That will be damn'd for't; 'would I knew the villain,
I would land-damn him.

-land damn him;

Sir T. Hanmer interprets, stops his urine. Land or lant being the old word for urine.

Land-dumn is probably one of those words which caprice brought into fashion, and which, after a short time, reason and grammar drove irrecoverably away. It perhaps meant no more than I will rid the country of him, condemn him to quit the land. JOHN.

Land-damn him, if such a reading can be admitted, may mean, he would procure sentence to be past on him in this world, on this earth.

Antigonus could no way make good the threat of stopping his urine.. Besides, it appears too ridiculous a punishment for so atrocious a criminal. It must be confessed, that what Sir T. Hanmer has said concerning the word lant is true. I meet with the following instance in Glapthorne's Wit in a Constable, 1639:

"Your frequent drinking country ale with lant in't." And, in Shakspeare's time, to drink a lady's health in urine appears to have been esteemed an act of gallantry. One instance (for I could produce many) may suffice: "Have I not religiously vow'd my heart to you, been drunk for your health, eat glasses, drank urine, stabb'd arms, and done all the offices of protested gallantry for your sake?" Antigonus, on this occasion, may therefore have a dirty meaning, STEEV.

'Land damu him.' I cannot discover any meaning in Land damn him.' I think we should read langue dam him, i. e. I would stop his Longue. I would murder him. When it is recollected that Antigonus is speaking of slander, ' langue dam him,' is very likely to be the right reading. Langue has probably been written lang. The mistake was easy.

With respect, however, to lant, it certainly signifies urine. But the conceit of stopping his urine, is too contemptible for a moment's consideration. In the quotation from Glapthorne, lant or land [for the word is written indifferently] is not to be understood as expressive of urine. Ale with lant [or land] in it,' is," Ale with spurge in it," a plant sometimes called land leaper's spurge, [Tithy'malus.] A quibble is evidently intended. Mr. Steevens is miserably mistaken in his notion respecting the "act of gallantry," as he calls it: "eating glasses and drinking urine," is nothing more than a play on words, eating glaces, [fr] i. e. ices: and drinking urens [lat.] hot, burning liquors. The whole is meant to insinuate that there is nothing which he would not undertake or endure in the hope of gaining his mistress' favor:-he would run the hazard of being chilled or burnt to death. B.

Paul. These dangerous unsafe lunes o'the king! beshrew them!

He must be told on't, and he shall: the office
Becomes a woman best; I'll tak't upon me.

These dangerous unsafe lunes o' the king!

I have no where, but in our author, observed this word adopted in our tongue, to signify, frenzy, lunacy. But it is a mode of expression with

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the French. Il y a de la lune: (i. e. he has got the moon in his head; he is frantick.) Cotgrave. Lune, folie. Les femmes ont des lunes dans la tête. Richelet." THEOB.

A similar expression occurs in the Revenger's Tragedy, 1608: "I know twas but some peevish moon in him." Lunes, were part of the accoutrements of a hawk. So, in Greene's Mamillia: " yea, in seeking to unloose the lunes, the more she was intangled." SELV.

Unsafe lunes of the king.' What can the accoutrements [as Mr. Steevens is pleased to call the leashes or criants for the Hawk] have to do in the present business? But as to the lunes. (decoys) of the Falconer, it should be written lures. The word lunes is no doubt found in the Sportsman's vocabulary, but it is evidently a corruption. Lunes, and lures, however, are used indifferently by all. Lure is properly the device set up to call the hawk, lune [lien fr.] is the string or thong to which the device is fastened. B.

Paul. The pretty dimples of his chin, and cheek; his. smiles;

The very mould and frame of hand, nail, finger.

his smiles: These two redundant words might be rejected, especially as the child has already been represented as the inheritor of its father's dimples and frowns. STEEV.

His smiles. The words are no way redundant. Dimples which are naturally formed in the cheeks, are not, by consequence, smiles. B.

Cleo. The climate's delicate; the air most sweet;
Fertile the Isle; the temple much surpassing
The common praise it bears.

Fertile the isle ;

But the temple of Apollo at Delphi was not in an island, but in Phocis, on the continent. Either Shakspeare or his editors, had their heads running on Delos, an island of the Cyclades. If it was the editors' blunder, then Shakspeare wrote: Fertile the soil, which is more elegant too, than the present reading. WARE.

Shakspeare is little careful of geography. There is no need of this emen dation in a play of which the whole plot depends upon a geographical error, by which Bohemia is supposed to be a maritime country. JOHN.

'Fertile the Isle.' This remark of the learned prelate is somewhat strange. The temple of Apollo at Delphi was certainly not in an Island; but he must surely have known that a temple was erected to that deity at Delos, whence were delivered oracles [as we gather from the Historian] "not only not inferior to those at Delphi, but far exceeding them, and all other oracles of Apollo; being given in clear and plain terms without any ambiguity or obscurity whatever." Alex. ab Alex. B.

Her.

I appeal

To your own conscience, sir, before Polixenes
Came to your court, how I was in your grace,

How merited to be so; Since he came,
With what encounter so uncurrent I
Have strain'd, to appear thus?

Since he came,

With what encounter so uncurrent I

Have strain'd, to appear thus ?-

These lines I do not understand; with the licence of all editors, what I cannot understand I suppose unintelligible, and therefore propose that they may be altered thus:

Since he came,

With what encounter so uncurrent have I
Been stain'd to appear thus.

At least I think it might be read:

With what encounter so uncurrent have I

Strain'd to appear thus? If one jot beyond. John.

With what encounter so uncurrent.'

Encounter so uncurrent'

is an expression I do not understand. I therefore read the passage thus:

Since he came,

With what encounter, so uncredent, have I
Been stain'd, to appear thus ?

The meaning of which will be: "Since Polixenes came to your court, what criminal action have you to accuse me of? [though by the way it is uncredent; a matter little likely to gain belief-] what encounter, what particular meeting, I say, can you prove or charge us with that I should be brought to this tribunal, &c." B.

Leo.

As

you were past all shame, (Those of your fact are so) so past all truth:

Which to deny, concerns more than avails.

-As you were past all shame,

(Those of your fact are so) so past all truth.

I do not remember that fact is used any where absolutely for guilt, which must be its sense in this place. Perhaps we may read:

Those of your pack are so.

Pack is a low coarse word well suited to the rest of this royal invective.

JOHN.

Those of your fact are so.'' Fact' is used for faction or party.

The like abbreviations are common with Shakspeare. B.

Her. The child-bed privilege deny'd, which 'longs
To women of all fashion;-Lastly, hurried
Here to this place, i'the open air, before

I have got strength of limit.

have got strength of limit.

I know not well how strength of limit can mean strength to pass the limits of the child-bed chamber, which yet it must mean in this place, unless wc read in a more easy phrase, strength of limb. And now, &c. JOHN.

1 have got strength of limit,

From the following passage in the black letter history of Titana and The

seus (of which I have no earlier edition than that in 1636) it appears that limit was anciently used for limb,

"thought it very strange that nature should endow so fair a face with so hard a heart, such comely limits with such perverse conditions." STEEV.

I have got strength of limit.' The sense of this passage has been mistaken. It is not of limits or boundaries that the Queen is made to speak. Limit' is confinement: not however such confinement as might proceed from constraint or force, but simply that of being shut up. Hermione complains "of being brought into the open air before she had recovered that strength which had been lost from [by reason of] her late confinement," a comma must be placed at 'strength.'

It is wholly impossible that limit should at any time be used for limb; and one would have thought it equally impossible that even Mr. Steevens should have had so absurd an idea. Beside, in the history of Tituna and Theseus, it is face that is spoken of, and we do not call the several parts of it limbs but features. The matter, evidently, is only this-lineaments, according to the ancient mode of writing, was contracted into line'mets [the latter n having been inadvertently omitted by the author or his transcriber.] Thus the word would have nearly the appearance and sound of limits. B.

Her. The emperor of Russia was my father:
Oh, that he were alive, and here beholding
His daughter's trial! that he did but see
The flatness of my misery.

The flatness of my misery;

That is, how low, how flat I am laid by my calamity. Joux.

So, Milton, Par. Lost, b. ii:

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-Thus repuls'd, our final hope

"Is flat despair." MAL.

The flatness of my misery.' Johnson is wrong in his explication, Flatness of misery,' absoluteness, completeness of misery. Flat despair,' in Milton, is downright, absolute despair. B.

Leo.

And to the certain hazard

Of all incertainties himself commended,

No richer than his honor.

and to the certain hazard

Of all incertainties himself commended.

The old copy reads-and to the hazard. The defect in the metre shews clearly that some word of two syllables was omitted by the transcriber or compositor. Certain was added by the editor of the second folio; and is less likely to have been the epithet applied to "hazard," than almost any that can be named. Fearful appears to me to have a much better claim to a place in the text.

Commended is here, as in a former scene, used for committed. MAL. 'Certain hazard.' Certain hazard, [i. e. hazard he was sure to run] may very well stand. Mr. Malone has mistaken the sense. Commended is, gave himself up to. B.

Clo. You're a made old man; if the sins of your youth are forgiven you, you're well to live.

You're a made old man; --] In former copies :-You're a mad old. man; if the sins of your youth are forgiven you, you're well to live. Gold! all gold!This the Clown says upon his opening his fardel, and discovering the wealth in it. But this is no reason why he should call his father a mad old man. I have ventured to correct in the text--You're a made old man i. e. your fortune's made by this adventitious treasure. So our poet, in a number of other passages. THEOB.

Dr. Warburton did not accept this emendation, but it is certainly right. The word is borrowed from the novel: "The good man desired his wife to be quiet if she would hold peace, they were made for ever." See vol. 1. p. 64. FARMER.

You're a made old wan.' Mad', in old language, [the final e cut off] is frequently set down for made; the apocope of the grammarian, a very common figure with our earlier writers, has led to many mistakes. Thus in Hamlet it would seem that up has been printed for ap' [ape] Wo'ot drink up Eisel, &c." as I have there endeavoured to shew. The same may be observed of the apheresis :-for instance in Anthony and Cleopatra we meet with :

"I'll raise the preparation of a war,

Shall stain your brother."

which word stain the editors suppose to mean cast an odium on; by which it is evident that they attend to the word alone, and not to the context. Stain is clearly sustain, i. e. support, assist,-the very reverse of the sense they affix to it. See my notes, Hamlet and Anthony. B.

Cam. It is three days, since I saw the prince: What his happier affairs may be, are to me unknown: but I have missingly noted, he is of late much retired from

court.

but I have, missingly, noted

Missingly noted means, I have observed him at intervals, not constantly or regularly, but occasionally. STEEV. "But I have missingly noted.' Missingly noted' I do not understand, I therefore change it to wissenly noted, i. e. attentively, particularly noted. Wissen [Teut.] to know. B.

Pol. But, I fear the angle that plucks our son thither. Thou shalt accompany us to the place.

-But, I fear the angle Mr. Theobald reads, engle. JouN.

and I fear the

Angle in this place means a fishing-rod, which he represents as drawing his son, jike a fish, away. STEEV.

I fear the angle.' Angle means a fishing rod." Nonsense! but to use a vulgar expression, all is fish that comes to Mr. Steevens's net; he stays not to examine if that which lies before him be any thing worth.Angle,' however, is a term in judicial astrology, and used in relation to certain houses of a figure and scheme of the heavens