P. 172. Char. Three in Egypt Cannot make better note.] Alluding to the old catches, which were in three parts.

Dr. GRAY.
-When I

P. 197. Ant.
cry'd, Hoa!
Cry'd boa! like boys unto a mufs,
kings would

Start forth, and cry, your will.] Mufs, a fcramble. So ufed by Ben Johnfon. See the Magnetic Lady, act iv. fc. iii. p. 44.

66

Bias. "I keep her portion "fafe, that is not fcatter'd, "The moneys rattle not; nor are they thrown To make a muss, yet'mong "the game fome fuitors." Dr. GRAY. P. 260. In the note, for Don Belliarus, read Don Bellianis.

P. 286. What both

and flop.] I think Imogen means you Spur to enquire what is that news, that intelligence, or information, you profefs to bring, and yet withhold at leaft, I think, your explanation a miltaken one, for Imogen's requeft fuppofes Iachimo an agent, not a patient.

Mr. HAWKINS. P. 347. Untwine his perishing root, &c.] The attribute of the elder in this place is perishing, that of the vine encreafing. Let therefore the flinking elder grief

ENTWINE his root with that of the vine [patience,] and in the end patience muft out-grow grief. This I take to be the fenfe, and that therefore we should read Mr. HAWKINS

ENTWINE.

Mr. Simpfen, reads, thy fluggi P. 354. thy fluggish carrack.] ing veffel, called in the Latin of crare. A crare was a fmall tradthe middle ages, crayera.

REVISAL

This I think is right.
called ruddock, by Chaucer and
P. 355. The robin-red-breaft
Spenfer.

66

The falfe lapwinge, all full "of trecherie,

"The ftarling that the coun
"fails can bewrie,
"The tame ruddock, and the
"coward kite."-

NOTES to the EIGHTH VOLUME.

Dr. GRAY

Jelf,] Read, Or take upon yourself. P. 382. Or to take upon yourREVISAL witch.] In one way of trying P. 444: Thou ftool for a a witch, they ufed to place her upon a chair or tool, with her legs tied acrofs, that all the weight of her body might reft upon her feat; and by that means, after fome time, the circulation of the blood, in fome hours, would be much stopt, and her fitting would be as painful as the wooden horse.

Shakespeare ufes it in this fenfe,
Life of King Henry V. act iii.
fc. iii. p. 360.

Bay. "Nym and Bardolph are
"fworn

copies of ballads with those now

extant.

The third ftanza begins thus:
"The blinded boy that shoots
"fo trim,

"Did to his clofet windowfteal,
"And drew a dart and fhot
"at him,
"And made him foon his
66 power feel," &c.
I fhould rather read as in
Shakespeare, The purblind boy.

If this is the fong alluded to by Shakespeare, thefe fhould feem to be the very lines he had in his eye; and therefore I fhould fuppofe the lines in Romeo and Juliet, r. were originally.

ἐς

Her purblind fon and « heir, "Young Adam Cupid, he that "fhot so trim, "When, &c.". This word trim, the firft edi. tors, confulting the general fenfe of the paffage, and not perceiving the allufion, would naturally alter to true: yet the former feems the more humourous expreffion, and, on account of its quaintnefs, more likely to have been used by the droll Mercutio. Mr. PERCY. P. 50. 1 Serv. Save me a piece of march-pane.] A confection made of Piftacho nuts, almonds, fugar, &c. and in high efteem in Shakespeare's time; as appears from the account of Queen Elizabeth's Entertainment in Cambridge. 'Tis faid that the University prefented Sir William Cecyl, their Chancellor, with two pair of gloves, a march-pane, and two fugar loaves. Peck's Defiderata Curiofa, vol. 2. p. 29. Dr. GRAY.

VOL. VIII.

P. 68. Stread thy close cur tain love performing night, I am no better fatisfied with Dr. That Run-aways eves may swink.] Warburton's emendation than the prefent editor, but tho' I have none I have a good opinion of, offer at an explanation. to propofe in its room, will yet

be fo dark, that none of thofe Juliet wishes the night may in it, on fome account or other, who are obliged to run away may meet with Romeo, and know his perfon, but that he may Leap to her arms untalk'd of and unfeen. not be the fun, who must have run away in this place cancould spread its curtain, and fuch been effectually gone before night a with must have taken place before the eyes of thefe run-aways could be fuppofed to wink.

The

mour's eyes may wink, and he
The Revijal reads, That Ru
might have fupported his con-
jecture from the figure of Fame,
Virgil.
i. e. Rumour, as defcribed by

And yet this is but a conjecture,
Tot vigiles oculi fubter, &c.
though a very ingenious one.
Mr. STEEVENS.
madam.
P. 86. For I madam, read ay

fay that the foregoing note is an
P. 117. N. 6. I am forry to
inftance of difingenuity, as well as
inattention, in Mr. Theobald, who,
relying on the fcarcity of the old
quartos, very frequently makes
thinks proper to affert.
them answerable for any thing he

the firft, it was preceded by one
The quarto in 1599, was not
in 1597, and though Mr. T. de-
LI

clares

clares, be found the passage left out in feveral of the later quarto im preffions, yet in the lift of thofe he pretends to have collated for the ufe of his edition, he mentions but one of a later date, and had never seen either that published in 1609, or another without any date at all; for in the former of thefe the paffage in question is preferved, (the latter I have no copy of) and he has placed that in 1637, on the fingle faith of which he rejected it, among thofe only of middling authority: fo that what he fo roundly afferts of feveral, can with juftice be faid of but one, for these are in reality no later-quarto editions of this play than I have here enumerated, and two of thofe (by his own confeffion) he had never met with.

the allufion to the pilot or the tempest beaten bark. Here's fuccefs, fays he (continuing the allufion) to the veffei wherever it tumbles in, or perhaps, to the pilot who is to conduct, or tumble it in; meaning, I wish it may fucceed in ridding me of life, whatever may betide me after it, or wherever it may carry mr. He then drinks to the memory of Juliet's love, adding (as he feels the poifon work) a fhort apoftrophe to the apothecary, the effect of whofe drugs he can doubt no longer, and turning his thoughts back again to the object most be loved, he dies (like Othello) on a kiss.

The other hemiftich (not difpofed of) may yet be brought in; how naturally, must be left to the reader to determine. The quarto of 1609, exhibits the pailage thus:

"Ah, dear Julie!!"

Why art thou yet to fair? "I will believe;

"Shall I believe? that unfub.

The hemiftich, which Mr. T. pronounces to be of most profound abfurdity, deferves a much better character; but being misplaced, could not be connected with the part of the fpeech where he found it, but, being introduced a few lines lower, feems to make very good fenfe.

"Come bitter conduct! come unfav'ry guide!

•C

"Thou defperate pilot, now

66

at once run on

"The dafhing rocks my fea
"fick, weary bark.
"Here's to thy health where'er
"thou tumblest in.
"Here's to my love! ch true

"apothecary!
"Thy drugs are quick. Thus

"with a kifs I die."
To tumble into port in a storm,
I believe to be a fea-phrafe, as is
a tumbling Jea, and agrees with

"ftantial death is amorous, "And that the lean, &c."

If fuch an idea could have any foundation in nature, or be allowed in poetry, and Romes in confequence of having railed it to his imagination, was jealous of death, it would follow, that in the first frenzy of it he might addrefs himself to his miftrefs, and take her in his arms for the greater fecurity. That being granted, with a flight tranf pofition (one verfe already exceeding the meature by two feet) the paffage might be read thus:

"Ah! dear Juliet,

"Why

* Why art thou yet so fair?
"hall I believe?

TO VOL. VIII

"I will believe (come lie thou
" in my arms)

"That unfubftantial death is

"amorous,

And that the lean, &c." The whole paffage may perhaps be fuch as hardly to be worth this toil of tranfpofition, but one critick has just as good a right to offer at the introduction of what he thinks he underftands, as another has to omit it because he can make no use of it at all. The whole of the conjecture on both paffages is offered with no degree of confidence, and from no other motive than a defire of preferving every line of Shakespeare, when any reafon, tolerably plausible, can be given in its favour.

Mr. Theobald has not dealt very fairly in his account of this fpeech, as the abfurdity is apparently owing to the repetition of fome of the lines by a blunder of the printer, who had thereby made Romeo confefs the effects of the poison before he had tafted it.

This play was confiderably altered and enlarged by the author, after the first copies had been printed, and great as is the improvement made by the additions, the alterations here and there may be for the worfe. To enumerate thefe is now too late, as they are many in number, and happen in almost every speech. Mr. STEEVENS. As I could not procure a fight of any of the quartos, 'till I had printed off the whole play, I muft refer the curious reader to the old editions themfelves, which will very foon be made publick.

P. 142. For your father loft,, loft his. loft, his, read your father loft,

}

P. 147. Hor. I Jaw him once,

he was

A goodly king.
Ham. He was a man, take him
for all in all,

Eye fhall not look upon his like
me more the true fpirit of Shake-
again] This feems to
Speare than I. Mr. HOLT.
SAMWEL.
The emendation of Sir T..

ftance of worth out;] The Revi P. 160. Doth all the noble SubSal reads,

Doth all the noble substance oft

eat out;

Or,

Dotb all the noble fubflance foil with doubt.

fpifed them both, had they been The authour would have deanother's.

Mr. Holt reads,

Doth all the noble fubftance oft
adopt.

fland.
I think Theobald's reading may.

P. 164. Doom'd for a certain
time to walk the night,
And for the day confin'd to faft

fimilar paffage, with regard to the
in fires.] Chaucer has a
punishments of Hell. Parfon's
Tale, p. 193. Mr. Urry's edition.
"And moreover, the mifefe

"(uneafinefs) of hell,
"Shall be in defaute of mete
" and drink."

Dr. GRAY. P. 166. The word here used Metathefis, either of a poet, or was more probably designed by a tranfcriber, for henebon, that is henbane; of which the most common kind (hyfcyamus niger)

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