Or, feeing it, of fuch childish friendliness BRU. He was your enemy; ever fpake against SIC. Thus to have said, As you were fore-advis'd, had touch'd his fpirit, And try'd his inclination; from him pluck'd Either his gracious promife, which you might, As caufe had call'd you up, have held him to; Or else it would have gall'd his furly nature, Which easily endures not article Tying him to aught; fo, putting him to rage, You thould have ta'en the advantage of his choler, And pafs'd him unelected. BRU. Did you perceive, He did folicit you in free contempt, 8 — arriving A place of potency,] Thus the old copy, and rightly. So, in the third part of King Henry VI. A&t V. fc. iii: thofe powers that the queen "Hath rais'd in Gallia, have arriv'd our coaft." STEEVENS. 9 Would think upon you—] Would retain a grateful remembrance of you, &c. MALONE. 2 -free contempt,] That is, with contempt open and unreftrained. JOHNSON. When he did need your loves; and do you think, That his contempt fhall not be bruising to you, When he hath power to crufh? Why, had your bodies No heart among you? Or had you tongues, to cry Against the rectorship of judgement? SIC. Have you, Ere now, deny'd the afker? and, now again, On him, that did not afk, but mock, bestow Your fu'd-for tongues? 3 2 3. CIT. He's not confirm'd, we may deny him yet. 2. CIT. And will deny him: I'll have five hundred voices of that found. 1. CIT. I twice five hundred, and their friends to piece 'em. BRU. Get you hence instantly; and tell those friends, They have chofe a conful, that will from them take Than dogs, that are as often beat for barking, SIC. Let them affemble; And, on a safer judgement, all revoke 2 On him,] Old copy-of him-. STEEVENS. 3 Your fu'd-for tongues?] Your voices that hitherto have been folicited. STEEVENS. Your voices, not folicited, by verbal application, but fued-for by this man's merely ftanding forth as a candidate.-Your fued-for tongues, however, may mean, your voices, to obtain which so many make fuit to you; and perhaps the latter is the more juft interpre tation. MALONE. 4 Enforce his pride,] Object his pride, and enforce the objection. JOHNSON. So afterwards: "Enforce him with his envy to the people." STEEVENS. And his old hate unto you: befides, forget not 5 BRU. SIC. BRU. Ay, fpare us not. Say, we read lectures to you, How youngly he began to ferve his country, came That Ancus Marcius, Numa's daughter's fon, S bis prefent portance,] i. e. carriage. So, in Othello: "And portance in my travels' hiftory." STEEVENS. • Which gibingly,] The old copy, redundantly, Which mott gibingly, &c. STEEVENS. * And Cenforinus, darling of the people,] This verfe I have fupplied; a line having been certainly left out in this place, as will appear to any one who confults the beginning of Plutarch's Life of Coriolanus, from whence this paffage is directly tranflated. POPE. And nobly nam'd fo, being cenfor twice," SIC. The paffage in North's tranflation, 1579, runs thus: "The houfe of the Martians at Rome was of the number of the patricians, out of which hath fprong many noble perfonages: whereof Ancus Martius was one, king Numaes daughter's fonne, who was king of Rome after Tullus Hoftilius. Of the fame houfe were Publius and Quintus, who brought to Rome their best water they had by conduits. Cenforinus alfo came of that familie, that was fo furnamed because the people had chofen him cenfor twice."-Publius and Quintus and Cenforinus were not the ancestors of Coriolanus, but his defcendants. Caius Martius Rutilius did not obtain the name of Cenforinus till the year of Rome 487; and the Marcian waters were not brought to that city by aqueducts till the year 613, near 350 years after the death of Coriolanus. Can it be fuppofed, that he who would difregard fuch anachronifms, or rather he to whom they were not known, fhould have changed Cato, which he found in his Plutarch, to Calves, from a regard to chronology? See a former note, p. 37. MALONE. 6 And nobly nam'd fo, being cenfor twice,] The old copy reads: being twice cenfor; but for the fake of harmony, I have arranged thefe words as they ftand in our author's original,-Sir T. North's tranflation of Plutarch: " - the people had chofen him cenfor twice." STEEVENS. 7 And Cenforinus Was his great ancestor.] Now the firft cenfor was created U. C. 314, and Coriolanus was banished U. C. 262. The truth is this: the paffage, as Mr. Pope obferves above, was taken from Plutarch's Life of Coriolanus; who, fpeaking of the houfe of Coriolanus, takes notice both of his ancestors and of his pofterity, which our author's hafte not giving him leave to obferve, has here confounded one with the other. Another inftance of his inadvertency, from the fame caufe, we have in the first part of Henry IV. where an account is given of the prifoners took on the plains of Holmedon: Mardake the earl of Fife, and eldeft fon To beaten Douglas But the earl of Fife was not fon to Douglas, but to Robert duke of Albany, governor of Scotland. He took his account from Holinfbed, whofe words are, And of prifoners amongst others were thefe, Mordack earl of Fife, fon to the governor Arkimbald, earl Douglas, &c. And he imagined that the governor and earl Douglas were one and the fame perfon. WARBURTON. 8 To be fet high in place, we did commend BRU. Say, you ne'er had done't, (Harp on that ftill,) but by our putting on:" And prefently, when you have drawn your number, Repair to the Capitol. CIT. We will fo: almost all [Several Speak. Repent in their election. BRU. [Exeunt Citizens. Let them go on; This mutiny were better put in hazard, If, as his nature is, he fall in rage With their refusal, both observe and answer SIC. To the Capitol : Come; we'll be there before the ftream o' the people; 3 And this fhall feem, as partly 'tis, their own, [Exeunt. 8 Scaling his prefent bearing with his paft,] That is weighing his paft and prefent behaviour. JOHNSON. 9 66 by our :] you protect this courfe "And put it on by your allowance." So, in King Henry VIII: So, in King Lear: STEEVENS. The vantage of his anger.] Mark, catch, and improve the opportunity, which his hafty anger will afford us. JOHNSON. 3 the ftream of the people ;] So, in King Henry VIII: 66 -The rich fream "Of lords and ladies having brought the queen "To a prepar'd place in the choir," &c. MALONE. |