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i. e. of the hue of an unripe lemon or citron.

Again, in the Two Noble Kinsmen, by Fletcher and Shakspeare, Act v.

Sc. 1:

-oh vouchsafe,

"With that thy rare green eye," &c.

STEEV.

"So green an eye." This should be so gleen [shiny or shining] an eve. "To gleen" is to shine with heat or polish. The eye of the Eagle is remarkably brilliant. The "green eye" in the Noble Kinsmen should likewise be altered to gleen.

"Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye.”

"Fair" may no doubt stand, as being expressive (by licence) of mild, pleasing; but as it is wanting in force, and French words being common in the time of Shakspeare, I should prefer fer, which is nearly the same in sound, and in the sense of bold, commanding.

B.

Par. Happily met, my lady and my wife!

Jul. That may be, sir, when I may be a wife.

My lady, and my wife: As these four first lines seem intended to rhyme, perhaps the author wrote thus:

- my lady and my life!

"My lady and my wife!"

JOHN.

"Wife" is certainly our author's word in both instances. The reduplication is wholly in his manner. B.

Jul. Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife Shall play the umpire, arbitrating that

Which the commission of thy years and art
Could to no issue of true honor bring.

Commission of thy years and art.] Commission is for authority or power. JOHN.

"Commission of thy years and art." This "commission " I rather think should be commirion. Shakspeare uses the word in Troilus and Cressida; and it is common with the writers of his time. B.

Mus. What will you give us?

Pet. No money, on my faith; but the gleek.
The gleek.] So, in the Midsummer Night's Dream:

"Nay, I can gleek, upon occasion."

To gleek is to scoff. The term is taken from an ancient game at cards called gleek. STEEV.

"The gleek." "To gleek" is to scoff, and "gleek" is a "game at cards," says Mr. Steevens. But gleek is likewise a trill, shake, quaver, in music. This last is evidently the sense required here. B.

Pet. When griping grief the heart doth wound. When griping grief, &c.] The epithet griping was by no means likely to excite laughter at the time it was written. Lord Surry, in his trans

lation of the second book of Virgil's Eneid, makes the hero say: "New gripes of dred then pearse our trembling brestes."

Dr. Percy thinks that the questions of Peter are designed as a ridicule on the forced and unnatural explanations too often given by us painful editors of ancient authors. STEEV.

"Griping grief." Does Mr. Steevens here speak of himself, as of an editor giving pain? If so, he is perfectly right. B.

Rom. If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep, My dreams presage some joyful news at hand.

If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep.] The sense is, "If I may only trust the honesty of sleep, which I know however not to be so nice as not often to practise flattery." JoHN.

The oldest copy reads-the flattering eye of sleep. Whether this reading ought to supersede the more modern one, I shall not pretend to determine it appears to me, however, the most easily intelligible of the two. STEEV.

"If I may trust." The old copy comes nearest to the apparently right reading. "Eye," should certainly be ay, or aye. Romeo means to insinuate that sleep says aye (yes) to his wishes : that sleep affirms that he shall be happy. Aio, Lat. B.

Rom. Is it even so? then I defy you, stars!I defy you, stars! The folio reads-deny you, stars. STEEV. "I defy you, stars." "Deny you, stars," is the better reading. The meaning plainly is: "Stars, ye promised me well; but I am now undeceived: I therefore deny your power: your influence shall not be acknowledged by me." B.

Lau. Unhappy fortune! by my brotherhood, The letter was not nice, but full of charge

Of dear import.

Was not nice.] i. e. was not written on a trivial or idle subject.

The learned editor of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, 1775, observes that H. Stephens informs us, that nice was the old French word for niais, one of the synonymes of sot. Apol. Herod. I. i. c. 4. STEEV.

MAL.

A line in King Richard III. fully supports Mr. Steevens's interpretation: "My Lord, this argues conscience in your grace, "But the respects thereof are nice and trivial." "Was not nice." The old French word is nise, the same aş niais, silly, trifling. "Nice," should of course be here printed nise. B.

Rom. For fear of that, I will still stay with thee; And never from this palace of dim night

Depart again.

O, here

Will I set up my everlasting rest;

And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars

From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last!
Arms, take your last embrace! and lips, O you
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death!-
Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide!
Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark!
Here's to thy health, where'er thou tumblest in :
Here's to my love!-[Drinks ] O, true apothecary!
Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die,
And never from this palace of dim night

Depart again: (Come, lie thou in my arms;
Here's to thy health. O true apothecary!

Thy drugs are quick.)] Mr. Pope's and some other of the worser editions acknowledge absurdly the lines which I have put into parenthesis here; and which I have expunged from the text, for this reason: Romeo is made to confess the effect of the poison before ever he has tasted it. I suppose, it hardly was so savory that the patient should choose to make two draughts of it. And, eight lines after these, we find him taking the poison in his hands, and making an apostrophe to it; inviting it to perform its office at once; and then, and not till then, does he clap it to his lips, or can with any probability speak of its instant force and effects. Besides Shakspeare would hardly have made Romeo drink to the health of his dead mistress. Though the first quarto in 1599, and the two old folios, acknowledge this absurd stuff, I find it left out in several later quarto impressions. I ought to take notice, that though Mr. Pope has thought fit to stick to the old copies in this addition, yet he is no fair transcriber; for he has sunk upon us an hemistich of most profound absurdity, which possesses all those copies.

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-Come, lie thou in my arms:

"Here's to thy health, where-e'er thou tumblest in.
"O true apothecary!

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The hemistich, which Mr. Theobald pronounces to be of most profound absurdity, may deserve a somewhat better character; but being misplaced, could not be connected with that part of that speech where he found it; yet, being introduced a few lines lower, seems to make very good sense.

"Come bitter conduct! come unsav'ry guide!
"Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
"The dashing rocks my sea-sick, weary bark!
"Here's to thy health, where'er thou tumblest in.
"Here's to my love! O true apothecary!

"Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die."

To tumble into port in a storm, I believe to be a sea-phrase, as is a tum bling sea, and agrees with the allusion to the pilot or the tempest-beaten bark. Here's success, says he (continuing the allusion) to thy vessel wherever it tumbles in, or perhaps, to the pilot who is to conduct, or tumble it in; meaning, I wish it may succeed in ridding me of life, whatever may betide me after it, or wherever it may carry me. He then drinks to the memory of Juliet's love, adding (as he feels the poison work) a short apostrophe to the apothecary, the effect of whose drugs he can doubt no

longer; and turning his thoughts back again to the object most beloved, he dies (like Othello) on a kiss. STEEV.

"And never from this palace of dim night."

It will readily be admitted that Mr. Steevens has made some proper transpositions in the speech of Romeo. With regard to the line, "Here's to thy health where'er thou tumblest in," he has entirely mistaken the sense. Part of the passage in dispute, however, is corrupt. "Where'er thou tumblest in" should certainly be: "Wherein thou tumblest." All after" desperate pilot" is not spoken by Romeo of that "pilot," but of "himself." I regulate the whole as follows:

"Come, bitter conduct', come, unsavory guide!
Thou desperate pilot, come! The weary bark
Wherein thou, sea-sick, tumblest, now at once

Run on the dashing rocks! Here's to thy health.

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Which must be thus understood: He first calls on his conductor: then, struck with the reflection that his body is on the point of dissolution, he apostrophises, if I may so call it, his immortal part. "Soul! sea-sick as thou now art, run thy vessel (thy body) at once on the rocks; " immediately adding: "Here's to thy health," by which he would say: "Here's to my soul's health; may spiritual salvation be mine!" This, I hope, will be found an easy reading, and a just interpretation, effected with no other change than that of the order of the lines and printing wherein for where'er. B.

Measure for Measure.

Duke.

ACT I. SCENE I.

Then no more remains,

But that your sufficiency, as your worth is able,
And let them work.

Then no more remains,

But that to your sufficiency, as your worth is able,
And let them work.]

To the integrity of this reading Mr. Theobald objects, and says. "What was Escalus to put to his sufficiency? why, his science: But his science and sufficiency were but one and the same thing. On what then does the relative them depend?" He will have it, therefore, that a line has been accidentally dropp'd, which he attempts to restore by duc diligency. Nodum in scirpo quærit. And all for want of knowing, that by sufficiency is meant authority, the power delegated by the Duke to Escalus. The plain meaning of the word being this: "Put your skill in governing," says the duke, "to the power which I give you to exercise it, and let them work together." WARB.

"Then no more remains,

But that your sufficiency, as your worth is able, "And let them work."

"Able worth" is not a very clear or happy expression: but stable worth, i. e. worth that is fixed, permanent: worth that is unchangeable, may be well admitted. The sense of the line, as it now stands, is, in other respects, imperfect. I would, therefore, read: "But that your sufficiency be, as your worth is stable." Sufficiency" is authority, power, as Warburton has well explained it. "Be," is "actual exercise of that power: ""as" is not here used for like, same kind with: but for since, because that. It

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