date: "It is called bating, for she bateth with herselfe most often causelesse.' STEEVENS. 226. Take him and cut him into little stars, &c.] The same childish thought occurs in The Wisdom of Doctor Dody pole, which was acted before the year 1596: "The glorious parts of faire Lucilia, "Take them and joine them in the heavenly spheres ; "And fixe them there as an eternal light, "For lovers to adore and wonder at." 229. STEEVENS. the garish sun.] Milton had this speech in his thoughts when he wrote Il Penseroso : "Civil night, "Thou sober-suited matron.”—Shakspere. JOHNSON, " ---march'd like players "With garish robes." It sometimes signifies wild, flighty. So, in the following instance : "starting up and gairishly staring about, especially on the face of Eliosto." Hinde's Eliosto Libidinoso, 1606. STEEVENS. 253. death-darting eye of cockatrice:] The strange lines that follow here in the common books, are not in the old edition. The strange lines are these: I am not I, if there be such an I, POPE. Or these eyes shot, that makes thee answer I; Brief sounds determine of my weal or woe. These lines hardly deserve emendation; yet it may be proper to observe, that their meanness has not placed them below the malice of fortune, the first two of them being evidently transposed. We should read : That one vowel I shall poison more, Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice, JOHNSON. I think the transposition recommended may be spared. The second line is corrupted. Read shut instead of shot, and then the meaning will be sufficiently intelligible. Shot, however, may be the same as shut. So, in Chaucer's Miller's Tale, late edit. ver. 3358: "And dressed him up by a shot window.” STEEVENS. 279. O serpent heart, hid with a flow'ring face!] The same images occur in Macbeth: -look like the innocent flower, "But be the serpent under it.". HENLEY. 282. Dove-feather'd raven! &c.] In old editions, Ravenous dove, feather'd raven, &c. The The four following lines not in the first edition, as well as some others which I have omitted. POPE. Ravenous dove, feather'd raven, Wolvish-ravening lamb!] This passage Mr. Pope has thrown out of the text, because these two noble hemistichs are inharmonious: but is there no such thing as a crutch for a labouring, halting verse? I'll venture to restore to the poet a line that is in his own mode of thinking, and truly worthy of him. Ravenous was blunderingly coined out of raven and ravening; and if we only throw it out, we gain at once an harmonious verse, and a proper contrast of epithets and images: Dove-feather'd raven! wolvish-rav'ning lamb ! THEOBALD. 300. Upon his brow shame is asham❜d to sit;] So, in Painter's Palace of Pleasure, Tom. II. p. 223: “Is it possible that under such beautie and rare comelinesse, disloyaltie and treason may have their fledge and lodging?" This sentiment is not in the poem. STEEVENS. 306. Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name, When I, thy three hours wife, have mangled it?] So, in the poem already quoted, of Romeus and Juliet : "Ah cruel murd'ring tongue, murderer of other's fame, "How durst thou once attempt to touch the ho nour of his name? "Whose "Whose deadly foes do yield him due and earn ed praise, "For though his freedom be bereft, his honour not decays. "Why blam'st thou Romeus for slaying of Tybalt? "Since he is guiltless quite, and Tybalt bears the fault. "Whither shall he, alas! poor banish'd man, "What place of succour shall he seek beneath the starry sky? "Since she pursueth him, and him defames of wrong, "That in distress should be his fort, and only MALONE. rampire strong." 310. Back, foolish tears, &c.] So, in The Tempest : 66- -I am a fool "To weep at what I am glad of." I think, in this speech of Juliet, the words woe and joy should change places; otherwise, her reasoning is inconclusive. STEEVENS. To me it appears, that the transposition proposed would have the opposite of the intended effect. HENLEY. Juliet's reasoning, as the text now stands, appears to me perfectly correct.-Back (says she) to your native source, you foolish tears! Properly you ought to flow only on melancholy occasions; but now you erroneously shed your tributary drops for an event [the death of Tybalt, Act III. and the subsequent escape of my beloved Romeo] which is in fact to me a subject of joy.—Tybalt, if he could, would have slain my husband; but my husband is alive, and has slain Tybalt. This is a source of joy, not of sorrow: wherefore then do I weep?.. MALONE. Again, in Painter's Palace of Pleasure: "Where from henceforth shall be his refuge sith she which ought to be the only bulwarke and assined repare of his distresse doth persue and defame him." HENDERSON. 322. Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts,] Hath put Tybalt out of my mind, as if out of being. JOHNSON. The true meaning is, I am more affected by Romeo's banishment, than I should be by the death of ten thousand such relations as Tybalt. REMARKS. 328., Which modern lamentation, &c.] This line is left out of the later editions, I suppose because the editors did not remember that Shakspere uses modern for common, or slight: I believe it was in his time confounded in colloquial language with moderate..c. JOHNSON. More honourable state, more courtship lives In carrion flies, than Romeo:] Validity seems here to mean worth or dignity; and courtship the state of a courtier permitted to approach the highest presence. JOHNSON. By courtship the author seems rather to have meant the state of a lover; that dalliance, in which he who 2 courts |