soldiers, has any thing to do with shipwrights. The word seems to be here used in its ordinary signification, as in Tr. & Cre. II. 1. "No man is beaten voluntary. Ajax was here the voluntary, and you as under an impress." Achil. (11) ratified by law, and heraldry] By St. 13 R. II. c. 2, the court of Chivalry has "cognizance of contracts, touching deeds of arms or of war, out of the realm." Mr. Upton says, that Shakespeare sometimes expresses one thing by two substantives, and that law and heraldry means, by the herald law. Ant. & Cl. IV. 2. "Where rather I expect victorious life, "Than death and honour. i. e. honourable death. STEEVENS. See Sc. II. "leave and favour." Laertes. Puttenham, in his Art of Poesie, p. 148, speaks of The Figure of Twynnes: "horses and barbs, for barbed horses, venim and dartes, for venimous dartes," &c. FARMER. cov'nant (12) And carriage of the article design'd] Tenor, force, or import of the article drawn up. Design, says Mr. Malone, is to mark out or appoint for any purpose. Cowdrey Alph. Tab. 1604. To shew by a token. Minshieu, 1617. Designed is yet used in this sense in Scotland, as is designated with us. Instead of covenant, the quarto, 1604, gives co-mart, i. e. compact, joint treaty; and formed, as another word of our author's, that does not often occur, co-mates. As you, &c. II. 1. Duke S. (13) unimproved mettle] Unimpeached, unquestioned. The modern editors adopt the modern sense of this word “untrained or undisciplined." The verb, improve, does not occur in many of our early dictionary writers, as Baret and Minshieu ; and on its introduction it was used in the sense of " reprove, impute, or disprove." Mr. Tooke says, "it was taken from the French, who used it, and still continue to use it, in the same meaning and that it was perpetually so used by the authors. about Shakespeare's time, and especially in theological controversy." "For ye fondely improve a conclusion which myghte stande and be true."-Declar. agt. Joye by Gardiner, Bish. of Winchester. "Ther did they worshyp it in their scarlet gownes with cappes in hand, and here they improved it with scornes and with mockes, grennynge upon her lyke termagauntes in a playe."-Bale's Actes of Eng. Votaries. Divers. of Purley, 4to. 1798, I. 165. And he says the word here means "unimpeached," from the verb to blame, censure, &c. But the use of the word was certainly not appropriated to any one science. "Whiche thynge as I do not improve, so I denye it to be necessarye."-Paynel's Hutten "Of the wood, guiacum, that heleth the French Pockes." 12mo. 1533, c. 7: Anesse, corya cides, &c. none of the phisitions, that have any judgement, improvethe, but they affirme these to be good."-Ib. c. 11. "Some forbidde washinges and all maner bathes, I thynke bycause they mollifie the sinowes and lose them, and yet they do not improve sweatynges."-Ib. c. 26, p. 78, b. In all these instances the original, rendered improve, is improbo. Ulrick. Huttenus de Guiaci Medicina, Mogunt. 4to. 1520. Sir Tho. More, in his letter to H. VIII. Mar. 1534, says, "Not presuming to looke, that his Highnes should any thyng take that point for the more proved or improved, for my poore minde in so great a mater." Johnson, in his dictionary, instancing from Whitgift, points out this as the French use of the word. We now use the word reprove, from the Lat. reprobo, (whence we also take the verb and noun, reprobate) instead of improve. Of the compound in the text, unimprove, no instance has occurred in the above sense and Dr. Johnson (as the word has been in use for the last century at least, and with a satisfactory sense) has interpreted it and it may be rightly, "not regulated or guided by knowledge or experience." In Jonson's Every Man in, &c. III. 2. where Bobadil says, "Sir, believe me on my relation; for what I tell you the world shall not reprove,"—it is said, in a late edition of his works, that the quarto edition of 1603 in this place reads improve. Hence, as well as from this use of it by Sir Tho. More, it may reasonably be inferred, that it was known in this sense to our author. (14) Shark'd up a list of landless resolutes For food and diet, to some enterprise That hath a stomach in't] Snapped up with the eager voracity of a shark, caught up from any or all quarters for a bellyful, sturdy beggars, sharpset, and of courage equal to any enterprise. The redundancy of "food and diet" may have been employed for the purpose of fixing in the mind the continuation of the metaphor in the use of the word stomach, here put in an equivocal sense, importing both courage and appetite. We have a similar play upon the word in Two G. of V. where, on Julia's asking her waiting woman, with whom she had been peevish, whether it was near dinner time, she replies: "I would it were, "That you might kill your stomach on your meat, (15) romage] Romelynge, prevy mustrynge. Ruminatio. Militatio. Musitatio. Promptuar. parvulor. clericor. 4to. 1514, This rendering of the word applies closely to the military use or bearing of it in the text: but to rummage trunks or papers is in every day's use, for making a thorough ransack or search. Philips says, "It is originally a sea term, and properly signifies to remove goods out of a ship's hold, when there must be searching and tumbling about." Todd's Dict. (16) question of these wars] Ground or point that draws on debate," word of war," as in Ant. & Cl. II. 2, Cæs. where this term is used in much the same sense; but perhaps more directly so lb. III. 2. Enob. "At such a point, "When half to half the world oppos'd, he being "The merest question." (17) moth] Moth is throughout our author, M. N. Dr. V. 1. Dem. K. John IV. 1. Arth. & H. V. K. Hen. IV. 1, the reading for mote or atom. Mr. Malone instances the preface to Lodge's Incarnate Devils: "They are in the aire like atoms in Sole, mothes in the sonne." 4to. 1656, and Florio's Ital. Dict. 1598, Festuceo, a moth, a little beam." "Mowghe, tinea" in Prompt. parvulor. is in Ortus Vocabulor. spelt mought. 66 (18) As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood, Disasters in the sun] Shakespeare having told us, that, as precursors of a great event, certain prodigies were seen, proceeds, without any thing to connect his sentence, to instance other prodigies. In usual course we should say, "Ghosts appeared-and there were also other fearful and preternatural appearances:" and yet, as it stands, there is no difficulty in conceiving the meaning. This being so, may we not, with Shakespeare's license and title to exemption from grammatical shackles, read or understand it thus: "The graves opened, the dead were seen abroad [spectacles such] as, &c." This we must do, or with more unwarrantable license and much less probability, though with sense and consistency, read with Mr. Rowe: "Stars shone with trains of fire, dews of blood fell, "Disasters veil'd the sun." Upon the passage in Par. Lost, I. 597, where 'tis said, "the moon "In dim eclipse disastrous twilight sheds," Warburton observes, that disaster is here used in its original signification of evil conjunction of stars; and Sylvester, speaking of the planet Saturn in his Du Bartas, says, "His froward beams disastrous frowns." p. 80. The moon or watery star. (19) and the moist star] " Quo ululatibus meis via patefieret ad cœlum usque, et inde possem deducere pallidam illam humidorum reginam ad miscendas mecum lachrymas." Jac. Howel, Anglia flens. 18mo. 1646, p. 2. Mr. Malone cites Marlowe's Hero and Leander, 1590: "Not that night-wand'ring, pale and wat'ry star." (20) like precurse of fierce events] Fierce is here bloody and terrible, as elsewhere we find it "extreme, excessive." "O the fierce wretchedness, that glory brings." We have " fierce extremes," K. John, last sc. and "fierce vanities," H. VIII. Buck. I. 1. In Jonson's Sejanus, Arruntius says, "O most tame slavery, and fierce flattery!" A. V. (21) omen coming on] Portentous event at hand. That this noun was used in the sense of fate, Dr. Farmer has shewn from the life of Merlin by Heywood. "Merlin, well vers'd in many a hidden spell, "His countries omen did long since foretell." And Mr. Steevens has in the Vowbreaker shewn the use of the adjective for fatal. "And much I fear the weakness of her braine (22) The passages included in brackets are throughout this work taken from Mr. Steevens's edition of the quarto. In that edition the title page of this play in 1611 (there had been two preceding, one in 1604, and another in 1605) states, that it had been enlarged to almost double its original size. It also appears, that in their folio of 1623, the player editors made many retrenchments. Splendid passages, not contributing to the action of the drama, and not admitted latterly in representation, they may have not adequately appreciated; and the coherence of the dialogue and fable may in consequence be sometimes found to have suffered. Johnson says, their omissions sometimes leave it better, and sometimes worse, and seem only made for the purpose of abbreviation. (23) Or if thou hast uphoarded, &c.] "If any of them had bound the spirit of gold by any charmes in caves, or in iron fetters under the ground, they should for their own soules quiet (which questionlesse else would whine up and down) if not for the good of their children, release it."-Decker's Knight's Conjuring, &c. STEEVENS. It is also observed by Johnson, that the whole of this address is very elegant and noble, and congruous to the common traditions of the causes of apparitions. (24) it is, as the air, invulnerable] "As easy may'st thou the intrenchant air "With thy keen sword impress." Macb. last sc. Against the invulnerable clouds of heaven." K, John, II. 2. MALONE. (25) The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn] Mr. Steevens says, that the cock, the trumpet to the morn, the reading of the 4to. 1604, is so called in lines ascribed to Drayton. "And now the cocke, the morning's trumpeter, And he certainly, in the same marked phrase as our author, tells us, that he calls up the sun. "The cocke, the country horologe that rings Moses his Bush. Part II. 4to. 1630, p. 157. (26) Whether in sea, &c.] According to the pneumatology of that time, every element was inhabited by its peculiar order of spirits, who had dispositions different, according to their various places of abode. A Chorus in Andreini's drama, called Adamo, written in 1613, consists of spirits of fire, air, water, and hell, or subterraneous, being the exiled angels. "Choro di Spiriti ignei, aerei, acquatici, ed infernali," &c. These are the demons to which Shakespeare alludes. These spirits were supposed to controul the elements in which they respectively resided; and when formally invoked or commanded by a magician, to produce tempests, conflagrations, floods, and earthquakes. For thus says The Spanish Mandeville of Miracles, &c. 1600: "Those which are in the middle region of the ayre, and those that are under them nearer the earth, are those, which sometimes out of the ordinary operation of nature doe moove the windes with greater fury than they are accustomed; and do, out of season, congeele the cloudes, causing it to thunder, lighten, hayle, and to destroy the grasse, corne, &c. &c.— Witches and necromancers worke many such like things by the help of those spirits," &c. Of this school therefore was Shakespeare's Prospero in The Tempest. T. WARTON. Bourne of Newcastle, in his Antiquities of the common People, informs us, "It is a received tradition among the vulgar, that at the time of cock-crowing, the midnight spirits forsake these lower regions, and go to their proper places.-Hence it is, (says he) that in country places, where the way of life requires more early labour, they always go chearfully to work at that time; whereas if they are called abroad sooner, they imagine every thing they see a wandering ghost." And he quotes on this occasion, as all his predecessors had done, the well-known lines from the first hymn of Prudentius. I know not whose translation he gives us, but there is an old one by Heywood. The pious chansons, the hymns and carrols, which Shakespeare mentions presently, were usually copied from the elder Christian. poets. FARMER. (27) The extravagant and erring spirit hies To his confine] From St. Ambrose's hymn in the Salis bury service. "Præco diei jam sonat: "Hoc excitatus Lucifer "Hôc omnis Errorum chorus "Viam nocendi deserit, "Gallo canente." |