Cor. (4) Your Highness

Shall from this practice but make hard your heart;
Befides, the feeing these effects will be
Both noifome and infectious.

Queen. O, content thee.

Enter Pifanio.

Here comes a flatt'ring rafcal, upon him
Will I first work; he's for his master,

[Afide.

And enemy to my fon. How now, Pifanio? fervice for this time is ended;

--Doctor, your

Take your own way.

Cor. I do fufpect you, Madam;

But you fhall do no harm.
Queen. Hark thee, a word.-

[Afide.

[To Pifanio.

Cor. [Solus (5) I do not like her. She doth think,

fhe has

Strange ling'ring poifons; I do know her fpirit,
And will not trust one of her malice with

A drug of fuch damn'd nature. Thofe, fhe has,
Will ftupify and dull the fenfe awhile;

Which firft, perchance, fhe'll prove on cats and dogs,
Then afterwards up higher; but there is
No danger in what fhew of death it makes,
More than the locking up the fpirits a time,
To be more fresh, reviving. She is fool'd
With a moft falfe effect; and I the truer,
So to be falfe with her.

(4) Your Highness

Shall from this practice but make hard your heart; There is in' this paffage nothing that much requires a note, yet I cannot forbear to push it forward into obfervation. The thought would probably have been more amplified, had our authour lived to be fhocked with fuch experiments as have been published in later times, by a race of men that have practifed tortures without pity, and related them without fhame, and are yet fuffered to erect their heads among human beings.

Cape faxa manu, cape robora, paftor.

(5) I do not like her. This foliloquy is very inartificial. The fpeaker is under no ftrong preffure of thought; he is nei ther refolving, repenting, fufpecting, nor deliberating, and yet makes a long speech, to tell himself what himself knows.

Queen.

Queen. No further fervice, Doctor, Until I fend for thee.

Cor. I humbly take my leave.

[Exit.

Queen. Weeps the ftill, fay'ft thou dost thou think, in time

She will not quench and let inftructions enter
Where folly now poffeffes? do thou work;
When thou shalt bring me word fhe loves my fon,
I'll tell thee on the instant, thou art then
As great as is thy mafter; greater; for
His fortunes all lie fpeechlefs, and his name
Is at laft gafp. Return he cannot, nor
Continue where he is: (6) to shift his being,
Is to exchange one mifery with another;
And every day, that comes, comes to decay
A day's work in him. What fhalt thou expect,
To be depender on a thing (7) that leans?"
Who cannot be new built, and has no friends,
So much as but to prop him?-Thou tak'ft up

[Pifanio takes up the Phial.
Thou know'st not what; but take it for thy labour;
It is a thing I make, which hath the King
Five times redeem'd from death; I do not know
What is more cordial. Nay, I pr'ythee, take it;
It is an earnest of a further Good

That I mean to thee. Tell thy mistress how
The cafe ftands with her; do 't, as from thyfelf:
Think, what a change thou chanceft on: but think ;-
Thou haft thy mistress ftill; to boot, my fon;
Who fhall take notice of thee. I'll move the King
To any shape of thy preferment, fuch

As thou❜lt defire; and then myself, I chiefly,
That fet thee on to this defert, am bound
To load thy merit richly. Call my women-

[Exit Pifanio.
Think on my words-A fly and constant knave,
Not to be fhak'd; the agent for his master;
And the remembrancer of her, to hold
The hand faft to her Lord.-I've given him that,

(6)

-to fhift his being,] To change his abode.
-that leans P] That inclines towards its fall.

Which

Which, if he take, fhall quite unpeople her

(8) Of leigers for her fweet; and which fhe, after, Except fhe bend her humour, fhall be affur'd

To tale of too.

Enter Pifanio, and Ladies.

So, fo; well done, well done.

The violets, cowflips, and the primroses,
Bear to my clofet. Fare thee well, Pifanio,

Think on my words.

Pif. And fhall do:

[Exeunt Queen and Ladies.

[Exit.

But when to my good Lord I prove untrue,
I'll choke myself; there's all I'll do for you.

Imo.

A

SCENE VIII.

Changes to Imogen's Apartments.

Enter Imogen alone.

Father cruel, and a Stepdame false, A foolish fuitor to a wedded lady, That hath her husband banish'd-O, that husband! My fupreme crown of grief, and those repeated Vexations of it-Had I been thief-ftoll'n,

As my two brothers, happy! (9) but moft miferable

(8) Of leigers for her fweet;-] A leiger ambaffador, is one that refides at a foreign court, to promote his master's interest. but most miferable

Is the defire, that's glorious.

Her husband, the fays, proves her fupreme grief. She had been happy had the been stolen as her brothers were, but now fhe is miferable, as all thofe are who have a fenfe of worth and honour fuperior to the vulgar, which occafions them infinite vexations from the envious and worthlefs part of mankind. Had the not fo refined a tafte as to be content only with the fuperior merit of Pofthumus, but could have taken up with Cloten, the might have escaped thefe perfecutione. This elegance of taste, which always difcovers an excellence and chufes it, fhe calls with great fublimity of expreffion, The defire that's glorious; which the Oxford Editor not understanding alters to, The degree that's glorious. WARBUR.

Is the defire, that's glorious. (1) Blefs'd be thofe, How mean foe'er, that have their honeft wills, Which feasons comfort. Who may this be? fy!

Enter Pifanio, and Iachimo.

Pif. Madam, a noble Gentleman of Rome
Comes from my Lord with letters.
Iach. Change you, Madam?
The worthy Leonatus is in fafety,
And greets your Highness dearly.
Imo. Thanks, good Sir,

You're kindly welcome.

[Gives a Letter.

Iach. All of her, that is out of door, moft rich! If the be furnish'd with a mind fo rare,

She is alone th' Arabian bird; and I

Have loft the wager. Boldnefs be my friend!
Arm me, Audacity, from head to foot:
Or, like the Parthian, I fhall flying fight,
Rather directly fly.

[Afide

nobleft note, to whofe kindneffes I am Reflect upon him accordingly, as you

So far I read aloud:

But ev'n the very middle of my heart

Leonatus.

Is warm'd by th' reft, and takes it thankfully.

(1) Blefs'd be those

How mean foe'er, that have their honeft wills,
Which feafons comfort.-

The laft words are equivocal; but the meaning is this. Who are beholden only to the feafons for their fupport and nourishments; fo that, if those be kindly, fuch have no more to care for or defire. WARBURTON.

I am willing to comply with any meaning that can be extorted from the present text, rather than change it, yet will propofe, but with great diffidence, a flight alteration:

-Blefs'd be thofe,

How mean foe'er, that have their honeft wills,
With reafon's comfort.

Who gratify their innocent wishes with reasonable enjoyments.

-You

.

You are as welcome, worthy Sir, as I Have words to bid you; and shall find it so, In all that I can do.

Iach. Thanks, faireft Lady.

-What! are men mad? hath nature given them

eyes

[Afide. To fee this vaulted arch, (2) and the rich cope Of fea and land, which can distinguish 'twixt The fiery orbs above, (3) and the twinn'd ftones Upon the number'd beach? and can we not Partition make with fpectacles fo precious "Twixt fair and foul?

Imo. What makes your admiration?

Iach. It cannot be i' th' eye; for apes and monkeys. 'Twixt two fuch' fhe's, would chatter this way, and Contemn with mowes the other: Nor i' th' judgment; For Ideots, in this cafe of favour, would Be wifely definite: Nor i' th' appetite:

(2)and the rich CROP

Of fea and land,

He is here fpeaking of the covering of sea and land. Shakespeare therefore wrote,

and the rich COPE.

(3) and the twinn'd ftones
Upon the number'd beach ?-

WARBUR.

I have no idea, in what fenfe the beach, or fhore, fhould be called number'd. I have ventured, against all the copies, to fubftitute,

Upon th' unnumber'd beach?

i. e. the infinite extenfive beach, if we are to understand the epithet as coupled to that word. But, I rather think, the poet intended an hypallage, like that in the beginning of OVID's Metamorphofes;

(In nova fert animus mutatas dicera formas
Corpora.)

And then we are to understand the passage thus; and the infinite number of twinn'd ftones upon the beach.

Upon th' UNNUMBER'D beach?

THEOB.

Senfe and the antithefis oblige us to read this nonfenfe thus,
Upon the HUMBL'D beach ?-

i. e. becaufe daily infulted with the flow of the tide.

WARB.

I know not well how to regulate this paffage. Number'd is perhaps numerous. Twinn'd ftones, I do not understand. Twinn'd fbells, or pairs of fhells, are very common. For twinn'd, we might read, twin'd; that is, twisted, convolved: But this fenfe is more applicable to fhells than to ftones.

Slutt❜ry