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CONCORD A N C E

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S HA K E S P E A R E.

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ABS

ACQ
ABS T I N EN CE.
E doth with holy abstinence subdue

That in himself, which he spurs on his power To qualify in others. Meas. for Meas. A. 4, S, 2.

ACQUAINTANCE. * Talk logick with acquaintance that you have, And practise rhetorick in your common talk.

Taming of the Shrew, A. I, S. 1.

!.? Talk logick.] The old copies read Balcke logick, &c. MALONE.

“ Balke logick” is right : Balke, with the writers of Shakespeare's time is omit. Never regard truth, says Tranio, in "your worldly transactions ; but be flourishing and rhetorical “ in your ordinary discourse.” This is the language of a man who knows the world.

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АСТ, ,

ACT, ACTION, ACTIONS.
Each your doing,

,
So singular in each particular,
Crowns what you are doing in the present deeds,
That all your acts are queens. Wint. Tale, A. 4, S. 3.

If powers divine Behold our human actions (as they do), I doukt not then, but innocence shall make False accusation blush, and tyranny Tremble at patience. Winter's Tale, A. 3, S. 2.

- Give thy thoughts no tongue, Nor any unproportion'd thought his act. Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.

Hamlet, A. I, S. 3.

Such an act,
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty;
Calls virtue, hypocrite; ? takes off the role
From the fair forehead of an innocent love,
And sets a blister there; makes marriage vows
As false as dicers' oaths.

Hamlet, A. 3, S. 4.
Her actions shall be holy, as,
You hear, my spell is lawful: do not shun her,
Until

you

see her die again: for then You kill her double. Winter's Tale, A. 5, S. 3.

The rarer action is In virtue than in vengeance.

Tempest, A.

5,

S. I.

1 Takes off the rose.] Alluding to the custom of wearing roses on the side of the face.

WARBURTON I believe Dr. Warburton is mistaken; for it must be allowed that there is a material difference between an ornament worn on the forehead, and one exhibited on the fide of the face. STEEVENS.

It is not a little extraordinary that the commentators flould be for considering literally, expressions that are purely metaphorical. Rose is beauty, and blister is deformity. The meaning plainly is, renders love, which is naturally beautiful, ugly and deformed,

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Look

Look
you,

how pale he glares !
His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones,
Would make them capable.--Do not look upon me;
Left with this piteous action, you convert
My stern effects.

Hamlet, A. 3, S. 4,
Either our history shall, with full mouth,
Speak freely of our acts; or else our grave,
Like Turkish mute, shall have a tongueless mouth,
Not worshipp'd with a waxen epitaph'.

Henry V. A. I, S. 2.
several ways meet in one town;
As many fresh streams run in one self sea;
As many lines close

lines close in the dial's center;
So may a thousand actions, once a-foot,
End in one purpose, and be all well borne
Without defeat.

Henry V. A. 1, S. e.
My lord of Hereford, whom you call king,
Is a foul traitor to proud Hereford's king :
And if you crown him, let me prophesy,-
The blood of English shall manure the ground,

:

As many

* With a waxen epitaph.] The quarto, 1608, reads with a pa. per epitaph.

Either a waxen or paper epitaph, is an epitaph eafily obliterated or destroyed; one which can confer no lasting honour on the dead.

STEEVENS. "Waxen” is hardly right; for to say that his tomb should not have a waxen epitaph, i. e. one that is eafily obliterated, is entirely adverse to the meaning of Henry. We must, therefore, read,

“Not worshipp'd with a willen epitaph." To wille is to teach, to inftruel.

The meaning is, without an epitaph, to set forth his virtues or his deeds in arms.

After all, however, “ a paper epitaph" may be right. But paper epitaph must not be interpreted literally; it means not an epitaph written on paper to be placed on a tomb-but an history, the memoirs of Henry's life. Unless we effect the business in hand (says the king), we wish not to be honoured, or to have our memory respected. Thus the reasoning is just and perti

And future ages groan for this foul act.

Richard II. A. 4, S. 1, There is not a dangerous action can peep out his head but I am thrust upon it: Well, I cannot last ever : but it was always yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common.

Henry IV. P. 2, A. I, S. 2.
Though now we must appear bloody and cruel,
As by our hands, and this our present act,
You fee we do; yet see you but our hands,
And this the bleeding business they have done ;
Our hearts you see not, they are pitiful.

Julius Cæsar, A. 3, S. 1,
But wherefore do you droop? why look you sad?
Be great in act, as you have been in thought;
Let not the world see fear, and sad distrust,
Govern the motion of a kingly eye.

King John, A. 5, S. 1,

If thou didit but confent
To this most cruel act, do but despair,
And, if thou want'st a cord, the smallest thread
That ever spider twisted from her womb,
Will serve to strangle thee. K. John, A. 4, S. 3.

What we oft do best,
By sick interpreters, once weak ones, is
Not ours, or not allow'd; what worst, as oft,
Hitting a grosser quality, is cry'd up
For our best act.

Henry VIII. A. I, S. 2.

We must not stint Our necessary actions, in the fear

By fick, &c.] The modern editors read, or weak ones; but once is not unfrequently used for fometime, or at one time or other, among our ancient writers.

STEEVENS. The disjunctive particle or is certainly wrong; once is not, in this place, to be taken in the sense which Mr. S. would willingly affix to it. The meaning is, “interpreters who are at once fick $ and weak." 'We may read, perhaps, “By fick interpreters and weak ones, is". A. B.

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2.

S. 1.

·To cope malicious censurers; which ever,
As ravenous fishes, do a vessel follow
That is new trimm’d. Henry VIII. A. I, S. 2.
My lords, I care not;

if
iny

actions
Were try'd by every tongue, every eye faw 'em,
Envy and base opinion set against 'em,
I know my life so even. .

Henry VIII. A.

32
I have done as you have done; that's what I can:
Induc'd, as you have been ; that's for my country :
He, that has but effected his good will,
Hath overta'en mine act. Coriolanus, A. I, S. 9.
Go to them, with this bonnet in thy hand;
And thus far having stretch'd it (here be with them),
Thy knee bussing the stones, for in such business
Action is eloquence, and the eyes of the ignorant
More learned than the ears. Coriolanus, A. 3, S. 2.
Why, universal plodding prisons up
The nimble spirits in the arteries;
As motion, and long-during action, tires
The sinewy vigour of the traveller.

Love's Labour Loft, A. 4, S. 3.

We are oft to blame in this
'Tis too much prov'd--that, with devotion's visage,
And pious action, we do sugar o'er
The devil himself.

Hamlet, A. 3, S. 1.
Hear me profess sincerely:-Had I a dozen fons,
each in my love alike, and none less dear than thine
and my good Marcius—I had rather have eleven die
nobly for their country, than one voluptuously sur-
feit out of action.

Coriolanus, A. 1, S. 3.

ACT O R.
Pol. The actors are come hither, my

lord.
HAM. Buz, buz!"
Pol. Upon mine honour, Hamlet, A. 2, S. 2.

ADVAN-
Buz, buz!] Mere idle talk; the buz of the vulgar. JOHNSON.

Buzzer

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