CYMBELINE.

N 4

Perfons Represented.

Cymbeline, king of Britain.

Cloten, fon to the queen by a former husband. Leonatus Pofthumus, a gentleman married to the princefs.

Belarius, a banished lord, disguised under the name of

Morgan.

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Guiderius, difguifed under the names of Polydore and Arviragus, Cadwal, fuppofed fons to Belarius. Philario, an Italian, friend to Poftbumus.

Iachimo, friend to Philario.

Caius Lucius, ambassador from Rome.

Pifanio, fervant to Pofthumus.

A French Gentleman.

Cornelius, a Phyfician.

Two Gentlemen.

Queen, wife to Cymbeline.

Imogen, daughter to Cymbeline by a former queen.
Helen, woman to Imogen.

Lords, Ladies, Roman Senators, a Tribune, Apparitions, a Soothsayer, Captains, Soldiers, Messengers, and other Attendants.

SCENE, fometimes in Britain; fometimes in Italy.

ACT I. SCENE I.

2

Cymbeline's palace in Britain.

Enter two Gentlemen.

1 Gent. You do not meet a man, but frowns: our bloods

No more obey the heavens, than our courtiers',
Still feem, as does the king's.

2 Gent. But what's the matter?

I Gent.

Mr. Pope fuppofed the ftory of this play to have been borrow'd from a novel of Boccace; but he was mistaken, as an imitation of it is found in an old ftory-book entitled, Weftward for Smelts. This imitation differs in as many particulars from the Italian novelift, as from Shakspeare, though they concur in the more confiderable parts of the fable. It was published in a quarto pamphlet 1603. This is the only copy of it which I have hitherto feen. There is a late entry of it in the books of the Stationers' Company, Jan. 1619, where it is faid to have been written by Kitt of Kingflon. STEEVENS.

2 You do not meet a man, but frowns: our BLOODS

No more obey the heavens, than our courtiers

Still feem, as does the king's.]

The thought is this: we are not now (as we were wont) influenced by the weather, but by the king's looks. We no more obey the heavens [the sky] than our courtiers obey the heavens [God]. By which it appears that the reading-our bloods, is wrong. For though the blood may be affected with the weather, yet that af fection is discovered not by change of colour, but by change of countenance. And it is the outward not the inward change that is here talked of, as appears from the word feem. We should read therefore :

-Our BROWS

No more obey the heavens, &c. Which is evident from the precedent words, You do not meet a man but frowns.

And

1 Gent. His daughter, and the heir of his kingdom,

Altho' they wear their faces to the bent

Of the king's look, but hath a heart that is
Glad at the thing they feel at.-

He

The Oxford Editor improves upon this emendation, and reads, -our looks

Nor more obey the heart ev'n than our courtiers. But by venturing too far, at a fecond emendation, he has stript it of all thought and fentiment. WARBURTON.

This paffage is fo difficult, that commentators may differ concerning it without animofity or fhame. Of the two emendations. propofed, Hanmer's is the more licentious; but he makes the fenfe clear, and leaves the reader an eafy paffage, Dr. Warburton has corrected with more caution, but lefs improvement: his reafoning upon his own reading is fo obfcure and perplexed, that I fufpect fome injury of the prefs.I am now to tell my opinion, which is, that the lines ftand as they were originally written, and that a paraphrafe, fuch as the licentious and abrupt expressions of our author too frequently require, will make emendation unneceffary. We do not meet a man but frowns; our bloods-our countenances, which, in popular speech, are faid to be regulated. by the temper of the blood, no more obey the laws of heaven, which direct us to appear what we really are,than our courtiers: —that is, than the bloods of our courtiers; but our bloods, like theirs,-ftill feem, as doth the king's. JOHNSON.

In the Yorkshire Tragedy, 1619, which has been attributed to Shakspeare, blood appears to be ufed for inclination:

"For 'tis our blood to love what we are forbidden." Again, in K. Lear, a& IV. fc. ii.

Were it my fitnefs

"To let these hands obey my blood."

In K. Henry VIII. act III. fc. iv. is the fame thought:

fubject to your countenance, glad, or sorry,
STEEVENS.

"As I faw it inclin'd."

I would propofe to make this paffage clear by a very flight alteration, only leaving out the last letter:

You do not meet a man but frowns: our bloods

No more obey the heavens than our courtiers
Still feem, as does the king.-

That is, Still look as the king does; or, as he expreffes it a little differently afterwards:

-wear their faces to the bent

Of the king's lock.

TYRWHITT.

The