As you did mean indeed to be our brother;

Joy'd are we that you are.

POST. Your servant, princes.-Good my lord of Rome, Call forth your soothsayer: As I slept, methought, Great Jupiter, upon his eagle back,

Appear'd to me, with other spritely shows

Of mine own kindred: when I wak'd, I found
This label on my bosom; whose containing
Is so from sense in hardness, that I can
Make no collection of it; let him show
His skill in the construction.

LUC.

SOOTH. Here, my good lord.
Luc.

Philarmonus!

Read, and declare the meaning.

SOOTH. [Reads.] When as a lion's whelp shall, to himself unknown, without seeking find, and be embraced by a piece of tender air; and when from a stately cedar shall be lopped branches, which, being dead many years, shall after revive, be jointed to the old stock, and freshly grow; then shall Posthumus end his miseries, Britain be fortunate, and flourish in peace and plenty.

Thou, Leonatus, art the lion's whelp;

The fit and apt construction of thy name,
Being Leo-natus, doth import so much:

The piece of tender air, thy virtuous daughter, [To CYMBELINE
Which we call mollis aer; and mollis aer
We term it mulier: which mulier I divine
Is this most constant wife; who, even now,
Answering the letter of the oracle,

Unknown to you, unsought, were clipp'd about
With this most tender air.

CYM.

This hath some seeming.

SOOTH. The lofty cedar, royal Cymbeline, Personates thee: and thy lopp'd branches point Thy two sons forth: who, by Belarius stolen, For many years thought dead, are now reviv'd, To the majestic cedar join'd; whose issue Promises Britain peace and plenty.

CYM.

Well,

My peace we will begin:-And, Caius Lucius,
Although the victor, we submit to Cæsar,
And to the Roman empire; promising

To pay our wonted tribute, from the which
We were dissuaded by our wicked queen:

Whom heavens, in justice, (both on her, and hers,)
Have laid most heavy hand.

SOOTH. The fingers of the powers above do tune

The harmony of this peace.

The vision

Which I made known to Lucius, ere the stroke
Of this yet scarce-cold battle, at this instant
Is full accomplish'd: For the Roman eagle,
From south to west on wing soaring aloft,
Lessen'd herself, and in the beams o' the sun
So vanish'd: which foreshow'd our princely eagle,
The imperial Cæsar, should again unite

His favour with the radiant Cymbeline,
Which shines here in the west.

Сум.

Laud we the gods;

And let our crooked smokes climb to their nostrils

From our bless'd altars! Publish we this peace
To all our subjects. Set we forward: Let

A Roman and a British ensign wave

Friendly together: so through Lud's town march;
And in the temple of great Jupiter

Our peace we 'll ratify; seal it with feasts.

Set on there;-Never was a war did cease,

Ere bloody hands were wash'd, with such a peace. [Ereunt.

VARIOUS READINGS.

"You are afraid, and therein the wiser."

The original has, "You are a friend. The change is given in Theobald's edition.

ACT I., Sc. 5.

We have retained the original reading in the text; but we believe the correction to be right. Posthumus will not part with his ring, and therefore Iachimo taunts him, "You are afraid, and therein the wiser." He adds, "I see you have some religion in you that you fear."

"O! this life

Is nobler, than attending for a check;

Richer, than doing nothing for a bob." ACT III., Sc. 3.

The folio has "Richer than doing nothing for a babe." Hanmer's alteration to a bribe, is given in our text. The corrector of Mr. Collier's folio has a bob; which Mr. Collier interprets to mean a blow.

Shakspere uses bob in two senses.

He has "beaten, bobbed, and
thumped," where bob has the
meaning of a blow. But he also
has, "You shall not bob us out of
our melody." ("Troilus and Cres-
sida.') Massinger has one of his
characters describing a king whis-
pering, the object of which was,
he says,
"to give me the bob."
(Maid of Honour.') The word, in

these cases, seems to

mean to get

rid of-to put aside. In this sense bob may be used in the passage before us. But, nevertheless, bribe will not be hastily rejected.

"Some jay of Italy,

Who smothers her with painting, hath betray'd him."

This is one of the most popular changes made in Mr. Collier's corrected folio. The original has,—

ACT III., Sc. 4.

Johnson explains the original as that the jay of Italy is "the creature, not of nature, but of

"Whose mother is her painting." | The force of the term, "jay of Italy," is kept in both readings; putta being the Italian for a courtezan as well as for the painted bird.

painting, and in this sense painting may be not improperly termed her mother." Mr. Collier, in his admiration of the correction, hazards the assertion, that " genuine passion avoids figures of speech." Certainly Shakspere is not an example of this proposition. A though the original passage may be obscure, it contains a strong poeti cal image. The correction is prʊsaic enough to suit any Shakspere made easy.

"You some permit

To second ills with ills, each later worse."

Abroad is the old Anglo-Saxon abrede -on brede, to be abroad, far off. Pisanio tells Imogen-your means being far off, all abroad, as we still say, "You have me, rich not as Malone interprets it, "as for your subsistence abroad. you may rely upon me."

AFFRONT. Act V., Sc. 3.

"That gave the affront with them."

Affront is encountered, confronted.

AGE. Act V., Sc. 5.

66 Assum'd this age."

That is, assumed, put on, this appearance of age.

ARM. Act IV., Sc. 2.

"Come; arm him."

Arm him is-take him in your arms.

ATONE. Act I., Sc. 5.

"I did atone my countryman and you." Atone is to make at one; to cause to agree.

The second beyond, being here used as a substantive, gives us the meaning of further than beyond. "At the back of

beyont" is a Scotch saying for an indefinite period or distance.

BROGUES. Act IV., Sc. 2.

"My clouted brogues from off my feet."

Brogues were a kind of shoe, worn chiefly by rustics, strengthened with clouted nails.

BUGS. Act V., Sc. 3.

"The mortal bugs o' the field."

Bugs are terrors. See 'The Taming of the Shrew.'

BY-PEEPING. Act I., Sc. 7.

"Then, by-peeping in an eye."

By-peeping, it seems to us, is clandestinely peeping. Johnson altered it to lie peeping.

CARL. Act V., Sc. 2.

"Or, could this carl."

Carl, from the Anglo-Saxon ceorl, was a man of low degree, one degree above a serf or slave.

CHARM'D. Act V., Sc. 3.

"I, in mine own woe charm'd."

Charm'd, as Warburton remarks, is an allusion to the common superstition of charms having power to keep men unharmed in battle. Macbeth says (Act V., Sc. 7), "I bear a charmed life."