2 I fomething fear my father's wrath; but nothing, POST. My queen! my mistress! O, lady, weep no more; left I give cause To be fufpected of more tenderness Than doth become a man! I will remain The loyal'ft husband that did e'er plight troth. My refidence in Rome, at one Philario's ; Who to my father was a friend, to me Known but by letter: thither write, my queen, And with mine eyes I'll drink the words you fend, Though ink be made of gall. QUEEN. 3 Re-enter Queen. Be brief, I pray you: If the king come, I-fhall incur I know not To walk this way: I never do him wrong, 2 [ Afide. [Exit. ( Always referv'd my holy duty,)] I fay I do not fear my father, fo far as I may fay it without breach of duty. JOHNSON. 3 Though ink be made of gall.] Shakspeare, even in this poor conceit, has confounded the vegetable galls used in ink, with the animal gall, fupposed to be bitter. JOHNSON. The poet might mean either the vegetable or the animal galls with equal propriety, as the vegetable gall is bitter; and I have feen an ancient receipt for making ink, beginning, "Take of the black juice of the gall of oxen two ounces," &c. STEEVENS, POST. Should we be taking leave As long a term as yet we have to live, The loathness to depart would grow: Adieu ! Were you but riding forth to air yourself, Such parting were too petty. Look here, love; This diamond was my mother's: take it, heart; But keep it till you woo another wife, When Imogen is dead. POST. How! how! another? You gentle gods, give me but this I have, While sense can keep it on! 5 And sweetest, fairest, And fear up my embracements from a next With bonds of death!] Shakspeare may poetically call the xere-cloths in which the dead are wrapp'd, the bonds of death. If so, we should read cere inftead of fear: Why thy canoniz'd bones hearsed in death, "Have burft their cerements ?" To fear up, is properly to close up by burning; but in this paffage the poet may have dropp'd that idea, and used the word fimply for to close up. STEEVENS. May not fear up, here mean folder up, and the reference be to a lead coffin? Perhaps cerements in Hamlet's addrefs to the Ghoft, was used for fearments in the fame fenfe. HENLEY. I believe nothing more than clofe up was intended. In the spelling of the laft age, however, no diftin&ion was made between cere-cloth and fear-cloth. Cole in his Latin di&ionary, 1679, explains the word cerot by fear-cloth. Shakspeare therefore certainly might have had that practice in his thoughts. MALONE. While fenfe can keep it on!] This expreffion, I fuppose, means, while fenfe can maintain its operations; while fenfe continues to have its ufual power. That to keep on fignifies to continue in a flate of action, is evident from the following paffage in Othello: The general fense of Pofthumus's declaration, is equivalent to the Roman phrafe,dum fpiritus hos regit artus. STELVENS. As I my poor felf did exchange for you, 6 Alack, the king! CYм. Thou baseft thing, avoid! hence, from my fight! The poet [if it refers to the ring] ought to have written-can keep thee on, as Mr. Pope and the three fubfequent editors read. But Shakspeare has many fimilar inaccuracies. So, in Julius Cæfar & Cafca, you are the firft that rears your hand." inftead of his hand. Again, in The Rape of Lucrece: " Time's office is to calm contending kings, "To unmask falfehood, and bring truth to light, "To ruinate proud buildings with thy hours,-— inftead of his hours. Again, in the third act of the play bes fore us: "Thou waft their nurse they took thee for their mother, "And every day do honour to her grave." MALONE. As none of our author's productions were revised by himself as they paffed from the theatre through the press; and as Julius Cæfar and Cymbeline are among the plays which originally appeared in the blundering firft folio; it is hardly fair to charge thofe irregularities on the poet, of which his publishers alone might have been guilty. 1 must therefore take leave to fet down the present, and many similar offences against the established rules of language, under the article of Hemingifms and Condelisms; and, as fuch, in my opinion, they ought, without ceremony, to be corrected. The inftance brought from The Rape of Lucrece might only have been a compofitorial inaccuracy, like thofe which occafiomally have happened in the courfe of our present republication. STEEVENS. amanacle-] A manacle properly means what we now call a hand-cuff. STEVENS. If, after this command, thou fraught the court POST. The gods protect you! I am gone. IMO. [Exit. There cannot be a pinch in death More fharp than this is. CYM. 7 O difloyal thing, 8 That fhould't repair my youth; thou heapest IMO. I befeech you, fir, Harm not yourself with your vexation; I There cannot be a pinch in death More fharp than this is. ] So, in King Henry VIII: it is a fufferance, panging "As foul and body's parting.' " MALONE. That should't repair my youth; ] i. e. renovate my youth; make me young again. So, in Pericles, Prince of Tyre, 1609: "-for him, he brought his difeafe hither: here he doth but repair it.". Again, in All's well that ends well: 9 it much repairs me, "To talk of your good father." thou heapest MALONE. A year's age on me!] The obvious fense of this paffage, on which feveral experiments have been made, is in fome degree countenanced by what follows in another scene: And every day that comes, comes to decay "A day's work in him." Dr. Warburton would read “A yare (i. e. a speedy) age;" Sir T. Hanmer would refore the metre by a fupplemental epithet: thou heapeft many I prefer the additional word introduced by Sir Thomas Hanmer, to all the other attempts at emendation. Many a year's age," is an idea of fome weight; but if Cymbeline meant to say that his daughter's condu& made him precifely one year older, his conceit is unworthy both of himself and Shakspeare.—I would read with Sir Thomas Hanmer. STEEVENS, Am fenfelefs of your wrath; a touch more rare Subdues all pangs, all fears." CYM. Paft grace? obedience? IмO. Paft hope, and in defpair; that way, paft grace. CYM. That might'ft have had the fole fon of my queen! IMO. O blefs'd, that I might not! I chose an eagle, And did avoid a puttock. 3 a touch more rare Subdues all pangs, all fears,] A touch more rare, may mean « nobler paffion. JOHNSON. A touch more rare is undoubtedly a more exquifite feeling; a Supe rior fenfation. So, in Antony and Cleopatra, A& I. sc. ii: The death of Fulvia, with more urgent touches, "Do ftrongly speak to us.' Again, in The Tempeft: "Haft thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling A touch is not unfrequently ufed, by other ancient writers, in this fenfe. So, in Daniel's Hymen's Triumph, a masque, 1623: "You must not, Phillis, be fo fenfible Again: "Of these small touches which your paffion makes." แ Small touches, Lydia! do you count them fmall?". "When pleasure leaves a touch at laft "To fhew that it was ill." Again, in Daniel's Cleopatra, 1599: "So deep we feel impressed in our blood "That touch which nature with our breath did give." Laftly, as Dr. Farmer obferves to me, in Fraunce's Ivychurch. He is fpeaking of Mars and Venus: "When fweet tickling joyes of tutching came to the higheft poynt, when two were one," &c. STEEVENS. A paffage in King Lear will fully illuftrate Imogen's meaning: where the greater malady is fix'd, 3 "The leffer is fcarce felt." MALONE. a puttock.] A kite. JOHNSON. A puttock is a mean degenerate fpecies of hawk, too worthless to deferve training. STEEVENS. VOL. XIX. C |