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Where air comes out, air comes in: there's none abroad so wholesome as that you vent.

Clo. If my shirt were bloody, then to shift it-Have I hurt him?

2 Lord. No, faith; not so much as his patience. [Aside. 1 Lord. Hurt him? his body's a passable carcass, if he be not hurt: it is a thoroughfare for steel, if it be not hurt.

2 Lord. His steel was in debt; it went o' the backside the town.

Clo. The villain would not stand me.

[Aside.

2 Lord. No; but he fled forward still, toward your face.8

Aside.

1 Lord. Stand you! You have land enough of your own: but he added to your having; gave you some ground.

2 Lord. As many inches as you have oceans: Puppies!

[Aside. Clo. I would, they had not come between us. 2 Lord. So would I, till you had measured how long a fool you were upon the ground.

[Aside.

Clo. And that she should love this fellow, and refuse me!

2 Lord. If it be a sin to make a true election, she is damned.

[Aside.

1 Lord. Sir, as I told you always, her beauty and her brain go not together: She's a good sign, but I have seen small reflection of her wit.1

8 •he fled forward still, toward your face.] So, in Troilus and Cressida:

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thou shalt hunt a lion, that will fly

"With his face backward." Steevens.

her beauty and her brain go not together:] I believe the lord means to speak a sentence, "Sir, as I told you always, beauty and brain go not together." Johnson.

That is, are not equal, "ne vont pás de pair." A similar expression occurs in The Laws of Candy, where Gonzalo, speaking of Erota, says:

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and walks

"Her tongue the same gait with her wit?" M. Mason.

1 She's a good sign, but I have seen small reflection of her wit.] She has a fair outside, a specious appearance, but no wit. O quanta species, cerebrum non habet! Phædrus. Edwards.

I believe the poet meant nothing by sign, but fair outward show.

Johnson.

2 Lord. She shines not upon fools, lest the reflection should hurt her.

[Aside. Clo. Come, I'll to my chamber: 'Would there had been some hurt done!

2 Lord. I wish not so; unless it had been the fall of an ass, which is no great hurt.

Clo. You'll go with us?

1 Lord. I'll attend your lordship. Clo. Nay, come, let 's go together. 2 Lord. Well, my lord.

SCENE IV.

A Room in Cymbeline's Palace.

Enter IMOGEN and PISANIO.

[Aside.

[Exeunt.

Imo. I would thou grew'st unto the shores o' the haven,

And question'dst every sail: if he should write,

And I not have it, 'twere a paper lost

As offer'd mercy is. What was the last

That he spake to thee?

Pis.

Imo. Then way'd his handkerchief?

Pis.

'Twas, His queen, his queen!

And kiss'd it, madam.

Imo. Senseless linen! happier therein than I!And that was all?

Pis.

No, madam; for so long

The same allusion is common to other writers. So, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Fair Maid of the Inn:

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a common trull,

"A tempting sign, and curiously set forth,
"To draw in riotous guests."

Again, in The Elder Brother, by the same authors:

"Stand still, thou sign of man

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To understand the whole force of Shakspeare's idea, it should be remembered, that anciently almost every sign had a motto, or some attempt at a witticism, underneath it.

2

-'twere a paper lost,

Steevens.

As offer'd mercy is I believe the poet's meaning is, that the loss of that paper would prove as fatal to her, as the loss of a pardon to a condemned criminal.

A thought resembling this, occurs in All's Well that Ends Well:

"Like a remorseful pardon slowly carried." Steevens.

As he could make me with this eye or ear3
Distinguish him from others, he did keep
The deck, with glove, or hat, or handkerchief,
Still waving, as the fits and stirs of his mind
Could best express how slow his soul sail'd on,
How swift his ship.

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Madam, so I did.

Imo. I would have broke mine eye-strings; crack'd them, but

To look upon him; till the diminution

Of

space had pointed him sharp as my needle:5 Nay, follow'd him, till he had melted from

The smallness of a gnat to air; and then

Have turn'd mine eye, and wept.-But, good Pisanio, When shall we hear from him?

Pis.

With his next vantage.

Be assur'd madam,

3 with this eye or ear-] [Old copy-his eye, &c.] But how could Posthumus make himself distinguished by his ear to Pisanio? By his tongue he might to the other's ear, and this was certainly Shakspeare's intention. We must therefore read:

As he could make me with this eye, or ear,
Distinguish him from others,-

The expression is datis, as the Greeks term it: the party
speaking points to that part spoken of. Warburton.
Sir T. Hanmer alters it thus:

-for so long

As he could mark me with his eye, or I
Distinguish

-.

The reason of Sir T. Hanmer's reading was, that Pisanio describes no address made to the ear. Johnson.

4 As little as a crow, or less,] This comparison may be illustrated by the following in King Lear:

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the crows that wing the midway air,

"Show scarce so gross as beetles."

till the diminution

Steevens.

Of space had pointed him as sharp as my needle:] The diminution of space, is the diminution of which space is the cause. Trees are killed by a blast of lightning, that is, by blasting, not blasted lightning. Johnson.

6 next vantage.] Next opportunity. Johnson.

So, in The Merry Wives of Windsor:

"And when the doctor spies his vantage ripe," &c. Steevens.

Imo. I did not take my leave of him, but had Most pretty things to say: ere I could tell him, How I would think on him, at certain hours,

Such thoughts, and such; or I could make him swear The shes of Italy should not betray

Mine interest, and his honour; or have charg'd him, At the sixth hour of morn, at noon, at midnight,

7

To encounter me with orisons, for then

I am in heaven for him; 8 or ere I could

Give him that parting kiss, which I had set

Betwixt two charming words, comes in my father,
And, like the tyrannous breathing of the north,
Shakes all our buds from growing.1

7 — encounter me with orisons,] i. e. meet me with reciprocal prayer. So, in Macbeth:

"See, they encounter thee with their hearts' thanks."

Steevens. 8 I am in heaven for him;] My solicitations ascend to heaven on his behalf. Steevens.

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Give him that parting kiss, which I had set

Betwixt two charming words,] Dr Warburton pronounces as absolutely as if he had been present at their parting, that these two charming words were-adieu Posthumus, but as Mr. Edwards has observed," she must have understood the language of love very little, if she could find no tenderer expression of it, than the name by which every one called her husband." Steevens.

1— like the tyrannous breathing of the north,

Shakes all our buds from growing.] i. e. our buds of love, as our author has elsewhere expressed it. Dr. Warburton, because the buds of flowers are here alluded to, very idly reads-Shakes all our buds from blowing.

The buds of flowers undoubtedly are meant, and Shakspeare himself has told us in Romeo and Juliet that they grow:

"This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath

"May prove a beauteous flower, when next we meet."

Malone.

A bud, without any distinct idea, whether of flower or fruit, is a natural representation of any thing incipient or immature; and the buds of flowers, if flowers are meant, grow to flowers, as the buds of fruits grow to fruits. Johnson.

Dr. Warburton's emendation may in some measure be confirmed by those beautiful lines in The Two Noble Kinsmen, which I have no doubt were written by Shakspeare. Emilia is speaking of a rose:

"It is the very emblem of a maid.
"Fes when the wee

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Enter a Lady.

Lady.
Desires your highness' company.

The queen, madam,

Imo. Those things I bid you do, get them despatch'd.

I will attend the queen.

Pis.

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Rome.

An Apartment in Philario's House.

Enter PHILARIO, IACHIMO,2 a Frenchman, a Dutchman, and a Spaniard.3

Iach. Believe it, sir: I have seen him in Britain: he was then of a crescent note; expected to prove so worthy, as since he hath been allowed the name of: but I could then have look'd on him without the help of admiration; though the catalogue of his endowments had been tabled by his side, and I to peruse him by items.

Phi. You speak of him when he was less furnish'd, than now he is, with that which makes him both without and within.

"How modestly she blows, and paints the sun

"With her chaste blushes?-when the north comes near her "Rude and impatient, then like chastity,

"She locks her beauties in her bud again,

"And leaves him to base briars." Farmer.

I think the old reading may be sufficiently supported by the fotlowing passage in the 18th Sonnet of our author:

"Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May."

Again, in The Taming of the Shrew:

"Confounds thy fame, as whirlwinds shake fair buds.”

Lyly, in his Euphues, 1581, as Mr. Holt White observes, has a similar expression: "The winde shaketh off the blossome, as well as the fruit." Steevens.

2

Iachimo,] The name of Giacomo occurs in The Two Gentlewomen of Venice, a novel, which immediately follows that of Rhomeo and Julietta in the second tome of Painter's Palace of Pleasure. Malone.

3

-a Dutchman, and a Spaniard.] Thus the old copy; but Mynheer, and the Don, are mute characters.

Shakspeare, however, derived this circumstance from whatever translation of the original novel he made use of. Thus, in the ancient one described in our Prolegomena to this drama: "Howe i merchauntes met all togyther in on way, whyche were of iiii dyverse landes," &c. Steevens. D

VOL. XVI.

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