Why this is not Lear:

Does Lear walk thus? Speak thus? Where are his eyes?

Either his notion weakens, or his difcernings
Are lethargy'd.-Ha! waking?-'tis not fo.-
Who is it that can tell me who I am? Lear's fhadow,
I would learn that; for by the marks

Of fov'reignty, of knowledge, and of reason,
I fhould be falfe perfuaded I had daughters.-
Your name, fair gentlewoman?

Lear, A. 1, S. 4.

These things, indeed, you have articulated,
Proclaim'd at market-croffes, read in churches;
To face the garment of rebellion

With fome fine colour, that may please the eye
Of fickle changelings, and poor discontents.

Henry IV. P. 1, A. 5, S. 1.

Thofe oppofed eyes,

Which-like the meteors of a troubled heaven,
All of one nature, of one substance bred,
Did lately meet in the intestine shock,
And furious clofe of civil butchery,

Shall now in mutual well-befeeming ranks,
March all one way.
Tell me, fweet lord, what is't that takes from thee
Thy ftomach, pleafure, and thy golden fleep?
Why doft thou bend thine eyes upon the earth,
And start so often when thou fitt'ft alone?

Henry IV. P. 1, A. 1. S. 1.

I.

A

Henry IV. P. 1, A. 2. S. 3.

He was but as the cuckow is in June,

Heard, not regarded; feen, but with fuch eyes,
As fick and blunted with community;
Afford no extraordinary gaze,

"A welkin eye" is a rolling eye, or as Leontes would infinuate,

a wanton eye, and, fuch as he fuppofes Hermione's to be. Welkin

comes from pelcan, Saxon, to roll about. No more it

A. B.

Such

Such as is bent on fun-like majefty,
When it shines feldom in admiring eyes.

Henry IV. P. 1. A. 3, S. 2.

I do fee

Danger and difobedience in thine eye;

O, fir, your prefence is too bold and peremptory,
And majefty might never yet endure
The moody frontier of a fervant brow.

Henry IV. P. 1, A. 1, S. 3.
Ŏ Thou! whofe captain I account myself,
Look on my forces with a gracious eye;
Put in their hands thy bruising irons of wrath,
That they may crush down with a heavy fall
The ufurping helmets of our adverfaries!
Make us thy ministers of chastisement,
That we may praise thee in thy victory!

Richard III. A. 5, S. 3.

I will converfe with iron-witted fools,
And unrefpected boys; none are for me,
That look into me with confiderate eyes.

Richard III. A. 4, S. 2.

We know the time, fince he was mild and affable;
And, if we did but glance a far-off look,
Immediately he was upon his knee,

That all the court adinir'd him for fubmiffion;
But meet him now, and be it in the morn,

When every one will give the time of day,
He knits his brow, and fhews an angry eye..

Henry VI. P. 2. A. 3, S. t. A lean cheek; which you have not: a blue eye, and funken, which you have not.

As you like it, A. 3, S. 2.

* A blue eye.] . e. a bluenefs about the eyes.

STEEVENS. A blue eye. But why a blue eye? I believe we should read "a flu eye."-Flu-fuifh, in the northern counties, is wa tery, weak, tender! "A fiu eye" will therefore mean an eye filled with tears. Fluer, French, to flow or run. I 2

ΠΛΥ

A. B.

FACE.

I

F.

FACE.

HAVE heard of your paintings too well enough; God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another: you jig, you amble, and you lifp, and nick-name God's creatures, and make your wantonnefs your ignorance'. Go to.

Hamlet, A. 3, S. 1.

I think my wife be honeft, and think she is not;
I think that thou art juft, and think thou art not;
I'll have fome proof: her name that was as fresh
As Dian's vifage, is now begrimm'd and black
As miné own face.
Othello, A. 3, S. 3.
He falls to fuch perufal of my face,

As he would draw it. Long ftaid he fo :
At laft, a little fhaking of mine arm,

And thrice his head thus waving up and down,-
He rais'd a figh fo piteous and profound,

As it did feem to fhatter all his bulk,

And end his being.

2 Let no face be kept in mind,

Hamlet, A. 2, S. 1.

But the fair of Rofalind. As you like it, A. 3, S. 2.

Make your wantonnefs your ignorance.] You mistake by wanton affectation, and pretend to miftake by ignorance. JOHNSON. "Make your wantonness your ignorance." The meaning is, when you are guilty of any improper behaviour you would have it attributed to fimplicity or ignorance, when the fact is, that it is ftudied.

2 Let no face be kept in mind,

A. B.

But the fair of Rofalind.] Thus the old copy. Fair is beauty, complexion. The modern editors read-the face

of Rofalind.

STEEVENS.

"The fair of Rofalind" is very harth. We may furely read, "But of the fair Rofalind.”.

i. e. but that of the fair Rofalind.

A. B.

FAIRY.

FAIR Y.

Fairies, be gone, and be always away.

Midfummer Night's Dream, A. 4, S. 1.

FAI IT H.

There are no tricks in plain and fimple faith :
But hollow men, like horfes hot at hand,
Make gallant fhew and promise of their mettle,
But when they should endure the bloody fpur,
They fall their crefts, and, like deceitful jades,
Sink in the trial.

Julius Cæfar, A. 4, S. 2.
Thou almost mak'ft me waver in my faith,
To hold opinion with Pythagoras,

That fouls of animals infufe themselves

Into the trunks of men. Merchant of Venice, A.4,

Thou haft no faith left now, unless thou hadst two, And that's far worse than none.

Two Gentlemen of Verona, A. 5, S. 3.

FALSEHOOD,

O, what a goodly outfide falfehood hath!

Merchant of Venice, A. 1, S. 3.

And be always away.] What! was the giving her attendants an everlasting difmiffion? No fuch thing, they were ftill to be upon duty. I am convinced the poet meant,

And be all ways away.

i.e. difperfe yourselves.

Mr. Upton reads,

And be away-away.—

Mr. Heath would read,

And be always i' th' way.

THEOBALD.

JOHNSON.

"Always away" is right. It means not that the fairies were never to return, but that they fhould not prefume to disturb Bottom-that during his repofe they fhould keep aloof.

The expreffion is according to the idiom of the FrenchVoila mes ordres; reftez toujours a Paris.-This is by no means to fignify that the perfon fo enjoined fhould never return from Paris, but that he should make it his principal place of refidence that he should remain there until he was recalled. A. B.

1

If I be false, or fwerve a hair from truth!

Let memory,

From falfe to falfe, among falfe maids in love,
Upbraid my falfehood! when they have faid-as
falfe

As air, as water, wind, or fandy earth,
As fox to lamb, as wolf to heifer's calf,
Pard to the hind, or ftep-dame to her fon;

Yea, let them fay, to stick the heart of falsehood,
As falfe as Creffid.

Troilus and Crefida, A. 3, S. 2.

F A ME.

He hath atchiev'd a maid

That paragons defcription, and wild fame;
One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens,
And, in the effential vefture of creation,
Does bear all excellency.

Othello, A. 2, S. 1,.

If you do not all fhew like gilt two-pences to me; and I, in the clear fky of fame, o'ershine you as much as the full moon doth the cinders of the element, which fhew like pins heads to her; believe not the

And in the effential vefture of creation,

Does bear all excellency.] It is plain that fomething very hyperbolical was here intended, But what is there as it stands? Why this, that in the effence of creation, the bore all excellency. The expreffion is intolerable, and could never come from one who so well understood the force of words as our poet. Shakefpeare certainly wrote,

"And in terrestrial vefture of creation.". And in this lay the wonder, that all created excellence should be contained within an earthly mortal form. WARBURTON.

I do not think the prefent reading inexplicable. The author feems to ufe effential for exiftent, real. She excels the praise of invention, fays he, and in real qualities, with which creation has invested her, bears all excellency. JOHNSON. I do not find any difficulty in this paffage. The poet would infinuate that woman is the most finished, the most perfect work of heaven; and that Desdemona excels her fex. A very common thought, but fomewhat quaintly expressed.

A. B.

word