In purity of manhood stand upright, " and bedew "Her paftors' grafs with faithful English blood.” Again, in As you like it, folio, 1623, we find, "I have heard him read many lectors against it;" instead of lectures. Pasture, when the " is founded thin, and paftor, are scarcely diftinguishable. Thus, as I conceive, the true reading of the first disputed word of this contefted passage is afcertained. In As you like it we have"good pasture makes fat sheep." Again, in the fame play: Anon, a careless herd, " Full of the pafture, jumps along by him," &c. The meaning then of the passage is, - It is the land alone which each man possesses that makes him rich, and proud, and flattered; and the want of it, that makes him poor, and an object of contempt. I fuppofe, with Dr. Johnson, that Shakspeare was ftill thinking of the rich and poor brother already described. I doubt much whether Dr. Johnson himself was fatisfied with his far-fetched explication of paftour, as applied to brother; [See his note.] and I think no one else can be fatisfied with it. In order to give it fome little support, he supposes " This man's a flatterer," in the following passage, to relate to the imaginary paftor in this; whereas those words indubitably relate to any one individual selected out of the aggregate mass of mankind. Dr. Warburton reads wether's fides; which affords a commodious sense, but is so far removed from the original reading as to be inadmissible. Shakspeare, I have no doubt, thought at first of those animals that are fatted by pafture, and passed from thence to the proprietor of the foil. I have fometimes thought that he might have written-the breather's fides. He has thrice used the word elsewhere. " I will. chide no breather in the world, but myself," says Orlando in As you like it. Again, in one of his Sonnets: "When all the breathers of this world are dead;" Again, in Antony and Cleopatra: "She shows a body, rather than a life; If this was the author's word in the passage before us, it must mean every living animal. But I have little faith in such conjectures. Concerning the third word there can be no difficulty. Leane was the old spelling of lean, and the u in the MSS. of our author's time is not to be distinguished from an n. Add to this, that in the And fay, This man's a flatterer? if one be, first folio u is constantly employed where we now use a v; and hence, by inverfion, the two letters were often confounded (as they are at this day in almost every proof-sheet of every book that paffes through the prefs). Of this I have given various instances in a note in Vol. III. p. 474, n. 3. See also Vol. VII. p. 197, n. 6. But it is not neceffary to have recourse to these instances. This very word leave is again printed instead of leane, in King Henry IV. Part II. quarto, 1600: "The lives of all your loving complices On the other hand, in King Henry VIII. 1623, we have leane instead of leave: "You'll leane your noise anon, you rascals." But any argument on this point is superfluous, fince the context clearly shews that lean must have been the word intended by Shakspeare. Such emendations as those now adopted, thus founded and fupported, are not capricious conjectures, against which no one has fet his face more than myself, but almost certainties. This note has run out into an inordinate length, for which I shall make no other apology than that finding it neceffary to depart from the reading of the old copy, to obtain any fenfe, I thought it incumbent on me to fupport the readings I have chosen, in the beft manner in my power. MALONE. As a brother (meaning, I suppose, a churchman) does not, literally fpeaking, fatten himself by feeding on land, it is probable that pasture fignifies eating in general, without reference to terra firma. So, in Love's Labour's Loft: " Food for his rage, repasture for his den." Pasture, in the sense of nourishment collected from fields, will undoubtedly fatten the fides of a sheep or an ox, but who ever defcribes the owner of the fields as having derived from them his embonpoint? The emendation-lean is found in the second folio, which should not have been denied the praise to which it is entitled. Breather's fides can never be right, for who is likely to grow fat through the mere privilege of breathing? or who indeed can receive fustenance without it? The reading in the text may be the true one; but the condition in which this play was tranfmitted to us, is such as will warrant repeated doubts in almost every scene of it. STEEVENS. And fay, This man's a flatterer?] This man does not refer to any particular perfon before mentioned, as Dr. Johnfon thought, : So are they all; for every grize of fortune Who feeks for better of thee, sauce his palate fair; but to some supposed individual. Who, says Timon, can with "Who can come in, and say, that I mean her, MALONE. 3-for every grize of fortune - Grize for step or degree. POPE. See Vol. IV. p. 105, n. 4. MALONE. 4 fang mankind!] i. e. seize, gripe. This verb is used by Decker in his Match me at London, 1631: "-bite any catchpole that fangs for you." 5 STEEVENS. no idle votarist.] No infincere or inconstant fupplicant. Gold will not serve me instead of roots. JOHNSON. 6 -you clear heavens!] This may mean either ye cloudless Skies, or ye deities exempt from guilt. Shakspeare mentions the clearest gods in King Lear; and in Acolaftus, a comedy, 1540, a stranger is thus addressed: "Good stranger or alyen, clere geft," &c. Again, in The Rape of Lucrece : " Then Collatine again by Lucrece' fide, i. e. his uncontaminated bed. STEEVENS. Wrong, right; base, noble; old, young; coward, valiant. Ha, you gods! why this? What this, you gods? Why this Will lug your priests and servants from your fides; 1 Will knit and break religions; bless the accurs'd; That makes the wappen'd widow wed again; 7 Why this 3 Will lug your priests and fervants from your fides;] Ariftophanes, in his Plutus, Act V. fc. ii. makes the priest of Jupiter defert his service to live with Plutus. WARBURTON. 8 Pluck ftout men's pillows from below their heads:] i. e. men who have strength yet remaining to struggle with their diftemper. This alludes to an old cuftom of drawing away the pillow from under the heads of men in their last agonies, to make their departure the easier. But the Oxford editor, supposing stout to fignify healthy, alters it to fick, and this he calls emending. WARBURTON. 9the hoar leprosy - So, in P. Holland's Tranflation of Pliny's Natural History, Book XXVIII. ch. xii: " -the foul white leprie called elephantiasis." STEEVENS. 2 this is it,] Some word is here wanting to the metre. We might either repeat the pronoun-this; or avail ourselves of our author's common introductory adverb, emphatically used, - why, this it is. STEEVENS. 3 That makes the wappen'd widow wed again;] Waped or wappen'd fignifies both forrowful and terrified, either for the lofs of a good husband, or by the treatment of a bad. But gold, he says, can overcome both her affection and her fears. WARBURTON. Of wappened I have found no example, nor know any meaning. To awhape is used by Spenser in his Hubberd's Tale, but I think not in either of the senses mentioned. I would read wained, for decayed by time. So, our author, in King Richard III : "A beauty-waining, and distressed widow." JOHNSON. In the comedy of The Roaring Girl, by Middleton and Decker, She, whom the spital-house, and ulcerous fores 1611, I meet with a word very like this, which the reader will eafily explain for himself, when he has feen the following passage: Moll. And there you shall wap with me. "Sir B. Nay, Moll, what's that wap? "Moll. Wappening and niggling is all one, the rogue my man can tell you." Again, in Ben Jonson's Masque of Gypsies Metamorphofed: "Boarded at Tappington, "Bedded at Wappington." Again, in Martin Mark-all's Apologie to the Bel-man of London, 1610: "Niggling is company-keeping with a woman: this word is not used now, but wapping, and thereof comes the name wapping-morts for whores." Again, in one of the Pafton Letters, Vol. IV. p. 417: "Deal courteously with the Queen, &c. and with Mistress Anne Hawte for wappys" &c. Mr. Amner observes, that "the editor of these same Letters, to wit, Sir John Fenn, (as perhaps becometh a grave man and a magiftrate,) professeth not to understand this passage." It must not, however, be concealed, that Chaucer, in The Complaint of Annelida, line 217, uses the word with the sense in which Dr. Warburton explains it: "My fewertye in waped countenance." Wappened, according to the quotations I have already given, would mean-The widow whose curiofity and passions had been already gratified. So, in Hamlet: "The instances that second marriage move, "Are base respects of thrift, but none of love." And if the word defunct, in Othello, be explained according to its primitive meaning, the same sentiment may be discovered there. There may, however, be some corruption in the text. After all, I had rather read-weeping widow. So, in the ancient bl. 1. ballad entitled, The little Barley Corne: " Twill make a weeping widow laugh, دو " And foon incline to pleasure." STEEVENS, The instances produced by Mr. Steevens fully fupport the text in my apprehenfion, nor do I fuspect any corruption. Unwapper'd is used by Fletcher in The Two Noble Kinsmen, for fresh, the opposite of ftale; and perhaps we should read there unwappen'd. Mr. Steevens's interpretation however, is, I think, not quite exact, because it appears to me likely to mislead the reader with respect to the general import of the passage. Shakspeare means not to account for the wappen'd widow's seeking a husband, (though " her curiofity has been gratified,") but for her finding one. It is |