Pagina-afbeeldingen
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ANNOTATIONS.

ACT THE FIRST.

(a) My eye and Tommy.

THIS is rather an obscure phrase. I suspect the author wrote My own to me, and that the passage originally stood thus:

But I have that without you can't take from me,

As my black clothes are all my own to me.

The whole passage, which before was unintelligible, is, by this slight alteration, rendered perfectly clear; and may be thus explained :-You may disapprove of my outward appearance, but you cannot compel me to alter it; for, you have no controul over that which I wear without, as my black clothes are all my own to me.-i. e. my own personal property-not bor

rowed from the Royal ward-robe, but made expressly for me, and at my own expense.

WARBURTON.

Here is an elaborate display of ingenuity without accuracy. He that will wantonly sacrifice the sense of his author to a supererogatory refinement, may gain the admiration of the unlearned, and excite the wonder of the ignorant; but of obtaining the praise of the illuminated, and the approbation of the erudite, let him despair.

My eye and Tommy (i. e fudge) is the true reading; and the passage, as it stands, is correct. JOHNSON.

In the Ryghte Tragycall Hystorie of Master Thomas Thumbe, bl. let. no date, I find," "Tis all my eye and Betty Martin" used in the same sense. If the substitution of "Tommy" for “ Betty Martin” be allowed, Dr. Johnson's explanation is just.

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(b) My dear, take my Belcher

STEEVENS.

I question whether Belchers were known in Denmark, as early as the time of Hamlet. This is an evident Anachronism.

JOHNSON.

In a very old bl. let. Detaille of ye Workes of ye Loome, I find mention of "BELLE-CHERE, a Kerchief (so called, because of it's Beautie and of it's Dearnesse) used only by Folke of Degree." With greater propriety might Dr. Johnson have doubted the existence of Umbrellas in Denmark.

STEEVENS.

(c) quizzing

i. e. Making game.

JOHNSON.

(d) Cheer

The folio reads chear.

POPE.

Mr. Pope is, I think, incorrect. I have consulted, not only all the folios, but also all the quartos, octavos, and duodecimos, and find that they concur in reading cheer. As I consider this a point of too much importance to be left in uncertainty, I have been the more careful in my examination of it.

STEEVENS.

(e) My watch says twelve

Horatio says, 'tis half past eleven at most.

That

Marcellus's watch keeps time more accurately than Horatio's, is proved by the appearance of the ghost; as it is well known that ghosts are never visible until midnight.

For a man to wear a good watch, although there be neither a moral obligation, nor a physical necessity; yet he who, disdaining the equivocating offspring of Geneva, carries one whose motions are regulated with rigid scrupulosity, and whose information is delivered with oracular veracity, deserves praise, and merits commendation.

JOHNSON.

There is so surprising a display of intellect in this observation, that I shall forbear to question the truth of the position.

(f) Rig

A row; a kick-up.

STEEVENS.

STEEVENS.

Rig is not, strictly, a row, but rather a go: in which sense it is used in another part of this

play.

JOHNSON.

(g) You'd better hold your jaw

The folio reads mag: but I adopt jaw (from the quarto) as the more elegant; and as being more in the spirit of our author.

(h) Gab—

STEEVENS.

i. e. Mag, or jaw. See the "Slang Dictionary."

St. Giles's Edition.

JOHNSON.

(i) That diddled me

The true reading I believe to be "that did me." To do a person, is, to cheat him.

POPE.

Diddled is correct. To do and to diddle mean

the same.

JOHNSON.

(k) What's the row?

I have ventured to restore this from the old copies ::

in the later ones I find, what now?

STEEVENS.

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