CLE. O Dionyza,

Who wanteth food, and will not fay he wants it,
Or can conceal his hunger, till he famish?

Our tongues and forrows do 7 found deep our woes
Into the air; our eyes do weep, till lungs

Fetch breath that may proclaim them louder; that,
If heaven flumber, while their creatures want,
They may awake their helps to comfort them.9

are, from the fcene we defcribe, our forrows are fimply felt, and
appear indistinct, as through a mist. When we attempt to re-
duce our griefs by artful comparison, that effort is made to our
difadvantage, and our calamities encreafe, like trees, that shoot
the higher, because they have felt the difcipline of the pruning
knife. Shakspeare has an expreffion fimilar to the foregoing:
"I fee before me, neither here nor there,

"Nor what enfues, but have a fog in them
"Which I cannot pierce through."

Cymbeline, A& III. fc. i. I may, however, have only exchanged one fort of nonfenfe for another; as the following comparison in Mr. Pope's Effay on Criticifm, v. 392, feems to fuggeft a different meaning to the obfervation of Dionyza :

"As things feem large which we through mifts defcry;" thus forrow is always apt to magnify its object. STEEVENS. * Our tongues and forrows do-] Mr. Malone reads-too. STEEVENS.

The original copy has-to, here and in the next line; which cannot be right. To was often written by our old writers for too; and in like manner too and two were confounded. The quarto of 1619 reads-do in the first line. I think Cleon means to fay-Let our tongues and forrows too found deep, &c.

8

MALONE.

till lungs-] The old copy has-tongues. The correction was made by Mr. Steevens. MALONE.

9 They may awake their helps to comfort them.] Old copyhelpers. STEEVENS.

Perhaps we should read-helps. So before:

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be my helps,

"To compafs fuch a boundlefs happiness!" MALONE. I have adopted Mr. Malone's very natural conjecture.

STEEVENS.

I'll then difcourfe our woes, felt several years, And wanting breath to speak, help me with tears. Dro. I'll do my best, fir.

CLE. This Tharfus, o'er which I have government,

(A city, on whom plenty held full hand,)

For riches, ftrew'd herself even in the streets ;1 Whose towers bore heads fo high, they kiss'd the clouds,2

And strangers ne'er beheld, but wonder'd at;

For riches, Strew'd herself even in the streets;] For, in the present instance, I believe, means-with respect to, with regard to riches. Thus, in Coriolanus:

"Rather our state's defective for requital,

"Than we to ftretch it out."

"Strew'd herself," referring to city, is undoubtedly the true reading. Thus, in Timon of Athens:

Thou'lt give away thyfelf in paper fhortly." STEEvens. Shakspeare generally uses riches as a fingular noun. Thus, in Othello:

"The riches of the ship is come afhore."

Again, ibid:

"But riches finelefs is as poor as winter-." Again, in hs 87th Sonnet:

"And for that riches where is my deferving?"

MALONE,

I should propose to read richness, inftead of riches, which renders the paffage not only correct, but much more poetical.

Malone must also prove that he ufes riches to exprefs a person, or it will not agree with the word herself, or anfwer in this place. This laft line fhould be in a parenthefis. M. MASON.

2

Hamlet:

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bore heads fo high, they kifs'd the clouds,] So, in

like the herald Mercury,

New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill."

Again, in The Rape of Lucrece, 1594:

Threat'ning cloud-kiffing Ilion with annoy." Again, more appofitely, in Troilus and Creffida:

"Yon towers whose wanton tops do bufs the clouds.”

MALONE,

Whose men and dames fo jetted and adorn'd,3
Like one another's glass to trim them by :4
Their tables were ftor'd full, to glad the fight,
And not fo much to feed on, as delight;
All poverty was scorn'd, and pride so great,
The name of help grew odious to repeat.
DIO. O, 'tis too true.

CLE. But fee what heaven can do! By this our change,

Thefe mouths, whom but of late, earth, fea, and air,

Were all too little to content and please,

Although they gave their creatures in abundance,
As houses are defil'd for want of use,

They are now ftarv'd for want of exercise:
Those palates, who not yet two summers younger,5

3-fo jetted and adorn'd,] To jet is to ftrut, to walk proudly. So, in Twelfth-Night: "Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock of him: how he jets under his advanced plumes!" STEEvens.

* Like one another's glass to trim them by :] The fame idea is found in Hamlet: Ophelia, fpeaking of the prince, fays he was: "The glass of fashion, and the mould of form, "The obferv'd of all obfervers."

Again, in Cymbeline :

"A fample to the youngeft, to the more mature
"A glafs that feated them."

Again, in The Second Part of King Henry IV:

He was indeed the glass,

"Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves."

MALONE.

Thofe palates, &c.] The paffage is fo corrupt in the old copy, that it is difficult even to form a probable conjecture upon it. It reads-who not yet two favers younger. The words [not us'd to hunger's favour] which I have inferted in my text, afford sense, and are not very remote from the traces of the original letters; and favour and hunger might easily have been transposed. We have in a subsequent scene:

"All viands that I eat, do feem unfavoury."

Must have inventions to delight the taste,
Would now be glad of bread, and beg for its
Those mothers who, to noufle up their babes,
Thought nought too curious, are ready now,
To eat those little darlings whom they lov'd.
So fharp are hunger's teeth, that man and wife
Draw lots, who firft fhall die to lengthen life :
Here flands a lord, and there a lady weeping;
Here many
fink, yet those which fee them fall,
Have scarce ftrength left to give them burial.
Is not this true?

I do not, however, propofe this emendation with the smallest confidence; but it may remain till fome lefs exceptionable conjecture fhall be offered. MALONE.

The old reading is evidently erroneous, but the change of a fingle word, the reading of fummers, instead of favers, gives us what certainly the author wrote:

Thofe palates who not yet two fummers younger, &c. That is, "Thofe palates, who lefs than two years ago, required fome new inventions of cookery to delight their tafte, would now be glad of plain bread." M. MASON.

I have inferted Mr. M. Mafon's emendation in the text. In Romeo and Juliet our author alfo computes time by the fame number of Jummers:

"Let two more fummers wither in their pride," &c. STEEVENS.

to noufle up their babes,] I would read-nurfle. A fondling is ftill called a nursing. To nouzle, or, as it is now written, nuzzle, is to go with the nofe down like a hog. So, Pope :

"The bleffed benefit, not there confin'd,
Drops to a third, who nuzzles close behind."

STEEVENS.

In an ancient poem entitled The firange Birth, honourable Coronation, and moft unhappie Death of famous Arthur, King of Brytaine, 1601, I find the word nuzzle used nearly in the fame manner as in the text:

"The firft fair (portive night that you
fhall have,
"Lying fafely nuzled by faire Igrene's fide."

Again, more appofitely, ibidem:

Being nuzzled in effeminate delights."

I have therefore retained the reading of the old copy. MALONE.

Dio. Our cheeks and hollow eyes do witness it. CLE. O, let those cities, that of Plenty's cup* And her profperities fo largely tafte,

With their fuperfluous riots, hear these tears!
The misery of Tharfus may be theirs.

Enter a Lord.

LORD. Where's the lord governor ?
CLE. Here.

Speak out thy forrows which thou bring'st, in haste,
For comfort is too far for us to expect.

LORD. We have defcried, upon our neighbouring fhore,

A portly fail of fhips make hitherward.

CLE. I thought as much.

One forrow never comes, but brings an heir,
That may fucceed as his inheritor ;9

And fo in ours: fome neighbouring nation,

Taking advantage,of our mifery,

"O, let thofe cities, that of Plenty's cup-] A kindred thought is found in King Lear:

66

Take phyfick pomp!

Expofe thyfelf to feel what wretches feel,
"That thou may'ft shake the fuperflux to them,
"And how the heavens more just."

Again, ibidem:

8

"Let the fuperfluous and luft-dieted man," &c.

MALONE.

thy forrows] Perhaps the forrows. STEEVENS.

One forrow never comes, but brings an heir,
That may fucceed as his inheritor ;] So, in Hamlet:
forrows never come as fingle spies,

"But in battalions."

Again, ibidem:

"So faft they follow."

STEEVENS.

another's heels,

MALONE.