"king" put, generally without reference to sexual distinction, by Bacon:-"Ferdinando and Isabella, Kings of Spain, & c.

Reigne of K. Henry VII

Hist. of the

165. "Her face, the book of praises."

The brief volume, the epitome of all that is beautiful, or the subject of praise.

167. "A countless glory."

This may mean no more than an inestimable glory though I believe there is also an allusion to the stars.

"Who know the world, see heaven, but feeling woe,

"Gripe not," &c.

Mr. Malone has certainly carried his explanation beyond the limits of the construction.-An opposition or disparity seems intended between speculative and positive perception; and the whole meaning of the passage, I believe, is this:-as reflecting men, who, in the hour of sickness, are incited to serious cares, by the rational prospect of futurity, but more urgently, by those pains, which indicate the termination of our present state, no longer gripe at earthly joys, so I, &c. 177. "Where now you're both a father and a son."

How is Antiochus a son? Pericles says, he who embraces a woman should be her husband, and, consequently, the son (in-law) of her fa

ther.

184. "

SCENE II.

Give experience tongue."

Let experience speak. It is a strange expression, and none of Shakspeare's. For dogs to give tongue is a phrase well known among sports

men.

190. "Thou show'dst a subject's shine, I a true prince."

Mr. Malone says (( shine," here, is a substantive; and then the sense must be-thou didst exhibit the glitter of a subject." I show'd myself a true prince," but for the subject thus to take all the "shine" to himself, and leave the prince in the shade or with only the vouch of his title to illuminate him, would not be quite decorous. I rather think, with Mr. M. Mason, that "shine" has a verbal implication, and that this is the sense :-Thou didst display a subject shining or illustrious; I, a glorious or illustrious prince. According to the elliptic and licentious phraseology abounding in the present play-this is no strained interpretation:

"Thou show'dst a subject (to) shine, I a true prince (to shine)"

SCENE IV.

196. "For riches, strew'd herself even in the streets."

"Riches," for wealth, treasure, is certainly, as Mr. Malone observes, a singular noun; but

this line, being only a comment on that which immediately precedes it, ought also, as I find Mr. M. Mason has hinted, to be included in the parenthesis:

This Tharsus

"(A city on whom Plenty held full haud "For Riches strew'd herself even in the streets) "Whose towers," &c.

Mr. Mason proposes "Richness" instead of "Riches," and challenges Mr. Malone to shew where Shakspeare makes riches a person.—It is surely enough to know that he scruples not, at any time to make the neuter pronoun personal. But Shakspeare, or his commentator for him, in the present work, has very little to answer for:"Riches strew'd herself even in the streets" is an expression equivalent to the streets were paved with gold.

198. "Here many sink, yet those which see them fall,

"Have scarce strength left to give them burial."

Dr. Armstrong has an image resembling this, in The Art of Preserving Health, describing the plague that raged during the civil wars, he says,

'Twas all the business then, "To tend the sick; and, in their turns, to die.” 201. "Welcome is peace, if he on peace consist.” King John says,

"Peace be to France, if France in peace permit," &c.

Bread for your needy subjects, &c. says Dr. Percy. But this is hardly right: the subjects were more than needy-they were starving: and "needy bread" is needed, or needful bread. We often find the adjective in the place of the passive participle,

ACT II. SCENE III.

230. By Jove, I wonder, that is king of thoughts,

"These cates resist me, she not thought upon.

After all that has been said upon this passage, it is, to me, as far from being intelligible as it was at first. By the cates resisting him, I can only understand that he was resisting them; that is, did not eat of them :-but surely it was no wonder that a lover should neglect food when his mistress was before him: she "not thought upon," is equally inexplicable; for one would suppose she must continually be thought upon.

242.

66

SCENE IV.

Bear your yoke."

Thus in King Richard III.

The golden yoke of sovereignty,

"Which fondly you would here impose on me."

SCENE V.

245. "I like that well :-nay, how absolute she's

in't."

With the pains that Mr. Steevens has taken to correct the metre, as well as the meaning, in this wretched play, I wonder he should retain the superfluous "nay" here.

247. "O, seek not to intrap, my gracious lord, "A stranger and distressed gentleman.”

There is not in this play much that is worth contending for; but, truly, I think the passage before us, as it stood originally, needed no correction :

66

O, seek not to entrap me, gracious lord, "A stranger and distressed gentleman.”

This exclamation, says Mr. Reed, is equivalent to well-a-day!-but I am inclined to think it is here no exclamation at all, but simply the familiar compound adverb well-nigh: the lady, says the speaker, shrieks, and nearly falls in travail with her fear.

SCENE I.

These surges,

"Which wash both heaven and hell.".