in coming to signify one's aspect or physiognomy. It is really also the same word with the French and English continence and the Latin continentia. 54. For my single self.—Here is a case in which we are still obliged to adhere to the old way of writing and printing my self. Vid. 56. 54. I had as lief-Lief (sometimes written leef, or leve), in the comparative liefer or lever, in the superlative liefest, is the Anglo-Saxon leof, signifying dear. “No modern author, I believe," says Horne Tooke (D. of P. 261) “would now venture any of these words in a serious passage; and they seem to be cautiously shunned or ridiculed in common conversation, as a vulgarity. But they are good English words, and more frequently used by our old English writers than any other word of a corresponding signification.” The common modern substitute for lief is soon, and for liefer sooner or rather, which last is properly the comparative of rath, or rathe, signifying early, not found in Shakespeare, but used in one expression—" the rathe primrose” (Lycidas, 142)—by Milton, who altogether ignores lief. Lief, liefer, and liefest, are all common in Spenser. Shakespeare has lief pretty frequently, but never liefer; and liefest occurs only in the Second Part of King Henry VI., where, in ii. 1, we have “My liefest liege.” In the same play, too, (i. 1) we have “Mine alderliefest sovereign," meaning dearest of all. “This beautiful word,” says Mr. Knight, “is a Saxon compound. Alder, of all, is thus frequently joined with an adjective of the superlative degree,--as alderfirst, alderlast." But it cannot be meant that such combinations are frequent in the English of Shakespeare's day. They do occur, indeed, in a preceding stage of the language. Alder is a corrupted or at least modified form of the A. Saxon genitive plural aller, or allre ; it is that strengthened by the interposition of a supporting d (a common expedient). Aller, with the same signification, is still familiar in German compounds. The ancient effect and construction of lief in English may be seen in the following examples from Chaucer :-“ For him was lever han at his beddes head" (C. T. Pro. 295), that is, To him it was dearer to have (lever a monosyllable, beddes a dissyllable); “Ne, though I say it, I n'am not lefe to gabbe".(C. T. 3510), that is, I am not given to prate; “I hadde lever dien,” that is, I should hold it preferable to die. And Chaucer has also “ Al be him loth or lefe” (C. T. 1839), that is, Whether it be to him agreeable or disagreeable ; and “For lefe ne loth”. (C. T. 13062), that is, For love nor loathing.-- We may remark the evidently intended connection in sound between the lief and the live, or rather the attraction by which the one word has been naturally produced or evoked by the other. 54. Cæsar said to me, etc.-In the Second Folio it is “ Cæsar saies to me.” And three lines lower down it is there “ Accounted as I was.” Other errors of that copy in the same speech are "chasing with her shores,” and “He had a Feaher when he was in Spaine." 54. Arrive the point proposed.--Arrive without the now indispensable at or in is found also in the Third Part of King Henry VI. (v. 3) : “Those powers that the queen 99 And Milton has the same construction (P. L. Ü. 409) : “Ere he arrive The happy isle.” 54. I, as Æneas, etc.—This commencement of the sentence, although necessitating the not strictly grammatical repetition of the first personal pronoun, is in fine rhetorical accordance with the character of the speaker, and vividly expresses his eagerness to give prominence to his own part in the adventure. Even the repetition (of which, by the bye, we have another instance in this same speech) assists the effect. At the same time, it may just be noted that the I here is not printed differently in the original edition from the interjection in " Ay, and that tongue of his," a few lines lower down. Nor are the two words anywhere distinguished. 54. The old Anchises, etc.—This is a line of six feet; but it is quite different in its musical character from what is called an Alexandrine, such as rounds off the Spenserian stanza, and also frequently makes the second line in a rhymed couplet or the third in a triplet. A proper Alexandrine is inadmissible in blank verse. What we have here is only the ordinary heroic line overflowing its bounds,—which, besides that great excitement will excuse such irregularities, or even demand them, admirably pictures the emotion of Cassius, as it were acting his feat over again as he relates it,-with the shore the two were making for seeming, in their increasing efforts, to retire before them-and panting with his remembered toil. 54. His coward lips did from their colour fly.There can, I think, be no question that Warburton is right in holding that we have here a pointed allusion to a soldier flying from his colours. The lips would never otherwise be made to fly from their colour, instead of their colour from them. The figure is quite in Shakespeare's manner and spirit. But we may demur to calling it, with Warburton, merely “ a poor quibble.” It is a forcible expression of scorn and contempt. Such passions are, by their nature, not always lofty and decorous, but rather creative and reckless, and more given to the pungent than the elegant. 54. Did lose his lustre.—There is no personification here. His was formerly neuter as well as masculine, or the genitive of It as well as of He; and his lustre, meaning the lustre of the eye, is the same form of expression that we have in the familiar texts :—“The fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself” (Gen. i. 11); “ It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Gen. iii. 15); “If the salt have lost his savour” (Matt. v. 13, and Luke xiv. 34); "If the salt have lost his saltness" (Mark ix. and others. The word Its does not occur in the authorized translation of the Bible; its place is always supplied either by His or by Thereof. So again, in the present play, in 523, we have " That every nice offence should bear his comment;" and in Antony and Cleopatra, v. 1,“ The heart where mine his thoughts did kindle.” Its, however, is found in Shakespeare; Mr. Trench, in his English, Past and Present, says that it occurs, he believes, three times. I should be inclined to think the instances would be found to be considerably more numerous. There is one in Measure for Measure, i. 2, where Lucio's remark 50); about coming to a composition with the King of Hungary draws the reply, “Heaven grant us its peace, but not the King of Hungary's." The its here, it may be observed, has the emphasis. It is printed without the apostrophe both in the First and in the Second Folio. But the most remarkable of the Plays in regard to this particular is probably The Winter's Tale. Here, in i. 2, we have so many as three instances in a single speech of Leontes : “How sometimes Nature will betray it's folly? It's tendernesse ? and make it selfe a Pastime (As Ornaments oft do's) too dangerous." So stands the passage in the First Folio. Nor does the new pronoun here appear to be a peculiarity of expression characteristic of the excited Sicilian king; a little while after in the same scene we have the same form from the mouth of Camillo : “Be plainer with me, let me know my Trespas By it's owne visage.” And again, in iii. 3, we have Antigonus, when about to lay down the child in Bohemia, observing that he believes it to be the wish of Apollo that “it should heere be laide Of it's right Father.” Nor is this all. There are two other passages of the same play, in which the modern editors also give us its ; but in these the original text has it. The first |