N.

NAIA D.

OU nymphs, call'd Naiads, of the wand'ring brooks,

γοι

With your fedg'd crowns, and ever harmless looks, Leave your crifp channels.

Tempeft, A. 4, S. 1.

NAM E.

With thy bleffings fteel my lance's point,
That it may enter Mowbray's waxen coat *,
And furbish new the name of John of Gaunt.

I

Richard II. A. 1, S. 3. To abide a field,

found of Hotspur's name Henry IV. P. 2, A. 2, S. 3.

NATION.

wand'ring brooks.] The modern editors read winding brooks. The old copy windring. I fuppofe we should read wan

d'ring, as it is here printed.

Perhaps we should read, windered brooks, i. e. fides were decked, or ornamented, with flowers. Chaucer, is gay, trim, ornamented..

2

STEEVENS: brooks whofe Windered, in A. B.

waxen coat.] Waxen may mean foft, and confequentSTEEVENS.

ly penetrable. A 66 waxen coat" is not a coat made of wax, nor even a foft coat. The speech is figurative. Waxen is employed as a participle prefent, and means growing.-Coat is ufed for confequence, importance, in allufion to enfigns armorial. Bolingbroke's meaning is, that he hopes to overturn, or put down, the growing greatness of Mowbray, and to raise up the name of Gaunt.

A. B.

3 Did feem defenfible.] Defenfible does not, in this place, mean capable of defence, but bearing ftrength, furnishing the means of defence.

MALONE.

The

NATION.

Remember where we are;

In France, amongst a fickle wavering nation :
If they perceive diffenfion in our looks,
And that within ourselves we disagree,

How will their grudging stomachs be provok'd
To wilful disobedience, and rebel!

Henry VI. P. 1, A. 4, S. 1. He hath difgraced me, and hindered me of half a million; laugh'd at my loffes, mock'd at my gains, fcorn'd my nation, thwarted my bargains, cool'd my friends, heated mine enemies, and what's his reason! I am a Jew. Merchant of Venice, A. 3, S. 1. This heavy-headed revel, east and weft,

Makes us traduc'd, and tax'd of other nations:
They clepe us drunkards, and with fwinish phrafe
Soil our addition; and, indeed, it takes

From our atchievements, though perform'd at height,
The pitch and marrow of our attribute.

Hamlet, A. 1, S. 4.

NATURE.

Nature is made better by no mean,

But nature makes that mean; so, o'er that art

Which, you fay, adds to nature, is an art

That nature makes.

Winter's Tale, A. 4, S. 3.

Once a day, I'll visit

The chapel where they lie; and tears, fhed there,

Shall be my recreation: fo long as nature

Will bear up with this exercise, fo long

I daily vow to use it.

Winter's Tale, A. 3, S. 2,

The meaning is, that nothing but the name of Hotfpur gave ftrength or fupport to the caufe. So in Richard III.

"Befide, the king's name is a tower of strength, &c.”

A. B.

This

This is as ftrange a maze as e'er men trod :
And there is in this business more than nature
Was ever conduct of.
Tempeft, A. 5, S. 1.
How blefs'd are we, that are not fingle men!
Yet nature might have made me as these are,
Therefore I will not difdain. Wint. Tale, A. 4, S. 3.
Nature wants ftuff

To vie ftrange forms with fancy; yet, to imagine
An Antony, were nature's piece 'gainst fancy,
Condemning fhadows quite.

Antony and Cleopatra, A. 5, S. 2.

How fometimes nature will betray its folly,
Its tenderness: and make itself a paftime
To harder bofoms!

O thou goddefs,

Winter's Tale, A. 1, S. 2.

Thou divine nature, thou thy felf thou blazon'st
In these two princely boys! They are as gentle
As zephyrs, blowing below the violet,

Not wagging his fweet head, and yet as rough,
Their royal blood enchaf'd, as the rud'ft wind,
That by the top doth take the mountain pine,
And make him ftoop to the vale.

Cymbeline, A. 4, S. 2.

Though train'd up thus meanly

I' the cave, wherein they bow, their thoughts do hit
The roofs of palaces; and nature prompts them,
In fimple and low things, to prince it, much
Beyond the trick of others.

Cymbeline, A. 3, S. 3.

Too much of water haft thou, poor Ophelia,
And therefore I forbid my tears : but yet
It is our trick; nature her custom holds,

Let shame fay what it will: when these are gone

The woman will be out.

Hamlet, A. 4, S. 7.

Hath nature given them eyes

To fee this vaulted arch, and the rich crop
Of fea and land, which can distinguish 'twixt -

The

The fiery orbs above, and the twinn'd stones
Upon the number'd beach? and can we not
Partition make with spectacles fo precious
"Twixt fair and foul?

Cymbeline, A. 1, S. 7.

Use can almost change the ftamp of nature,
And either master the devil, or throw him out
With wond'rous potency.

And when you are defirous to be bleft,

I'll bleffing beg of you.

Once more, good night!

Hamlet, A. 3, S. 4.

Here lay Duncan,

His filver fkin lac'd with his golden blood;

And his gafh'd ftabs look'd like a breach in nature, For ruin's wafteful entrance: there the murderers

and the twinn'd ftones

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

66 Upon th' unnumber'd beach ?"

i. e. the infinite extenfive beach.

THEOBALD.

"Upon th' unnumber'd beach?" Senfe, and the antithefis, oblige us to read this nonsense thus:

66

Upon the bumbled beach ?"

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

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

I would read thus:

66 which can distinguish 'twixt

"The fiery orbs above, and the twinn'd stones
"Unnumber'd on the beach?"

JOHNSON,

Unnumber'd feems to include both ftars and ftones. Twinn'd ftones, may mean, ftones in shape and number like the ftars.

The fenfe, I believe, is this; Man, fays the poet, can diftinguish between the fiery orbs above, and the ftones upon the beach, which are fpherical like those orbs, and which also resemble them in number; and cannot we, affifted as we are by reafon, by the faculties of the foul; or as he expreffes it, having fpectacles fo precious," diftinguish between virtue and vice,-betwixt fair and foul?

66

A. B.

Steep'd

Steep'd in the colours of their trade, their daggers Unmannerly breech'd with gore

Macbeth, A. 2, S. 3.

Let your own difcretion be your tutor: fuit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special obfervance, that you o'erftep not the modefty of nature; for any thing fo overdone is from the purpose of playing, whofe end, both at the first, and now, was, and is, to hold the mirror as 'twere up to nature; to fhew virtue her own feature, fcorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and preffure. Hamlet, A. 3, S. 2.

That nature, which contemns its origin,
Cannot be border'd certain in itself;
She that herself will fliver and disbranch

gore, are

1 Unmannerly breech'd with gore.] An unmannerly dagger, and a dagger breech'd, or, as in fome editions, breach'd with expreffions not eafily to be understood. There are undoubtedly two faults in this paffage, which I have endeavoured to take away by reading,

daggers

"Unmannerly drench'd with gore.'

I faw, drenched with the king's blood, the fatal daggers, not only inftruments of murder, but evidences of cowardice.

"Unmannerly breech'd with gore."

JOHNSON

This nonfenfical account of the state in which the daggers were found, muft furely be read thus:

"Unmannerly reech'd with gore." Reech'd, foiled with a dark yellow, which is the colour of any reechy fubftance, and must be fo of steel stained with blood.

WARBURTON.

"This paffage (fays Mr. Heath) feems to have been the crux "criticorum. Every one has tried his skill at it, and I may ven"ture to fay, no one has fucceeded."

The whole matter is, I think, that fome of the lines have been transposed at the prefs. I regulate the paffage thus: "Here lay Duncan,

"His filver skin lac'd with his golden blood;

"And his gafh'd ftabs look'd like a breach in nature, (Unmannerly breach!) for ruin's wafteful entrance.There the murderers, fteep'd in the colours of their trade, "Their daggers drenched with gore."

A. B.

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