The meaning, I believe, is: “ Act with more inconstancy and caprice than ever did fortune."

HENLEY.

́ ́ Fortune was never so unjust and mutable as to rate a thing on one day above all price, and on the next to set no estimation whatsoever upon it. You are now going to do what fortune never did. Such, I think, is the meaning. MALONE. P. 162,1. 30. 31.

mid-age and wrinkled elders,] So the quarto.

Folio wrinkled old. MALONE.

Elders, the erroneous reading of the quarto, would seem to have been properly corrected in the copy whence the first folio was printed; but it is a rule with printers, whenever they meet with a strange word in a manuscript, to give the nearest word to it they are acquainted with; a liberty which has been not very sparingly exercised in all the old editions of our author's plays. There cannot be a question that he wrote:

mid-age and wrinkled eld. RITSON. P. 163, 1. 3. Our fire-brand brother, Paris,] Hecuba, when pregnant with Paris, dreamed she should be delivered of a burning torch.

distaste] Corrupt; change

165) stale. JOHNSON.

P. 163, 1. to a worse do P. 163, 1. 21. To make it gracious.] i. e. to set it off; to show it to advantage. STEEVENS.

P. 163, 1. 26. convince This word, which our author frequently employs in the obsolete sense of to overpower, subdue, seems in the present instance to signify convict, or subject to the charge of levity. STEEVENS!

P. 163, 1. 28, your full consent]· Your unanimous approbation. "MALONE, JOULU Í MOR

'P. 164, 1. 9. Rape in our author's fime commonly signified the carrying away of a female. MALONE.

It has always horne that, as one of its significations; raptus Helenae (without any idea of personal violence) being constantly rendered the rape of Helen. STEEVENS.

P. 164, 1. 29. Aristoile]Let it be remembered as often as Shakspeare's anachronisms occur, that errors in computing time, were very frequent in those ancient romances which seem to have formed the greater part of his library, I may add, that even classick authors are not exempt from such mistakes. In the fifth book of Statius's Thebaid, Amphiarus talks of the fates of Nestor and Priam, neither of whom died till long after him. If on this occasion, somewhat should be attributed to this augural profession, yet if he could so freely mention, nay, even quote as examples to the whole army, things that would not happen till the next age, they must all have been prophets as well as himself, or they could not have understood him.

A

Hector's mention of Aristotle, however (during our ancient propensity to quote the authorities of the learned on every occasion) is not more absurd than the following circumstance in The Dialogues, of Creatures Moralysed, bl. 1. no date, (a book which Shakspeare might have seeu,) where we find God Almighty quoting Cato. See Dial. IV.

STEEVENS. P. 165, 16. of partial indulgence] i. through partial indulgence. M. MASON.

P. 165, 17. benumbed That is, in-flexible, immoveable, no longer obedient to superior direction. JOHNSON.

P. 165, 1. 8. There is a law in each wellorder'd nation,] What the law does in every nation between individuals, justice ought to do between nations. JOHNSON. 7. P. 165, 1, 16. 17. — Hector's opinion

Is this, in way of truth:] Though considering truth and justice in this question, this is my opinion; yet as a question of honour, I think on it as you. JOHNSON.

P. 165, 1. 25. the performance of our heaving spleens,] The execution of spite and resentment. JOHNSON.

P. 165, 1. 31.

And fame, in time to come, canonize us:] The hope of being register'd as a saint, is rather out of its place at so early a period, as this of the Trojan war.

STEEVENS.

P. 166, 1..6. emulation factious contention. JOHNSON.

] That is, envy,

Emulation is now never used in an ill sense e;, but Shakspeare meant to employ it so. He has used the same with more propriety in a former scene, by adding epithets that ascertain its mean ing. MALONE.

P. 166, 1, 18.

-

1

engineer. The old copies have enginer, which was the old spelling of engineer. So truncheoner, pioner, mutiner sonneter, &c. MALONE.

P. 166, 1.

100 318

pentine craft

Mercury, lose all the serCaduceus] The wand of Mercury is wreathed with serpents. STEEVENS. P. 166, 1. 27, 28. without drawing their massy irons, and cutting the he web.1 That is, without drawing their swords cut the web. They use no means but those of violence.

JOHNSON.

Thus the quarto. The folio

irons. In the late editions to reads the massy

tuted for irons, the word found in the old copies, and certainly the true reading. So, in King Richard III:

"Put in their hands thy bruising irons of

wrath,

That they may crush down with a heavy

fall

"The usurping helmets of our adversaries." MALONE.

Bruising irons in this quotation, as Mr. Henley has well observed in loco, signify maces, weapons formerly used by our English cavalry. See Grose on Ancient Armour, p. 53. STEEVENS. P. 166, last but one 1. the bone-ache!] In the quarto, -the Neapolitan bone-ache.

JOHNSON.

P. 167, 1. 6. 7. If I could have remember'd a gilt counterfeit, thou would'st not have slipp'd out of my contemplation:] Here is a plain allusion to the counterfeit piece of money called slip, which occurs again in Romeo and Juliet, Act II. sc. iv. WHALLEY.

P. 167, 1. 12. Thy blood means, thy passions thy natural propensities. MALONE.

a

P. 168, 1. 5. I'll decline the whole question.] Deduce the question from the first case to the last. JOHNSON. P. 169, 1. 5. The four next speeches are not in the quarto. JOHNSON.

ཟ་༑ དྷ་ས ཀ?

P. 168, 1. 17. Patroclus is a fool positive.] The poet is still thinking of his grammar; the first degree of comparison being here in his thoughts.

31

MALONE.

P. 163, 1. 19. Ther. Make that demand of

the prover.] There seems to be a profane allusion in the last speech but one spoken by Ther sites. MALONE.

P. 168, 1. 28. 29.

envious?

emulous factions,] i. e.

, contending factioòs. MALONE. Why not rival factions', factions jealous of each other? STEEVENS.

P. 168, 1. 30. The serpigo is a kind of tetter.

3

STEEVENS,

shent —] ì. e. rebuked, rated,

WARBURTÓN,

This word is used in common by all our 'âncient writers. STEEVENS. P. 169, 1. 25. 26. it was a strong composure,] So reads the quarto very properly; but the folio, which the moderns have followed, has, it was a strong counsel. JoHNSON.

P. 170, 1. 2. this noble state.] Person of high dignity; spoken of Agamemnon. JOHNSON.

Noble state rather means the stately train of attending nobles whom you bring with you. Patroclus had already addressed Agamemnon by the title of your greatness. STEEVENS.

State was formerly applied to a single person. Yet Mr. Steevens's interpretation appears to me to agree better with the context here. MALONE.

P. 170, 1. 5. An after dinner's breath.] Breath, in the present instance, stands for breathing, i. e. exercise. STEEVENS.

P. 170, I. 22. Ilere tend the savage strangeness] i. e. shyness, distant behaviour. To tend is to attend upon.

MALONE. P. 170, 1. 24. And underwrite-] To subscribe, in Shakspeare, is to obey. JOHNSON.