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You must lay lime, to tangle her desires,
By wailful sonnets, whose composed rhimes
Should be full fraught with serviceable vows.
DUKE. Ay,

Much is the force of heaven-bred poesy.

PRO. Say, that upon the altar of her beauty You sacrifice your tears, your sighs, your heart: Write, till your ink be dry; and with your tears Moist it again; and frame some feeling line, That may discover such integrity* :

For Orpheus' lute was strung with poets' sinews';

3-lime,] That is, birdlime. JOHNSON.

- such integrity:-] I suspect that a line following this has been lost; the import of which perhaps was

"As her obdurate heart may penetrate." MALOne.

Such integrity may mean such ardour and sincerity, as would be manifested by practising the directions given in the four preceding lines. STEEVENS.

This note of Mr. Steevens, though carefully placed before the preceding remark in his edition, was written and published after it, and was intended to do away its force. The construction recommended is inadmissible: for the words-" that may discover such integrity," manifestly relate to the last clause of some feeling line, and not to the whole of the preceding speech. MALONE.

5 For Orpheus' LUTE was strung with POETS' SINEWS;] This shews Shakspeare's knowledge of antiquity. He here assigns Orpheus his true character of legislator. For under that of a poet only, or lover, the quality given to his lute is unintelligible. But, considered as a lawgiver, the thought is noble, and the imagery exquisitely beautiful. For by his lute, is to be understood his system of laws; and by the poet's sinews, the power of numbers, which Orpheus actually employed in those laws to make them received by a fierce and barbarous people.

WARBURTON.

Proteus is describing to Thurio the powers of poetry; and gives no quality to the lute of Orpheus, but those usually and vulgarly ascribed to it. It would be strange indeed if, in order to prevail upon the ignorant and stupid Thurio to write a sonnet to his mistress, he should enlarge upon the legislative powers of Orpheus, which were nothing to the purpose. Warburton's observations frequently tend to prove Shakspeare more profound and learned than the occasion required, and to make the Poet of Nature the most unnatural that ever wrote. M. MASON.

Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones,
Make tygers tame, and huge leviathans
Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands.
After your dire-lamenting elegies,

Visit by night your lady's chamber-window
With some sweet concert: to their instruments
Tune a deploring dump'; the night's dead silence

6 - with some sweet CONCERT:] The old copy has consort, which I once thought might have meant in our author's time a band or company of musicians. So, in Romeo and Juliet :

"Tyb. Mercutio, thou consort'st with Romeo.

"Mer. Consort! what, dost thou make us minstrels?" The subsequent words, "To their instruments-," seem to favour this interpretation; but other instances, that I have since met with, in books of our author's age, have convinced me that consort was only the old spelling of concert, and I have accordingly printed the latter word in the text. The epithet sweet, annexed to it, seems better adapted to the musick itself than to the band. Consort, when accented on the first syllable (as here) had, I believe, the former meaning; when on the second, it signified a company. So, in the next scene:

"What say'st thou? Wilt thou be of our consort?"

In addition to these remarks, I may observe, that Coles in his Dictionary, 1679: renders consort by the Latin word concentus. With respect to the relative pronoun their, to which we have here no correspondent word, it must be remembered that Shakspeare frequently refers to words not expressed but implied in the former part of the sentence; thus in the present instance, the reference is to musicians, who are necessary to make a concert. So, in Othello:

"And bad me when my fate would have me wiv'd,

"To give it her," i. e. his wife. MALONE.

7 Tune a deploring DUMP ;] A dump was the ancient term for a mournful elegy.

A DOMPE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

Will well become such sweet-complaining griev

ance.

This, or else nothing, will inherit her.

DUKE. This discipline shews thou hast been in love.

THU. And thy advice this night I'll put in practice:

[merged small][graphic][subsumed][subsumed]

Therefore, sweet Proteus, my direction-giver,
Let us into the city presently

To sort some gentlemen well skill'd in musick:
I have a sonnet that will serve the turn,
To give the onset to thy good advice.
DUKE. About it, gentlemen.

PRO. We'll wait upon your grace, till after supper; And afterward determine our proceedings.

DUKE. Even now about it; I will pardon you'.

[merged small][graphic]

For this curiosity the reader is indebted to Stafford Smith, Esq. of His Majesty's Chapel Royal. STEEVENS.

8 - will INHERIT her.] To inherit, is by our author sometimes used, as in this instance, for to obtain possession of, without any idea of acquiring by inheritance. So, in Titus Andronicus : "He that had wit, would think that I had none, "To bury so much gold under a tree,

"And never after to inherit it."

This sense of the word was not wholly disused in the time of Milton, who in his Comus has-" dis-inherit Chaos," meaning only dispossess it. STEEVENS.

9 TO SORT- i. e. to choose out. So, in K. Richard III. : "Yet I will sort a pitchy hour for thee." STEEVENS. -I will pardon you.] I will excuse you from waiting.

JOHNSON.

ACT IV. SCENE I.

A Forest, near Mantua.

Enter certain OUT-LAWS.

1 OUT. Fellows, stand fast; I see a passenger. 2 OUT. If there be ten, shrink not, but down with'em.

Enter VALENtine and Speed.

3 OUT. Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about you;

If not, we'll make you sit2, and rifle you.

SPEED. Sir, we are undone! these are the villains That all the travellers do fear so much.

VAL. My friends,

1 OUT. That's not so, sir; we are your enemies. 2 OUT. Peace; we'll hear him.

3 OUT. Ay, by my beard, will we; for he is a proper

3

man"

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2 If not, we'll make you SIT, and rifle you.] The old copy reads as I have printed the passage; paltry as the opposition between stand and sit may be thought, it is Shakspeare's own. My predecessors read-we'll make you, sir, &c. STEEVENS.

Sir is the corrupt reading of the third folio. Mr. Steevens's immediate predecessor (the present editor) did not adopt this false reading. MALONE.

3 -a PROPER man.] i. e. a well-looking man; he has the appearance of a gentleman.

So, in Much Ado About Nothing, "at last she concluded with a sigh, thou wast the properest man in Italy."

Proper, it should be observed, relates not to the countenance, but to the person or figure, and implies height and symmetry of form. So, near the conclusion of this scene, one of the outlaws, addressing Valentine, says,

"And partly, seeing you are beautified
"With goodly shape."

Coles, in his Latin Dictionary, renders this word by procerus.

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