His conquering banner fhook, from Syria Whilft ANT. MES. Antony, thou would'st say,— O, my lord! ANT. Speak to me home, mince not the general tongue; Name Cleopatra as fhe's call'd in Rome: us, feized. Savile's Tranflation of Tacitus, dedicated to 2. Elizabeth:" and then obferves, that "Shakspeare knew the legal fignification of the term, as appears from a passage in As you like it: "And let my officers of fuch a nature See Vol. VI. p. 75, n. 9. Our ancient English writers almoft always give us Euphrates inftead of Euphrates. Thus, in Drayton's Polyolbion, Song 21: "That gliding go in ftate, like fwelling Euphrates," See note on Cymbeline, Act III. fc. iii. STEEVENS. 5 When our quick winds lie ftill;] The fenfe is, that man, not agitated by cenfure, like foil not ventilated by quick winds, produces more evil than good. JOHNSON. An idea fomewhat fimilar, occurs alfo in the First Part of Henry IV. " the cankers of a calm world and a long peace." Again, in The Puritan: "— hatch'd and nourished in the idle calms of peace." Dr. Warburton has propofed to read-minds. It is at least a conjecture that deferves to be mentioned. Dr. Johnfon, however, might in fome degree have countenanced his explanation by a fingular epithet, that occurs twice in the Iliad vorpes; literally, wind-nourished. In the firft inftance, L. XI. 256. it is applied to the tree of which a fpear had been made; in the fecond, L. XV. 625. to a wave, impelled upon a hip. STEEVENS. I fufpect that quick winds is, or is a corruption of, some pro Is as our caring. Fare thee well a while. [Exit. vincial word fignifying either arable lands, or the inftruments of bufbandry ufed in tilling them. Earing fignifies plowing both here and in page 448. So, in Genefis, c. 45: "Yet there are five years, in the which there fhall neither be earing nor harveft." BLACKSTONE. This conjecture is well founded. The ridges left in lands turned up by the plough, that they may fweeten during their fallow ftate, are ftill called wind-rows. Quick winds, I fuppose to be the fame as teeming fallows; for fuch fallows are always fruitful in weeds. Wind-rous likewife fignify heaps of manure, confifting of dung or lime mixed up with virgin earth, and diftributed in long rows under hedges. If thefe wind-rows are fuffered to lie fill, in two fenfes, the farmer muft fare the worse for his want of activity. First, if this compoft be not frequently turned over, it will bring forth weeds fpontaneously; fecondly, if it be fuffered to continue where it is made, the fields receive no benefit from it, being fit only in their turn to produce a crop of useless and obnoxious herbage. STEEVENS. Mr. Steevens's defcription of wind-rows will gain him, I fear, but little reputation with the hufbandman; nor, were it more accurate, does it appear to be in point, unless it can be shown that quick winds and wind-rows are fynonymous; and, further, that his interpretation will fuit with the context.-Dr. Johnson hath confidered the pofition as a general one, which indeed it is; but being made by Antony, and applied to himfelf, he, figuratively, is the idle foil; the MALICE that speaks home, the quick, or cutting winds, whofe frofty blafts deftroy the profufion of weeds; whilit our ILLS (that is the TRUTH faithfully) told us; a representation of our vices in their naked odioufnefs-is as our EARING; ferves to plough up the neglected foil, and enable it to produce a profitable crop. 66 When the quick winds lie ftill, that is, in a mild winter, those weeds which the tyrannous breathings of the north" would have cut off, will continue to grow and feed, to the no small detriment of the crop to follow. HENLEY. Whether my definition of winds or wind-rows be exact or erroneous, in juftice to myself I must inform Mr. Henley that I received it from an Effex farmer; obferving at the fame time, that in different counties the fame terms are differently applied. Mr. Henley is not apt to fufpect there is any thing which, at a single glance, he does not perfectly understand, and therefore his remarks ANT. From Sicyon how the news? Speak there. 1. Arr. The man from Sicyon.-Is there fuch an one? are ufhered in with as little diffidence as can well be expreffed. For one piece of knowledge, however, (in common with the rest of the world) I fhall think myfelf ftill further obliged to him. Will he be kind enough to tell us what fort of winds they are which cut off the weeds and fpare the flowers, deftroy the noxious but leave the falutary plants without an injury? The winter of 1788-9 was as hard a one as has been hitherto remembered; but I could not difcover by my own attention, or from the report of others, that the garden or the field had one weed the lefs for its feverity. Let me do juftice, however, to the general turn of Mr. Henley's note, which is very ingenious, and perhaps is right. STEEVENS. The words lie ftill are oppofed to earing; quick means pregnant; and the fenfe of the paffage is: When our pregnant minds lie idle and untilled, they bring forth weeds; but the telling us of our faults is a kind of culture to them." The pronoun our before quick, fhows that the substantive to which it refers must be fomething belonging to us, not merely an external object, as the wind is. To talk of quick winds lying ftill, is little better than nonsense. M. MASON. Dr. Johnson thus explains the old reading: "The fenfe is, that man, not agitated by cenfure, like foil not ventilated by quick winds, produces more evil than good." This certainly is true of foil, but where did Dr. Johnson find the word fail in this paffage? He found only winds, and was forced to fubftitute foil ventilated by winds in the room of the word in the old copy; as Mr. Steevens, in order to extract a meaning from it, fuppofes winds to mean fallows, because "the ridges left in lands turned up by the plough, are termed wind-rows;" though furely the obvious explication of the latter word, rows exposed to the wind, is the true one. Hence the rows of new-mown grafs laid in heaps to dry, are alfo called wind-rows. The emendation which I have adopted, [minds] and which was made by Dr. Warburton, makes all perfectly clear; for if in Dr. Johnson's note we substitute, not cultivated, inftead of—" not ventilated by quick winds," we have a true interpretation of Antony's words as now exhibited. Our quick minds, means, our lively, apprehenfive minds. So, in King Henry IV. P. II: "It afcends me into the brain;-makes it apprehenfive, quick, forgetive." Again, in this play: "The quick comedians."―&c. It is however proper to add Dr. Warburton's own interpretation: "While the active principle within us lies immerged in sloth and 2. ATT. He stays upon your will." ANT. These strong Egyptian fetters I must break, Let him appear. Enter another Meffenger. Or lofe myself in dotage.-What are you? 2. MES. Fulvia thy wife is dead. ANT. 2. MES. In Sicyon: Where died fhe? Her length of fickness, with what elfe more ferious ANT. Forbear me.[Exit Meffenger. There's a great spirit gone! Thus did I defire it: luxury, we bring forth vices, inftead of virtues, weeds inftead of flowers and fruits; but the laying before us our ill condition plainly and honeftly, is, as it were, the firft culture of the mind, which gives hope of a future harveft." Being at all times very unwilling to depart from the old copy, I fhould not have done it in this inftance, but that the word winds in the only fenfe in which it has yet been proved to be used, affords no meaning and I had the lefs fcruple on the prefent occafion, because the fame error is found in King John, Act V. fc. vii. where we have in the only authentick copy "Death, having prey'd upon the outward parts, Against the wind." MALONE. The obfervations of fix commentators are here exhibited. To offer an additional line on this fubject, (as the messenger says to Lady Macduff) were fell cruelty" to the reader. STEEVENS. He fays upon your will.] We meet with a fimilar phrase in Macbeth: "Worthy Macbeth, we ftay upon your leifure." STEEVENS. 6 The oppofite of itfelf: fhe's good, being gone; Enter ENOBARBUS. ENO. What's your pleasure, fir? ANT. I muft with hafte from hence. ENO. Why, then, we kill all our women: We fee how mortal an unkindness is to them; if they fuffer our departure, death's the word. ANT. I must be gone. 6 the prefent pleasure, By revolution lowering, does become The oppofite of itfelf:] The allufion is to the fun's diurnal courfe; which rifing in the east, and by revolution lowering, or fetting in the west, becomes the oppofite of itself. WARBURTON. This is an obfcure paffage. The explanation which Dr. Warburton has offer'd is fuch, that I can add nothing to it; yet perhaps Shakspeare, who was lefs learned than his commentator, meant only, that our pleafures, as they are revolved in the mind, turn to pain. JOHNSON. I rather understand the paffage thus: What we often caft from us in contempt we wish again for, and what is at present our greatest pleafure, lowers in our estimation by the revolution of time; or by a frequent return of poffeffion becomes undefireable and dijagreeable. TOLLET. I believe revolution means change of circumftances. This fenfe appears to remove every difficulty from the paffage.-The pleasure of to-day, by revolution of events and change of circumftances, often lofes all its value to us, and becomes to-morrow a pain. STEEVENS. • The hand could pluck her back, &c.] The verb could has a peculiar fignification in this place; it does not denote power but inclination. The fenfe is, the hand that drove her off would now willingly pluck her back again. HEATH. Could, would and should, are a thousand times indifcriminately ufed in the old plays, and yet appear to have been fo employed rather by choice than by chance. STEEVENS. |