a

Look on me with your welkin eye: Sweet villain!
Most dear'st! my collop!-Can thy dam?-may 't be?
Affection! thy intention stabs the centre:
Thou dost make possible things not so held,
Communicat'st with dreams;-(How can this be?)--
With what's unreal thou coactive art,

And fellow'st nothing: Then, 't is very credent,
Thou mayst co-join with something; and thou dost;
(And that beyond commission; and I find it,)
And that to the infection of my brains,

And hardening of my brows.

Pol.

What means Sicilia?

Her. He something seems unsettled.

Pol.

How! my lord!

Leon. What cheer? how is 't with you, best brother? d Her.

As if you held a brow of much distraction :

Are you mov'd, my lord?

Leon.
No, in good earnest.—
How sometimes nature will betray its folly,
Its tenderness, and make itself a pastime
To harder bosoms! Looking on the lines
Of my boy's face, my thoughts I did recoile
Twenty-three years; and saw myself unbreech'd,

a Welkin eye-blue eye.

b Affection is imagination; intention, eagerness of attention.

c Credent-credible.

You look

d We restore this line to Leontes, according to the original. On the authority of Hanmer and Steevens, the passage is now invariably printed as follows:

"Pol.

How, my lord?

What cheer? how is 't with you, best brother?"

It is impossible, we think, for any alteration to be more tasteless than this, and more destructive of the spirit of the author. Leontes, even in his moody reverie, has his eye fixed upon his queen and Polixenes; and when he is addressed by the latter with "How, my lord?" he replies, with a forced gaiety,

"What cheer? how is 't with you?"

The addition of "best brother" is, we apprehend, meant to be uttered in a tone of bitter irony. All this is destroyed by making the line merely a prolongation of the inquiry of Polixenes.

e This is usually printed "methoughts, I did recoil." The original has " me thoughts" as two words, without a comma following. Five lines lower we have "me thought," as a parenthesis. We have no doubt that me is a misprint for my, and that recoil is used as an active verb-"I did put back my thoughts."

In my green velvet coat; my dagger muzzled,
Lest it should bite its master, and so prove,
As ornaments oft do, too dangerous.

How like, methought, I then was to this kernel,
This quash, this gentleman:-Mine honest friend,

Will you take eggs for money?2

Mam. No, my lord, I'll fight.

Leon. You will? why, happy man be his dole! a—My brother,

Are you so fond of your young prince, as we
Do seem to be of ours?

He's all my exercise, my mirth, my matter:
Now my sworn friend, and then mine enemy;
My parasite, my soldier, statesman, all :

He makes a July's day short as December;
And, with his varying childness, cures in me
Thoughts that would thick my blood.

Leon.
So stands this squire
Offic'd with me: We two will walk, my lord,

And leave you to your graver steps.-Hermione,

How thou lov'st us, show in our brother's welcome;
Let what is dear in Sicily be cheap:

Next to thyself, and my young rover, he's
Apparent to my heart.b

a A proverbial expression; meaning, may his lot (dole) be happy.

b We have been favoured with the following note by Mr. Richardson, the author of 'A New Dictionary of the English Language :'- "Johnson thinks' apparent to my heart' means 'heir apparent.' But why is he 'whose right of inheritance is indefeasible provided he outlives his ancestor' (Blackstone) called heir apparent? Surely because he is something more than apparently heir. The heir presumptive is that. The heir apparent is evidently so near the ancestor that no one can at any time intervene or become nearer. And in Cotgrave we find not only apparent (appearing), but' apparenté, m., ée f., of kin, or near kinsman unto.' In Richardson's Dictionary the old word paravaunt, used several times by Spenser, and adopted from the Fr. paravant, is explained by—' Advance, in the van or front, before; before in succession, next in succession, as heir paraunt, i. e. apparent.' And this latter interpretation is supported by a quotation from Fabian: auctoryte of the same Parliament, Syr Roger Mortymer, Erle of, &c., was proclaymed heyer paraunt vnto the crowne of Englonde:' anno 1386. In Lacomte and Roquefort paravant is explained— Devant, auparavant.' The contraction of auparavant into auparant, apparant, and thence, by ignorance, into apparente, is intelligible enough. Apparent to my heart,' then, is Next to my heart." "

6

By

Her.

If you would seek us,

We are yours i' the garden: Shall's attend

you there? Leon. To your own bents dispose you: you'll be found, Be you beneath the sky :-I am angling now, Though you perceive me not how I give line. Go to, go to! How she holds up the neb, the bill to him! And arms her with the boldness of a wife

[Aside. Observing POLIX. and HERM.

To her allowing husband! Gone already;

Inch-thick, knee-deep, o'er head and ears a fork'd one. [Exeunt POLIXENES, HERMIONE, and Attendants.

Go, play, boy, play;-thy mother plays, and I

Play too; but so disgrac'd a part, whose issue

Will hiss me to my grave; contempt and clamour

Will be my knell.-Go, play, boy, play ;-There have been, Or I am much deceiv'd, cuckolds ere now;

And many a man there is, even at this present,

Now, while I speak this, holds his wife by the arm,
That little thinks she has been sluic'd in his absence,
And his pond fish'd by his next neighbour, by
Sir Smile, his neighbour: nay, there's comfort in 't,
Whiles other men have gates, and those gates open'd,
As mine, against their will: Should all despair
That have revolted wives, the tenth of mankind
Would hang themselves. Physic for 't there's none;
It is a bawdy planet, that will strike

Where 't is predominant; and 't is powerful, think it,
From east, west, north, and south: Be it concluded,
No barricado for a belly; know it;

It will let in and out the enemy,

With bag and baggage: many thousand of us

Have the disease, and feel 't not.-How now, boy?

Mam. I am like you, they say.

Leon,

What! Camillo, there?

Cam. Ay, my good lord.

Why, that's some comfort.

Leon. Go play, Mamillius; thou'rt an honest man.

Camillo, this great sir will yet stay longer.

[Exit MAMILLius.

Cam. You had much ado to make his anchor hold: When you cast out, it still came home.

Leon.

Didst note it?

Cam. He would not stay at your petitions; made His business more material.

Leon.

Didst perceive it?—

They're here with me already; whispering, rounding, "Sicilia is a-so-forth :" "T is far gone,

When I shall gust it last.-How came 't, Camillo,
That he did stay?

Cam.

At the good queen's entreaty.

Leon. At the queen's, be 't: good, should be pertinent: But so it is, it is not. Was this taken

By any understanding pate but thine?
For thy conceit is soaking, will draw in

3

More than the common blocks :-Not noted, is 't,
But of the finer natures? by some severals
Of head-piece extraordinary? lower messes
Perchance are to this business purblind? say.
Cam. Business, my lord? I think, most understand
Bohemia stays here longer.

Leon.

Ha!

Cam.

Stays here longer.

Leon. Ay, but why?

Cam. To satisfy your highness, and the entreaties Of our most gracious mistress.

Satisfy

Leon.
The entreaties of your mistress?-satisfy?-
Let that suffice. I have trusted thee, Camillo,
With all the nearest things to my heart, as well
My chamber-councils: wherein, priest-like, thou
Hast cleans'd my bosom; I from thee departed
Thy penitent reform'd: but we have been
Deceiv'd in thy integrity, deceiv'd

In that which seems so.

Cam.

Be it forbid, my lord!

Leon. To bide upon 't;-Thou art not honest: or, If thou inclin'st that way, thou art a coward;

• Rounding-telling secretly.

Which hoxes a honesty behind, restraining

From course requir'd: Or else thou must be counted
A servant grafted in my serious trust,

And therein negligent: or else a fool,

That seest a game play'd home, the rich stake drawn,
And tak'st it all for jest.

I

Cam.

My gracious lord,
may be negligent, foolish, and fearful;
In every one of these no man is free,

But that his negligence, his folly, fear,
Among the infinite doings of the world,
Sometimes puts forth: In your affairs, my lord,
If ever I were wilful-negligent,

It was my folly; if industriously

I play'd the fool, it was my negligence,
Not weighing well the end; if ever fearful
To do a thing, where I the issue doubted,
Whereof the execution did cry out

Against the non-performance, 't was a fear
Which oft infects the wisest: these, my lord,
Are such allow'd infirmities, that honesty
Is never free of. But, 'beseech your grace,
Be plainer with me: let me know my trespass
By its own visage: if I then deny it,

'Tis none of mine.

Leon.

Have not you seen, Camillo,

(But that's past doubt-you have; or your eye-glass Is thicker than a cuckold's horn,) or heard,

(For, to a vision so apparent, rumour

Cannot be mute,) or thought, (fox cogitation
Resides not in that man that does not think,b)

a Hoxes. To hox is to hamstring—to hough.

b We print this as in the original. Theobald defends his well-known line of "None but himself can be his parallel"

by this example; and Pope-perhaps to rob Theobald of his authority-reads, "for cogitation

Resides not in that man that does not think it."

Malone justly shows that the addition of it is unnecessary; that this is not an abstract proposition; and that the words "my wife is slippery," though disjoined from "think" by the parenthesis, are evidently to be received in construction with that verb.