Or pile ten hills on the Tarpeian rock,
That the precipitation might down stretch
Below the beam of fight, yet will I ftill
Be thus to them.

Enter VOLUMNIA.

1 PAT.

You do the nobler.

COR. I mufe,4 my mother

Does not approve me further, who was wont
To call them woollen vaffals, things created
To buy and fell with groats; to show bare heads
In congregations, to yawn, be ftill, and wonder,
When one but of my ordinance 5 ftood up
To speak of peace, or war. I talk of you;
[To VOLUMNIA.
you wifh me milder? Would you have me

Why did

inflicted from the beginning to the end of the Republick, except in this fingle instance:

"Exinde, duabus admotis quadrigis, in currus earum diftentum illigat Metium. Deinde in diverfum iter equi concitati, lacerum in utroque curru corpus quâ inhæferant vinculis membra, portantes. Avertêre omnes a tantâ fœditate fpectaculi oculos. Primum ultimumque illud fupplicium apud Romanos exempli parum memoris legum humanarum fuit: in aliis, gloriari licet nulli gentium mitiores placuiffe pœnas." Liv. Lib. I xxviii. MALONE. Shakspeare might have found mention of this punishment in our ancient romances. Thus, in The Sowdon of Babyloyne, p. 55:

-Thou venemouse serpente

"With wilde horses thou shalt be drawe to morowe
"And on this hille be brente." STEEVENS.

I mufe,] That is, I wonder, I am at a lofs. JOHNSON. So, in Macbeth:

"Do not muse at me, my most noble friends-."

my ordinance-] My rank. JOHNSON.

STEEVENS.

Falfe to my nature? Rather fay, I play

The man I am."

VOL.

O, fir, fir, fir,

I would have had you put your power well on,
Before you had worn it out.

COR.

Let go.7

VOL. You might have been enough the man you

are,

With striving lefs to be fo: Leffer had been
The thwartings of your difpofitions, if

You had not show'd them how you were difpos'd
Ere they lack'd power to cross you.

COR.

VOL. Ay, and burn too.

Let them hang.

The man I am.] Sir Thomas Hanmer fupplies the defect in this line, very judiciously in my opinion, by reading:

Truly the man I am.

Truely is properly opposed to False in the preceding line.

STEEVENS.

7 Let go.] Here again, Sir Thomas Hanmer, with fufficient propriety, reads-Why, let it go.-Mr. Ritfon would complete the measure with a fimilar expreffion, which occurs in Othello: "Let it go all.-Too many of the short replies in this and other plays of Shakspeare, are apparently mutilated.

it:

STEEVENS.

The thwartings of your difpofitions,] The old copies exhibit

"The things of your difpofitions."

A few letters replaced, that by fome careleffness dropped out, reftore us the poet's genuine reading:

The thwartings of your difpofitions. THEOBALD.

Mr. Theobald only improved on Mr. Rowe's correction :
The things that thwart your difpofitions. MALONE.

Enter MENENIUS, and Senators.

MEN. Come, come, you have been too rough, fomething too rough;

You must return, and mend it.

1 SEN.

Unless, by not fo doing, our good city
Cleave in the midft, and perish.

VOL.

There's no remedy;

Pray be counsel'd:

I have a heart as little apt as yours,

But yet a brain, that leads
To better vantage.

MEN.

my

ufe of anger,

Well faid, noble woman :

Before he should thus stoop to the herd, but that
The violent fit o'the time craves it as phyfick
For the whole ftate, I would put mine armour on,
Which I can scarcely bear.

COR. What must I do?

9 Before he should thus floop to the herd,] [Old copy-stoop to the heart.] But how did Coriolanus stoop to his heart? He rather, as we vulgarly exprefs it, made his proud heart ftoop to the neceffity of the times. I am perfuaded, my emendation gives the true reading. So before in this play:

"Are thefe your herd ?"

So, in Julius Cæfar:

when he perceived, the common herd was glad he refus'd the crown," &c. THEOBALD.

Mr. Theobald's conjecture is confirmed by a paffage, in which Coriolanus thus describes the people :

"You fhames of Rome! you herd ofHerd was anciently fpelt heard. Hence heart crept into the old copy. MALONE.

COR. For them?-I cannot do it to the gods; Muft I then do't to them?

VOL.

I

You are too abfolute;

Though therein you can never be too noble,
But when extremities fpeak. I have heard you fay,
Honour and policy, like unfever'd friends,

I' the war do grow together: Grant that, and tell

me,

In peace, what each of them by th' other lose,
That they combine not there.

COR.

MEN.

Tufh, tufh!

A good demand.

VOL. If it be honour, in your wars, to feem The fame you are not, (which, for your best ends, You adopt your policy,) how is it less, or worse, That it fhall hold companionship in peace

With honour, as in war; fince that to both
It stands in like request?

COR.

Why force you 2 this? VOL. Because that now it lies you on to speak To the people; not by your own instruction, Nor by the matter which your heart prompts you to,3

You are too abfolute;

Though therein you can never be too noble,

But when extremities Speak.] Except in cafes of urgent neceffity, when your refolute and noble spirit, however commend

able at other times, ought to yield to the occafion.

2

Why force you -] Why urge you. JOHNSON. So, in King Henry VIII:

"If you will now unite in your complaints,

MALONE.

"And force them with a constancy-." MALONE.

3 Nor by the matter which your heart prompts you to,] [Old copy-prompts you.] Perhaps the meaning is, which your heart prompts you to. We have many fuch elliptical expreffions in VOL. XVI.

L

But with fuch words that are but roted in
Your tongue, though but baftards, and fyllables
Of no allowance, to your bofom's truth.4
Now, this no more difhonours you at all,

thefe plays. Cæfar:

See Vol. XV. p. 196, n. 4. So, in Julius

"Thy honourable metal may be wrought

"From what it is difpos'd [to]."

But I rather believe, that our author has adopted the language of the theatre, and that the meaning is, which your heart fuggefts to you; which your heart furnishes you with, as a prompter furnishes the player with the words that have escaped his memory. So afterwards: "Come, come, we'll prompt you.' The editor of the second folio, who was entirely unacquainted with our author's peculiarities, reads-prompts you to, and so all the subfequent copies read. MALONE.

I am content to follow the fecond folio; though perhaps we ought to read:

Nor by the matter which your heart prompts in you. So, in A Sermon preached at St. Paul's Croffe, &c. 1589: "for often meditatyon prompteth in us goode thoughtes, begettyng theron goode workes," &c.

Without fome additional fyllable the verse is defective.

baftards, and fyllables

STEEVENS.

Of no allowance, to your bofom's truth.] I read : of no alliance;" therefore baftards. Yet allowance may well enough stand, as meaning legal right, established rank, or fettled authority. JOHNSON.

Allowance is certainly right. So, in Othello, A& II. fc. i :

66

his pilot

"Of very expert and approv'd allowance."

Dr. Johnson's amendment, however, is countenanced by an expreffion in The Taming of the Shrew, where Petruchio's ftirrups are faid to be" of no kindred." STEEvens.

I at firft was pleased with Dr. Johnson's propofed emendation, becaufe" of no allowance, i. e. approbation, to your bofom's truth," appeared to me unintelligible. But allowance has no connection with the fubfequent words, "to your bofom's truth." The conftruction is-though but bastards to your bofom's truth, not the lawful iffue of your heart. The words, "and fyllables of no allowance," are put in oppofition with baftards, and are as it were parenthetical. MALONE.