P. 200, 1. 7. 8. Who hath, for four or five removes, come short

To tender it herself.] Who hath missed the opportunity of presenting it in person to your Majesty, either at Marseilles, or on the road from thence to Rousillon, in consequence of having been four or five removes behind you. MALONE. Removes are journies or post-stages. JoHNSON. P. 200, 1. 4. 25. I will buy me a son-in-law in a fair, and toll him: for this, I'll none of him. Thus the second folio. The first omits him. Either reading is capable of explanation. The meaning of the earliest copy seems to be this: I'll buy me a new son-in-law, etc. and toll the bell for this; i. e. look upon him as a dead man. The second reading, as Dr. Percy suggests, may imply: I'll buy me a son-in-law as they buy a horse in a fair; toul him, i. e. enter him on the toul or toll-book, to prove I came honestly by him, and ascertain my title to him.

The previous mention of a Fair, seems to justify the reading I have adopted from the second folio. STEEVENS.

The passage should be pointed thus:

I will buy me a son in-law in a fair, and toll; For this, I'll none of him.

That is,,, I'll buy me a son in law in a fair, and pay toll; as for this, I will have none of him.". M. MASON.

The meaning, I think, is, I will purchase a son-in-law at a fair, and get rid of this worthless fellow, by tolling him out of it." To toll a per-on out of a fair was a phrase of the time. MALONE. P. 201, 1. 2 6. I wonder, Sir, since wives are

monster's to you, etc.] This passage is thus read in the first folio:

I wonder, Sir, Sir, wives are monsters to you, And that you fly them, as you swear them lordship,

Yet you desire to marry. Which may be corrected thus:

I wonder, Sir, since wives are monsters, etc. The editors have made it wives are so mons

- swear to

trous to you, and in the next line them, instead of. swear them lordship. Though the latter phrase be a little obscure, it should not have been turned out of the text without notice. I suppose lordship is put for that protection which the husband in the marriage ceremony promises to the wife. TYRWHITT.

As, I believe, here signifies as soon as. MALONE. I read with Mr. Tyrwhitt, whose emendation I have placed in the text. It may be observed, however, that the second folio reads:

I wonder, Sir, wives are such monsters to
STEEVENS.

P. 201, 1. 16.

P. 202, 1. 25.

you.

- cease] i. e. decease, die.

STEEVENS.

Validity means value.
,,Of what validity and pitch soever." *

copy has

by Mr. Steevens.

STEEVENS.

P. 202, 1. 29. He blushes, and 'tis it:] The old is hit. The emendation was made In many of our old chronicles I have found hit printed instead of it. Hence probably the mistake here. Mr. Pope reads

and 'tis his. MALONE.

Or, he blushes, and 'tis fit.

HENLEY.

P 202, last 1 The poet has here forgot himself. Diana has said no such thing. BLACK-TONE.

P. 203, 1. 6. Quoted has the same sense 25 noted, or observed. STEEVENS.

P. 203, 1. 8. Whose nature sickens, but to speak a truth:] Here

the modern editors read:

Which nature sickens with:

a most licentious corruption of the old reading, in which the punctuation only wants to be cor rected. We should read, as here printed:

Whose nature sickens, but to speak a truth: i. e. only to speak a truth. TrawITT.

·P. 203, 1. 16—18. As all impediments in fancy's

course

Are motives of more fancy; and, in fine,

Her insuit coming with her modern grace,] Every thing that obstructs love is an occasion by which love is heightened, And, to conclude her solicitation concurring with her fashionable appearance, she got the ring...

I am not certain that I have attained the true meaning of the word modern, which perhaps, signifies rather meanly pretty, JOHNSON.

I believe modern means common. The scuse will then be this Her solicitation concurring

with her appearance of being common, i. e. with the appearance of her being to be had as we say at present. Shakspeare uses the word modern frequently, and always in this sense. in King John:

* scorns a modern invocation."

$o,

Mr. M. Mason says, that modern grace means, with a tolerable degree of beauty. He questions also the insufficiency of the instances brought in support of my explanation, but adduces none in defence, of his own. STEEVENS.

I think with Mr. Steevens, that modern here, as almost every where in Shakspeare, means common, ordinary; but do not suppose that Bertram here came to call Diana a common gamester, though

he has styled her so in a former passage. MALONE.

P. 203, 1. 24. May justly diet me.] May justly loath or be weary of me; as people generally are of a regimen or prescribed diet. Such, I imagine, is the meaning. Mr. Collins thinks, she means, ,, May justly make me fast, by depriving me (as Desdemona says') of the rites for which I love you." MALONE.

Mr. Collins's interpretation is just. The allusion may be to the management of hawks, who were half/ starved till they became tractable. STEEVENS.

P. 204, 1., 18. But how perhaps belongs to the King's next speech:

But how, how, I pay you?

This suits better' with the King's apparent impatience and solicitude for Helena, MALONE.

Surely, all transfer of these words is needless. Hamlet addresses such another flippant interrogatory to himself:,,The mouse trap. Marry, how? Tropically." STEEVENS.

·P.204, 1.25.-companion]i. e. fellow. STEEVENS. P. 205, 1. 9. Too fine, too full of finesse; too artful. A French expression trop fine. MALONE. P. 206, first 1. customer.] i. e. a common

woman. STEEVENS.

P. 206, 1. 21. The dialogue is too long, since theaudience already knew the whole transaction; nor is there any reason for puzzling the King and playing with his passions; but it was much easier than to make a pathetical interview between Helen and her husband, her mother, and the King. JOHNSON. P. 206, 1. 28. Is there no exorcist] This word is used, not very properly, for enchanter. JOHNSON, Shakspeare invariably uses the word exorcist, to imply a person who can raise spirits, not in the asual sense of one that can lay them. M. MASON.

Such was the common acceptation of the word in our author's time. MALONE.

P. 208, 1. 2. and fol. The King's a beggar, etc.] Though these lines are sufficiently intelligible in their obvious sense, yet, perhaps there is some allusion to the old tale of The King aud the Beggar, which was the subject of a ballad, and, as it should seem from the following lines in King Richard II. of some popular interlude also:

,,Our scene is altered from a serious thing,

‚And now chang’d to the beggar and the King.

MALONE.

P. 208, 1. 6. Ours be your patience then, and' yours our parts;] The meaning is: Grant us then your patience; hear as without interruption. And take our parts; that is, support and defend us. JOHNSON..

This play has many delightful scenes, though not sufficiently probable, and some happy characters, though not new, nor produced by any deep know ledge of human nature. Parolles is a boaster and a coward, such as has always been the sport of the stage, but perhaps never raised more laughter or contempt than in the hands of Shakspeare.

I cannot reconcile my heart to Bertram; a man noble without generosity, and young without truth; who marries Helen as a coward, and leaves her as a profligate when she is dead by his unkindness, sneaks home to a second marriage, is accused by a woman whom he has wronged, defends himself by falsehood, and is dismissed to happiness.

The story of Bertram and Diana had been told before of Mariana and Angelo, and, to confess the truth, scareely merited to be heard a second time. JOHNSON. END OF THE FIFTH VOLUME.