CLE. O Dionyza, Who wanteth food, and will not say he wants it, are, from the scene we describe, our forrows are simply felt, and appear indistinct, as through a mist. When we attempt to reduce our griefs by artful comparison, that effort is made to our difadvantage, and our calamities encrease, like trees, that shoot the higher, because they have felt the discipline of the pruning knife. Shakspeare has an expreffion fimilar to the foregoing: " I see before me, neither here nor there, Cymbeline, Ac III. sc. i. I may, however, have only exchanged one fort of nonfenfe for another; as the following comparison in Mr. Pope's Effay on Criticism, v. 392, seems to suggest a different meaning to the observation of Dionyza : " As things seem large which we through mists descry;" thus forrow is always apt to magnify its object. STEEVENS. ↑ Our tongues and forrows do-) Mr. Malone reads too. STEEVENS. The original copy has-to, here and in the next line; which cannot be right. To was often written by our old writers for too; and in like manner too and two were confounded. The quarto of 1619 reads do in the first line. I think Cleon means to fay-Let our tongues and forrows too found deep, &c. MALONE. * till lungs-) The old copy has-tongues. The correction was made by Mr. Steevens. MALONE. 9 They may awake their helps to comfort them.] Old copyhelpers. STEEVENS. Perhaps we should read-helps. So before: -be my helps, "To compass fuch a boundless happiness!" MALONE. I have adopted Mr. Malone's very natural conjecture. STEEVENS. I'll then discourse our woes, felt several years, And wanting breath to speak, help me with tears. Dro. I'll do my best, sir. CLE. This Tharsus, o'er which I have govern ment, (A city, on whom plenty held full hand,) For riches, strew'd herself even in the streets;1 Whose towers bore heads so high, they kiss'd the clouds,2 And strangers ne'er beheld, but wonder'd at; For riches, strew'd herself even in the streets;] For, in the present instance, I believe, means with respect to, with regard to riches. Thus, in Coriolanus: "Rather our state's defective for requital, "Than we to stretch it out." "Strew'd herself," referring to city, is undoubtedly the true reading. Thus, in Timon of Athens: "Thou'lt give away thyself in paper shortly." STEEVENS. Shakspeare generally uses riches as a fingular noun. Thus, in Othello: "The riches of the ship is come ashore." Again, ibid: "But riches fineless is as poor as winter-." Again, in hos 87th Sonnet: "And for that riches where is my deserving?" MALONE, I should propose to read richness, instead of riches, which renders the paffage not only correct, but much more poetical. Malone must also prove that he uses riches to express a person, or it will not agree with the word herself, or answer in this place. This last line should be in a parenthesis. M. MASON. 2 Hamlet: bore heads fo high, they kiss'd the clouds,] So, in - like the herald Mercury, "New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill." Again, in The Rape of Lucrece, 1594: Threat'ning cloud-kissing Ilion with annoy." Again, more appofitely, in Troilus and Creffida : "Yon towers whose wanton tops do buss the clouds." MALONE, Whose men and dames so jetted and adorn'd,3 Dro. O, 'tis too true. CLE. But fee what heaven can do! By this our change, These mouths, whom but of late, earth, sea, and air, Were all too little to content and please, Although they gave their creatures in abundance, 3 -so jetted and adorn'd,] To jet is to strut, to walk proudly. So, in Twelfth-Night: "Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock of him: how he jets under his advanced plumes!" STEEVENS. * Like one another's glass to trim them by:] The same idea is found in Hamlet: Ophelia, speaking of the prince, says he was: "The glass of fashion, and the mould of form, "The observ'd of all observers." Again, in Cymbeline: "A sample to the youngest, to the more mature Again, in The Second Part of King Henry IV: " - He was indeed the glass, " Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves." MALONE. $ Those palates, &c.] The passage is so corrupt in the old copy, that it is difficult even to form a probable conjecture upon it. It reads-who not yet two favers younger. The words [not us'd to hunger's favour] which I have inserted in my text, afford sense, and are not very remote from the traces of the original letters; and favour and hunger might easily have been transposed. We have in a subsequent scene: "All viands that I eat, do seem unfavoury." Must have inventions to delight the taste, I do not, however, propose this emendation with the smalleft confidence; but it may remain till fome less exceptionable conjecture shall be offered. MALONE. The old reading is evidently erroneous, but the change of a fingle word, the reading of fummers, instead of favers, gives us what certainly the author wrote: Those palates who not yet two summers younger, &c. That is, "Those palates, who less than two years ago, required fome new inventions of cookery to delight their taste, would now be glad of plain bread." M. MASON. I have inferted Mr. M. Mason's emendation in the text. In Romeo and Juliet our author also computes time by the fame number of fummers : .6 "Let two more fummers wither in their pride," &c. STEEVENS. - to noufle up their babes,] I would read-nurfle. A fondling is still called a nursling. To nouzle, or, as it is now written, nuzzle, is to go with the nose down like a hog. So, Pope: "The blessed benefit, not there confin'd, STEEVENS. In an ancient poem entitled The Strange Birth, honourable Coronation, and most unhappie Death of famous Arthur, King of Brytaine, 1601, I find the word nuzzle used nearly in the fame manner as in the text: "The first fair sportive night that you shall have, Again, more appofitely, ibidem : " Being nuzzled in effeminate delights-." I have therefore retained the reading of the old copy. MALONE. 7 Dro. Our cheeks and hollow eyes do witness it. CLE. O, let those cities, that of Plenty's cup And her profperities so largely taste, With their fuperfluous riots, hear these tears! The misery of Tharsus may be theirs. Enter a Lord. LORD. Where's the lord governor ? Speak out thy forrows which thou bring'st, in haste, LORD. We have defcried, upon our neighbouring shore, A portly fail of ships make hitherward. CLE. I thought as much. One forrow never comes, but brings an heir, Taking advantage, of our misery, 10, let those cities, that of Plenty's cup-] A kindred thought is found in King Lear: - Take phyfick pomp! Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel, "That thou may'st shake the superflux to them, "And show the heavens more just." Again, ibidem: 8 "Let the fuperfluous and luft-dieted man," &c. MALONE. -thy forrows - Perhaps the forrows. STEEVENS. • One forrow never comes, but brings an heir, That may fucceed as his inheritor;] So, in Hamlet : - forrows never come as single spies, "But in battalions." STEEVENS. Again, ibidem : "One woe doth tread upon another's heels, "So fast they follow." MALONE. |