He serv'd with glory and admir'd success;
So gain'd the sur-addition, Leonatus:

And had, besides this gentleman in question,
Two other sons; who, in the wars o' the time,
Died with their swords in hand; for which their father
(Then old and fond of issue) took such sorrow,
That he quit being; and his gentle lady,
Big of this gentleman, our theme, deceas'd
As he was born. The king, he takes the babe
To his protection; calls him Posthumus: 8
Breeds him, and makes him of his bed-chamber:
Puts him to all the learnings that his time
Could make him the receiver of; which he took,
As we do air, fast as 'twas minister'd; and
In his spring became a harvest: Liv'd in court,
(Which rare it is to do) most prais'd, most lov'd:9
A sample to the youngest; to the more mature,
A glass that feated them; and to the graver,
A child that guided dotards: to his mistress,2
For whom he now is banish'd, her own price
Proclaims how she esteem'd him and his virtue;

8 · Posthumus;] Old copy-Posthumus Leonatus. Reed. Liv'd in court,

9

(Which rare it is to do,) most prais'd, most lov'd:] This enco mium is high and artful. To be at once in any great degree loved and praised, is truly rare. Johnson

A glass that feated them; A glass that formed them; a model, by the contemplation and inspection of which they formed their manners. Johnson.

This passage may be well explained by another in The First Part of King Henry IV:

He was indeed the glass

"Wherein the noble youths did dress themselves." Again, Ophelia describes Hamlet, as

"The glass of fashion, and the mould of form."

To dress themselves, therefore, may be to form themselves. Dresser, in French, is to form. To dress a spaniel is to break

him in.

Feat is nice, exact. So, in The Tempest:

look, how well my garments sit upon me,

"Much feater than before."

To feat, therefore, may be a verb meaning-to render nice, exact. By the dress of Posthumus, even the more mature courtiers condescended to regulate their external appearance. Steevens.

9to his mistress,] means-as to his mistress. M. Mason. VOL. XVI.

C

By her election may be truly read,
What kind of man he is.

2 Gent.

I honour him

Even out of your report. But, 'pray you, tell me,
Is she sole child to the king?

1 Gent.
His only child.
He had two sons, (if this be worth your hearing,
Mark it,) the eldest of them at three years old,

I' the swathing clothes the other, from their nursery
Were stolen; and to this hour, no guess in knowledge
Which way they went.

2 Gent.

How long is this ago?

1 Gent. Some twenty years.

2 Gent. That a king's children should be so convey'd! So slackly guarded! And the search so slow, That could not trace them!

1 Gent.

Howsoe'er 'tis strange,

Or that the negligence may well be laugh'd at,
Yet it is true, sir.

2 Gent.

I do well believe you.

1 Gent. We must forbear: Here comes the gentleman, The queen, and princess.

SCENE II.

The same.

[Exeunt.

Enter the Queen, POSTHUMUS, and IMOGEN.3

Queen. No, be assur'd, you shall not find me, daughter, After the slander of most step-mothers,

Evil-ey'd unto you: you are my prisoner, but

Your gaoler shall deliver you the keys

That lock up your restraint. For you, Posthumus,
So soon as I can win the offended king,

I will be known your advocate: marry, yet
The fire of rage is in him; and 'twere good,
You lean'd unto his sentence, with what patience
Your wisdom may inform you.

3 Imogen.] Holinshed's Chronicle furnished Shakspeare with this name, which in the old black letter is scarcely distinguishable from Innogen, the wife of Brute, King of Britain. There too he found the name of Cloten, who, when the line of Brute was at an end, was one of the five kings that governed Britain. Cloten, or Cloton, was King of Cornwall. Malone.

Post.

Please your highness,

You know the peril :

I will from hence to-day.

Queen.

I'll fetch a turn about the garden, pitying
The pangs of barr'd affections; though the king
Hath charg'd you should not speak together.

Imo.

[Exit Queen.

Dissembling courtesy! How fine this tyrant

Can tickle where she wounds!-My dearest husband,
I something fear my father's wrath; but nothing,
(Always reserv'd my holy duty) what

His rage can do on me: You must be gone;
And I shall here abide the hourly shot
Of angry eyes; not comforted to live,
But that there is this jewel in the world,
That I may see again.

Post.

My queen! my mistress!
O, lady, weep no more; lest I give cause

To be suspected of more tenderness
Than doth become a man! I will remain

The loyal'st husband that did e'er plight troth.
My residence 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 send,
Though ink be made of gali.5

Queen.

Re-enter Queen.

Be brief, I pray you:

If the king come, I shall incur I know not

How much of his displeasure:-Yet I'll move him [aside.
To walk this way: I never do him wrong,
But he does buy my injuries, to be friends;
Pays dear for my offences.

[Exit.

4 (Always reserv'd my holy duty)] I say I do not fear my father, so far as I may say it without breach of duty. Johnson.

5 Though ink be made of gall.] Shakspeare, even in this poor conceit, has confounded the vegetable galls used in ink, with the animal gall, supposed 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 seen 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 lothness to depart would grow: Adieu!
Imo. Nay, stay a little:

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,
And sear up my embracements from a next

With bonds of death!"—Remain, remain thou here
[Putting on the Ring.

While sense can keep it on! And sweetest, fairest,

6 And sear up my embracements from a next

With bonds of death!] Shakspeare may poetically call the cerecloths in which the dead are wrapped, the bonds of death. If so, we should read cere instead, of sear:

"Why thy canoniz'd bones hearsed in death,

"Have burst their cerements ?"

To sear up, is properly to close up by burning; but in this passage the poet may have dropped that idea, and used the word simply for to close up.

Steevens

May not sear up, here mean solder up, and the reference be to a lead coffin' Perhaps cerements in Hamlet's address to the Ghost, was used for searments in the same sense.

Henley.

I believe nothing more than close up was intended. In the spelling of the last age, however, no distinction was made between cere-cloth and sear-cloth. Cole, in his Latin Dictionary, 1679, explains the word cerot by sear-cloth. Shakspeare therefore certainly might have had that practice in his thoughts. Malone.

7 While sense can keep it on!] This expression, I suppose, means, while sense can maintain its operations; while sense continues to have its usual power. That to keep on signifies to continue in a state of action, is evident from the following passage in Othello:

66

keeps due on

"To the Propontick" &c.

The general sense of Posthumus's declaration, is equivalent to the Roman phrase,-dum spiritus hos regit artus Steevens.

The poet [if it refers to the ring] ought to have written-can keep thee on, as Mr. Pope and the three subsequent editors read. But Shakspeare has many similar inaccuracies. So, in Julius Cæsar:

"Casca, you are the first that rears your hand." instead of his hand. Again, in The Rape of Lucrece : "Time's office is to calm contending kings,

As I my poor self did exchange for you,
To your so infinite loss; so, in our trifles
I still win of you: For my sake, wear this;
It is a manacle of love; I'll place it

Upon this fairest prisoner. [Putting a bracelet on her arm. O, the gods!

Imo.

When shall we see again?

Post.

Enter CYMBELINE, and Lords.

Alack, the king!

Cym. Thou basest thing, avoid! hence, from my sight! If, after this command, thou fraught the court

With thy unworthiness, thou diest: Away!

Thou art poison to my blood.

Post.

The Gods protect you!

[Exit.

And bless the good remainders of the court!

I am gone.
Imo.

There cannot be a pinch in death More sharp than this is.9

"To unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light,-
"To ruinate proud buildings with thy hours,

instead of his hours. Again, in the third Act of the play before us:

"Thou wast 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 passed from the theatre through the press; and as Julius Casar and Cymbeline are among the plays which originally appeared in the blundering first folio; it is hardly fair to charge those irregularities on the poet, of which his publishers alone might have been guilty. I must therefore take leave to set down the present, and many similar offences against the established rules of language, under the article of Hemingisms and Condelisms; and, as such, in my opinion, they ought, without ceremony, to be corrected.

The instance brought from The Rape of Lucrece might only have been a compositorial inaccuracy, like those which occa sionally have happened in the course of our present republication. Steevens.

8a manacle-] A manacle properly means what we now call a hand-cuff. Steevens.

9 There cannot be a pinch in death

More sharp than this is.] So, in King Henry VIII:

it is a sufferance, panging

"As soul and body 's parting." Malone.

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