Who having, unto truth, by telling of it,
Made such a sinner of his memory,
To credit his own lie,-

-Like one,

Who having, INTO truth, by telling of it,
Made such a sinner of his memory,

To credit his own lie,-]

The corrupted reading of the second line has rendered this beautiful similitude quite unintelligible. For what is [having into truth?] or what doth [it] refer to? not to [truth,] because if he told truth be could never credit a lie. And yet there is no other correlative to which [it] can belong. I read and point it thus:

- Like one

Who having, UNTO truth, by telling OFT,

Made such a sinner of his memory,

To credit his own lie,

i.e. by often repeating the same story, made his memory such a sinner unto truth, as to give credit to his own lie; a miserable delusion, to which story-tellers are frequently subject. The Oxford Editor having, by this correction, been let into the sense of the passage, gives us this sense in his own words;

Who loving an untruth, and telling't oft,
Makes

WARB.

Like one,' &c.

'Having,' I change to hark'ning, and read the passage as follows:

Like one,

Who hark'ning unto truth, by telling of it,

Made such a sinner of his memory,

To credit his own lies.'

i. e. Like unto the liar, who accidentally hearing a truth, repeats it, and who from frequently repeating it, at length begins to imagine that all which he has spoken is true. B.

Pro.

Of temporal royalties

He thinks me now incapable: confederates,

So dry he was for sway, with the king of Naples
To give him annual tribute, do him homage;

So dry he was for sway.] i. e. So thirsty. The expression, I am told, is not uncommon in the midland counties. Thus in Leicester's Commonwealth," against the designments of the hasty Erle who thirsteth a king dome with great intemperance." STEEV.

'Dry' is very inelegant. I suppose we should read dree, i. e. sor

rowing. He sorrowed, he grieved, that he had not been able to attain to power. B.

Pro.

Thou didst smile,

Infused with a fortitude from heaven,

When I have deck'd the sea with drops full salt;

Deck'd the sea.] To deck the sea, if explained to honor, adorn, or dignify, is indeed ridiculous, but the original import of the verb deck is to cover; so in some parts they yet say deck the table. This sense may be borne, but perhaps the poet wrote fleck'd, which I think is still used in rustic language of drops falling upon water. Dr. Warburton reads mock'd ; the Oxford edition brack'd. JOHN.

Whether we explain deck'd in the sense of adorning, which seems to be its meaning in the passage produced by Mr. Steevens, from Antony and Cleopatra; or whether in the sense of covering, the phrase will be but bald this however is no argument that Shakspeare did not write it. I am nevertheless strongly inclined to conjecture that the right reading is “dewed the sea with tears." As in Spenser, Fairy Queen, b. iv. c. 8. "Dew'd with her drops of bounty sovereine." And in our Author, Macbeth, A. 5. Sc. 2.

"To dew the sovereign flower, and drown the weeds." S. W.

I have little doubt but that the poet wrote " beck'd the sea," added rivers to the sea. Beck, in early writers, is a river. "I have beck'd the sea," for, I have added rivers to the sea, is not, indeed, a very easy language, but it is certainly the language of Shakspeare. B.

Pro. Now, I arise:

Sit still, and hear the last of our sea-sorrow.

Now I arise.] Why does Prospero arise? Or, if he does it to ease himself by change of posture, why need he interrupt his narrative to tell his daughter of it? BLACK.

'Now I arise,' &c.;

If I may be allowed to hazard a conjecture here, I would read,Now I rise,' i. e. Now I rise in my story, Now my story rises, or becomes more interesting; therefore, continues he, sit still. Such an ellipsis is not unfrequent with Shakspeare. And when we consider the immediately succeeding speech of Prospero, in which he insinuates that his enemies are then in his power, the reading I have proposed may perhaps be thought right. B.

Pro.

Urchins

Shall, for that vast of night that they may work,
All exercise on thee:

For that vast of night that they may work.] The vast of night means the night which is naturally empty and deserted, without action; or when all things lying in sleep and silence, makes the world appear one great uninhabited waste. So in Hamlet:

'In the dead waste and middle of the night.' STEEV.

I understand vast, in this place, to mean length of time-for, is during. Fairies,' (says he) shall, during the whole extent, or space of night, and in which they are allowed to work, all exercise on thee.' Our author, it may be remembered, uses vasty, for extent of place. B.

Cal. You taught me language; and my profit on't
Is, I know how to curse: The red plague rid you,
For learning me your language!

The red plague.] I suppose from the redness of the body, universally inflamed. JOHN.

The erysipelas was anciently called the red plague. STEEV.

By red plague, I understand lightning. The red plague rid you,' is as though he should say, lightning blust you. Lightning is called by the poets the red-winged messenger of Jove. Ossian, likewise, in describing its effects, says, The red ruin, &c. Caliban may be supposed to have observed the dreadful effects of lightning, but how should he know any thing about the erysipelas?, B.

My foot my tutor.] So in The Mirror for Magistrates,
What honest heart would not conceive disdayne,

To see the foote surmount above the head. HEN.

My foot my tutor?'

This expression I do not understand. It should certainly be,—' My soot my tutor?' Soot, in old language, is sweet, and may here be used as a word of endearment.

What! my sweeting become my tutor?

He shortly after calls her darling. The lines from the Mirror for Magistrates, are nothing to the purpose. B.

Gon.

Our escape

Is much beyond our loss: Our hint of woe

Is common;

Our hint of woe ;] Hint is that which recals to the memory. The cause that fills our minds with grief is common. Dr. Warburton reads stint of woe. JouN.

I would read, Our hent of woe.' Hent, in Chaucer and Spenser, is got, caught, laid hold of. Our hent of woe' may therefore mean, the woe that seizes or preys on us. B.

Gon.

Contract, succession,

Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none
No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil:
No occupation;

Bourn, bound of land, &c. A bourn, in this place, signifies a limit, a meer, a land mark. STEEV.

'Bourn' is properly a little river, though sometimes used for a boundary. It must have its original meaning here, the more espe cially as "bound of land" immediately follows it.

Borne is a limit, a boundary. See note on King Lear, act 4, scene 6. B.

Ant. Although this lord of weak remembrance, this (Who shall be of as little memory,

When he is earth'd) hath here almost persuaded, (For he's a spirit of persuasion, only

Professes to persuade) the king, his son's alive;

'Tis as impossible that he's undrown'd,

As he, that sleeps here, swims.

For he's a spirit of persuasion,] Of this entangled sentence I can draw no sense from the present reading, and therefore imagine that the author gave it thus:

For he, a spirit of persuasion, only
Professes to persuade.

Of which the meaning may be either, that he alone, who is a spirit of per

suasion, professes to persuade the king; or that, he only professes to persuade, that is, without being so persuaded himself, he makes a show of persuading the king. JOHN.

(For he's a spirit of persuasion, only Professes to persuade.)'

The meaning is, that in cases like to that of which they are speaking, he is generally admitted, or considered, as a spirit of persuasion, who endeavours to persuade of the truth of the news he brings. That such agreeable reports are readily listened to.' The want of the pronoun who, occasions much of the difficulty. Read, Who only professes to persuade.' B.

Ant. Ambition cannot pierce a wink beyond,
But doubts discovery there.

A wink beyond.] That this is the utmost extent of the prospect of ambition, the point where the eye can pass no farther, but where objects lose their distinctness, so that what is there discovered, is faint, obscure, and doubtful. JouN.

a wink beyond.'

'Pierce a wink beyond' is extremely harsh. I therefore read

'Pierce a went beyond.'

Went is thought, design. See Chaucer. • Ambition cannot even in thought go beyond it.' B.

Cal.

sometimes I'll get thee Young scamels from the rock:

Scamels.] This word has puzzled the commentators; Dr. Warburton reads shamois; Mr. Theobald would read any thing rather than scamels. Mr. Holt, who wrote notes upon this play, observes, that limpets are in some places called scams, therefore I have suffered scamels to stand.

JOHN.

Theobald had very reasonably proposed to read sea-malls, or sea-mells. An e, by these careless printers, was easily changed into a c, and from this accident, I believe, all the difficulty arises, the word having been spelt by the transcriber seumels. Willoughby mentions the bird as Theobald bas informed us. Had Mr. Holt told us in what part of England limpets are called scams, more attention would have been paid to his as

sertion.

I should suppose, at all events, a bird to have been designed, as young and old fish are taken with equal facility; but young birds are more easily surprised than old ones. Besides, Caliban had already proffered to fish for Trinculo. In Cavendish's second voyage, the sailors eat young gulis at the isle of Penguins. STEEV.

Scamels.-Theobald's reading may be admitted. I must ob