SCENE VI. P. 532. c. 2, 1.37. her cock;] Her cock-boat. 1d. l. 69. when life itself Yields to the theft:] When life is willing to be destroyed. Id. 1. 72. Thus might he pass indeed:] Thus might he die in reality. Id. l. 75. Had st thou been aught but gossomer,-] Gossomore, the white and cobweb-like exhalations that fly about in hot sunny weather. P. 533, c..1, l. 6. -chalky bourn ;] Bourn seems here to signify a hill Its common siguification is a brook. But in Milton and Shakspeare it means only a boundary, and here certainly means "this chalky boundary of England, towards France." Id. l. 24. Horns whelk'd,] Whelk'd, signifies varied with protuberances; or twisted, convolved. Id. l. 26. the clearest gods,] The purest; the most free from evil. Id. 1. 44. That fellow handles his bow like a crow-keeper: In several counties, to this day, they call a stuffed figure, representing a man, and armed with a bow and arrow, set up to fright the crows from the fruit and corn, a crow-keeper, as well as a scare-crow. Id. l. 47.- the brown-bills.] A bill was a kind of battle-axe, affixed to a long staff. Id. 1. 48. O, well-flown, bird!i'the clout, &c.] Lear is here raving of archery, and shooting at buts, as is plain by the words 'the clout, that is, the white mark they set up and aim at; hence the phrase, to hit the white. Id. 1. 64. The trick of that voice-) Trick is a word frequently used for the air, or that peculiarity in a face, voice, or gesture, which distinguished it from others. Id. c. 2, l. 6. But to the girdle, &c.] But is here used for only. Id. 1. 17. Dost thou squiny at me?] To squiny is to look asquint. Id. l. 51. I'll able 'em:] An old phrase signifying to qualify, or uphold them. a man of salt,] A man of salt is a man of tears. P. 534. c. 1, 7. 1. Id. 1. 10. Then there's life in it.] The case is not yet desperate. Id. 26. the main descry, Stands on the hourly thought.] The main body is expected to be descry'd every hour. The expression is harsh. Id. 1. 33. my worser spirit-] Perhaps, my evil genius. Id. 1. 37. " made lame"-MALONE. Id. 1. 49. Briefly thyself remember : i. e. quickly recollect the past offences of thy life, and recommend thyself to heaven. Id. l. 59. go your gait.] Gang your gait is a common expression in the north. Id. l. 63. che vor'ye.] I warn you. Edgar counterfeits the western dialect. Id. l. 63. 1d. l. 63. Id. 1. 67. your costard-] Costard, i, e. head. my bat-] i. e. club, or staff. no matter vor your foins.] To foin is to make what we call a thrust in fencing. Shakspeare often uses the word. Id. c. 2. l. 17. O undistinguish'd space of woman's will!] O undistinguishing licentiousness of a woman's inclinations! Id. 1. 20. Thee I'll rake up, the post unsanctified, &e.] I'll cover thee. In Staffordshire, to rake the fire, is to cover it with fuel for the night. The epithet, unsanctified, refers to his want of burial in consecrated ground. SCENE VII. Id. 1. 47. Be better suited:] i. e. be better dressed. ld. l. 48. These weeds are memories-] i. e. memorials, remembrancers. Id. l. 51. my made intent:] An intent made, Id. l. 60. Of this child-changed father!] i. e. is an intent formed. changed to a child by his years and wrongs, or changed by his children. P. 535. c. 1, 1.5. to watch (poor perdu!) With this thin helm !] The allusion is to the forlorn hope in an army, which are put upon desperate adventures, and called in French enfans perdus. With this thin helm ? i. e. bare-headed. 1d. 1. 57. To make him even o'er the time he has lost.] i. e. to reconcile it to his apprehension. conversation. Id. c. 2, l. 21. And turn our impress'd lances in our eyes-] i. e. turn the launcemen whom we have hired by giving them press-money. Id. 1. 31. Requires a fitter place.] i. e. the determination of the question what shall be done with Cordelia and her father, should be reserved for greater privacy. Id. 1. 39. The which immediacy-] Immediacy is close and immediate connexion with me, and Id. l. 57. The let-alone lies not in your goodwill.] direct authority from me. Whether he shall not or shall, depends not on 537. c. 1, l. 11. your choice. -thy single virtue;] i. e. valour; a Roman sense of the word. P. P. 537, c. 1, 1. 70. Where they shall rest for ever.] Id c. 2, 1. 32. "I know't." MALONE. LONE. Id. . 14. This judgment, &c.]. If Shakspeare Id. 1. 64. Kent. Is this the promis'd end? Edg. Or image of that horror?] By the promised end Kent does not mean that conclusion which the state of their affairs seemed to promise, but the end of the world. Id. 1. 65. Fall and cease!] Albany is looking with attention on the pains employed by Lear to recover his child, and knows to what miseries he must survive, when he finds them to be ineffectual. Having these images present to ld. 545 his eyes and imagination, he cries out, Rather c. 2, l. 13. If fortune brag of two she lov'd One of them we behold.] i. e. if Fortune, Id. l. 21. of difference and decay,] Decay for Id. 1. 24. Nor no man else;] Kent means, 1 wel- - this great decay may come.] This Id. Id. Id. 1. 41. With boot,] With advantage, with in crease. 45. And my poor fool is hang'd!] This is an expression of tenderness for his dead Cordelia (not his fool, as some have thought), on whose lips he is still intent, and dies away while he is searching there for indications o life. Poor fool, in the age of Shakspeare was an expression of endearment. 1. 49. Pray you, undo this button:] The Rev. Dr. J. Warton judiciously observes, that the swelling and heaving of the heart is described by this most expressive circumstance. stands out in front of the heights on the south-wes- | that it is unnatural for the mind, when one is tern side of Dover harbour, and which derives its looking down a precipice, to be made to occupy name from Shakspeare's terribly vivid description itself with the observation of particulars, instead of in "Lear," which it is supposed to have suggested. being overwhelmed by the one great and dreadful In the first scene of the fourth act of that tragedy, image of irresistible destruction. It is to be consithe blind Gloster, while wandering on the heath, dered, however, as Mr. Mason has well remarked, having met his son Edgar, who does not discover that Edgar is here describing only an imaginary himself, asks him, "Dost thou know Dover?" and precipice, or, at least, not one which he was when the latter answers, "Ay Master," he rejoins, actually looking down from. The passage is to be "There is a cliff, whose high and bending head read with a recollection of the character, or assumed Looks fearfully in the confined deep; character, of Edgar; and whatever exaggeration Bring me but to the very brim of it. there may be in it which is not sanctioned by the From that place spirit of poetic representation, may be very fairly set down to the over-excited fancy and exalted throughout indulges. Some of the lines, however, language in which, as poor Tom," the speaker independently altogether of this dramatic reference, be more musically descriptive thanare of exquisite beauty. What, for instance, can I shall no leading need." From the two first lines of this quotation, the cliff Come on, Sir, here's the place :-Stand still; how fearful There has been some disputation among the commentators as to the poetical merits of these lines; and Dr. Johnson has chosen to say that he is far from thinking the description to be wrought to the utmost excellence of poetry. He conceives or "The crows and choughs that wing the midway air?" The murmuring surge, That on the unnumber'd idle pebbles chafes, These words bring the scene, not only to the eyes, The gathering of samphire was pursued as a trade in Skakspeare's days. This wild marine plant grows in rocky and inaccessible situations, and is still gathered from Shakspeare's cliff, being considered valuable in consequence of its making one of the most delicious pickles that we possess. An old writer says, "Samphire grows in great plenty on most of the sea-cliffs in this country: it is terrible to see how the people gather it, hanging by a rope several fathoms from the tops of the impending rocks, as it were, in the air." The castle of Dover stands on an eminence 469 feet above the level of the sea, and some of the adjacent rocks rise to an altitude of 320 feet. The view from Shakspeare's Cliff, therefore, is one of great beauty and extent. On a fine day, the coast of France is made out with great distinctness; the immediate locality is one of peculiar interest and grandeur; and the surface of the ocean, studded, as it sometimes is, with vast fleets, presents a series of ever-varying combinations. THE original relater of the story on which this play is formed, was Luigi da Porto, a gentlemen of Vicenza, who died in 1529. His novel did not appear till some years after his death; being first printed at Venise in 1535, under the title of La Giulietta. A second edition was published in 1539, and it was again reprinted at the same place in 1553 (without the author's name), with the following title: Historia nuovamente ritrovata di due nobili Amanti, con la loro pietosa morte; intervenuta gia nella cita di Verona, nel tempo del Signor Bartholomeo della Scala. Nuovamente stampata. In 1554 Bandello published, at Lucca, a novel on the same subject (Tom. II. Nov. ix.); and shortly afterwards Boisteau exhibited one in French, founded on the Italian narratives, but varying from them in many particulars. From Boisteau's novel the same story was, in 1552, formed into an English poem, with considerable alterations and large additions, by Mr. Arthur Brooke. This piece was printed by Richard Tottle with the following title, written probably, according to the fashion of that time, by the bookseller: The Tragicall Hystory of Romeus and Juliet, containing a rare Example of true Constancie with the subtill Counsels, and Practices of an old Fryer, and their ill event. It was again published by the same bookseller in 1582. Painter, in the second volume of his Palace of Pleasure, 1567, published a prose translation from the French of Boisteau, which he entitled Rhomeo and Julietta. Shakspeare had probably read Painter's novel, having taken one circumstance from it or some other prose translation of Boisteau; but his play was undoubtedly formed on the poem of Arthur Brooke. This is proved decisively by the following circumstance: 1. In the poem the prince of Verona is called Escalus; so also in the play.In Painter's translation from Boisteau he is named Signor Escala; and sometimes Lord Bartholomew of Escala. 2. In Painter's novel the family of Romeo are called the Montesches; in the poem and in the play, the Montagues. 3. The messenger emoloyed by friar Lawrence to carry a letter to Romeo to inform him when Juliet would awake from her trance, is in Painter's translation called Anselme in the poem, and in the play, friar John is employed in this business. 4. The circumstance of Capulet's writing down the names of the guests whom he invites to supper, is found in the poem and in the play, but is not mentioned by Painter, nor is it found in the original Italian novel. 5. The residence of the Capulets, in the original, and in Painter, is called Villa franca; in the poem and in the play, Freetown. 6. Several passages of Romeo and Juliet appear to have been formed on hints furnished by the poem, of which no traces are found either in Painter's novel, or in Boisteau, or the original; and several expressions are borrowed from thence, which will be found in their proper places. As what has been now stated has been controverted, (for what may not be controverted?) I should enter more largely into the subject, but various passages of the poem furnish such a decisive proof of the play's having been constructed upon it, as not to leave, in my apprehension, a shadow of doubt upon the subject. The question is not, whether Shakspeare had read other novels, or other poetical pieces, founded on this story, but whether the poem written by Arthur Brooke was the basis on which this play was built. With respect to the name of Romeo, this also Shakspeare might have found in the poem; for in one place that name is given to him or he might have had it from Painter's novel, from which or from some other prose translation of the same story he has, as I have already said, taken one circumstance not mentioned in the poem. In 1570 was entered on the Stationers' books by Henry Bynneman, The Pitifull Hystory of ij lovying Italians, which I suspect was a prose narrative of the story on which our author's play is constructed. Breval says in his travels, that on a strict inquiry into the histories of Verona, he found that Shakspeare had varied very little from the truth, either in the names, characters, or other circumstances of his play. MALONE. It is plain, from more than one circumstance, that Shakspeare had read this novel, both in its prosaic and metrical form. He might likewise have met with other poetical pieces on the same subject. We are not yet at the end of our discoveries relative to the originals of our author's dramatic pieces. STEEVENS. This play, Mr. Malone conjectures, was written in 1596. |