. Dr. Warburton explains impawn by engage, and so escapes the difficulty. Line 151. 184. JOHNSON. —gloze,] To gloze, is to comment upon. -To fine his title, &c.] To fine, is a word pro bably taken metaphorically from the fining of liquors. The words in Holinshed's Chronicle are: "-to make his title seem true, and appear good, though indeed it was stark naught.”— In Hall," to make, &c.-though indeed it was both evil and untrue." MALONE. Line 186. Convey'd himself~] Derived his title. Our poet found this expression also in Holinshed. MALONE. Line 207. imbare their crooked titles-] In the folio the word is spelt imbarre. Imbare is, I believe, the true reading. It is formed like impaint, impawn, and many other similar words used by Shakspeare. MALONE. Line 228. and cold for action!] If cold be the true reading, their coldness should arise from inaction; and therefore the reading must be, cold for want of action. So Lyly, in Euphues and his England, 1581: "—If he were too long for the bed, Procrustes cut off his legs, for catching cold," i. e. for fear of catching cold. MALONE. Line 257. They of those marches,] Marches, i. e. limits, borders. 282. And make your chronicle as rich with praise, &c.] The similitude between the chronicle and the sea consists only in this, that they are both full, and filled with something valuable. The quarto has your, the folio their chronicle. JOHNSON. Line 292. To spoil and havock more than she can eat.] It is not much the quality of the mouse to tear the food it comes at, but to run over it and defile it. THEOBALD. Line 294. Yet that is but a curs'd necessity;] It is certainly (as Dr. Warburton has also observed) the speaker's business to show that there is no real necessity for staying at home. MALONE. Line 305. Setting endeavour &c.] The sense is, that all endeavour is to terminate in obedience, to be subordinate to the publick good and general design of government. JOHNSON. Line 309. The act of order-] Act here means law, or statute; as appears from the old quarto, where the words are, "Creatures that by awe ordain an act of order to a peopled kingdom." Line 312. venture trade abroad;] Toventure trade is a phrase of the same import and structure as to hazard battle. JOHNSON. Line 318. The singing masons-] Our author probably had here two images in his thoughts. The hum of a bee is obvious. I believe he was also thinking of a common practice among masons, who, like many other artificers, frequently sing at work: a practice that could not have escaped his observation. MALONE. Line 319. kneading up the honey;] To knead the honey gives an easy sense, though not physically true. The bees do, in fact, knead the wax more than the honey, but that Shakspeare perhaps did not know. JOHNSON. Line 323. executioners. Line 356. -to éxecutors-] Executors is here used for MALONE. with a waxen epitaph.] A grave not dignified with the slightest memorial. Line 377. ble dance. Line 394. ·397. JOHNSON. -a nimble galliard won;] A galliard was a nim -chaces.] Chace is a term at tennis. JOHNSON. this poor seat of England;] By the seat of England, the king, I believe, means the throne. MALONE. Line 404. For that I have laid by-] To qualify myself for this undertaking, I have descended from my station, and studied the arts of life in a lower character. JOHNSON. Line 410. -his balls to gun-stones;] When ordnance was first used, they discharged balls, not of iron, but of stone. JOHNS. ACT II. CHORUS. Line 1. Now all the youth of England-] I think Mr. Pope mistaken in transposing this chorus, [to the end of the first scene of the second act,] and Mr. Theobald in concluding the [first] act with it. The chorus evidently introduces that which follows, not comments on that which precedes, and therefore rather begins than ends the act; and so I have printed it. JOHNSON. Line 8. For now sits Expectation in the air; And hides a sword, from hilts unto the point, With crowns imperial, &c.] The imagery is wonder fully fine, and the thought exquisite. Expectation sitting in the air designs the height of their ambition; and the sword hid from the hilt to the point with crowns and coronets, that all sentiments of danger were lost in the thoughts of glory. WARBURTON? Line 29. this grace of kings-] i.e. he who does the greatest honour to the title. By the same kind of phraseology the usurper in Hamlet is called the Vice of kings, i. e. the opprobrium of them. WARBURTON. Line 39. charming the narrow seas-] Though Ben Jonson, as we are told, was indebted to the kindness of Shakspeare for the introduction of his first piece, Every Man in his Humour, on the stage, and though our author performed a part in it, Jonson, in the prologue to that play, as in many other places, endeavoured to ridicule and depreciate him: "He rather prays, you will be pleas'd to see When this prologue was written, is unknown. The envious author of it, however, did not publish it till 1616, the year of Shakspeare's death. MALONE. Line 41. We'll not offend one stomach-] That is, you shall pass the sea without the qualms of sea-sickness. JOHNSON. ACT II. SCENE I. Line 45. -lieutenant Bardolph.] At this scene begins the connection of this play with the latter part of King Henry IV. The characters would be indistinct, and the incidents unintelligible, without the knowledge of what passed in the two foregoing plays. JOHNSON. Line 49. there shall be smiles;] Perhaps Nym means only to say, I care not whether we are friends at present; however, when time shall serve, we shall be in good humour with each other. Line 87. MALONE. Iceland dog!] In the folio the word is spelt Island; in the quarto, Iseland. I believe we should read, Iceland dog. He seems to allude to an account credited in Elizabeth's time, that in the north there was a nation with human bodies and dogs' heads. JOHNSON. Line 98. For I can take,] I know not well what he can take. The quarto reads talk. In our author to take, is sometimes to blast, which sense may serve in this place. JOHNSON. . Line 100. I am not Barbason; you cannot conjure me.] Barbason is the name of a dæmon in The Merry Wives of Windsor. Line 120. O hound of Crete,] He means to insinuate that Nym thirsted for blood. The hounds of Crete, described by our author in A Midsummer-Night's Dream, appear to have been bloodhounds. MALONE. ACT II. SCENE II. -more advice,] On his return to more coolness of JOHNSON. -proceeding on distemper,] i. e. sudden passions. Line 232. mind. Line 244. Perturbation of mind. WARBURTON. Temper is equality or calmness of mind, from an equipoise or due mixture of passions. Distemper of mind is the predominance of a passion, as distemper of body is the predominance of a humour. JOHNSON. -how shall we stretch our eye,] If we may not wink at small faults, how wide must we open our eyes at great? Line 245. Line 277. quick-] That is, living. 303. JOHNSON. JOHNSON —though the truth of it stands off as gross As black from white,] Though the truth be as apparent and visible as black and white contiguous to each other. To stand off is être relevé, to be prominent to the eye, as the strong parts of a picture. JOHNSON. Line 318. -he, that temper'd thee,] Though temper'd may: stand for formed or moulded, yet I fancy tempted was the author's word, for it answers better to suggest in the opposition. JOHNSON. Line 323. He might return to casty Tartar back,] i. e. Tar tarus. Line 326. 0, how hast thou with jealousy infected The sweetness of affiance!] Shakspeare uses this aggravation of the guilt of treachery with great judgment. One of the worst consequences of breach of trust is the diminution of that confidence which makes the happiness of life, and the dissemin ation of suspicion, which is the poison of society. JOHNSON. Line 335. Not working with the eye, without the ear,] The king means to say of Scroop, that he was a cautious man, who knew that fronti nulla fides, that a specious appearance was deceitful, and therefore did not work with the eye, without the ear, did not trust the air or look of any man till he had tried him by enquiry and conversation. JOHNSON. Line 337. —and so finely boulted,] Bolted is the same with sifted, and has consequently the meaning of refined. JOHNSON. Line 366. My fault, &c.] One of the conspirators against queen Elizabeth, I think Parry, concludes his letter to her with these words: "a culpâ, but not a pœnâ, absolve me, most dear lady." This letter was much read at that time, [1585,] and our author doubtless copied it. This whole scene was much enlarged and improved after the first edition; the particular insertions in it would be tedious to mention, and tedious without much use. JOHNSON. ACT II. SCENE III. Line 407. finer end,] For final. JOHNSON. -an it had been any christom child;] Blount, in his Glossography, 1678, says, that chrisoms in the bills of mortality are such children as die within the month of birth, because during that time they use to wear the chrisom-cloth. MALONE. Line 409. turning o'the tide:] It has been a very old opinion, which Mead, de imperio solis, quotes, as if he believed it, that nobody dies but in the time of ebb: half the deaths in London confute the notion; but we find that it was common among the women of the poet's time. JOHNSON. Line 416. now I, to comfort him, bid him, 'a should not think of God, &c.] Perhaps Shakspeare was indebted to the following story in Wits, Fits, and Fancies, &c. 1595, for this very characteristick exhortation: "A gentlewoman fearing to be drowned, said, now Jesu receive our soules! Soft, mistress, answered the waterman; I trow, we are not come to that passe yet. MALONE. Line 421. cold as any stone.] Such is the end of Falstaff,' from whom Shakspeare had promised us, in his epilogue to King Henry IV. that we should receive more entertainment. It hap pened to Shakspeare, as to other writers, to have his imagination' |