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"For being long kept they grow hore and viSTEEVENS.

newed."

In the preface to James I.'s Bible, the translators speak of fenowed (i. e. vinewed or mouldy) traditions. BLACKSTONE.

In Dorsetshire they at this day call cheese that is become mouldy, vinny cheese. There can be no doubt, therefore, that Shakspere wrote-vinied'st leaMALONE.

ven.

20.

-in Greece.- -] The quarto adds these words: when thou art forth in the incursions, thou strikest as slow as another.

35.

JOHNSON.

ay that thou bark'st at him.] I read, O

that thou bark'dst at him.

JOHNSON.

The old reading is I, which, if changed at all, should have been changed into ay.

39. Cobloaf!] A crusty uneven counties called by this name.

40. -pun thee into shiversmidland counties, the vulgar and pound.

TYRWHITT.

loaf is in some

STEEVENS.

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Pun is, in the

colloquial word for

JOHNSON. It is used by P. Holland in his translation of Pliny's Nat. Hist. B. XXVIII. ch. 12: -punned altogether and reduced into a liniment." Again, Book XXIX, ch. 4. "The gall of these lizards punned and dissolved in water." STEEVENS.

44. Thou stool for a witch!] In one way of trying a witch they used to place her on a chair or stool, with her legs tied across, that all the weight of her body might rest upon her seat; and by that means, after

some

some time, the circulation of the blood would be much stopped, and her sitting would be as painful as the wooden horse.

GREY.

46. -an assinego— -] I am not very certain what the idea conveyed by this word was meant to be. Asinaio is Italian, says Hanmer, for an ass-driver: but in Mirza, a tragedy by Robert Baron, act iii. the following passage occurs, with a note annexed to it:

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-the stout trusty blade,

"That at one blow has cut an asinego

"Asunder like a thread.".

"This (says the author) is the usual trial of the Persian sham-sheers, or cemiters, which are crooked like a crescent, of so good metal, that they prefer them before any other, and so sharp as any razor."

I hope, for the credit of the prince, that the experiment was rather made on an ass, than an ass-driver. From the following passage I should suppose asinego to be merely a cant term for a foolish fellow, an idiot: "They apparell'd me as you see, made a fool, or an asinego of me." See The Antiquary, a comedy, by S. Marmion, 1641. Again, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady:

66 -all this would be forsworn, and I again an asinego, as your sister left me." STEEVENS.

Asinego is Portuguese for a little ass.

MUSGRAVE.

And Dr. Musgrave might have added, that, in his native county, it is the vulgar name for an ass at pre

sent.

HENLEY.

118. when Achilles' brach bids me,-]. The folio and quarto read-Achilles' brooch. Brooch is an appendant ornament. The meaning may be, equivalent. to one of Achilles' hangers-on. JOHNSON.

Brach I believe to be the true reading. He calls. Patroclus, in contempt, Achilles' dog. STEEVENS.

Brooch, which is the reading of all the old copies, had perhaps formerly some meaning at present unknown. In the following passage in Lodge's Rosalynde, or Euphues' Golden Legacie, 1592, it seems to signify something very different from a pin or a bodkin: "His bonnet was green, whereon stood a copper brooch with the picture of St. Denis."

Perhaps Achilles's brooch may mean, the person whom Achilles holds so dear; so highly estimates. So, in Hamlet:

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I have little doubt of broch being the true meaning, as a term of contempt.

The meaning of broche is well ascertained—a spit-a bodkin; which being formerly used in the ladies' dress, was adorned with jewels, and gold and silver. ornaments. Hence in old lists of jewels are found brotches.

I have a very magnificent one, which is figured and described by Pennant, in the second volume of his Tour to Scotland, p. 14, in which the spit or bodkin forms but a very small part of the whole.

The present shirt buckles may well be called broches. Hence,

Hence, to breach a cask of liquor-Turn-broche,

&c. &c.

153.

L.

-many thousand dismes,] Disme, Fr. is the tithe, the tenth. So, in the Prologue to Gower's Confessio Amantis, 1554:

"The disme goeth to the battaile.”

Again, in Holinshed's Reign of Richard II.

66 so that there was levied, what of the disme, and by the devotion of the people," &c.

STEEVENS.

164. The past-proportion of his infinite?] Thus read both the copies. The meaning is, that greatness to which no measure bears any proportion. JOHNSON. 180. And fly like chidden Mercury from Jove,

Or like a star dis-orb'd?-] These two lines

are misplaced in all the folio editions.

POPE. 194. And the will dotes, that is inclinable] Old edition, not so well, has it attributive.

POPE.

By the old edition Mr. Pope means the old quarto. The folio has, as it stands, inclinable. I think the first reading better; the will dotes that attributes or gives the qualities which it affects; that first causes excellence, and then admires it. JOHNSON,

196. Without some image of the affected merit.] The will affects an object for some supposed merit, which Hector says is censurable, unless the merit so affected be really there.

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JOHNSON.

-] So reads the quarto.

-spoil'd them.

JOHNSON. 207.

207.

-unrespective sieve,] That is, into a com

mon voider. Sieve is in the quarto. The folio reads,

-unrespective fame;

for which the second folio and modern editions have

silently printed,

215.

-unrespective place.

JOHNSON.

-pale the morning.] So the quarto. The

folio and modern editors,

-stale the morning.

JOHNSON. 226. And do a deed that fortune never did,] If I understand this passage, the meaning is: "Why do you, by censuring the determination of your own wisdoms, degrade Helen, whom fortune has not yet deprived of her value, or against whom, as the wife of Paris, fortune has not in this war so declared, as to make us value her less?" This is very harsh, and much strained. JOHNSON. The meaning, I believe, is :-Act with more inconsistency and caprice than ever did fortune. HENLEY. 230. But, thieves,-] Hanmer reads--Base

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MALONE.

243. Add to my clamours!- -] Folio-clamour.

261. -distaste-] Corrupt; change to a worse

state.

JOHNSON.

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