And I could laugh; I am light, and heavy: Wel come : A curse begin at very root of his heart, That is not glad to see thee !-You are three, men, We have some old crab-trees here at home, that will not Be grafted to your relish. Yet welcome, warriors: We call a nettle, but a nettle; and The faults of fools, but folly. Сом. COR. Menenius, ever, ever. Ever right. HER. Give way there, and go on. COR. Your hand, and yours: [To his Wife and Mother. Ere in our own house I do shade my head, The good patricians must be visited; From whom I have receiv'd not only greetings, 4 Com. Ever right. Cor. Menenius, ever, ever.] Rather, I think : "Com. Ever right, Menenius. "Cor. Ever, ever." Cominius means to say, that- Menenius is always the same; -retains his old humour.' So, in Julius Cæsar, Act V. Sc. I. upon a speech from: Cassius, Antony only says Old Cassius still.' TYRWHITT. By these words, as they stand in the old copy, I believe Coriolanus means to say- Menenius is still the same affectionate friend as formerly.' So, in Julius Cæsar: "for always I am Cæsar." Malone. 5 But with them CHANGE of honours.] So all the editions read, But Mr. Theobald has ventured (as he expresses it) to substitute charge. For change, he thinks, is a very poor expression, and communicates but a very poor idea. He had better have told the plain truth, and confessed that it communicated none at all to him. However it has a very good one in itself; and signifies variety of honours; as change of rayment, among the writers of that time, signified variety of rayment. WARBURTON. VOL. To see inherited my very wishes, I have lived And the buildings of my fancy: only there Is one thing wanting, which I doubt not, but COR. Know, good mother, I had rather be their servant in my way, Than sway with them in theirs. Сом. On, to the Capitol. [Flourish. Cornets. Exeunt in state, as before. The Tribunes remain. BRU. All tongues speak of him, and the bleared sights Are spectacled to see him: Your pratling nurse 6 Change of raiment is a phrase that occurs not unfrequently in the Old Testament. STEEVENS. 6 Into a RAPTURE] Rapture, a common term at that time used for a fit, simply. So, to be rap'd, signified, to be in a fit. WARBURTON. If the explanation of Bishop Warburton be allowed, a rapture means a fit; but it does not appear from the note where the word is used in that sense. The right word is in all probability rupture, to which children are liable from excessive fits of crying. The emendation was the property of a very ingenious scholar long before I had any claim to it. S. W. That a child will " cry itself into fits," is still a common phrase among nurses. That the words fit and rapture, were once synonymous, may be inferred from the following passage in The Hospital for London's Follies, 1602, where Gossip Luce says: "Your darling will weep itself into a rapture, if you take not good heed. STEEVENS, In Troilus and Cressida, raptures signifies ravings: 66 her brainsick raptures "Cannot distaste the goodness of a quarrel." I have not met with the word rapture in the sense of a fit in any book of our author's age, nor found it in any Dictionary previous to Cole's Latin Dictionary, 1679. He renders the word by the Latin ecstasis, which he interprets a trance. However, the rule-" de non apparentibus et de non existentibus eadem est ratio"-certainly does not hold, when applied to the use of words, While she chats him: the kitchen malkin' pins 8 Had we all the books of our author's age, and had we read them all, it then might be urged. MALONE. 7 the kitchen MALKIN-] A maukin, or malkin, is a kind of mop made of clouts for the use of sweeping ovens: thence a frightful figure of clouts dressed up: thence a dirty wench. HANMER. Maukin in some parts of England signifies a figure of clouts set up to fright birds in gardens: a scare crow. P. Malkin is properly the diminutive of Mal (Mary); as Wilkin, Tomkin, &c. In Scotland, pronounced Maukin, it signifies a hare. Grey malkin (corruptly grimalkin) is a cat. The kitchen malkin is just the same as the kitchen Madge or Bess: the scullion. RITSON. Minsheu gives the same explanation of this term, as Sir T. Hanmer has done, calling it " an instrument to clean an oven,now made of old clowtes." The etymology which Dr. Johnson has given in his Dictionary-" MALKIN, from Mal or Mary, and kin, the diminutive termination,"-is, I apprehend, erroneous. The kitchen-wench very naturally takes her name from this word, a scullion; another of her titles, is in like manner derived from escouillon, the French term for the utensil called a malkin. MALONE. After the morris-dance degenerated into a piece of coarse buffoonery, and Maid Marian was personated by a clown, this once elegant Queen of May obtained the name of Malkin. To this Beaumont and Fletcher allude in Monsieur Thomas: "Put on the shape of order and humanity, "Or you must marry Malkyn, the May-Lady." Maux, a corruption of malkin, is a low term, still current in several counties, and always indicative of a coarse vulgar wench. STEEVENS. • Her richest LOCKRAM, &c.] Lockram was some kind of cheap linen. Greene, in his Vision, describing the dress of a man, says: "His ruffe was of fine lockeram, stitched very faire with Coventry blue." Again, in The Spanish Curate of Beaumont and Fletcher, Diego says: "I give per annum two hundred ells of lockram, "That there be no straight dealings in their linnens." Again, in Glapthorne's Wit in a Constable, 1639: "Thou thought'st, because I did wear lockram shirts, her REECHY neck,] Reechy is greasy, sweaty. So, in Clambering the walls to eye him: Stalls, bulks, windows, Are smother'd up, leads fill'd, and ridges hors'd In earnestness to see him: seld-shown flamens ' 66 Hamlet: "a pair of reechy kisses." Laneham, speaking of "three pretty puzels" in a morris-dance, says they were az bright az a breast of bacon," that is, bacon hung in the chimney: and hence reechy, which in its primitive signification is smoky, came to imply greasy. RITSON. I SELD-SHOWN flamens-] i. e. priests who seldom exhibit themselves to publick view. The word is used in Humour out of Breath, a comedy, by John Day, 1607: O seld-seen metamorphosis." The same adverb likewise occurs in the old play of Hieronimo Why is not this a strange and seld-seen thing?" 2 66 : Seld is often used by ancient writers for seldom. STEEVENS. a VULGAR station:] A station among the rabble. So, in The Comedy of Errors; "A vulgar comment will be made of it." MALONE. A vulgar station, I believe, signifies only a common standingplace, such as is distinguished by no particular convenience. 3 Commit the WAR of white and damask, in STEEVENS. Their nicely-gawded cheeks,] Dr. Warburton, for war, absurdly reads-ware. MALONE. Has the commentator never heard of roses, contending with lilies for the empire of a lady's cheek? The opposition of colours, though not the commixture, may be called a war. JOHNSON. So, in Shakspeare's Tarquin and Lucrece: "The silent war of lilies and of roses, "Which Tarquin view'd in her fair face's field." Again, in The Taming of the Shrew: "Such war of white and red," &c. Again, in Chaucer's Knight's Tale, Mr. Tyrwhitt's edit. v. 1040: "For with the rose colour strof hire hewe." Again, in Damætas' Madrigal in Praise of his Daphnis, by John Wootton; published in England's Helicon, 1600: 66 Amidst her cheekes the rose and lilly strive." Of Phoebus' burning kisses: such a pother, And gave him graceful posture. SIC. I warrant him consul. BRU. On the sudden, Then our office may, During his power, go sleep. Sic. He cannot temperately transport his honours From where he should begin, and end3; but will Lose those that he hath won. the lillies Contending with the roses in her cheek." STEEVENS. Again, in our author's Venus and Adonis : "To note the fighting conflict of her hue, "How white and red each other did destroy." MALONE. Cleaveland introduces this, according to his quaint manner: her cheeks, 66 "Where roses mix: no civil war 4 As if that whatsoever god,] That is, leads him, whatsoever god he be. So, in our author's 26th Sonnet: 66 JOHNSON. FARMER. as if that god who "Till whatsoever star that guides my moving, Again, in Antony and Cleopatra : 66 he hath fought to-day, "As if a god in hate of mankind had Destroy'd in such a shape." MALONE. 5 From where he should begin, AND end;] Perhaps it should be read : "From where he should begin t'an end. JOHNSON. Our author means, though he has expressed himself most licentiously, he cannot carry his honours temperately from where he should begin to where he should end. The word transport includes the ending as well as the beginning. He cannot begin to carry his honours, and conclude his journey, from the spot where he should begin, and to the spot where he should end. I have no doubt that the text is right. The reading of the old copy is supported by a passage in Cym beline, where we find exactly the same phraseology: |