By deed-achieving honour newly nam'd,
What is it? Coriolanus, muft I call thee?
But O, thy wife-

COR.

My gracious filence, hail!" Would'st thou have laugh'd, had I come coffin'd

home,

That weep'ft to fee me triumph? Ah, my dear,

My gracious filence, hail!] The epithet to filence fhows it not to proceed from referve or fullennefs, but to be the effect of a virtuous mind poffeffing itfelf in peace. The expreffion is extremely fublime; and the fenfe of it conveys the finest praise that can be given to a good woman. WARBURTON.

By my gracious filence, I believe, the poet meant, thou whofe filent tears are more eloquent and grateful to me, than the clamorous applaufe of the reft! So, Crafhaw:

Sententious fhow'rs! O! let them fall!

"Their cadence is rhetorical."

Again, in Love's Cure, or The Martial Maid of Beaumont and Fletcher:

"A lady's tears are filent orators,

"Or fhould be fo at least, to move beyond
"The honey-tongued rhetorician."

Again, in Daniel's Complaint of Rofamond, 1599:

"Ah beauty, fyren, fair enchanting good!

"Sweet filent rhetorick of perfuading eyes!

"Dumb eloquence, whofe power doth move the blood, "More than the words, or wisdom of the wife!"

Again, in Every Man out of his Humour :

You shall fee fweet filent rhetorick, and dumb eloquence speaking in her eye." STEEVENS.

I believe " My gracious filence," only means "My beauteous filence." or " my filent Grace." Gracious feems to have had the fame meaning formerly that graceful has at this day. So, in The Merchant of Venice:

"But being feafon'd with a gracious voice." Again, in King John:

"There was not fuch a gracious creature born."

Again, in Marton's Malecontent, 1604" he is the most exquifite in forging of veines, fpright'ning of eyes, dying of haire, flecking of fkinnes, blufhing of cheekes, &c. that ever made an old lady gracious by torchlight." MALONE.

Such eyes the widows in Corioli wear,
And mothers that lack fons.

MEN.

Now the gods crown thee! COR. And live you yet?-O my fweet lady, par

don.

[To Valeria. VOL. I know not where to turn:-O welcome

home;

And welcome, general;-And you are welcome all. MEN. A hundred thousand welcomes: I could

weep,

And I could laugh; I am light, and heavy: Wel

come:

A curfe begin at very root of his heart,

That is not glad to fee thee!-You are three,
That Rome fhould dote on: yet, by the faith of

men,

We have fome old crab-trees here at home, that will not

Be grafted to your relish. Yet welcome, warriors: We call a nettle, but a nettle; and

The faults of fools, but folly.

Сом.

COR. Menenius, ever, ever."

• Com. Ever right.

Cor. Menenius, ever, ever.]

Rather, I think:

Com. Ever right Menenius.

Cor. Ever, ever.

Ever right.

Cominius means to fay, that-Menenius is always the fame ;retains his old humour. So, in Julius Cæfar, A& V. fc. i, upon a fpeech from Caffius, Antony only fays,-Old Caffius ftill.

TYRWHITT.

By these words, as they ftand in the old copy, I believe, Coriolanus means to fay-Menenius is ftill the fame affectionate friend as formerly. So, in Julius Cæfar: "for always I am Cæfar." MALONE.

HER. Give way there, and go on.

Cor.

Your hand, and yours:

[To his wife and mother.

Ere in our own house I do fhade my head,

The good patricians must be vifited;

From whom I have receiv'd not only greetings,
But with them change of honours."

VOL.

I have liv'd

To fee inherited my very wishes,
And the buildings of my fancy: only there
Is one thing wanting, which I doubt not, but
Our Rome will caft upon thee.

COR.
Know, good mother,
I had rather be their fervant in my way,
Than fway with them in theirs.

Сом.

On, to the Capitol. [Flourish. Cornets. Exeunt in ftate, as before. The Tribunes come forward.

BRU. All tongues fpeak of him, and the bleared fights

Are fpectacled to fee him: Your pratling nurse
Into a rapture lets her baby cry,

But with them change of honours.] So all the editions read. But Mr. Theobald has ventured (as he expreffes it) to Jubftitute charge. For change, he thinks, is a very poor expreffion, and communicates but a very poor idea. He had better have told the plain truth, and confeffed that it communicated none at all to him. Howe ver, it has a very good one in itself; and fignifies variety of honours ; as change of rayment, among the writers of that time, fignified variety of rayment. WARBURTON.

Change of raiment is a phrafe that occurs not unfrequently in the Old Teftament. STEEVENS.

3 Into a rapture

-] Rapture, a common term at that time ufed for a fit, fimply. So, to be rap'd, fignified, to be in a fit.

WARBURTON.

If the explanation of Bishop Warburton be allowed, a rapture

While she chats him: the kitchen malkin' pins

means a fit; but it does not appear from the note where the word is used in that fenfe. The right word is in all probability rupture, to which children are liable from exceffive fits of crying. This emendation was the property of a very ingenious scholar long before I had any claim to it. S. W.

That a child will " cry itself into fits," is ftill a common phrafe among nurfes. STEEVENS.

In Troilus and Creffida, raptures fignifies ravings: her brainfick raptures

"Cannot diftafte the goodnefs of a quarrel."

I have not met with the word rapture in the fenfe of a fit in any book of our author's age, nor found it in any dictionary previous to Cole's Latin Dictionary, 1679. He renders the word by the Latin ecftafis, which he interprets a trance. However, the rulede non apparentibus et de non exiftentibus eadem eft ratio-certainly does not hold, when applied to the ufe of words. Had we all the books of our author's age, and had we read them all, it then might be urged.-Drayton fpeaking of Marlowe, fays his raptures were" all air and fire." MALONE.

4 the kitchen malkin-] A maukin, or malkin, is a kind of mop made of clouts for the ufe of fweeping ovens: thence a frightful figure of clouts dressed up: thence a dirty wench.

HANMER. Maukin in fome parts of England fignifies a figure of clouts fet up to fright birds in gardens: a fcare-crow. P.

Malkin is properly the diminutive of Mal (Mary); as Wilkin, Tomkin, &c. In Scotland, pronounced Maukin, it fignifies a bare. Grey malkin (corruptly grimalkin) is a cat. The kitchen malkin is juft the fame as the kitchen Madge or Befs: the fcullion. RITSON.

Minfheu gives the fame explanation of this term, as Sir T. Hanmer has done, calling it "an inftrument to clean an oven,-now. made of old clowtes." The etymology which Dr. Johnfon has given in his dictionary-" MALKIN, from Mal or Mary, and kin, the diminitive termination,"-is, I apprehend, erroneous. The kitchen-wench very naturally takes her name from this word, as fcullion, another of her titles, is in like manner derived from efcouillon, the French term for the utenfil called a malkin.

MALONE.

After the morris-dance degenerated into a piece of coarse buffoonery, and Maid Marian was perfonated by a clown, this once elegant queen of May obtained the name of Malkin. To this Beaumont and Fletcher allude in Monfieur Thomas:

Her richest lockram 'bout her reechy neck,' Clambering the walls to eye him: Stalls, bulks, windows,

Are fmother'd up, leads fill'd, and ridges hors'd
With variable complexions; all agreeing

In earnestnefs to fee him: feld-fhown flamens"
Do prefs among the popular throngs, and puff
To win a vulgar ftation: our veil'd dames

"Put on the fhape of order and humanity,

"Or you must marry Malkyn, the May-Lady." Maux, a corruption of malkin, is a low term, ftill current in feveral counties, and always indicative of a coarfe vulgar wench. STEEVENS.

4 Her richeft lockram, &c.] Lockram was fome kind of cheap linen. Greene, in his Vifion, defcribing the drefs of a man, fays: "His ruffe was of fine lockeram, ftitched very faire with Coventry blue."

Again, in The Spanish Curate of Beaumont and Fletcher, Diego fays:

"I give per annum two hundred ells of lockram, "That there be no ftrait dealings in their linnens." Again, in Glapthorne's Wit in a Conftable, 1639:

5

"Thou thought'ft, because I did wear lockram fhirts,
"I had no wit." STEEVENS.

her reechy neck,] Reechy is greafy, fweaty. So, in Hamlet: " a pair of reechy kiffes." Laneham, fpeaking of "three pretty puzels" in a morris-dance, fays they were " as bright as a breaft of bacon," that is, bacon hung in the chimney and hence reechy, which in its primitive fignification is smoky, came to imply greafy. RITSON.

6

feld-fhown flamens-] i. e. priests who feldom exhibit themselves to publick view. The word is ufed in Humour out of Breath, a comedy, by John Day, 1607:

"Ofeld-feen metamorphofis."

The fame adverb likewife occurs in the old play of Hieronimo: "Why is not this a ftrange and feld-feen thing?" Seld is often ufed by antient writers for feldom. STEEVENS. 7a vulgar ftation:] A station among the rabble. So, in The Comedy of Errors:

"A vulgar comment will be made of it." MALONE. A vulgar ftation, I believe, fignifies only a common standingplace, fuch as is diftinguished by no particular convenience. STEEVENS.