Now cre the fun advance his burning eye, With baleful weeds, and precious-juiced flowers. None but for fome, and yet all different. variegated. In this fenfe it is ufed by Churchyard, in his Le gend of Tho. Mowbray Duke of Norfolk. Mowbray, fpeaking of the Germans, fays: "All jagg'd and frounc'd, with divers colours deck'd, "They fwear, they curfe, and drink till they be fleck'd." Lord Surrey ufes the fame word in his tranflation of the 4th Eneid: "Her quivering cheekes flecked with deadly ftaine." The fame image occurs in Much ado about Nothing, act v. fc. iii: "Dapples the drowsy eat with fpots of grey.' STEEVENS 3 I muft up fill this ozier cage of ours, &c.] So, in the 13th fong of Drayton's Polyolbion : "His happy time he spends the works of God to fee, And in a little maund, being made of oziers small, Lucretius. "The womb of nature, and perhaps her grave." Milton. STEEVENS. $ -powerful grace,] Efficacious virtue. JOHNSON. 6 For nought fo vile that on the earth doth live.] The quarto, 1597, reads: For nought fo vile that vile on earth doth live. STERVENS. part; Nor ought fo good, but, ftrain'd from that fair ufe, Rom. Good morrow, father! What early tongue fo fweet faluteth me?- Rom. That laft is true, the fweeter reft was mine. 7 Two fuch oppofed FOES] Foes is the reading of the oldeft copy; kings of that in 1609. Shakspeare might have remembered the following paffage in the old play of Misfortunes of King Arthur, 1587: "Peace hath three foes encamped in our breafts, STEEVENS. with unfluft brain, &c.] The copy, 1597, reads: - with unftuff'd brain Doth couch his limmes, there golden fleep remaines." STEEVENS. Rom Rom. With Rofaline, my ghoftly father? no; Rom. I'll tell thee, ere thou afk it me again. Fri. Be plain, good fon, and homely in thy drift; On the fair daughter of rich Capulet: As mine on hers, fo hers is fet on mine; Fri. Holy faint Francis! what a change is here! & Holy Saint Francis!] Old copy, Jefu Maria! STEEVENS, And art thou chang'd? pronounce this fentence thenWomen may fall, when there's no ftrength in men. Rom. Thou chidd'it me oft for loving Rofaline. Fri. For doating, not for loving, pupil mine, Rom. And bad'ft me bury love. Fri. Not in a grave, To lay one in, another out to have. Rom. I pray thee, chide not: fhe, whom I love now, Doth grace for grace, and love for love allow; Fri. O, fhe knew well, Thy love did read by rote, and could not spell. For this alliance may fo happy prove, To turn your houfholds' rancour to pure love". Rom. O, let us hence; I ftand on fudden hafte, Fri, Wifely, and flow; They ftumble, that run fast, [Exeunt. Enter Benvolio, and Mercutio. Mer. Where the devil fhould this Romeo be ?Came he not home to-night? Ben, Not to his father's; I fpoke with his man. Torments him fo, that he will fure run mad. The two following lines were added fince the first play, STEEVENS. Copy of this Ben. Ben. Romeo will anfwer it. Mer. Any man, that can write, may answer a letter. Ben. Nay, he will anfwer the letter's mafter, how he dares, being dar'd. Mer. Alas, poor Romeo, he is already dead! stabb'd with a white wench's black eye, fhot thorough the ear with a love-fong; 'the very pin of his heart cleft with the blind bow-boy's but-fhaft; And is he a man to encounter Tybalt? Ben. Why, what is Tybalt? 2 3 Mer. More than prince of cats, I can tell you. O, he is the courageous captain of compliments : he fights as you fing prick-fong, keeps time, diftance+, The very pin of his heart cleft with the blind bow-boy's but haft;] The allufion is to archery. The clout or white mark at which the arrows was directed, was faftened by a black pin placed in the center of it. To hit this was the highest ambition of every markfinan. So, in No Wit like a Woman's, a comedy, by Middleton, 1657: "They have fhot two arrows without heads, "They cannot flick i' the but yet: hold out knight, Again, in Marlowe's Tamburlaine, 1591: "For kings are clouts that every man fhoots at, "Our crown the pin that thousands feek to cleave." MALONE WARBURTON. 2 More than prince of cats,-] Tybert, the name given to the Cat, in the story-book of Reynard the Fox. So, in Decker's Satiromaffix: "-tho' you were Tybert, the long-tail'd prince of Rats.” Again, in Have with you to Saffron Walden, &c. 1598: "—not Tibault prince of Cats, &c." STEEVENS. 3-courageous captain of compliments:] A complete mafter of all the laws of ceremony, the principal man in the doctrine of punctilio. "A man of compliments, whom right and wrong "Have chofe as umpire;" fays our author of Don Armado, the Spaniard, in Love's Labour's Lof. JOHNSON. 4 keeps time, difiance, and proportion.] So Fonfon's Bobadil: "Note your distance, keep your due proportion of time." STEEVENS. |