art no tall fellow of thy hands, and that thou wilt be drunk; but I'll swear it, and I would thou would'st be a tall fellow of thy hands. Aut. I will prove so, sir, to my power. Clo. Ay, by any means prove a tall fellow: if I do not wonder how thou darest venture to be drunk, not being a tall fellow, trust me not.-Hark! the kings and the princes, our kindred, are going to see the queen's picture. Come, follow us: we'll be thy good masters. [Exeunt. We honour you with trouble. But we came To see the statue of our queen: your gallery That which my daughter came to look upon, Paul. statue. I like your silence: it the more shows off Leon. Pol. O! not by much. Paul. So much the more our carver's excellence; Which lets go by some sixteen years, and makes her As she liv'd now. Leon. As now she might have done, So much to my good comfort as it is Now piercing to my soul. O! thus she stood, Even with such life of majesty, (warm life, As now it coldly stands,) when first I woo'd her. I am asham'd: does not the stone rebuke me, For being more stone than it?-O, royal piece! There's magic in thy majesty, which has My evils conjur'd to remembrance; and From thy admiring daughter took the spirits, Standing like stone with thee. Per. And give me leave, And do not say 'tis superstition, that I kneel, and then implore her blessing.-Lady, Paul. O, patience! 'Tis time; descend; be stone no more: approach; You kill her double. Nay, present your hand: But how is to be question'd, for I saw her, By us, a pair of kings.-Let's from this place.What!-Look upon my brother:-both your pardons, That e'er I put between your holy looks [Exeunt. "-shook hands, as over a VAST"-Thus the first folio: the second has, "shook hands, as over a vast sea," which Hanmer adopted. "Vast" is used substantively, and Shakespeare uses it for the sea in PERICLES: Thou God of this great vast, rebuke these surges. In the TEMPEST, also, we have-the "vast of night." "-one that, indeed, PHYSICS the SUBJECT"-Here, as in MEASURE FOR MEASURE, act iii. scene 2, the word "subject" is used for subjects. "Physics the subject" means, gives the subjects of the king, or the state generally, health and joy SCENE II. 111 - that may blow No SNEAPING winds at home," etc. "Sneaping" is snipping, or nipping. Polixenes hopes that no sharp winds may blow at home, to induce him to say that he too truly prognosticated the consequences of his absence. Farmer shows that "that," for Oh that, was common in old writers, as Beaumont and Fletcher, and others. "To LET him there a month behind the GEST," etc.i. e. I will give him leave to detain himself there a month beyond the time prefixed for his departure. "Gest," (from the French giste, a lodging,) was a term employed with reference to the royal progresses, and meant the place of abiding for a certain period. "I love thee not A JAR O' THE CLOCK behind "A jar o' the clock' is a tick of the clock; 'jar' being used for tick by writers of the time. The words 'what lady should her lord' have hitherto stood rather unintelligibly-what lady she her lord.' The emendation is made on the authority of the old MS. corrector of the first folio, belonging to Lord Francis Egerton. 'Should' was perhaps written, in the MS., from which the printer composed the first folio, with an abbreviation, which he misread she."-COLLIER. "we should have answer'd heaven Boldly, not guilty;' the imposition clear'd, Hereditary ours." "That is, setting aside original sin, bating the imposition from the offence of our first parents, we might have boldly protested our innocence." Warburton, who labours to extract more theology from Shakespeare than he dreamed of, is right here. "GRACE to boot"-An ejaculation, meaning, Grace, or Heaven, help us! In RICHARD III. we have-" Saint George to boot." "CRAM's with praise, and MAKE'S"-i. e. "Cram us with praise, and make us,' but, for the sake of the metre, the old copies, by their mode of printing, inform us that cram us and make us were each to be read as one syllable. Such doubtless was the mode in which the words were written in the MS. used by the old compositor, and we may presume that in this form they came from the pen of Shakespeare. This remark will apply to 'to's' just preceding, and to other portions of this play."-COLLIER. "And CLAP thyself my love"-This was part of the troth-plight, and the custom is still retained in common life, on bargains or bets. So, in HENRY V.: And so, clap hands, and a bargain. "The MORT o' the deer"-Was the peculiar prolonged note of the huntsman's horn at the death of the deer. "I FECKS"-Stevens supposes this to be a corruption of i'faith. Collier suggests it to be a corruption of in fact. "Why, that's my BAWCOCK"-"Perhaps from beau and coq. It is still said, in vulgar language, that such a one is a jolly cock, a cock of the game. The word occurs in TWELFTH NIGHT, and is one of the titles by which Pistol speaks of King Henry the Fifth."-STE That is, still playing with her fingers, as a girl playing on the virginals. Virginals were stringed instruments, played with keys like a spinnet, which they resembled in all respects but in shape; spinnets being nearly triangular, and virginals of an oblong-square shape, like a small pianoforte. "Thou want'st a rough PASH, and the shoots that I have"-Holloway, in his "Dictionary of Provincialisms," informs us that "pash," in Cheshire, signifies the brains, and that "mad pash" is the same as mad brains. "Pash" is to be taken in this place for the head, as Jamieson says it is used in Scotland. By the "rough pash" is to be understood the hair on the forehead of a bull, which the calf wants, as well as the "shoots," i. e. the budding horns, which Leontes feels on his forehead. "As O'ER-DYED blacks"-Hanmer and Johnson say that "o'er-dyed" here means too much dyed; but it is to be understood as dyed over-i. e. coloured cloth that has been dyed over in order to make it black. "Look on me with your WELKIN EYE"-"Welkin" is blue, i. e. the colour of the welkin, or sky. H. Tooke explains, a rolling eye, from the Saxon wealcan, (volvere;) but the sense in which Shakespeare always uses the word is against Tooke's opinion. God knows, thou art a collop of my flesh. It is given as a proverbial phrase in Heywood's "Epigrams," 1566: For I have heard saie it is a deere collup "Affection! thy intention stabs the centre"-Rowe, without authority, altered this to read Imagination! thou dost stab to the centre. And thus it stands in many editions of the last century. Stevens, who restored the old reading, says, however, that "affection means imagination." This is not so. Affection is the state of being strongly affected by passion: its intention seems used for the favourite modern word, intensity. He says, "This intense emotion stabs me to the heart; making things, ordinarily held to be incredible, to appear possible.' "Then, 'tis very CREDENT"-In MEASURE FOR MEASURE we have "credent," as here, for credible. "What cheer? how is't with you, best brother"Many editions follow Stevens in taking this passage from Leontes, and adding it to the preceding exclamation of Polixenes, "How, my lord!" The old copies are uniform in the assignment of the dialogue as in our text, which the later editors have restored. Leontes breaks from a fit of abstraction with, "What cheer? how is't with you, best brother?" What Hermione subsequently says confirms this reading. " METHOUGHTS I did recoil Twenty-three years," etc. In the old copies it stands, "me thoughts I did recoil," and so it has been since usually printed. Collier prefers reading, "my thoughts I did recoil," on the authority of an old MS. correction of the folio. "This SQUASH"-In Old-English it did not mean the vegetable familiarly known on American tables, and in our gardens, by that name, but a pea-pod, when the young peas have not yet swelled and formed themselves. "Will you take eggs for money"-This phrase was proverbial for putting up with an affront, and so it was understood by Mamillius. —why, happy man be his DOLE"-i. e. May happiness be his portion. The expression is of frequent occurrence in old writers, and we have had it frequently in SHAKESPEARE. "Many a thousand on 's"-"Malone prints it 'of us;' but if he chose to alter on to of, he ought, for the sake of the verse, to have read of 's: 'on's' is an abbreviation for the sake of the verse, and the language of the time. Fidelity, metre, and custom require its preservation."-COLLIER. 66 lower MESSES, Perchance, are to this business purblind," etc. The term "messes" here signifies degrees or conditions. The company at great tables were divided according to their rank into higher and lower messes; those of lower condition sitting below the great standingsalt in the centre of the table. Sometimes the messes were served at different tables, and seem to have been arranged into fours, as is still the use at the halls of the Inns-of-Court. "Which HOXES honesty behind"—To hox is to hough, or ham-string. (for cogitation Resides not in that man that does not think) My wife is slippery?" Theobald quoted this passage in defence of the muchridiculed line in his "Double Falsehood:"-" None but himself can be his parallel." "For who does not see at once, (says he,) that he who does not think has no thought in him." In the same light the subsequent editors view this passage, and read, with Pope, "that does not think it." But the old reading is right, and the absurdity only in the misapprehension of it. Leontes means to say, "Have you not thought that my wife is slippery? (for cogitation resides not in the man that does not think my wife is slippery.") The four latter words, though disjoined from the word think by the necessity of a parenthesis, are evidently to be connected in construction with it. Malone, whose explanation this is, justly remarks that there are more involved and parenthetical passages in this play than in any other of Shakespeare's, except, perhaps, KING HENRY VIII. "and all eyes blind With the PIN AND WEB," etc. "The pin and web" was the old name for a cataract in the eyes. Florio, in his "New World of Words," 1611, defines cataratta as "a dimness of sight, occasioned by humours hardened in the eyes, called a cataract, or a pin and a web." (See LEAR, act iii. scene 4.) "Why he, that wears her like HER medal"-So the old copies; but Malone and other editors have altered it to his medal"-a useless change. The meaning is, that Polixenes wears Hermione round his neck, as it were, a medal, or resemblance of her-" her medal." 4 His cup-bearer"-Greene, in his novel of "Pandosto," says that, "Devising with himself a long time how he might best put away Egistus, without suspition of treacherous murder, he concluded at last to poyson him which opinion pleasing his humour, he became resolute in his determination, and the better to bring the matter to passe he called unto him his cup-bearer," meaning the cup-bearer of Egistus. "Make THAT thy question, and go rot"-The commentators differ in their printing and interpretation of this passage, which in the folios is given as in our text. Malone would read, "Make't thy question," which seems to refer to the interrupted observation of Camillo, "I have lov'd thee," instead of to what the words "Make that thy question," appear to relate to. The meaning of Leontes surely is, as Mr. Knight suggests, that Camillo may go rot, if he doubts or makes question of that which he has just been told. "Could man so BLENCH"-To "blench" is to start off; as, in HAMLET, "if he but blench." Leontes means, "could any man so start or fly off from propriety of behaviour." "Wafting his eyes to the contrary, and falling A lip of much contempt, speeds from me," etc. This is a stroke of nature worthy of Shakespeare. Leontes had but a moment before told Camillo that he would seem friendly to Polixenes, according to his advice; but, on meeting him, his jealousy gets the better of his resolution, and he finds impossible to restrain his hatred."-MASON. "Do you know, and dare not? Be intelligent to me." Thus the original. The common reading is— - Do you know, and dare not Be intelligent to me? "To VICE you to 't"-i. e. To screw, or move you to it. A vice, in Shakespeare's time, meant any kind of winding-screw. The vice of a clock was a common expression. "Be yok'd with his that did betray the Best"-i. e. Be coupled with that of Judas Iscariot. "Best," as Henderson remarks, is printed with a capital in the folios. "—and comfort The gracious queen, part of his theme, but nothing Of his ill-ta'en suspicion!" A very obscure passage, of which, Johnson says, he "can make nothing;" and suspects, very probably, that a line connecting them has been lost by the copyist or printer. Various emendations have been proposed, such as Jackson's-consort, for "comfort;" throne for "theme." Malone, Collier, and others retain the old text, explaining it thus: Polixenes hopes that his speedy absence may comfort the queen, who was part of the theme on which the king dwelt, (Polixenes being the other part;) but who, being innocent, was really "nothing" of the "ill-ta'en suspicion" against her. Coleridge thus comments on the dramatic effect of this act: "Observe the easy style of chit-chat between Camillo and Archidamus, as contrasted with the elevated diction on the introduction of the kings and Hermione, in the second scene; and how admirably Polixenes's refusal to Leontes to stay There is no tongue that moves, none, none i' the world, So soon as yours, could win me prepares for the effect produced by his afterwards yielding to Hermione;-which is, nevertheless, perfectly natural from mere courtesy to the sex, and the exhaustion of the will by former efforts of denial, and well calculated to set in nascent action the jealousy of Leontes. This, when once excited, is unconsciously increased by Hermione: - yet, good deed, Leontes, I love thee not a jar o' the clock behind accompanied, as a good actress ought to represent it, by an expression and recoil of apprehension that she had gone too far. At my request, he would notThe first working of the jealous fit:— Too hot, too hot The morbid tendency of Leontes to lay hold of the merest trifles, and his grossness immediately afterwards— Paddling palms, and pinching fingersfollowed by his strange loss of self-control in his dialogue with the little boy." "With violent HEFTS' i. e. Heavings. "He has discover'd my design, and I "The sense, I think, is, He hath now discovered my design, and I am treated as a mere child's baby, a thing pinched out of clouts, a puppet for them to move and actuate as they please."-HEATH. This sense is supported by the following passage in the "City Match," by Jasper Maine, 1639:Pinch'd napkins, captain, and laid Like fishes, fowls, or faces. "A FEDERARY with her"-A "federary" means a confederate; but Collier doubts whether it is not a misprint for feodary, a word Shakespeare uses in MEASURE FOR MEASURE, and in CYMBELINE, act iii. scene 2, "Art thou a feodary for this act?" states that "there is no such word as federary;" but Stevens is probably right in considering it as "a word of our author's coinage.' Malone "No; if I mistake"-Malone and Stevens, taking upon them to improve Shakespeare's versification, printed, No, no; if I mistake," which many popular editions follow. I agree with the suggestion of Knight and Collier that the Poet meant to leave the line syllabically incomplete, for the sake of the emphasis to be placed upon the single "No," which, with a pause after it, would make up the time. "He, who shall speak for her, is AFAR OFF guilty"i. e. He who shall speak for her is remotely guilty in merely speaking. "I'll keep my stables where I lodge my wife," etc. Much has been said about this passage: Hanmer thought it should be stable-stand; Malone that it means station. But it may be explained thus:-" If she prove false, I'll make my stables, or kennel, of my wife's chamber; I'll go in couples with her like a dog, and |