At the end of the translations of Ovid, add:

Ovidius Naso, his Remedie of Love, translated and entituled to the youth of England, 4to. Lond. 1600.

In The more the Merrier, containing Threescore and odde headlesse Epigrams, shot (like the Fooles bolts) amongst you, light where they will. By H. P. Gent. &c. 1608, I find the following

couplet, which is almost the same as the two beginning lines of Shakspeare's Epitaph on John a Combe.

So in Camden's Remains, 1614:

Mr. Oldys might have added, that he was the person who suggested to Mr. Pope the singular course which he pursued in his edition of Shakspeare. “Remember (says Oldys in a Ms. note to his copy of Langbaine, Article Shakspeare) what I observed to my Lord Oxford for Mr. Pope's use, out of Cowley's preface.” The observation here alluded to, I believe, is one made by Cowley in his preface, p. 52. edit. 1710. “This has been the case with Shakespeare, Fletcher, Johnson, and many others, part of whose poems I should take the boldness to prune and lop away, if the care of replanting them in print did belong to me; neither would I make any scruple to cut off from some the unnecessary young suckers, and from others the old withered branches.”—Pope adopted this very unwarrantable idea; striking out from the text of his author whatever he did not like: and Cowley himself has suffered a sort of poetical punishment for having suggested it, the learned bishop of Litchfield having pruned and lopped away his beautiful luxuriances, as Pope, on Cowley's suggestion, did those of Shakspeare. Malone.

Ibid. line 7.]

I have been favoured with the following observations on the tradition here mentioned, by the learned author of The History of English Poetry. Malone.

Antony Wood is the first and original author of the anecdote that Shakspeare, in his journies from Warwickshire to London, used to bait at the Crown-inn on the west side of the corn-market in Oxford. He says, that Davenant the poet was born in that house in 1606. “His father (he adds) John Davenant, was a sufficient vintner, kept the tavern now known by the sign of the Crown, and was mayor of the said city in 1621. His mother was a very beautiful woman, of a good wit and conversation, in which she was imitated by none of her children but by this William [the poet]. The father, who was a very grave and discreet citizen, (yet an admirer and lover of plays and play-makers, especially Shakespeare, who frequented his house in his journies between Warwickshire and London) was of a melancholick disposition, and was seldom or never seen to laugh, in which he was imitated by none of his children but by Robert his eldest son, afterwards fellow of St. John's college, and a venerable Doctor of Divinity.” Wood Ath. Oxon. vol. ii. p. 292. edit. 1692. I will not suppose that Shakspeare could have been the father of a Doctor of Divinity who never laughed: but it was always a constant tradition in Oxford that Shakspeare was the father of Davenant the poet. And I have seen this circumstance expressly mentioned in some of Wood's papers. Wood was well qualified to know these particulars; for he was a townsman of Oxford, where he was born in 1632. Wood says, that Davenant went to school in Oxford. Ubi supr.

As to the Crown-Inn, it still remains as an inn, and is an old decayed house, but probably was once a principal inn in Oxford. It is directly in the road from Stratford to London. In a large upper room, which seems to have been a sort of Hall for entertaining a large company, or for accommodating (as was the custom) different parties at once, there was a bow window, with three pieces of excellent painted glass. About eight years ago, I remember visiting this room, and proposing to purchase of the landlord the painted glass, which would have been a curiosity as coming from Shakspeare's inn. But going thither soon after, I found it was removed; the inn-keeper having communicated my intended bargain to the owner of the house, who began to

suspect that he was possessed of a curiosity too valuable to be parted with, or to remain in such a place: and I never could hear of it afterwards. If I remember right, the painted glass consisted of three armorial shields beautifully stained. I have said so much on this subject, because I think that Shakspeare's old hostelry at Oxford deserves no less respect than Chaucer's Tabarde in Southwark.

Then vanish upstart writers to each stage,
You needy poetasters of this age!
Where Shakespeare liv'd or spake, Vermin forbeare,
Left with your froth ye spot them, come not near.
But if you needs must write, if poverty
So pinch, that otherwise you starve and die;
On God's name may the Bull or Cockpit have
Your lame blank verse, to keep you from the grave:
Or let new Fortune's* ^note younger brethren see,
What they can pick from your lean industry.
I do not wonder when you offer at
Black-fryars, that you suffer: 'tis the fate
Of richer veins; prime judgments, that have far'd
The worse, with this deceased man compar'd.
So have I seen, when Cæsar would appear,
And on the stage at half-sword parley were
Brutus and Cassius, O how the audience
Were ravish'd! with what wonder they went thence!
When, some new day, they would not brook a line
Of tedious, though well-labour'd, Catiline;
Sejanus too was irksome; they priz'd more
“Honest” Jago, or the jealous Moor.
And though the Fox and subtil Alchymist,
Long intermitted, could not quite be mist,
Though these have sham'd all th' ancients, and might raise
Their author's merit with a crown of bays,
Yet these sometimes, even at a friend's desire
Acted, have scarce defray'd the sea-coal fire,
And door-keepers: when, let but Falstaff come,
Hal, Poins, the rest,—you scarce shall have a room,
All is so pester'd: Let but Beatrice
And Benedick be seen, lo! in a trice
The cock-pit, galleries, boxes, all are full,
To hear Malvolio that cross-garter'd gull.
Brief, there is nothing in his wit-fraught book,
Whose sound we would not hear, on whose worth look:
Like old-coin'd gold, whose lines, in ev'ry page,
Shall pass true current to succeeding age.

But why do I dead Shakspeare's praise recite?
Some second Shakspeare must of Shakspeare write;
For me, 'tis needless; since an host of men
Will pay, to clap his praise, to save my pen* ^note. Leon. Digges. An Elegy on the death of that famous writer and actor, M. William Shakspeare.
I dare not do thy memory that wrong,
Unto our larger griefs to give a tongue.
I'll only sigh in earnest, and let fall
My solemn tears at thy great funeral.
For ev'ry eye that rains a show'r for thee,
Laments thy loss in a sad elegy.
Nor is it fit each humble muse should have
Thy worth his subject, now thou'rt laid in grave.
No, it's a flight beyond the pitch of those,
Whose worth-less pamphlets are not sense in prose.
Let learned Jonson sing a dirge for thee,
And fill our orb with mournful harmony:
But we need no remembrancer; thy fame
Shall still accompany thy honour'd name
To all posterity; and make us be
Sensible of what we lost, in losing thee:
Being the age's wonder; whose smooth rimes
Did more reform than lash the looser times.
Nature herself did her own felt admire,
As oft as thou wert pleased to attire
Her in her native lustre; and confess,
Thy dressing was her chiefest comliness.
How can we then forget thee, when the age
Her chiefest tutor, and the widow'd stage
Her only favourite, in thee, hath lost,
And Nature's self, what she did brag of most?
Sleep then rich soul of numbers! whilst poor we
Enjoy the profits of thy legacy;
And think it happiness enough, we have
So much of thee redeemed from the grave,
As may suffice t'enlighten future times
With the bright lustre of thy matchless rimes* ^note.

In Memory of our famous Shakspeare.
Sacred Spirit, whiles thy lyre
  Echoed o'er the Arcadian plains,
Even Apollo did admire,
  Orpheus wondered at thy strains:
Plautus sigh'd, Sophocles wept
  Tears of anger, for to hear,
After they so long had slept,
  So bright a genius should appear;
Who wrote his lines with a sun-beam,
  More durable than time or fate:—
Others boldly do blaspheme,
  Like those that seem to preach, but prate.
Thou wert truly priest elect,
  Chosen darling of the Nine,
Such a trophy to erect
  By thy wit and skill divine,
That were all their other glories
  (Thine excepted) torn away,
By thy admirable stories
  Their garments ever shall be gay.
Where thy honour'd bones do lie,
  (As Statius once to Maro's urn)
Thither every year will I
  Slowly tread, and sadly mourn. S. Sheppard* ^note. In remembrance of Master William Shakespeare.

Ode.

I.
Beware, delighted poets when you sing
To welcome nature in the early spring,
  Your num'rous feet not tread
The banks of Avon; for each flow'r,
As it ne'er knew a sun or show'r,
  Hangs there the pensive head.

II.
Each tree whose thick and spreading growth hath made
Rather a night beneath the boughs than shade,
  Unwilling now to grow,
Looks like the plume a captain wears
Whose rifled falls are steep'd i'the tears
  Which from his last rage flow.

III.
The piteous river wept itself away
Long since alas! to such a swift decay,
  That reach the map, and look
If you a river there can spy,
And, for a river, your mock'd eye
  Will find a shallow brook. William Davenant.
In such an age immortal Shakespeare wrote,
By no quaint rules nor hamp'ring criticks taught;
With rough majestick force he mov'd the heart,
And strength and nature made amends for art. Rowe's prologue to Jane Shore. Upon Shakspeare's Monument at Stratford upon Avon.
Great Homer's birth sev'n rival cities claim,
Too mighty such monopoly of fame;
Yet not to birth alone did Homer owe
His wond'rous worth; what Egypt could bestow,
With all the schools of Greece and Asia join'd,
Enlarg'd the immense expansion of his mind:
Nor yet unrival'd the Mæonian strain;
The British Eagle* ^note and the Mantuan Swan
Tow'r equal heights. But, happier Stratford, thou
With incontested laurels deck thy brow;
Thy bard was thine unschool'd, and from thee brought
More than all Egypt, Greece, or Asia taught;
Not Homer's self such matchless laurels won,
The Greek has rivals, but thy Shakspeare none. T. Seward.

10911010217.

The Epitaph on Shakspeare beginning

is subscribed, in an edition of his poems printed in 1640, with the letters W. B. which I learn from the Ms. notes of Mr. Oldys, were placed for William Basse. I have not found these verses in any edition of Dr. Donne's works.

Add to the List of Plays altered from Shakspeare:

The Tempest, made into an opera by Shadwell, in 1673. See Downes, p. 34.

A Word or two of Advice to William Warburton, a Dealer in many words. By a Friend, [Dr. Grey.] With an Appendix containing a taste of William's spirit of railing. 8vo. 1746.

A free and familiar Letter to that great refiner of Pope and Shakspear, the Rev Mr. William Warburton, preacher of Lincoln's Inn. With Remarks upon the Epistle of Friend A. E. In which his unhandsome treatment of this celebrated writer is exposed in the manner it deserves. By a Country Curate [Dr. Grey]. 8vo. 1750.

Add to note ^w:

Since I wrote the above, I have learned that there was an antient play with the title of Jane Shore. “The history of the life and death of Mr. Shore and Jane Shore his wife, as it was lately acted by the Earl of Derbie his servants,” was entered in the Stationer's books by John Oxenbridge and John Busby, Aug. 28, 1599.

This play is likewise mentioned (together with another very ancient piece not now extant) in The Knight of the Burning Pestle, 1613. “I was ne'er at one of these plays before; but I should have seen Jane Shore once; and my husband hath promised me any time this twelvemonth to carry me to the Bold Beauchamps.”

Add to the observations on the Comedy of Errors:

The alternate rhimes that are found in this play, as well as in Love's Labour Lost, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Romeo and Juliet, are a farther proof that these pieces were among our author's earliest dramatick productions. We are told by himself that Venus and Adonis was his first composition. The Rape of Lucrece was probably the next. When he turned his thoughts to the stage, the measure that he had used in these poems, naturally presented itself to him in his first dramatick essays.

Add, as a note:

The person whom Nashe had in contemplation in this passage, was, I believe, Thomas Kyd. The only play to which his name is affixed (Cornelia), is a professed translation from the French of Garnier, who imitated Seneca, as did also Kyd.

Note ^g. Add, after the words, attempted to be ridiculed:

In The Devil's an Ass, acted in 1616, all his historical plays are obliquely censured.

“By my faith you are cunning in the chronicles.

“No, I confess, I ha't from the play-books, and think they are more authentick.”

They are again attacked in the Induction to Bartholomew Fair:

“An some writer that I know, had but the penning o' this matter, he would ha' made you such a jig-a-jog i' the booths, you should ha' thought an earthquake had been in the fair. But these master-poets, they will ha' their own absurd courses, they will be informed of nothing.”

The following passage in Cynthia's Revels, 1601, was, I think, likewise pointed against Shakspeare:

“Besides they would wish your poets would leave to be promoters of other mens' jests, and to way-lay all the stale

apothegms or old books they can hear of, in print or otherwise, to farce their scenes withal:—Again that feeding their friends with nothing of their own, but what they have twice or thrice cooked, they should not wantonly give out how soon they had dress'd it, nor how many coaches came to carry away the broken meat, besides hobby-horses and foot-cloth nags.”

Jonson's plots were all his own invention; our author's chiefly taken from preceding plays or novels. The former employed a year or two in composing a play; the latter probably produced two every year, while he remained in the theatre.

In note ^g, towards the end, dele the paragraph,

“In short he was in his personal character, &c.”

This paragraph, I find, is no part of Drummond's character of Ben Jonson. Not having the works of the former when the last impression of Shakspeare went to the press, I relied on the fidelity of the author of Jonson's Life in the Biographia Britannica, who has ascribed to Mr. Drummond what he did not write.

The reader is likewise desired to correct the following expressions in Jonson's character, which the above-mentioned writer of his life had also represented unfaithfully:

For rather chusing, read given rather.

For nothing right but what either himself or some of his friends had done, read, nothing well done but what he himself or some of his friends had said or done.

After the best sayings, add, and deeds.

For being versed in all, read, as being versed in both; and add, oppressed with fancy which overmastered his reason, a general disease in many poets. His inventions, &c.

line 32. Add

King Henry VIII. not being then published, the fallacy of calling it a new play on its revival, was not easily detected.

Add as a note on these words:

See the verses alluded to, ante p. 254. note *.

This writer does not seem to have been very scrupulous

about adopting either the thoughts or expressions of his contemporaries; for in this poem are found two lines taken verbatim from Marston's Insatiate Countess, printed four years before Myrrha the Mother of Adonis, &c.

It appears from B. Jonson's Silent Woman, that W. Barksted was an actor, and was employed in the theatre where our author's plays were represented. He might therefore have performed a part in Measure for Measure, or have seen the copy before it was printed.

To the list of unpublished plays, add the following:

Catiline's Conspiracy, a tragedy—and Captain Mario, a comedy; both by Stephen Gosson.—The True Historie of George Granderburye, as played by the right hon. the Earl of Oxenforde's servants—The Tragedie of Richard Grinvyle, Knight—Jane Shore—The Bold Beauchamps—The Second Part of Sir John Oldcastle—The General—The Toy— The Tell-tale* ^note, a comedy—The Woman's Plot—The Woman's too hard for Him [both acted at court in 1621.]—Fulgius and Lucrelle—The Fool Transformed, a comedy—The History of Lewis the Eleventh, King of France, a tragi-comedy—The Chaste woman against her Will, a comedy—The Tooth Drawer, a comedy—Honour in the End, a comedy—The History of Don Quixote, or the Knight of the Ill-favoured Countenance, a comedy—The Fair Spanish Captive, a tragi-comedy.

Why does Prospero arise? Or, if he does it to ease himself by change of posture, why need he interrupt his narrative to tell his daughter of it? Perhaps these words belong to Miranda, and we should read:

Prospero in page 11. had directed his daughter to sit down, and learn the whole of this history; having previously by some magical charm disposed her to fall asleep. He is watching

the progress of this charm; and in the mean time tells her a long story, often asking her whether her attention be still awake. The story being ended (as Miranda supposes) with their coming on shore, and partaking of the conveniences provided for them by the loyal humanity of Gonzalo, she therefore first expresses a wish to see the good old man, and then observes that she may now arise, as the story is done. Prospero, surprised that his charm does not yet work, bids her sit still; and then enters on fresh matter to amuse the time, telling her (what she knew before) that he had been her tutor, &c. But soon perceiving her drowziness coming on, he breaks off abruptly, and leaves her still sitting to her slumbers. &wblank;e.

Ibid.

The first folio reads, perhaps rightly:

It must however be acknowledged that this was the old way of spelling human.

This is the reading of the old copy; but mettle and metal are frequently confounded in the first folio.

The epithet brave, shews, I think, clearly, that we ought to read:

The old copy reads:

I suspect that the words were accidentally transposed at the press, and would read:

So, in the last act of this play, hang on them this line, is printed instead of hang them on this line.

I know no such phrase as to boast off.

Shakspeare, when he wrote this description, perhaps recollected what the great lord Essex, in an hour of discontent, said of queen Elizabeth: “that she grew old and canker'd, and that her mind was become as crooked as her carcase”—a speech, which, according to Sir Walter Raleigh, cost him his head, and which, we may therefore suppose, was at that time much talked of. This play being manifestly written in the time of king James, these obnoxious words might be safely repeated. Malone. 10911057101. Ye elves of hills &c.]

To follow Dr. Farmer's note.

Whoever will take the trouble of comparing this whole passage with Medea's speech as translated by Golding, will see evidently that Shakspeare copied the translation, and not the original. The particular expressions that seem to have made an impression on his mind, are printed in Italicks:

I would wish to read:

Which according to the old fashion was written:

Add, after the passage quoted from Timon— Again, in The Winter's Tale:

Add, at the end of the note:

Means, I suppose, is here used for medium or object.

Moulds, however, if the passage be corrupt, (which I do not believe to be the case) is a very likely word to have stood here. So, in Coriolanus:

Again, in K. Richard II.

Again, in K. Lear:

Add to my note.—So, in Melvil's Memoirs, 1683: “Having toss'd some words upon this matter, she being desirous of an honest colour or pretext, appeared the more readily satisfied in that point.”

Question is here used, as in many other places, for conversation.

I would point the lines thus:

Now, sister, what's the comfort?

Why, as all comforts are, most good. Indeed lord Angelo &c.

Indeed is the same as in truth, or truly, the common beginning of speeches in Shakspeare's age. See Charles the First's Trial. The king and Bradshaw seldom say any thing without this preface: “Truly, Sir &lblank;.”

I was led into a mistake concerning this passage, and into a hasty censure of Dr. Warburton, by the false pointing of the modern editions, according to which, the word force could not admit of his interpretation. But I am now convinced that he was right, and that these lines should be pointed thus:

Is he actuated by passions that impel him to transgress the law, at the very moment that he is enforcing it against others? [I find, he is.] Surely then [since this is so general a propensity] it is no sin, or at least a venial one. So, in the next act:

“And by an eminent body that enforc'd
“The law against it.”

Force is again used for enforce in K. Henry VIII.

Again, in Coriolanus:

To follow Mr. Steevens's note.—By Pygmalion's images newly made women, I do not understand, with Mr. Steevens, virgins as fresh as if they came recently from the hands of Pygmalion. I rather think the meaning is: Is there no courtezan, who being newly made woman, [i. e. lately debauched,] still retains the appearance of chastity, and looks as cold as a statue, to be had &c.

The following passage in Blunt Master Constable, a comedy, by Middleton, 1602, seems to authorize this interpretation:

Are all these women?

No, no, they are half men, and half women.

You apprehend too fast. I mean by women, wives; for wives are no maids, nor are maids women.”

Mulier in Latin had precisely the same meaning.

To follow Mr. Steevens's note ⁵.—My vice, for the vices of my dukedom, appears to me very harsh.

My, does not, I apprehend, relate to the duke in particular, who had not been guilty of any vice, but to any indefinite person.—The meaning seems to be—to destroy by extirpation, (as it is expressed in another place) a fault that I have committed, and to suffer his own vices to grow to a rank and luxuriant height.

The speaker, for the sake of argument, puts himself in the case of an offending person.

Thus this passage stands both in the first and second folio. The only corruption, I suspect, is in the word made, instead of which, I believe, Shakspeare wrote wade.

There are frequent instances in these plays of the letters m and w being confounded by the printer. In this very play there is great reason to believe that flawes is printed instead of flames.—So, in Macbeth, we meet:

instead of—which way they walk.

Again, in K. John: “&lblank; and his siege is

instead of mind.

Again, in K. Henry V.

The sense then of the passage will be—How may persons assuming the semblance of virtue, indulge in the grossest crimes! practising on mankind, in order to draw to themselves, by the flimsiest pretensions, the most solid advantages.

Likeness is here used for specious or seeming virtue—So, before: “O seeming, seeming!”

With respect to the word now proposed, it is used by Shakspeare nearly in the sense required here, in Macbeth:

Again, in Tancred and Gismund, a tragedy, 1592:

Again, ibid.

The word is here clearly used for proceed.

To follow Steevens's note.

Charact signifies an inscription. The stat. 1 Edw. VI. c. 2. directed the seals of office of every bishop to have “certain characts under the king's arms, for the knowledge of the diocese.” Characters are the letters in which an inscription is written. Charactery is the materials of which characters are composed.

I think we ought to read:—Mend it again—the matter:—proceed. Correct that phrase when you have occasion to speak again of the deputy—you left off at matter—proceed.

The corruption might easily have arisen in transcribing, from the similarity of sounds.

So, in K. Henry VI. P. I.

Mr. Gray has imitated this passage, and also the lines in the text:

He seems to have had Pope's Essay on Man also in his thoughts:

Again:

So, Gray, ibid.

To follow Mr. Steevens's note.— So, in Essays and Characters of a Prison and Prisoners, by G. M. 1618: “The King's guard are counted the strongest archers, but here are better suitors.” So, in Antony and Cleopatra, we meet in the old copy: (owing probably to the transcriber's ear having deceived him)

instead of—a grief that shoots.

Again, in the Rape of Lucrece, 1594, we find shoot instead of suit:

Here clearly the author meant suit.

In Ireland, where there is reason to believe that much of the pronunciation of queen Elizabeth's time is yet retained, the word suitor is at this day pronounced by the vulgar as if it were written shooter. The word in the text ought, I think, to be written suitor, as in the instance above quoted from Essays &c. by G. M.

The mistake arose from the similarity of the sounds; and this is one of many proofs, that when these plays were transcribed for the press, the copies were made out by the ear.

From a passage in Nashe's Apologie of Pierce Pennilesse, 1593, the Eclogues of Mantuanus appear to have been a school-book in our author's time:

“With the first and second leafe he plaies very prettilie, and, in ordinarie terms of extenuating, verdits Pierce Pennilesse for a grammar-school wit; saies, his margine is as deeplie learned as Fauste precor gelida.”

The first folio reads: On her hairs &c. The context, I think, clearly shews that we ought to read:

i. e. the hairs of one of the ladies were of the colour of gold, and the eyes of the other as clear as chrystal. The king is speaking of the panegyricks pronounced by the two lovers on their mistresses.

One was formerly pronounced on. Hence the mistake. See a note on The Two Gentlemen of Verona, ante p. 87.

The same mistake has happened in All's Well that ends Well; (first folio.)

“A traveller is a good thing after dinner—but on that lies two thirds &c.”

The two words are frequently confounded in our ancient dramas.

Again, in More Fools yet, a collection of Epigrams by R. S. 1610:

Again, ibid.

“But by the way he saw and much respected
“A doore belonging to a house infected,
“Whereon was plac'd (as 'tis the custome still)
“The Lord have mercy on us: this sad bill
“The sot perus'd &lblank;.” Steevens. 10911209520. And cuckow-buds of yellow hue.] Mr. Whalley, the learned editor of B. Jonson's works, many years ago proposed to read crocus buds. The cuckow-flower, he observed, could not be called yellow, it rather approaching to the colour of white, by which epithet, Cowley, who was himself no mean botanist, has distinguished it:
Albaque cardamine &c. Malone.

10911210P. 7. But earthly happier &lblank;]

This is a thought in which Shakspeare seems to have much delighted. We meet with it more than once in his Sonnets:

Again, in the 54th Sonnet:

—Henchman. Quasi haunch-man. One that goes behind another. Pedisequus. &wblank;e.

The learned commentator might have given his etymology some support from the following passage in K. Henry IV. P. II. vol. V. p. 566:

There are probably many temporary allusions to particular incidents and characters scattered through our author's plays, which gave a poignancy to certain passages, while the events were recent, and the persons pointed at, yet living.—In the speech now before us, I think it not improbable that he meant to allude to a fact which happened in his time, at an entertainment exhibited before queen Elizabeth. It is recorded in a manuscript collection of

anecdotes, stories, &c. entitled, Merry Passages and Jeasts, Ms. Harl. 6395:

“There was a spectacle presented to queen Elizabeth upon the water, and among others Harry Goldingham was to represent Arion upon the dolphin's backe; but finding his voice to be very hoarse and unpleasant, when he came to perform it, he tears off his disguise, and swears he was none of Arion, not he, but even honest Har. Goldingham; which blunt discoverie pleased the queene better than if it had gone through in the right way:—yet he could order his voice to an instrument exceeding well.”

The collector of these Merry Passages appears to have been nephew to Sir Roger L'Estrange.

In The Arbor of Amorous Devises, 4to, bl. l. are the following lines:

The former leaf and the title-page being torn out of the copy I consulted, I am unable either to give the two preceding lines of the stanza, or to ascertain the date of the book.

In The Mayde's Metamorphosis, a comedy, by Lilly, there is a dialogue between some foresters and a troop of fairies, very similar to the present:

The Maid's Metamorphosis was not printed till 1600, but was probably written some years before. Mr. Warton says, (History of English Poetry, vol. II. p. 393.) that Lilly's last play appeared in 1597.

To follow Dr. Warburton's note.—An anonymous critick supposes that Shakspeare had in his thoughts the mine of rubies, belonging to the king of Zeylan (mentioned by Le Blanc and other travellers) out of which the king had all that exceeded the weight of four or five carrats, and none under that weight—on which account the jewels of the mine might be called his own and not his own.

I do not suppose any such allusion to have been intended.—

Helena, I think, only means to say, that having found Demetrius unexpectedly, she considered her property in him as insecure as that which a person has in a jewel that he has found by accident; which he knows not whether he shall retain, and which therefore may properly enough be called his own and not his own.

Helena does not say, as Dr. Warburton has represented, that Demetrius was like a jewel, but that she had found him, like a jewel &c

A kindred thought occurs in Antony and Cleopatra:

The same kind of expression is found also in The Merchant of Venice:

The first folio reads:

The second has:

The present reading is that of the quarto.

These lines ought to be regulated thus:

Add to my note &lblank;

The following passage in Antonio's Revenge, a tragedy, 1602, written by Marston, (who has evidently imitated Shakspeare, or was imitated by him) appears to me a strong confirmation of the reading proposed by Dr. Warburton:

It is observable, that in the passage in Lodge's Rosalynde, 1592, which Shakspeare seems to have had in his thoughts, when he wrote, in As you like it—“'Tis like the howling of Irish wolves against the moon”—the expression is found, that Marston has here used instead of behowls. “In courting Phebe, thou barkest with the wolves of Syria against the moon.”

Again, in Vittoria Corrombona, a tragedy, by Webster, 1612: “It may appear to some ridiculous thus to talk knave or madman.”

There is no need of Sir T. Hanmer's alteration: “I answer you right in the stile of painted cloth.” We had before in this play: “It is the right butter-woman's rate at market.”

the Sir Hugh Evans of Shakspeare is not a Welsh knight who hath taken orders, but only a Welsh clergyman without any regular degree from either of the Universities. See Barrington's History of the Guedir Family. Nichols. 10911296349. Dead shepherd, now I find thy saw of might:—
Who ever lov'd, that lov'd not at first sight?]

The second of these lines is from Marlowe's Hero and Leander, 1637, sig. B b. where it stands thus:

This line is likewise quoted in Belvidere, or the Garden of the Muses, 1610, p. 29. and in England's Parnassus, printed in 1600, p. 261.

The reading of the old copy is supported by a similar passage in Cymbeline:

Again, by another in the same play:

Here the garment is said to be the father of the man:—in the text, the judgment, being employed solely in inventing new dresses, is called the father of the garment.

I have no doubt the meaning is—Good is good, independent on any worldly distinction or title: so, vileness is vile, in whatever state it may appear. The very same phraseology is found in Macbeth:

i. e. must still look like grace—like itself.

I think the meaning is—Our seeming to know what we speak one to another, is to make him to know our purpose immediately; to discover our design to him.

To know, in the last instance, signifies to make known.

To follow Mr. Steevens's note.—There can, I think, be no doubt that this is Bertram's meaning. If Mr. Steevens's explanation wanted support, it might be had from a passage in Vittoria Corombona, a tragedy, by Webster, 1612, in which the duke Brachiano, after having declared that he would never more cohabit with his wife, uses the same expression, which Shakspeare has here given to Bertram:

In Mr. Steevens's note, instead of—“in his letter to her,”—read—“in his letter to the countess.”

I have no doubt that ingaged (the reading of the folio) is right.

Gaged is used by other writers, as well as by Shakspeare, for engaged. So, in a Pastoral, by Daniel, 1605:

Ingaged in the sense of unengaged, is a word of exactly the same formation as inhabitable, which is used by Shakspeare and the contemporary writers for uninhabitable.