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216. "Your wisdom should show itself more

richer."

"Should" instead of "would."

219. If my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly."

If I appear too bold in my duty to the king, it is owing to the unmannerliness of my love to you, by which I am excited. B. STRUTT.

Perhaps the meaning is only this,-if my duty be too strongly urged, my love is also in excess. Unmannerly" may signify, not duly restrained or regulated.

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222. "They fool me to the top of my bent." They act the fool with me to the top of my inclination. B. STRUTT.

"The bitter day."

I believe we should read," better day," the day too good to be a witness to the acts I am ready to commit. "Better" is often used absolutely, thus, for good, as better fortune, better angel, better stars.

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226.

"Never alone

"Did the king sigh, but with a general groan."

This is a match for the notorious passage in Julius Cæsar:

"Cæsar doth never wrong but with just cause."

The word "always" is wanting, or must be implied, after "but," with a semicolon after "sigh."

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- Fetters put upon this fear."

"Fear" is danger, cause of fear; as in other

places:

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Present fears are less

"Than horrible imaginings."

Macbeth.

227. "A brother's murder!-Pray can I not.” A word has been lost; perhaps :

"A brother's murder! pray! that can I not."

Though inclination be as sharp as will.” I suspect that some words have been lost here. As the text stands it is impossible to obtain a meaning.

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"Though inclination be as sharp as will.”

As I do not understand the distinction between inclination and will, in this place, I incline to read, with Theobald, "as't will." I cannot think that Mr. Steevens's explanation of “will” is the true one; Mr. M. Mason's explanation reminds me of Mr. Johnson's interpretation of the first couplet uttered by Drawcansir, "that is, Mr. Bayes, as much as to say, that though he would rather die than not drink, yet he would fain drink for all that, too."

LORD CHEDWORTH.

228." What if this cursed hand

"Were thicker than itself with brother's blood?

"Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens,

"To wash it white as snow ?"

A similar thought occurs in Macbeth :

"Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood "Clean from my hands?"

229.

Try what repentance can: what can it

not?

"Yet what can it, when one cannot repent ?"

Dr. Johnson's words, I believe, afford no explanation of these, the sense of which I take to be, let me try what repentance can do-repentance can do any thing-ay, I know that is true; but with him who cannot repent, repentance is a word of no efficacy,—it is an empty name. I cannot perceive that the words in the text at all admit of Dr. Johnson's wide inference-penitence, detached from a resolution to amend.

"All may be well."

More idle interpolation: according to my judgment they are the arbitrary words of some

actor.

230. "When he is drunk, asleep, or in his rage; "Or in th' incestuous pleasures of his bed; "At gaming, swearing; or about some act "That has no relish of salvation in't: "Then trip him," &c.

Nat. Lee makes the Duke of Guise meditate similar revenge:

"Kill him in riot, pride, and lust of pleasures, "That I may add damnation to the rest,

"And foil his soul and body both at once." Massacre of Paris,

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"That has no relish of salvation in't :
"Then trip him," &c.

This horrid sentiment cannot be too strongly reprobated; there is no passage in our author's

writings at which I am so much offended as at LORD CHEDWORTH.

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232. My words fly up, my thoughts remain.

below.

This is the case with Angelo, in Measure for Measure:

"Heaven hath my empty words,
"While my invention, hearing not my tongue,
"Anchors on Isabel."

233.

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SCENE IV.

I'll silence me, e'en here."

I believe the meaning is, I'll keep silently on the watch here.

238. If damned custom have not braz'd it so, "That it be proof."

It is only in the first part of this sentence that the verb is subjunctive," be," in the latter part, should be " is," and ought, without any scruple, to be set right in the text.

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This abuse of putting the pronoun for the conjunction, "that" for as, "and vice versa, has been noted already; and is, probably, the blunder of the transcriber or reciter.

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Takes off the rose

"From the fair forehead of an innocent love."

To establish Mr. Steevens's explanation of this passage, we must suppose that it was customary for the woman contracted in marriage to wear

upon her forehead a rose, of which the hand of Hymen was to despoil her: but if conjecture be allowed to fabricate such potent machinery for the nonce, there will be no phenomena in Shakspeare, or any other poet, too abtruse for critical solution. By forehead, I conceive no more is meant than the fore part of the head, the front, the face.

"Takes off the rose," &c.

I take this to be a metaphorical enlargement of the sentiment contained in the preceding line, notwithstanding Mr. Steevens's opinion to the contrary. Modesty, or its sign, blushing, cannot be understood to be the rose, but rather, the blossom of conscious innocence; neither do I think the word "love" is to be taken as meaning an object, but the passion; to which, as applied to Gertrude, the adjective innocent adds propriety. "Fair forehead" is certainly, in this place, no more than fair presence. "Unstain'd front," the sense, to me, consequently is, you have done an act that takes off the blossom of purity from the unstain'd front, which a guiltless affection wears; and, in its stead, set there the corrupt blister of impure desire and wickedness: see Act 4, Scene 6, the same idea:

Brands the harlot

"Even here, between the chaste and unsmirch'd brows

"Of my true mother."

240.

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B. STRUTT.

such an act, &c.
Heaven's face doth glow," &c.

The text, as here exhibited, is preferable to that of the quarto, as it gives a stronger and more familiar sense. Both heaven and earth, says Ham

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