"But be entombed in the raven or the kight." STEEVENS. 334. Ere human statute purg'd the gentle weal ;] The gentle weal, is, the peaceable community, the state made quiet and safe by human statutes. Mollia securæ peragebant otia gentes." 345. Do not muse at me, signified to be in amaze. JOHNSON. -] To muse anciently STEEVENS. 352. And all to all.] i. e. all good wishes to all: such as he named above, love, health, and joy. WARBURTON. Timon uses nearly the same expression to his guests, act i. "All to you." STEEVENS. 363. The Hyrcan tyger,] Theobald chooses to read, in opposition to the old copy:-Hyrcanian tyger; but the alteration was unnecessary, as Dr. Philemon Holland, in his translation of Pliny's Nat. Hist. p. 122, mentions the Hyrcane sea. TOLLET. -] This is the 367. If trembling I inhabit, original reading, which Mr. Pope changed to inhibit, which inhibit Dr. Warburton interprets refuse. The old reading may stand, at least as well as the emendation. Suppose we read: If trembling I evade it. JOHNSON. Inhibit seems more likely to have been the poet's own word, as he uses it frequently in the sense required in this passage. Othello, act i. sc. 7. "a practiser "Of arts inhibited." Hamlet, act ii. scene 6. "I think their inhibition comes of the late innovation." To inhibit is to forbid. The poet might probably have written: If trembling I inhibit thee, protest me, &c. I have no doubt that "inhibit thee," reading. In All's Well that Ends Well, second and all the subsequent foliosmost inhabited sin of the canon.". bited. STEEVENS. -is the true we find in the "which is the -instead of inhi In our author's King Richard II. we have nearly the same thought: “If I dare eat, or drink, or breathe, or live, "I dare meet Surry in the wilderness.” MALONE. No torture of criticism can draw from inhibit, a sense that will agree with the context. Inhabit is the original reading; and it needs no alteration. Milton has employed the same verb in a neutral signification, to express continuance in a given situation : "Mean while inhabit lax, ye powers of heaven!" Macbeth being at this time in his castle, the meaning of the passage obviously is- -Should you challenge me to encounter you in the desert, and I through fear continue immured in this fortress, then protest me, &c. Thus Clarence threatens Warwick: "I here proclaim myself thy mortal foe, 373. Can such things be, And overcome us, like a summer's cloud, HENLEY. -] Why not? if they be only like a summer's cloud? The speech is given wrong; it is part of the lady's foregoing speech; and, besides that, is a little corrupt. We should read it thus: -Can't such things be, And overcome us, like a summer's cloud, Without our special wonder?] i. e. cannot these visions, without so much wonder and amazement, be presented to the disturbed imagination in the manner that air visions, in summer clouds, are presented to a wanton one: which sometimes shew a lion, a castle, or a promontory? The thought is fine, and in character. Overcome is used for deceive. WARBURTON. The alteration is introduced by a misinterpretation. The meaning is not that these things are like a summercloud, but can such wonders as these pass over us without wonder, as a casual sunimer-cloud passes over us. JOHNSON. No instance is given of this sense of the word overcome, which has caused all the difficulty; it is however to be found in Spenser, Faery Queen, B. III. c. 7. st. 4. "A little -A little valley "All covered with thick woods, that quite it overcame." Again, in Marie Magdalene's Repentance : FARMER. "With blode overcome were both his eyen." 375. -You make me strange MALONE, Even to the disposition that I owe,] This passage seems to mean- You prove to me that I am a stranger even to my own disposition, when I perceive that the very object which steals the colour from my cheek, permits it to remain in yours. In other words—You prove to me how false an opinion I have hitherto maintained of my own courage, when yours on the trial is found to exceed it. A thought somewhat similar occurs in The Merry Wives of Windsor, act ii. scene 1. "I'll entertain myself like one I am not acquainted withal." Again, in All's Well that Ends Well, act v. if you know "That you are well acquainted with yourself." STEEVENS. The meaning, I think, is, You make me a stranger to, or forgetful of, that brave disposition which I know I possess, and make me fancy myself a coward, when I perceive that I am terrified by a sight which has not in the least alarmed you. MALONE. Mr. Reed thinks the meaning simply is, you make me amazed, and cites an example of the word strange so used in the History of Jack of Newberry—“ I jest not, said she; for I mean it shall be and stand not strangely, but remember that you promised me," &c. 379. -is blanch'd with fear.] i. e. as in Webster's Dutchess of Malsy, 1623: "Thou dost blanch mischief, "Dost make it white." HENLEY. turn'd pale, STEEVENS. 388. It will have blood, &c.] So, in The Mirror of Magistrates, p. 118. “ Take heede yee princes by examples past, "Bloud will have bloud eyther first or last." HENDERSON. It will have blood, they say; blood will have blood:] I would thus point the passage : It will have blood: they say, blood will have blood. As a confirmation of the reading, I would add the following authority: "Blood asketh blood, and death must death re quite." Ferrex and Perrex, act iv. sc.2. WHALLEY. 390. Augurs, and understood relations,] By the word relation is understood the connection of effects with causes; to understand relations as an augur, is to know how these things relate to each other, which have no visible combination or dependance. JOHNSON. Augurs and understood relations,By relations is meant the relation one thing is supposed to bear to another. The ancient scothsayers of all denominations practised their art upon the principle of analogy. |