just as we should Knowles or Miss Baillie, in any similar case, as speaking not of pounds sterling but of pounds weight of coin, as a Roman would have estimated the tribute-money of a subject foreign prince. "With ROCKS unscaleable"-The original reads oaks. The epithet shows it to be a misprint, and proves the propriety of the correction, which is Hanmer's. "O, giglot fortune"-"Strumpet fortune," as she is called in HAMLET. Thus, young Talbot, in HENRY VI., calls Joan of Arc "a giglot wench." "-to master Cæsar's sword"—Shakespeare has here transferred to Cassibelan an adventure which happened to his brother Nennius. "The same historie (says Hollingshed) also make mention of Nennius, brother to Cassibellane, who in fight happened to get Cæsar's sword fastened in his shield by a blow which Cæsar stroke at him. But Nennius died within fifteen days after the battel, of the hurt received at Cæsar's hand, although after he was hurt he slew Labienus, one of the Roman tribunes," book iii. chap. 13. Nennius, we are told by Geoffrey of Monmouth, was buried with great funeral pomp, and Cæsar's sword placed in his tomb.-MALONE. "-Mulmutius made our laws, Who was the first of Britain which did put," etc. The title of the first chapter of Hollingshed's third book of the "History of England," is:-"Of Mulmutius, the first King of Britain who was crowned with a golden crown, his laws, his foundations," etc. "Mulmutius, the son of Cloten, got the upper hand of the other dukes or rulers; and, after his father's decease, began to reign over the whole monarchy of Britain, in the year of the world 3529. He made many good laws, which were long after used, called Mulmutius' laws, turned out of the British speech into Latin by Gildas Priscus, and long time after translated out of Latin into English by Alfred, King of England, and mingled in his statutes. After he had established his land, he ordained him, by the advice of his lords, a crown of gold, and caused himself with great solemnity to be crowned :-and because he was the first that bare a crown here in Britain, after the opinion of some writers, he is named the first king of Britain, and all the other before rehearsed are named rulers, dukes, or governors. Among other of his ordinances, he appointed weights and measures, with the which men should buy and sell: and further, he caused sore and strait orders for the punishment of theft.” "Thou art welcome, Caius. Thy Cæsar knighted me; my youth I spent," etc. Hollingshed has thrown light on this passage also:"Kymbeline (as some write) was brought up at Rome, and there was made knight by Augustus Caesar, under whom he served in the wars, and was in such favour with him that he was at liberty to pay his tribute or not. -Yet we find in the Roman writers, that after Julius Cæsar's death, when Augustus had taken upon him the rule of the empire, the Britons refused to pay that tribute. But whether the controversy which appeared to fall forth between the Britons and Augustus was occasioned by Kymbeline, I have not a vouch.-Kymbeline reigned thirty-five years, leaving behind him two sons, Guiderius and Arviragus." "Behoves me keep at UTTERANCE"-i. e. To keep at the extremity of defiance. Combat à l'outrance is a fight that must conclude with the life of one of the combatants. So, in MACBETH: Rather than so, come, fate, into the list, "I am PERFECT"-i. e. assured. So, in the WINTER'S TALE Thou art perfect then, our ship hath touch'd upon SCENE II. "What monsters her accuse?"-So every old copy: every modern edition, except Collier's, "What monster's her accuser?" I agree with Collier, that no variation from the ancient text is required; though it is maintained on the ground of the single person, the "false Italian," afterwards mentioned. # * "Shall give thee opportunity"-"The original stagedirection for this scene was- Enter Pisanio, reading of a letter.' The modern editors, when they come to the passage beginning " Do't," insert another stage-direction of Reading. Upon this, Malone raises up the following curious theory:- Our Poet, from negligence sometimes makes words change their form under the eye of the speaker, who in different parts of the same play recites them differently, though he has a paper or letter in his hand, and actually reads from it The words here read by Pisanio from his master's letter (which is afterwards given at length, and in prose) are not found there, though the substance of them is contained in it. This is one of many proofs that Shakespeare had no view to the publication of his pieces. There was little danger that such an inaccuracy should be detected by the ear of the spectator, though it could hardly escape an attentive reader.' Now, we would ask, what can be more natural, what can be more truly in Shakespeare's own manner, which is a reflection of nature, than that a person having been deeply moved by a letter which he has been reading, should comment upon the substance of it without repeating the exact words? The very commencement of Pisanio's soliloquy- How! of adultery?' is an example of this. 66 Really, a critic, putting on a pair of spectacles, to compare the recollections of deep feeling with the document which has stirred that feeling, as he would compare the copy of an affidavit with the original, is a ludicrous exhibition."-KNIGHT. "Good wax, thy leave.-Blessed be, You bees, that make these locks of counsel!" etc. "The meaning is, that the bees are not blessed by the man who is sent to prison for forfeiting a bond, which is sealed with their product-wax, as they are by lovers, for whom the same substance performs the more pleasing office of sealing letters." The allusion shows technical familiarity with the laws of that day. The seal was essential to the bond, though a signature was not; and forfeiters is the technical term for the breach of covenant, (by non-payment or otherwise,) by which the penalty became absolute in law. "would even renew me with your eyes"-It has been usual to vary from the old copies, by reading, "would not even renew me;" but this change, as Mr. Amyot remarks, hardly seems required, the sense being, that Justice and the wrath of Cymbeline could not do Posthumus any cruelty, but such as might be remedied by the eyes of Imogen. say, and speak THICK"-i. e. Rapidly: as, "My heart beats thicker," in TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. "-nimbler than the sands"-It may be necessary to apprise the reader that the sand of an hour-glass used to measure time is meant. The figurative meaning is, swifter than the flight of time.-SINGER. "A FRANKLIN's housewife"-The franklin in Shakespeare's time had, for the most part, gone upward into the squire, or downward into the yeoman; and the name had probably become synonymous with the small freeholder and cultivator. A franklin's housewife" would wear "no costlier suit" than Imogen desired for concealment. Latimer has described the farmer of the early part of the sixteenth century:-"My father was a yeoman, and had no lands of his own, only he had a farm of three or four pound by the year, at the uttermost, and hereupon he tilled so much as kept half a dozen men. He had walk for an hundred sheep, and my mother milked thirty kine." “Nor what ensues, but have a fog in them," etc. We adopt Monck Mason's punctuation and interpretation of this passage. "I see before me, man," is, I see clearly that my course is for Milford. Nor here, nor there, nor what follows-neither this way, nor that way, nor the way behind-but have a fog in them. SCENE III. "that giants may JET through"-To "jet" is to strut. Thus, in the next age, Herrick, a short-winged poet, unequal to any long-sustained flight, but of unusual grace and felicity in shorter ones, speaks in his "Noble Numbers" Of those that prank it with their plumes, "This service is not service"-In any service done, the advantage rises not from the act, but from the allowance (i. e. approval) of it. "The SHARDED beetle"-" There is a controversy about the meaning of 'shard' as applied to a beetle. In HAMLET, the Priest says of Ophelia Shards, flints, and pebbles, should be thrown on her. A shard here is a thing divided; and it is used for something worthless, as fragments. Mr. Tollet says that shard signifies dung; and that the 'shard-born beetle' in MACBETH is the beetle born in dung. This is certainly only a secondary meaning of shard. We cannot doubt that Shakespeare, in the passage before us, uses the epithet sharded as applied to the flight of the beetle. The sharded beetle, the beetle whose scaly wing-cases are not formed for a flight above the earth,-is contrasted with the full-winged eagle. The shards support the insect when he rises from the ground; but they do not enable him to cleave the air with a birdlike wing. The 'shard-borne beetle' of MACBETH is, therefore, the beetle supported on its shards."--Knight. "-nobler, than attending for a check; Richer, than doing nothing for a bribe." "Attending for a check" refers to the courtier's (with whose life that of the free forester is throughout con trasted) attending his prince only to suffer rejection or delay of his suit. He " 'speeds to-day to be put back to-morrow;" as Spenser in a similar passage has described the life of the "unhappy wight,—that doth his life in so long tendance spend.' The next line is in the original edition (followed by the other folios) printed Richer than doing nothing for a babe." This hardly gives an intelligible sense; though Stevens thinks that it may allude to the wardship of infants of fortune, given to favourites at court, who enjoyed the revenue of their wards and did nothing for them. This is so obscurely expressed, and alludes to a circumstance so little familiar, that it can hardly have been meant, and an error of the press or copyist seems more likely. Warburton therefore conjectured the true reading to be for "a bauble;" i. e. "some empty title gained by court attendance;" and as bauble was anciently spelled bable, this is by no means an improbable emendation. Johnson proposed to read brabe, (a word of his own coinage from the Latin brabe-ium,) a reward or prize. There is no trace of any such English word in this sense; but the same word is found, though rarely, in the meaning of "scornful or contemptuous looks or words." In this sense Singer has adopted it in his text. The objection to this is, that it is but a repetition of the former line,-a waste of words wholly unusual in the condensed and elliptical style in which Shakespeare generally presents his moral reflections. The emendation received in our text is that of Hanmer, which Knight and Collier adopt-" for a bribe." It corresponds better than any other word with the preceding word richer; and the mistake might easily have been made even in copying or printing from clearer manuscript than most authors make. The sense is good:-"Such a life of activity is richer than that of the bribed courtier, even though he pocket his bribe without rendering any return." Such a thought is natural in Belarius, who had seen the vices of the great, and was perfectly intelligible to Shakespeare's audience, who lived in those "good old times" when the greatest, and sometimes the wisest, were not only accessible to bribes, but expected them; while every concern of life was dependant upon the caprice or the favour of those in power. A note in Knight's edition deduces the whole passage from some well-known lines of Spenser, in his "Mother Hubbard's Tale," much resembling this train of thought. Our Poet had seen enough of this sort of life not to be obliged to describe it at second-hand; yet he may have had Spenser's verses in his mind, and they certainly throw light on his meaning and corroborate the proposed correction of the text. The "doing nothing for a bribe" corresponds with Spenser's satirical glance at court life:Or otherwise false Reynold would abuse The simple suitor, and wish him to choose His master, being one of great regard In court, to compass any suit not hard. In case his pains were recompensed with reason, "Prouder than rustling in unpaid-for silk," etc. "As we have had the nobler and richer life, we have now the prouder. The mountain life is compared with that of Rustling in unpaid-for silk. The illustrative lines which are added mean that such a one as does rustle in unpaid-for silk receives the courtesy (gains the cap) of him that makes him fine, yet he, the wearer of silk, keeps his, the creditor's, book uncross'd. To cross the book is, even now, a common expression for obliterating the entry of a debt. It belongs to the rude age of credit. The original reading is Such gain the cap of him that makes him fine. but the second him is generally altered to them. We have adopted the slighter alteration of gains."-KNIGHT. "Yet keeps his book UNCROSS'D"-The tradesman's book was crossed when the account was paid. The allusions to this circumstance in old writers are frequent. "What should we speak of, When we are old as you." This dread of an old age unsupplied with matter for discourse and meditation, is a sentiment natural and noble. No state can be more destitute than that of him who, when the delights of sense forsake him, has no pleasures of the mind."-JOHNSON. "they took thee for their mother, "And every day do honour to HER grave." Malone pronounces that "the Poet ought to have written, to thy grave," and Stevens adds that "he probably did write so, but that her was a corruption of the printer." There is no reason for either comment. Her grave refers to "their mother," in reverence to whom the sons did every day honour to her supposed grave. Thy grave would give a somewhat different, and less full sense. SCENE IV. "Ne'er longed My mother so To see ME first, as I have now." Southern altered his copy of the folio, 1685, thus:Ne'er long'd his mother so To see him first, as I have now which certainly is more consistent with Imogen's state of mind, and renders the words "as I have now" more relative. It may have been an original misprint in the folio, 1623. "Where is Posthumus"-Well-educated men in England have an accuracy as to Latin quantity, and lay a stress upon it, such as are elsewhere found only among professed scholars. On this account Stevens, and other critics, have considered the erroneous quantity or accentuation of Posthúmus and Arvirágus, as decisive of Shakespeare's want of learning. But the truth is, that in his day, great latitude, in this respect, prevailed among authors; and it is probable that Latin was tanght in the schools, as it still is in Scotland and many parts of the United States, without any minute attention to prosody. Stevens himself has shown that the older poets were careless in this matter. Thus the poetical Earl of Stirling has Darius and Euphrates with the penultimate short. Warner, who was, I believe, a scholar, in his "Albion's England," has the same error with Shakespeare, as to both names. Posthumus, in this play, is accented sometimes on the first, and sometimes on the second syllable. A similar phrase occurs in the Poet's 98th Sonnet :- "Some JAY of Italy"—"Putta, in Italian, signifies both a jay and a whore. We have the word again in the MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR: Teach him to know turtles from jays.' The text continues, 'Some jay of Italy, whose mother was her painting'―i. e. made by art: the creature not of nature, but of painting. In this sense painting may be said to be her mother. Stevens met with a similar phrase in some old play: 'A parcel of conceited feather-caps, whose fathers were their garments.' '"-SINGER. Knight is not satisfied with this sense, and suggests reading, for mother, muffler, as referring to the veil or mask worn by courtesans. This one, according to the proposed reading, needed no other mask or covering than her thick painting. "RICHER than to HANG BY THE WALLS"-"To hang by the walls, does not mean, to be converted into hangings for a room, but to be hung up, as useless, among the neglected contents of a wardrobe. So, in MEASURE FOR MEASURE: That have, like unscour'd armour, hung by the wall. "When a boy, at an ancient mansion-house in Suffolk, I saw one of these repositories, which (thanks to a succession of old maids!) had been preserved, with superstitious reverence, for almost a century and a half. 64 Clothes were not formerly, as at present, made of slight materials, kept in drawers, or given away as soon as lapse of time or change of fashion had impaired their value. On the contrary, they were hung on wooden pegs in a room appropriated to the purpose of receiving them; and though such cast-off things as were composed of rich substances, were occasionally ripped for domestic uses, (viz. mantles for infants, vests for children, and counterpanes for beds,) articles of inferior quality were suffered to hang by the walls, till age and moths had destroyed what pride would not permit to be worn by servants or poor relations. Comitem horridulum trita donare lacerna seems not to have been customary among our ancestors. When Queen Elizabeth died, she was found to have left above three thousand dresses behind her; and there is yet in the wardrobe of Covent-Garden Theatre a rich suit of clothes that once belonged to King James I. When I saw it last, it was on the back of Justice Greedy, a character in Massinger's 'New Way to pay Old Debts.'"-STEVENS. "-Come, here's my heart: Something's afore 't:-Soft, soft! we'll no defence." "In this passage, we have another of Rowe's happy verbal corrections. The original copy reads, 'Something's afoot."-Illust. Shak. "Of princely FELLOWS"-"Fellows" means equals of Imogen, who sought her hand in marriage. the "I'll wake mine eye-balls BLIND first"-With all the later editors we adopt Johnson's reading here. In the old copies "blind" is omitted; but that, or some equivalent monosyllable, seems necessary for the sense and metre. "Hath Britain all the sun that shines? Day, night, Are they not but in Britain?" "It seems probable that here, as also on a similar occasion in RICHARD II., Shakespeare had in his thoughts a passage in Lily's 'Euphues :'-Nature hath given to no man a country, no more than she hath house, or lands, or living. Plato would never account him banished that had the sun, air, water, and earth, that he had before: where he felt the winter's blast, and the summer's blaze; where the same sun and the same moon shined: whereby he noted that every place was a country to a wise man, and all parts a palace to a quiet mind.'"-Illust. Shak. "--to the loud noise we make"-The preposition of is inserted after "loud" in the folio, 1623; it is needless to the sense, and injurious to the metre; but modern editors have printed the passage, "to the loud'st of noise we make." We are indebted to Mr. Collier for the restoration of the true reading and improving the metre, without any of the wanton innovation so common in the school of Stevens. "FORESTAL him of the coming day"--i. e. May his grief this night prevent him from ever seeing another day, by an anticipated and premature destruction! So, in Milton's Masque :'- Perhaps forestalling night prevented thein. |