What should I do, feeing thee fo indeed,
That trembling at the imagination,

The thought of it doth make my faint heart bleed?
And fear doth teach it divination 3:

I prophefy thy death, my living forrow,
If thou encounter with the boar to-morrow.

But if thou needs wilt hunt, be rul'd by me;
Uncouple at the timorous flying hare,
Or at the fox, which lives by fubtilty,
Or at the roe, which no encounter dare:

Pursue thefe fearful creatures o'er the downs,
And on thy well-breath'd horse keep with thy hounds.

And when thou haft on foot the purblind hare,
Mark the poor wretch, to overfhut his troubles
How he out-runs the wind, and with what care
He cranks and croffes, with a thousand doubles:

4 And fear doth teach it divination:] So, in K. Henry IV. P. II.
"Tell thou thy earl, his divination lyes." STEEVENS.
And fear doth teach it divination:

I prophecy thy death, &c.] So, in Romeo and Juliet:
O God! I have an ill-divining foul;

"Methinks I fee thee, now thou art fo low,

"As one dead in the bottom of a tomb." MALONE.

5 But if thou needs wilt bunt, be rul'd by mez

Uncouple at the timorous flying bare,] So, in The Sheepbeard's Song of Venus and Adonis, by H. C. 1600:

"Speake, fayd she, no more

"Of following the boare,

"Thou unfit for such a chase;

"Course the feareful bare,

"Venifon do not (pare,

"If thou wilt yield Venus grace." MALONE.

6-to over-fhut bis troubles,] I would read over-fhoot, i. e. fly beyond.

STEEVENS.

To shut up in Shakspeare's age fignified to conclude. I believe there fore the text is right. MALONE.

He cranks-] i. e. the winds. So, in in Coriolanus, the belly fays, "I fend it through the rivers of your blood,

"And through the cranks and offices of man," &c.

Again, more appofitely, in K. Henry IV. P. I.

"See, how this river comes me cranking in-," MALONE.

The

The many mufits through the which he goes",
Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes.

Sometime he runs among a flock of sheep,
To make the cunning hounds miftake their smell;
And fometime where earth-delving conies keep,
To stop the loud purfuers in their yell;

And fometime forteth with a herd of deer";
Danger devifeth fhifts; wit waits on fear:

For there his fmell with others being mingled,
The hot fcent-fnuffing hounds are driven to doubt;
Ceafing their clamorous cry till they have fingled
With much ado the cold fault cleanly out;

Then do they spend their mouths: Echo replies,
As if another chase were in the skies".

By this, poor Wat, far off upon a hill,
Stands on his hinder legs with liftening ear,
To hearken if his foes purfue him still;
Anon their loud alarums he doth hear;

And now his grief may be compared well
To one fore fick, that hears the passing bell*.

7 The many mufits through the which be goes,] Mufits are faid by the lexicographers to be the places through which the bare goes for relief. The modern editions read umfits. MALONE.

A mufet is a gap in a hedge. See Cotgrave's explanation of the French word Trouée. STEEVENS.

8 And fometime forteth with a berd of deer;] Sorteth means accompanies, conforts with. Sort anciently fignified a troop, or company. See Vol. II. p. 490, n. 5. MALONE.,

-Ecbo replies,

As if another chafe were in the fkies.] So Dryden:

With fhouting and hooting we pierce through the sky, "And echo turns hunter, and doubles the cry." STEEVENS. To one fore fick, that hears the paffing bell.] This thought is borrow. ed by Beaumont and Fletcher in Philafter:

like one who languishing

"Hears bis fad bell. STEEVENS.

Then

Then shalt thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch
Turn, and return, indenting with the way;
Each envious briar his weary legs doth scratch2,
Each shadow makes him ftop, each murmur itay:
For mifery is trodden on by many,

And being low, never reliev'd by any.

Lie quietly, and hear a little more;
Nay, do not struggle, for thou shalt not rife:
To make thee hate the hunting of the boar,
Unlike thyself,-thou hear'ft me moralize 3,
Applying this to that, and fo to fo;

For love can comment upon every woe.

Where did I leave?—No matter where, quoth he;
Leave me, and then the story aptly ends:

The night is fpent. Why, what of that, quoth fhe:
I am, quoth he, expected of my friends;

And now 'tis dark, and going I fhall fall;-
In night, quoth fhe, defire fees beft of all.

But if thou fall, O then imagine this,

The earth, in love with thee, thy footing trips,

2 Each envious briar bis weary legs doth scratch,] So, in The Taming of the Sbrew:

66 -roaming through a thorny wood

"Scratching her legs." STEEVENS.

3 Unlike thyfelf, thou bear'ft me moralize,] Thus the octavo, 1596. The edition of 1636, and the modern copies, read: Unlike myself.-But the original copy is right. Unlike thyself refers to the bunting of the boar, which Venus confiders as a rude fport, ill fuited to the delicate frame of Adonis. To moralize here means to comment; from moral, which our authour generally ufes in the fenfe of latent meaning. So, in the Taming of the Shrew: "He has left me here behind to expound the meaning or moral of his figns and tokens."

MALONE.

4 In night, quoth fhe, defire fees beft of all.] So, in Marlowe's Hero and Leander, which preceded the prefent poem:

66

dark night is Cupid's day." MALONE.

I verily believe that a fentiment fimilar, in fome fort, to another uttered by that forward wanton Juliet, occurreth here:

"Lovers can fee to do their amorous rites
"By their own beauties," AMNER.

And

And all is but to rob thee of a kifs".

Rich preys make rich men thieves; fo do thy lips
Make modeft Dian cloudy and forlorn,

Left she should steal a kiss, and die forsworn.

Now, of this dark night I perceive the reason:
Cynthia for fhame obfcures her filver shine,
Till forging nature be condemn'd of treason,
For ftealing moulds from heaven that were divine;
Wherein the fram'd thee, in high heaven's despite,
To shame the fun by day, and her by night.

And therefore hath fhe brib'd the Deftinies,
To cross the curious workmanship of nature;
To mingle beauty with infirmities,
And pure perfection with impure defeature";
Making it fubject to the tyranny

Of fad mifchances aud much mifery;

As burning fevers, agues pale and faint,
Life-poifoning peftilence, and frenzies wood,
The marrow-eating fickness, whose attaint
Disorder breeds by heating of the blood:

Surfeits, impoftumes, grief, and damn'd despair,
Swear nature's death for framing thee so fair.

5 The earth, in love with thee, thy footing trips,

And all is but to rob thee of a kifs.] So, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona :

left the bafe earth

"Should from her vesture chance to feal a kifs." STEEVENS. 6-die forfworn.] i. e. having broken her oath of virginity. STEEV. 7 Cynthia for fhame obfcures her filver fhine,] Shine was formerly used as a fubftantive. So, in Pericles Prince of Tyre, 1609:

"Thou fhew'dft a fubject's fine." MALONE.

defeature;] This word is derived from defaire, Fr. to undo. So, in The Comedy of Errors:

"trange defeatures in my face." STEEVENS. 9-and frenzies wood,] Wood in old language is frantick.

MALONE.

And

And not the leaft of all these maladies
But in one minute's fight brings beauty under':
Both favour, favour, hue, and qualities,
Whereat the impartial gazer late did wonder,
Are on the fudden wafted, thaw'd, and done,
As mountain-fnow melts with the mid-day fun.
Therefore, defpite of fruitlefs chastity,
Love lacking veftals, and felf-loving nuns,
That on the earth would breed a scarcity,
And barren dearth of daughters and of fons,
Be prodigal: the lamp that burns by night,
Dries up his oil, to lend the world his light.
What is thy body but a swallowing grave*,
Seeming to bury that pofterity s

Which

1 But in one minute's fight brings beauty under :] Thus the edition of 1596. The leaft of thefe maladies after a momentary engagement fubdues beauty. Not being till lately poffeffed of the copy of 1596, in the former edition of thefe poems I printed fight, the reading of the copy of 1600: but I then conjectured that fight was the true reading, and I now find my conjecture confirmed. MALONE.

the impartial gazer-] Thus the octavo, 1596. Impartial is here used, I conceive; in the fame fenfe as in Measure for Meafare, Vol. II. p. 114. The fubfequent copies have-imperial. MALONE. 2-thaw'd, and done,] Done was formerly ufed in the fenfe of wafted, confumed, destroyed. So, in King Henry VI. P. I. Vol. VI. p. 79. "And now they meet, where both their lives are done." In the West of England it ftill retains the fame meaning. MALONE. 3-the lamp that burns by night,] i. c.

66

- λύχνον ἔρώτον,

σε Καὶ γάμον αχλυόεντα

Mufaus. STEEVEN S.

Ye nuns and veftals, fays Venus, imitate the example of the lamp, that profiteth mankind at the expence of its own oil.-I do not apprehend that the poet had at all in his thoughts the torch of the loves, or the nocturnal meeting of either Hero and Leander or any other perfons The preceding precept here illuftrated is general, without any limi tation of either time or space. MALONE.

What is thy body but a swallowing grave,] So, in King Richard III. in the wallowing gulph

"Of dark forgetfulnets and deep oblivion."

Again, in our authour's 77th Sonnet:

"The wrinkles which thy glafs will truly fhew,

"Of mouthed graves will give thee memory." MALONE.

5- a fwallowing grave,

Seeming to bury that pofterity, &c.] So, in our authour's third Sonnets

1 VOL. X.

who