It would be, I own, an audacious and unjustifiable change of the text; but yet, as a mere conjecture, I venture to suggest 'bastards,' for ' 'bated.' As it stands, in spite of Warburton's note, I can make little or nothing of it. Why should the king except the then most illustrious states, which, as being republics, were the more truly inheritors of the Roman grandeur?—With my conjecture, the sense would be;-let higher, or the more northern part of Italy-(unless 'higher' be a corruption for 'hir'd,' -the metre seeming to demand a monosyllable) (those bastards that inherit the infamy only of their fathers) see, &c.' The following 'woo' and 'wed' are so far confirmative as they indicate Shakspeare's manner of connection by unmarked influences of association from some preceding metaphor. This it is which makes his style so peculiarly vital and organic. Likewise 'those girls of Italy' strengthen the guess. The absurdity of Warburton's gloss, which represents the king calling Italy superior, and then excepting the only part the lords were going to visit, must strike every one.

Ib. sc. 3.

Laf. They say, miracles are past; and we have our philosophical persons to make modern and familiar, things supernatural and causeless.

Shakspeare, inspired, as it might seem, with all knowledge, here uses the word 'causeless' in its strict philosophical sense ;— cause being truly predicable only of phenomena, that is, things natural, and not of noumena, or things supernatural.

Act iii. sc. 5.

Dia. The Count Rousillon :-know you such a one?
Hel. But by the ear that hears most nobly of him;
His face I know not.

Shall we say here, that Shakspeare has unnecessarily made his loveliest character utter a lie?-Or shall we dare think that, where to deceive was necessary, he thought a pretended verbal verity a double crime, equally with the other a lie to the hearer, and at the same time an attempt to lie to one's own conscience?

Act i. sc. 1.

MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.

Shal. The luce is the fresh fish, the salt fish is an old coat.

I CAN not understand this. Perhaps there is a corruption both of words and speakers. Shallow no sooner corrects one mistake of Sir Hugh's, namely louse' for luce,' a pike, but the honest Welchman falls into another, namely, cod' (baccalà) Cambrice 'cot' for coat.

Shal. The luce is the fresh fish-
Evans. The salt fish is an old cot.

Luce is a fresh fish, and not a louse,' says Shallow. aye,' quoth Sir Hugh;

'Aye,

the fresh fish is the luce; it is an old

At all events, as the text stands, there

cod that is the salt fish.'
is no sense at all in the words.

Ib. sc. 3.

Fal. Now, the report goes, she has all the rule of her husband's purse; she hath a legion of angels.

Pist. As many devils entertain; and To her, boy, say I.

Perhaps it is

As many devils enter (or enter'd) swine; and to her, boy, say I:—

a somewhat profane, but not un-Shaksperian, allusion to the 'legion' in St. Luke's 'gospel.'

MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

THIS play, which is Shakspeare's throughout, is to me the most painful say rather, the only painful-part of his genuine works. The comic and tragic parts equally border on the montov,—the one being disgusting, the other horrible; and the pardon and marriage of Angelo not merely baffles the strong indignant claim of justice (for cruelty, with lust and damnable baseness, can not be forgiven, because we can not conceive them as being morally repented of)—but it is likewise degrading to the character of wo

man. Beaumont and Fletcher, who can follow Shakspeare in his errors only, have presented a still worse, because more loathsome and contradictory, instance of the same kind in the NightWalker, in the marriage of Alathe to Algripe. Of the counterbalancing beauties of Measure for Measure, I need say nothing; for I have already remarked that the play is Shakspeare's throughout.

Act iii. sc. 1.

Ay, but to die, and go we know not where, &c.

This natural fear of Claudio, from the antipathy we have to death, seems very little varied from that infamous wish of Mæcenas, recorded in the 101st epistle of Seneca:

Debilem facito manu

Debilem pede, coxa, &c.-Warburton's note.

I can not but think this rather an heroic resolve, than an infamous wish. It appears to me to be the grandest symptom of an immortal spirit, when even that bedimmed and overwhelmed spirit recked not of its own immortality, still to seek to be,—to be a mind, a will.

As fame is to reputation, so heaven is to an estate, or immediate advantage. The difference is, that the self-love of the former can not exist but by a complete suppression and habitual supplantation of immediate selfishness. In one point of view, the miser is more estimable than the spendthrift;-only that the miser's present feelings are as much of the present as the spendthrift's. But cæteris paribus, that is, upon the supposition that whatever is good or lovely in the one coexists equally in the other, then, doubtless, the master of the present is less a selfish being, an animal, than he who lives for the moment with no inheritance in the future. Whatever can degrade man, is supposed in the latter case, whatever can elevate him, in the former. And as to self;—strange and generous self! that can only be such a self by a complete divestment of all that men call self,—of all that can make it either practically to others, or consciously to the individual himself, different from the human race in its ideal. Such self is but a perpetual religion, an inalienable acknowledgment of God, the sole basis and ground of being. In this sense, how can I love God, and not love myself as far as it is of God?

Ib. sc. 2.

Pattern in himself to know,
Grace to stand, and virtue go.

Worse metre, indeed, but better English would be,—

Grace to stand, virtue to go.

CYMBELINE.

Act i. sc. 1.

You do not meet a man, but frowns: our bloods
No more obey the heavens, than our courtiers'
Still seem, as does the king's.

THERE can be little doubt of Mr. Tyrwhitt's emendations of 'courtiers' and 'king,' as to the sense ;-only it is not impossible that Shakspeare's dramatic language may allow of the word, 'brows' or 'faces' being understood after the word 'courtiers,' which might then remain in the genitive case plural. But the nominative plural makes excellent sense, and is sufficiently elegant, and sounds to my ear Shaksperian. What, however, is meant by 'our bloods no more obey the heavens?' Dr. Johnson's assertion, that 'bloods' signify countenances,' is, I think, mistaken both in the thought conveyed-(for it was never a popular belief that the stars governed men's countenances)—and in the usage, which requires an antithesis of the blood,-or the temperament of the four humors, choler, melancholy, phlegm, and the red globules, or the sanguine portion, which was supposed not to be in our own power, but, to be dependent on the influences of the heavenly bodies,—and the countenances which are in our power really, though from flattery we bring them into a no less apparent dependence on the sovereign, than the former are in actual dependence on the constellations.

I have sometimes thought that the word 'courtiers' was a misprint for countenances,' arising from an anticipation, by foreglance of the compositor's eye, of the word 'courtier' a few lines below. The written is easily and often confounded with the written n. The compositor read the first syllable court, and -his eye at the same time catching the word courtier lower down-he completed the word without reconsulting the copy. It is not unlikely that Shakspeare intended first to express, gen

erally, the same thought, which a little afterwards he repeats with a particular application to the persons meant ;- -a common usage of the pronominal 'our,' where the speaker does not really mean to include himself; and the word 'you' is an additional confirmation of the 'our,' being used in this place, for 'men' generally and indefinitely, just as you do not meet' is the same as 'one does not meet.'

Act i. sc. 2. Imogen's speech :—

-My dearest husband,

I something fear my fathers wrath; but nothing
(Always reserv'd my holy duty) what

His rage can do on me.

Place the emphasis on 'me;' for 'rage' is a mere repetition of 'wrath.'

Cym. O disloyal thing

That should'st repair my youth, thou heapest
A year's age on me!

How is it that the commentators take no notice of the unShaksperian defect in the metre of the second line, and what in Shakspeare is the same, in the harmony with the sense and feeling? Some word or words must have slipped out after 'youth,' -probably and see:'

That should'st repair my youth!—and see, thou heap'st, &c.

Ib. sc. 4. Pisanio's speech

-For so long

As he could make me with this eye or ear
Distinguish him from others, &c.

But this eye,' in spite of the supposition of its being used δεικτικῶς, is

very awkward. I should think that either or'-or 'the' was Shakspeare's word :

As he could make me or with eye or ear.

Ib. sc. 7. Iachimo's speech :

Hath nature given them eyes

To see this vaulted arch, and the rich crop
Of sea and land, which can distinguish 'twixt
The fiery orbs above, and the twinn'd stones
Upon the number'd beach.