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"Holds on' here means, rests on, relies on; and the words unassailable and unshaken, sufficiently prove that such is the sense. B.

Bru. To you our swords have leaden points, Mark Antony :

Our arms, in strength of malice, and our hearts,

Of brothers' temper, do receive you in

With all kind love, good thoughts, and reverence.

Our arms exempt from malice:] This is the reading only of the modern editors, yet perhaps the true reading. The old copy has:

Our arms in strength of matice. JOHN.

The old reading I believe to have been what the author design'd; and Dr. Johnson seems to have given a sanction to the alteration of his predecessors, without considering the context.

To you (says Brutus) our swords have leaden points: our arms, strong in the deed of malice they have just perform'd, and our hearts united like those of brothers in the action, are yet open to receive you with all possible affection. The supposition that Brutus meant, their hearts were of brothers' temper in respect of Antony, seems to have misled those who have commented on this passage before. I have replaced the old reading. Mr. Pope first substituted the words exempt from, in its place. If alteration were necessary, it would be easier to read:

Our arms no strength of malice,STEEV.

One of the phrases in this passage, which Mr. Steevens has so happily explained, occurs again in Antony and Cleopatra:

To make you brothers and to knit your hearts,
With an unslipping knot.'

Again, ibid.

The heart of brothers governs in our love!' MAL.

Our arms in strength of malice.' This explication of the passage by Mr. Steevens, and which Mr. Malone is pleased to commend as happy, I consider as particularly unfortunate. By attending to the context the sense is found to be clearly that of exempt from : not that the word exempt should be permitted to remain; it is too remote both in sound and appearance from the old reading. I would therefore repose, instrain'd' [i. e. unconstrained, unurged] of malice.' And this is according to the original declaration of the conspirators, that it was not malice, but love of their country which incited them to the fearful act.' 'Straint is frequently employed by our poets for constraint. The latin privative in is used instead of the Saxon un: of' is by. B.

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Ant. Thou art the ruins of the noblest man,
That ever lived in the tide of times.

Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!

"Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood. Hand' should be hands, as there were several conspirators; which Antony well knew. Though, perhaps, we had better read land: which by a

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metonymy, common with poets, will stand for the people. B.

Ant. O, now you weep; and, I perceive, you feel
The dint of pity:

The dint of pity] is the impression of pity.

The word is in common use among our ancient writers. STEEV.
Dint, with Shakspeare, and in this place, is rather force or power.
Dint is undoubtedly stroke or impression. B.

Ant. A barren-spirited fellow; one that feeds
On objects, arts, and imitations;

Which, out of use, and stal'd by other men,
Begin his fashion:

In the old editions:

A barren-spirited fellow, one that feeds

On objects, arts, and imitations, &c.]

'Tis hard to conceive, why he should be call'd a barren-spirited fellow that could feed either on objects or arts: that is, as I presume, form his ideas and judgment upon them: stule and obsolete imitation, indeed, fixes such a character. I am persuaded, to make the poet consonant to himself, we must read, as I have restored the text :

On abject orts

i. e. on the scraps and fragments of things rejected and despised by others. THEOB.

It is surely easy to find a reason why that devotee to pleasure and ambition, Antony, should call him barren spirited who could be content to feed his mind with objects, i. e. speculative knowledge, or arts, i. e. mechanic operations. I have therefore taken the liberty of bringing back the old reading to its place, though Mr. Theobald's emendation is still left before the reader. Lepidus, in the tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra, is represented as inquisitive about the structures of Egypt, and that too when he is almost in a state of intoxication. Antony, as at present, makes a jest of him, and returns him unintelligible answers to very reasonable questions.

Objects, however, may mean things objected or thrown out to him. In this sense Shakspeare uses the verb to object in another play, where I have given an instance of its being employ'd by Chapman on the same occasion. A man who can avail himself of neglected hints thrown out by others, though without original ideas of his own, is no uncommon character. STEEV.

-'one that feeds

On objects, arts and imitations.' Theobald's 'orts' must be thrown among the other refuse of his pen. He thought because the word' feeds' is made use of, that fragments from the table were necessarily alluded to, without considering that the speech, even if so wretched an allusion were admitted, would still be wanting in consistency; since Lepidus might as easily feed on arts as on imitations: the latter of which expressions the editor has left in the text. Arts' then is unquestionably the poet's word. With respect to abject' the commentator is right. We must read, 'abject arts

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and imitations.' i. e. a fellow who lives by the practice of base and servile arts, &c. This is easy; but as to objects' it is im possible to be reconciled to it by any forced construction whatever. The concluding remark of Mr. Steevens respecting the ' no uncommon character' is certainly just. The Editor, however, was probably thinking of his own conduct towards Mr. Capell; a' compunctious visiting,' to borrow an expression from the poet, B.

Antony and and Cleopatra.

ACT I. SCENE I.

Phil. His captain's heart,

Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst

The buckles on his breast,

The mark of the genitive case obscures the meaning. And this

I have noted in other passages of our author. B.

Ant. Let Rome in Tyber melt! and the wide arch
Of the rang'd empire fall!

and the wide arch

Of the rang'd empire fall!-]

Taken from the Roman custom of raising triumphal arches to perpetuate their victories. Extremely noble.

WARB.

I am in doubt whether Shakspeare had any idea but of a fabric standing on pillars; the later editions having all printed the raised empire, for the ranged empire, as it was first given. JoHN.

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'The rang'd empire.' Do the editors know what is here meant by the rang'd empire'? I rather believe they do not. Warburton is right with respect to the wide arch,' —But it does not appear to be of an arranged empire, an empire put in order, that Antony speaks for this were' scarcely to be understood. It is far more probable that rang'd' is put for rank'd, i. e. high, of great importance. The French rang, anglicised. B.

Sooth. You shall be more beloving, than belov'd.

Char. I had rather heat my liver with drinking.

I had rather heat my liver] To know why the lady is so averse from heating her liver, it must be remembered, that a heated liver is supposed to make a pimpled face. JOHN.

Dr. Johnson is mistaken, I believe, in supposing that the lady is thinking of a pimpled face. The seat of love was by ancient writers supposed to be in the liver. The soothsayer says to Charmian, You shall be more beloving than belov'd. If that is the case, replies she, I had rather heat my liver with drinking than with love. B..

Eno. We cannot call her winds and waters, sighs and tears; they are greater storms and tempests than almanacks can report ;

We cannot call her winds and waters, sighs and tears;] I believe Shakspeare wrote:

MAL.

We cannot call her sighs and tears, winds and waters. Mr. Malone is wrong in proposing any change. Her winds and waters' (that is her sighs and tears), says Enobarbus, appear to be more than sighs and tears: they seem storms and tempests.' This sense is destroyed by transposition. B..

Eno. And, indeed, the tears live in an onion, that should water this sorrow.

--the tears live in an onion, &c.] So in The noble Soldier, 1634: 'So much water as you might squeeze out of an onion had been tears enough, &c.' STEEV.

So much water as you might squeeze, &c. precise and definite meaning of the tears that conceive the sense of the passage to be this, forced tears which are to water this sorrow.' tears as an onion is apt to occasion. B.

Ant. My more particular,

is not, I think, the live in an onion. I the tears should be That is to say, such

And that which most with you should safe my going,
Is Fulvia's death.

My more particular,

And that which most with you should save my going,

Is Fulvia's death.]

Thus all the more modern editions; the first and second folios read safe : All corruptedly. Antony is giving several reasons to Cleopatra, which make his departure from Egypt necessary; most of them, reasons of state; but the death of Fulvia, his wife, was a particular and private call. Cleopatra is jealous of Antony, and suspicious that he is seeking colors for his going. Antony replies to her doubts, with the reasons that obliged him to be absent for a time; and tells her, that as his wife Fulvia is dead, and so she has no rival to be jealous of, that circumstance should be his best plea and excuse, and have the greatest weight with her for his

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