Octavia on a level with herself, who was no virgin, when she fell to the lot of Autony.

STEEVENS.

P. 151, 1. 31. 32.- And her forehead is as low As she would wish it.] Low foreheads were in Shakspeare's age thought a blemish. So, in The Tempest:

،

with foreheads villainous low."

MALONE. The phrase employed by the Messenger, is still a cant one. I once overheard a chambermaid say of her rival, "that her legs were as thick as

she could wish them." STEEVENS.

P. 152, 1. 4. That so I harry'd him.] To harry, is to use roughly. Holinshed, p. 735, speaking of the body of Richard III. says, it was harried on horseback, dead." STEEVENS.

To harry, is, literally, to hunt. Hence the word harrier. King James threatened the Puritans that "he would harry them out of the land." HENLEY.

P. 152, 1. 29. Or did it from his teeth.] "Whether this means, as we now say, in spite of his teeth, or that he spoke through his teeth, as to be purposely indistinct, I am unable to determine. STEEVENS.

SO

P. 152, 1. 30 & fol. The situation and sentiments of Octavia resemble those of Lady Blanch in King John. STEEVENS.

P. 153, 1. 22-24. -Wars 'twixt you twain

would be

As if the world should cleave, and that slain men

Should solder up the rift.] The sense is, that war between Caesar and Antony would ̧en

gage the world between them, and that the slaughter would be great in so extensive a commotion.

P. 154, 1. 11.

JOHNSON.

rivality;] i. e. equal rank.'

JOHNSON.

So, in Hamlet, Horatio and Marcellus are styled by Bernardo "the rivals" of his watch.

P. 154, 1. 15.

1 STEEVENS.

Upon his own appeal, seizes him:] To appeal, in Shakspeare, is to accuse; Caesar seized Lepidus without any other proof than Caesar's accusation, JOHNSON.

P. 154, 1. 17-20. Then, world, thou hast a pair of chaps, no more; And throw between them all the food thou

hast,

They'll grind the one the other. Where's Antony? Old copy Then 'would thou had'st a pair of chaps, no more; and throw between them all the food thou hast, they'll grind the other. Where's Antony? This is obscure, I read it as it stands here.

Caesar aud Antony will make war on each other, though they have the world to prey upon between them. JOHNSON.

P. 154. 1. 28-30.

More, Domitius;

1

My lord desires you presently: my news I might have told hereafter. I have something more to tell you, which I might have told at first, and delayed iny news. Antony requires your presence. JOHNSON.

P. 155, l. 12 - 15.

Unto her

He gave the 'stablishment of Egypt; made

her

Of lower Cyria, Cyprus, Lydia,

Absolute Queen.] For Lydia, Mr. Upton) from Plutarch, has restored Lybia. JOHNSON. In the translation from the French of Amyot by Tho. North, in folio, 1597,* will be seen at once the origin of this mistake. "First of all he did establish Cleopatra Queen of Egypt, of Cyprus, of Lydia, and the lower Syria." FARMER.

The present reading is right, -for in page 157, 、 where Caesar is recounting the several Kings whom Antony had assembled, he gives the kingdom of Lybia to Bocchus. M. MASON.

P. 157, 1. 13. Being an obstruct 'tween his lust and him.] Old copy -abstract. Antony very soon comply'd to let Octavia go at her request, says Caesar; and why? because she was an abstract between his inordinate passion and him; this is absurd.. We must read;

Being an obstruct 'tween his lust and him. i.e. his wife being an obstruction, a bar to the prosecution of his wanton pleasures with Cleo-i paira WARBURTON.

I am by no means certain that this change was necessary. Mr. Donley pronounces it to be "need". less and that it ought to be rejected, as perverting sense. One of the meanings of abstracted is › separated, disjoined; and therefore our poet, with his usual license, ruight have used it for a

the

dis

I find the character of this work pretty early delineated! 'Twas Greek at first, that Greek was Latin made, That Latin French, that French to English straid;

"

"

This twist one Plutarch there's more difference,

The i'th same Englishman return'd from Frauce."

FARMER

disjunctive. I believe there is no such substantive as obstruct: Besides we say, an obstruction to a thing, but not between one thing and another,

As Mr. Malone, however, is contented with Dr. Warburton's reading, I have left it in our text. STEEVENS

P. 157, 1. 24 & fol. Mr. Upton remarks, that there are some errors in this enumeration of the auxiliary Kings: but it is probable that the author did not much wish to be accurate. JOHNSON.

P. 158, l. 17. And gives his poteni regiment to a trull. Regiment, is, government, authority; he puts his power and his empire into the hands of a false woman,

It may be observed, that trull was not, in our author's time, a term of mere infamy, but a word of slight contempt, as wench is now.

JOHNSON.. Trull is used in the First Part of King Henry VI. as synonymous to harlot, and is rendered by the Latin word Scortum, in Cole's Dictionary, 1679. There can therefore be no doubt of the sense in which it is used here. MALONE.

Regiment is used for regimen or government by most of our ancient writers.

Mecaenas, however, by this appellation, most certainly, means no compliment to Cleopatra.

STEEVENS. P. 158, 1. 28. Thou hast forspoke my being in these wars;] To forspeak, is to contradict, to speak against, as forbid is to order negatively. JOHNSON.

To forspeak has generally reference to the mischiefs effected by enchantment. In Shakspeare it is the opposite of bespeak. STEVENS,

VOL. XV.

21

P. 159, 1. 6. merely lost;] i. e. entirely, absolutely lost. STEEVENS.

P. 159, I. 28. And take in Toryne?] To take in is to gain by conquest. STEEVENS.

P, 160, 1. 4. For he dares us to't] i. e. because he dares us. STEEVENS.

P0161, 1.4201–22. but his whole action

grows

39 Not in the power on't] That is, his whole conduct becomes ungoverned by the right, or by reason. JonNSON, as discb Jus. To a

think the sense is

conduct in the war nidros means to say, His Wifferent, and that Cais not founded upon that at which is his gr greatest strength, (namely his land force,) but où 'the caprice of a woman, who wishes that he should fight by sea. Dr. Johnson refers the word on't to right in the preceding speech. I apprehend, it refers to action in the speech before us. MALONE. Esp. 161, 1. 28. 29,-This speed of Caesar's

"

Carries beyond belief. Perhaps this phrase is from archery. So, in King Henry IV. P. II; 99, would have carried you a forehand shaft fourteen fourteen and a half. Alf. STEEVENSLA P. 16, 1, 51. — distractions, Juiceré detach ments separate bodies. JOHNSON SW availed i P. 162, 1. 6. throes forthine, emitasas in parturition. STEVENS.id sono sud

28

Par654, first: The Antoniddyp Which, Plutarch says, was the name of Cleopatra's ship. YM at megge algum gun to seu eide P. 163, 158.cantle

Cantle is rather a corner.

28

POPE

A piece of lump.
POFE

Caesar in this play

!