been, for the most part, aired abroad, I desire to lay my bones," &c. 220. STEEVENS. -take the hatch;] To take the hatch, is to leap the hatch. To take a hedge or a ditch, is the hunter's phrase. STEEVENS. So, in Massinger's Fatal Dowry, 1632:. "I look about and neigh, take hedge and ditch, "Feed in my neighbour's pastures." MALONE. 231. -like an eagle o'er his aiery towers,] An aiery is the nest of an eagle. 239. Their needles to lances, STEEVENS. -] Here we should read neelds, as in the Midsummer-Night's Dream: "Have with our neelds created both one flower." Fairfax has the same contraction of the word. 276. Richard STEEVENS. -] Sir Richard Faulconbridge; and yet the king a little before (act iii. sc. 2.) calls him by his original name of Philip. STEEVENS. 293. Unthread the rude eye of rebellion,] Shakspere elsewhere uses the same expression, threading darkey'd night. STEEVENS. 306. even as a form of wax] This is said in allusion to the images made by witches. Holinshed observes, that it was alleged against dame Eleanor Cobham and her confederates, "that they had devised an image of wax, representing the king, which by their sorcerie by little and little consumed, intending thereby in conclusion to waste and destroy the king's person." STEEVENS. 7 319.-rated treachery,] It were easy to change rated to hated for an easier meaning, but rated suits better with fine. The Dauphin has rated your treachery, and set upon it a fine which your lives must pay. JOHNSON. -] This is the old read 342. Right in thine eye. ing. Right signifies immediate. It is now obsolete. Some of the modern editors read, pight, i. e. pitched as a tent is; others, fight in thine eye. STEEVENS. 343. happy newness, &c.] Happy innovation, that purposed the restoration of the ancient rightful government. JOHNSON. 350. tatter’d- 1 For tatter'd, the folio reads tottering. JOHNSON. It is remarkable through such old copies of our author as I have hitherto seen, that wherever the modern editors read tatter'd, the old editions give us totter'd in its room. Perhaps the present broad pronunciation, almost particular to the Scots, was at that time common to both nations. So, in Marlow's King Edward II. 1622: "This tottered ensign of my ancestors." Again, "As doth this water from my totter'd robes." So, in The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntington, 1601: "I will not bid my ensign-bearer wave "My totter'd colours in this worthless air." STEEVENS. 356. And your supplies,-] The old copy has supply. There is no need of change. The poet has already used the word as a noun of multitude: -for the great supply "Are wreck'd three nights ago on Goodwin MALONE. sands." 416. Is touch'd corruptibly ;] Corruptibly for corrupThe mistake was, however, probably the sively. author's. MALONE. 431. Leaves them: invisible his siege is now, Against the mind,- ] Thus the old copy, except that it reads-invisible and, &c. 434. in their throng and press STEEVENS. -] In their tumult and hurry of resorting to the last tenable part. To set a form upon that indigest JOHNSON. Which he hath left so shapeless and so rude.] A description of the Chaos, almost in the very words of Ovid: Quem dixere Chaos, rudis indigestaque moles. Met. 1. WHALLEY. 452. This scene has been imitated by Beaumont and Fletcher, in The Wife for a Month, act iv. STEEVENS. 453. To thrust his icy fingers in my maw;] Decker, in the Gul's Hornbook, 1609, has the same thought: -the morning waxing cold, thrust his frosty fingers into thy bosome." Again, in a pamphlet entitled The Great Frost, Cold Doings, &c. in London, 1608. "The cold hand of winter is thrust into our bosoms." STEEVENS. There is so strong a resemblance, not only in the thought, but in the expression, between these lines and the following passages, that we may fairly suppose an imitation: "Oh I am dull, and the cold hand of sleep "And made a frost within me." Lust's Dominion. Again, "O poor Zabina, O my queen, my queen, Tamburlaine, 1591. Lust's Dominion, like many of the plays of that time, remained unpublished for a great number of years, and was first printed in 1657, by one Kirkman. It must, however, have been written before 1593, in MALONE. which year Marlowe died. 536. If England to itself do rest but true.] This sentiment is borrowed from the conclusion of the old spurious play: "If England's peers and people join in one, "Nor pope, nor France, nor Spain, can do them wrong." H STEEVENS. Shakspere's |