And as the thing that's heavy in itself, Lend to this weight fuch lightnefs with their fear, North. For this I fhall have time enough to mourn. In poifon there is phyfic; and these news That would, had I been well, have made me fick, See what is faid on this fubject in Love's Labour loft, ac v. his party feel'd Turn'd on themselves like dull and heavy lead, that his intention was not to drop the idea from whence he took his metaphor, then he cannot fay with propriety and elegance, his metal was abated; because what he predicates of metal, must be then conveyed in a term conformable to the metaphor. Hence I conclude that Shakespeare wrote, Which once in him rebated-] i. e. blunted. WARBURTON. Here is a great effort to produce little effect. The commentator does not feem fully to understand the word abated, which is not here put for the general idea of diminished, nor for the notion of blunted, as applied to a fingle edge. Abated means reduced to a lower temper, or, as the workmen call it, let down. JOHNSON. 9 'Gan vail his ftomach,- -] Began to fall his courage, to let his fpirits fink under his fortune. JOHNSON. A a 4 Like Like ftrengthlefs hinges, buckle under life, Out of his keeper's arms; even fo my limbs, Weaken'd with grief, being now enrag'd with grief, A fcaly gauntlet now, with joints of steel, Bard. 4 This ftrained paffion doth you wrong, my lord! Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from 1 your honour. Mort. buckle-] Bend; yield to preffure. JOHNSON. 2 The rugged'ft hour, &c.] The old edition, The ragged'ft hour that time and pight dare bring To frown, &c.] There is no confonance of metaphors betwixt ragged and frown; nor, indeed, any dignity in the image. On both accounts, therefore, I fufpect our author wrote, as I have reformed the text, The rugged' bour, &c. THEOBALD. 3 And darkness, &c.] The conclufion of this noble speech is extremely striking. There is no need to fuppofe it exactly philofophical; darkness, in poetry, may be abfence of eyes, as well as privation of light. Yet we may remark, that by an ancient opinion it has been held, that if the human race, for whom the world was made, were extirpated, the whole fyftem of fublunary nature would ceafe. JOHNSON. 4 This frained paffion, &c.] This line is only in the first edition, Mort. The lives of all your loving complices Lean on your health; the which, if you give o'er To ftormy paffion, muft perforce decay. faid, 5 You caft the event of war, my noble lord, Bard. We all, that are engaged to this lofs, edition, where it is fpoken by Umfrevile, who fpeaks no where elfe. It feems neceffary to the connection.. POPE. Umfrevile is fpoken of in this very scene as abfent; the line was therefore properly given to Bardolph, or perhaps might yet more properly be given to Travers, who is prefent, and yet is made to fay nothing on this very interefting occafion. STEEVENS. You caft the event of war, &c.] The fourteen lines from hence to Bardolph's next fpeech, are not to be found in the first editions till that in folio of 1623. A very great number of other lines in this play are inferted after the first edition in like manner, but of fuch spirit and maftery generally, that the infertions are plainly by Shakespeare himself. POPE. To this note I have nothing to add, but that the editor fpeaks of more editions than I believe him to have seen, there having been but one edition yet difcovered by me that precedes the first folio. JOHNSON. Mort. Mort. 'Tis more than time: and my most noble lord, I hear for certain, and do fpeak the truth: Suppos'd fincere and holy in his thoughts, And more, and lefs, do flock to follow him. Get pofts, and letters, and make friends with speed; Never fo few, and never yet more need. The gentle, &c.] fince the first edition. [Exeunt. Thefe one-and-twenty lines were added beftride a bleeding land,] That is, ftands over his country to defend her as the lies bleeding on the ground. So Falftaff before fays to the prince, If thou fee me down, Hal, and beftride me, fo; it is an office of friendship. 8 And more, and lefs, lefs. STEEVENS. ད JOHNSON. -] More and less mean greater aud SCENE Enter Sir John Falstaff, with his page bearing his fword and buckler. Fal. Sirrah, you, giant! 9 what fays the doctor to my water? Page. He faid, Sir, the water itself was a good healthy water. But, for the party that owed it, he might have more difeafes than he knew for. Fal. Men of all forts take a pride to gird at me. The brain of this foolish-compounded-clay, man, is not able to invent any thing that tends to laughter, more than I invent, or is invented on me. I am not only witty in myself, but the caufe that wit is in other men. I do here walk before thee, like a fow that hath overwhelmed all her litter but one. If the prince put thee into my fervice for any other reafon than to fet me off, why then I have no judgment. Thou whor what fays the doctor to my water?] The method of inveftigating difeafes by the infpection of urine only, was once fo much the fashion, that Caius, the founder of the college in Warwick-lane, formed a statute to retrain apothecaries from carrying the water of their patients to a phyfician, and afterwards giving medicines in confequence of the opinions they received concerning it. This ftatute was, foon after, followed by another, which forbade the doctors themselves to pronounce on any disorder from fuch an uncertain diagnostic. John Day, the author of a comedy called Law Tricks, or Who would have thought it? 1608, defcribes an apothecary thus: his houfe is fet round with patients twice or thrice "a day, and because they'll be fure not to want drink, every one brings his own water in an urinal with him." ་ Again, in B. and Fletcher's Scornful Lady: "I'll make her cry fo much, that the phyfician, To find the cause by." STEEVENS. fon |