became courting. Tourneur, Revenger's [Revengers'] Tragedy, iii. 1, Dodsley, vol. iv. p. 332,

Brother, I do applaud thy constant vengeance,

The quaintness of thy malice, above thought."

Perhaps a corruption of comming; for the context-which see-requires cunning, or some word to that effect. Shirley, Arcadia, iii. 3, 1. 3, vol. vi. p. 226, if the instance be worth adding to the list,

"Death seize upon Zelmane, for his cunning!"

Dyce's note," the old copy, comming."

With regard to insuit, no lexicographer, that I have consulted, has discovered it in any English writer but Shakespeare. Besides, could such a word, connected as it must be with ensue, mean anything but pursuit? or, supposing that it signifies solicitation; as the commentators explain it, how does this apply to Diana? When all this, together with the unmeaningness of coming, is considered, there can be no doubt that we should read,

"Her infinite cunning, with her modern grace,
Subdued me to her rate."

(Infinite-insuite.) Or, as we might express it in modern colloquial English, "In a word, my liege, by dint of a vast deal of cunning, and a moderate share of commonplace beauty, she succeeded in bringing me to her terms." Modern is trivial, every-day, as the commentators explain it

Ib.,-

“And I had that, which any inferior might

At market-price have bought."

This is strange, in this place of the line. I believe we should read an, or perhaps my, for any. See the early part of Art. c., vol. ii. p. 255.

Ib.,

"By Jove, if ever I knew man, 'twas you." Turning to Lafeu? See just below,

"I am either maid, or else this old man's wife."

Ib.,—

"He knows, I am no maid," &c.

To know, seems to be used in more than one passage of this play in the sense of opinari, as its sister yvwvaι sometimes is.

TWELFTH NIGHT.

[I leave the first note below precisely as it stands in Walker's manuscript, because, though in several similar cases his excellent memory has deceived him, in the present instance I believe he is right, as I have some remembrance of having seen in his papers a previous note on this passage, which I have since searched for in vain. It was, I think, to the effect that Shakespeare mostly speaks disparagingly of the south wind as rotten, foggy, and so forth. This no doubt is true, and it may lead us to infer that the greatest of poets was a person of a somewhat relaxed habit of body, and required a bracing air to be in the full enjoyment of health. All this, however, can be no defence of sound, and indeed Walker, so far from defending it, proposes to supplant it by a conjecture. I can scarcely, however, agree with him in what he says on the passage from the Arcadia. A south-wester is a heavy gale from the south-west; but we often have genial, bright, and growing weather from that quarter as well as from the south. Such

VOL. III.

6

was the weather that Shakespeare probably had in view when he put this speech into the mouth of the lovelorn Orsino. One verse in particular,—

"That strain again—it had a dying fall,"

seems inspired by the soft, balmy, but somewhat moist, relaxing, and languor-breathing air, which is peculiar to the two winds in question. Mr. Knight, indeed, tells us that "Shakespeare has never made the south an odourbreathing wind;" but this proves rather too much, as the poet has never described any particular wind, north, south, east, or west, as breathing odours. Are we, therefore, to conclude that in his view of nature no wind trafficked in perfumery? Should we not rather expect that, if he had occasion to employ any particular wind in such a business, he would have selected that which, from the moisture that accompanies it even in the brightest weather, heightens the fragrance of flowers to a peculiar and, occasionally, an overpowering excess? At any rate, it is utterly impossible that Shakespeare could have described a sound as stealing and giving odours. Sounds sometimes tickle, and sometimes torture, our ears; but they are incapacitated by nature from affecting our noses.-Ed.]

Add on T. N. i. 1, "the sweet south," corrected by me to wind, p. In the passage of the Arcadia quoted by the commentators in loc., the wind is not the west [qu., south.-Ed.], but the south-west; and I suspect that he had a passage of some Greek or Roman poet in view, were it merely on account of the very different character of our English south-wester. Since the two notes on this subject were written, I have met with the following in the Var.

Shakespeare: it is part of a note of Steevens's,- "The old copy reads-sweet sound, which Mr. Rowe changed into wind, and Mr. Pope into south."-I know not whether Massinger, New Way &c., Moxon, page 300, col. 2, apparently an imitation of this passage, proves anything,—

"Add this too: when you feel her touch, and breath

Like a soft western wind, when it glides o'er

Arabia, creating gums and spices;" &c.

It would seem that Massinger did not read south.

2, near the end,—

though that nature with a beauteous wall

Doth oft close in pollution, yet of thee

I will believe, thou hast a mind" &c.

Well, I imagine. Knight has, Merry Wives of Windsor, i. 3,—“ He has studied her will, and translated her will out of honesty into English ;" and Timon, near the end,

"These will express in thee thy latter spirits ;"

for well; in the former instance, from the folio, which I am not able to refer to; in the latter, is not will an erratum in Knight's edition ?1 Chapman, Il. iii., Taylor, vol. i. p. 83, antepenult.; see context,—

..

perhaps well.

and will the worst obey;"

3,-"Good mistress Accost, I desire better acquaintance. Maria. My name is Mary, sir." The folio, p. 256, col. 2,

It would seem so, as the folio reads well, and so too Mr. Knight's Stratford edition. For the confusion of well and will, see Mr. Dyce's note on the passage, Merry Wives of Windsor, i. 3.-Ed.

has no stop after acquaintance; one of its two modes of expressing that a sentence is incomplete; the other being, as now, by a It is an unfinished address,-subaudi, "with your beauty," or the like. The same takes place, iii. 1, fol. p. 265 (misprinted 273), col. 2,

.

My dutie Madam, and most humble seruice Oli. What is your name?"

Ib.,-" Now, sir, thought is free." Surely, "Nay, sir."

5,

"With adorations, with fertile tears," &c.

The folio omits the second with. Surely a word or words are lost before adorations, involving the same metaphor as the rest of the two lines. Fertile, I think, is copious, as,

ii. 2, near the end,-" And I, poor monster," &c. Alluding to her being, in a manner, both woman and man.

3, Clown's song,

"Then come kisse me sweet and twenty:"

so fol. Does he mean,

"Then come kiss me, sweet, and twenty;"

subaudi, kisses? Compare Merry Wives of Windsor, ii. 1, "Good even, and twenty, good Master Page."

mont and Fletcher, Wit at Several Weapons, iii. 1,"Sir Gregory. Good morrow, mistress.

Niece.

Sir Greg.

Beau

An ill day, and a thousand, come upon thee.

'Light, that's six hundred more than any almanack has."

Reversing the common form; a little below," Good mor