For womanish it is to be from thence. What news, Æneas, from the field to-day? ANE. That Paris is returned home, and hurt. TRO. By whom, Æneas? ÆNE. Troilus, by Menelaus. TRO. Let Paris bleed: 'tis but a scar to scorn; Paris is gor'd with Menelaus' horn. [Alarum. ANE. Hark! what good sport is out of town to-day! TRO. Better at home, if would I might, were may. But, to the sport abroad ;-Are you bound thither? ALEX. Up to the eastern tower, Whose height commands as fubject all the vale, Is, as a virtue, fix'd, to-day was mov'd: 9 --Hector, whose patience Is, as a virtue, fix'd,] Patience sure was a virtue, and there He chid Andromache, and struck his armourer; And, like as there were husbandry in war, fore cannot, in propriety of expression, be faid to be like one. We should read: Is as the virtue fix'd, i. e. his patience is as fixed as the goddess Patience itself. So we find Troilus a little before saying: "Patience herself, what goddess ere the be, "Doth leffer blench at fufferance than I do." It is remarkable that Dryden, when he altered this play, and found this false reading, altered it with judgement to: -whose patience Is fix'd like that of heaven. Which he would not have done had he seen the right reading here given, where his thought is so much better and nobler expressed. 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 should be thus: Hector, whose patience Is all a virtue fix'd, All, in old English, is the intenfive or enforcing particle. JOHNSON. I had once almost perfuaded myself that Shakspeare wrote, whose patience Is, as a statue fix'd. So, in The Winter's Tale, fc. ult "The statue is but newly fix'd." The fame idea occurs also in the celebrated passage in Twelfth Night: -fat like patience on a monument." The old adage-Patience is a virtue, was perhaps uppermost 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. 2 -busbandry 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: - our bad neighbours make us early ftirrers, " Which is both healthful and good husbandry." MALONE. Before the fun rose, he was harness'd light,' 3 Before the fun rose, 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 Tasso's Jerufalem: "The other princes put on harness light Yet, as if this had been the highest absurdity, he goes on, Or does he mean that Hector was sprightly in his arms even before funrife? or is a conundrum aimed at, in fun rose and harness'd light? Was any thing like it? But to get out of this perplexity, he tells us, that a very flight alteration makes all these constructions unnecessary, and so changes it to harness-dight. Yet indeed the very flightest alteration will at any time let the poet's sense through the critick's fingers: and the Oxford editor very contentedly takes up what is left behind, and reads harness-dight too, in order, as Mr. Theobald well expresses it, to make all conftruction unneceffary. WARBURTON. How does it appear that Hector was to fight on foot rather today, than on any other day? It is to be remembered, that the ancient heroes never fought on horseback; nor does their manner of fighting in chariots seem 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 Æneid, like their antagonists the Rutulians, had cavalry among their troops. Little can be inferred from the manner in which Ascanius and the young nobility of Troy are introduced at the conclufion of the funeral 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 Augustus. It appears from different passages in this play, that Hector fights on horseback; and it should 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: " from horse then both defcend." STEEVENS. If Dr. Warburton had looked into The Destruction of Troy already quoted, he would have found, in every page, that the leaders on each fide were alternately tumbled from their horses by the prowess of their adverfsaries. MALONE. And to the field goes he; where every flower In Hector's wrath. CRES. What was his cause of anger? ALEX. The noise goes, this: There is among the A lord of Trojan blood, nephew to Hector; They call him, Ajax. CRES. Good; And what of him? ALEX. They say he is a very man per fe, And stands alone. CRES. So do all men; unless they are drunk, fick, or have no legs. ALEX. This man, lady, hath robb'd many beafts of their particular additions; he is as valiant as the lion, churlish as the bear, flow as the elephant: a man into whom nature hath so crowded humours, that his valour is crush'd into folly, his folly 4-per fe,] So, in Chaucer's Teftament of Cresseide: "Of faire Cresseide the floure and a per fe Again, in the old comedy of Wily Beguiled: sweet honeycomb, I'll love thee a per fe a." Again, in Blurt Master Constable, 1602: 5 " In faith, my "That is the a per fe of all, the creame of all." STEEVENS. their particular additions ;) Their peculiar and character istick qualities or denominations. The term in this sense is originally forenfick. MALONE. So, in Macbeth: 6 whereby he doth receive "Particular addition, from the bill "That writes them all alike." STEEVENS. that his valour is crush'd into folly,] To be crushed into folly, is to be confused and mingled with folly, so as that they make one mass together. JOHNSON. So, in Cymbeline : " Crush him together, rather than unfold "His measure duly." STEEVENS. fauced with difcretion: there is no man hath a virtue, that he hath not a glimpse of; nor any man an attaint, but he carries some stain of it: he is melancholy without cause, and merry against the hair: He hath the joints of every thing; but every thing so out of joint, that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and no use; or purblind Argus, all eyes and no fight. CRES. But how should this man, that makes me smile, make Hector angry? ALEX. They say, he yesterday coped Hector in the battle, and struck him down; the disdain and shame whereof hath ever fince kept Hector fasting and waking. Enter PANDARUS. CRES. Who comes here? ALEX. Madam, your uncle Pandarus. ALEX. As may be in the world, lady. CRES. Good morrow, uncle Pandarus. PAN. Good morrow, cousin Cressid: What do you talk of?-Good morrow, Alexander.-How do you, coufin? When were you at Ilium?? against the hair :) in use-against the grain. Vol. VIII. p. 540, n. 2. is a phrase equivalent to another now The French fay-à contrepoil. See STEEVENS. See Vol. III. p. 393, n. 5. MALONE. 8 Good morrow, coufin Creffid: What do you talk of? Good morrow, Alexander. - How do you, confin?] Good morrow, Alexander, is added in all the editions, (says Mr. Pope,) very absurdly, Paris not being on the stage. - Wonderful acuteness! But, with fubmission, this gentleman's note is much more absurd; for it falls out |