He chid Andromache, and ftruck his armourer;
And, like as there were husbandry in war,1
Before the fun rofe, he was harness'd light,2

here given, where his thought is fo much better and nobler expreffed. WARBURTON.

I think the present text may stand. Hector's patience was as a virtue, not variable and accidental, but fixed and constant. If I would alter it, it fhould be thus:

Hector, whofe patience

Is all a virtue fix'd,

All, in old English, is the intenfive or enforcing particle.

JOHNSON.

I had once almoft perfuaded myself that Shakspeare wrote, whofe patience

Is, as a ftatue fix'd.

So, in The Winter's Tale, fc. ult:

"The ftatue is but newly fix'd.”

The fame idea occurs alfo in the celebrated paffage in TwelfthNight:

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-fat like patience on a monument."

The old adage Patience is a virtue, was perhaps uppermoft in the compofitor's mind, and he therefore inadvertently substituted the one word for the other. A virtue fixed may, however, mean the Stationary image of a virtue. STEEVENS.

I

husbandry in war,] So, in Macbeth:

"There's husbandry in heaven." STEEVENS. Husbandry means economical prudence. Troilus alludes to Hector's early rifing. So, in King Henry V:

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our bad neighbours make us early stirrers, "Which is both healthful and good husbandry."

MALONE,

2 Before the fun rofe, he was harness'd light,] Does the poet mean (fays Mr. Theobald) that Hector had put on light armour? Mean! what else could he mean? He goes to fight on foot; and was not that the armour for his purpose? So, Fairfax, in Taffo's Jerufalem:

"The other princes put on harness light

"As footmen ufe-."

Yet, as if this had been the higheft abfurdity, he goes on, Or does he mean that Hector was fprightly in his arms even before funrife? or is a conundrum aimed at, in fun rofe and harness'd light? Was any thing like it? But, to get out of this per

And to the field goes he; where every flower
Did, as a prophet, weep3 what it forefaw
In Hector's wrath.

plexity, he tells us, that a very flight alteration makes all thefe conftructions unnecessary, and fo changes it to harness-dight. Yet indeed the very flightest alteration will, at any time, let the poet's fenfe through the critick's fingers: and the Oxford editor very contentedly takes up what is left behind, and reads harnefs-dight too, in order, as Mr. Theobald well expreffes it, to make all conftruction unnecessary. WARBURTON.

How does it appear that Hector was to fight on foot rather to-day than any other day? It is to be remembered, that the ancient heroes never fought on horseback; nor does their manner of fighting in chariots feem to require less activity than on foot. JOHNSON.

It is true that the heroes of Homer never fought on horseback; yet fuch of them as make a second appearance in the Eneid, like their antagonists the Rutulians, had cavalry among their troops. Little can be inferred from the manner in which Afcanius and the young nobility of Troy are introduced at the conclufion of the funereal games; as Virgil very probably, at the expence of an anachronism, meant to pay a compliment to the military exercises inftituted by Julius Cæfar, and improved by Auguftus. It appears from different paffages in this play, that Hector fights on horseback; and it fhould be remembered that Shakspeare was indebted for most of his materials to a book which enumerates Efdras and Pythagoras among the bastard children of King Priamus. Our author, however, might have been led into his mistake by the manner in which Chapman has tranflated several parts of the Iliad, where the heroes mount their chariots or defcend from them. Thus, Book VI. speaking

of Glaucus and Diomed:

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from horse then both defcend." STEEVENS.

If Dr. Warburton had looked into The Deftruction of Troy, already quoted, he would have found, in every page, that the leaders on each fide were alternately tumbled from their horfes by the prowess of their adverfaries. MALONE.

3

where every flower

Did, as a prophet, weep-] So, in A Midfummer-Night's Dream, Vol. IV. p. 406:

"And when the weeps, weeps every little flower,
Lamenting" &c. STEEVENS.

CRES.

What was his caufe of anger?

ALEX. The noife goes, this: There is among the

Greeks

A lord of Trojan blood, nephew to Hector;

They call him, Ajax.

CRES.

Good; And what of him?

ALEX. They fay he is a very man per fe,+ And ftands alone.

CRES. So do all men; unless they are drunk, sick, or have no legs.

ALEX. This man, lady, hath robbed many beafts of their particular additions; 5 he is as valiant as the lion, churlish as the bear, flow as the elephant: a man into whom nature hath so crouded humours, that his valour is crushed into folly, his folly fauced with difcretion: there is no man hath a

-per fe,] So, in Chaucer's Teftament of Creffeide: "Of faire Creffeide the floure and a per fe

"Of Troie and Greece."

Again, in the old comedy of Wily Beguiled: "In faith, my Iweet honeycomb, I'll love thee a per fe a."

Again, in Blurt Mafter Conftable, 1602:

"That is the a per fe of all, the creame of all.”

STEEVENS.

5 — their particular additions;] Their peculiar and characteristick qualities or denominations. The term in this fenfe is originally forenfick. MALONE.

So, in Macbeth:

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whereby he doth receive

"Particular addition, from the bill

"That writes them all alike."

STEEVens.

that his valour is crushed into folly,] To be crushed

into folly, is to be confufed and mingled with folly, fo as that they make one mafs together. JOHNSON.

So, in Cymbeline :

"Crush him together, rather than unfold
"His measure duly." STEEVENS.

virtue that he hath not a glimpse of; nor any man an attaint, but he carries fome ftain of it: he is melancholy without caufe, and merry against the hair: He hath the joints of every thing; but every thing fo out of joint, that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and no ufe; or purblind Argus, all eyes and no fight.

CRES. But how fhould this man, that makes me fmile, make Hector angry?

ALEX. They fay, he yefterday coped Hector in the battle, and ftruck him down; the difdain and fhame whereof hath ever fince kept Hector fafting and waking.

Enter PANDARUS.

CRES. Who comes here?

ALEX. Madam, your uncle Pandarus.

CRES. Hector's a gallant man.

ALEX. As may be in the world, lady.
PAN. What's that? what's that?

CRES. Good morrow, uncle Pandarus.

PAN. Good morrow, coufin Creffid: What do you talk of?-Good morrow, Alexander.-How do you, coufin? When were you at Ilium ?9

7 against the hair] Is a phrafe equivalent to another now in ufe against the grain. The French fay-à contrepoil. See Vol. XI. p. 374, n. 7. STEEVENS.

8 Good morrow, coufin Creffid: What do you talk of? Good morrow, Alexander.-How do you, coufin?] Good morrow, Alexander, is added, in all the editions, (fays Mr. Pope,) very abfurdly, Paris not being on the ftage. Wonderful acuteness!

CRES. This morning, uncle.

PAN. What were you talking of, when I came ? Was Hector armed, and gone, ere ye came to Ilium? Helen was not up, was the?

CRES. Hector was gone; but Helen was not up. PAN. E'en fo; Hector was stirring early.

CRES. That were we talking of, and of his anger. PAN. Was he angry?

CRES. So he fays here.

PAN. True, he was fo; I know the cause too; he'll lay about him to-day, I can tell them that: and there is Troilus will not come far behind him; let them take heed of Troilus; I can tell them that too.

But, with fubmiffion, this gentleman's note is much more abfurd; for it falls out very unluckily for his remark, that though Paris is, for the generality, in Homer called Alexander; yet, in this play, by any one of the characters introduced, he is called nothing but Paris. The truth of the fact is this: Pandarus is of a bufy, impertinent, infinuating character; and it is natural for him, fo foon as he has given his coufin the good-morrow, to pay his civilities too to her attendant. This is purely 9, as the grammarians call it; and gives us an admirable touch of Pandarus's character. And why might not Alexander be the name of Creflida's man? Paris had no patent, I fuppofe, for engroffing it to himself. But the late editor, perhaps, because we have had Alexander the Great, Pope Alexander, and Alexander Pope, would not have fo eminent a name proftituted to a common varlet. THEOBALD.

This note is not preferved on account of any intelligence it brings, but as a curious fpecimen of Mr. Theobald's mode of animadverfion on the remarks of Mr. Pope. STEEVENS.

9 at Ilium?] Ilium, or Ilion, (for it is spelt both ways,) was, according to Lydgate, and the author of The Deftruction of Troy, the name of Priam's palace, which is faid by thefe writers to have been built upon a high rock. See a note in A IV. fc. v. on the words "Yon towers," &c. MALONE.