to be taken from the short duration of vegetable perfumes. STEEVENS. 483. In thews, -]i. e. in sinews," muscular strength. STEEVENS. 486. And now no soil, nor cautel,—] From cautela, which signifies only a prudent foresight or caution; but, passing through French hands, it lost its innocence, and now signifies fraud, deceit. And so he uses the adjective in Julius Cæsar: "Swear priests and cowards, and men cautelous." But I believe Shakspere wrote, And now no soil of cautel which the following words confirm doth besmirch The virtue of his will : For by virtue is meant the simplicity of his will, not virtuous will: and both this and besmirch refer only to soil, and to the soil of craft and insincerity. WARBURTON. So in the second part of Greene's Art of Coneycatching, 1592: "and their subtill cautels to amend the statute." To amend the statute was the cant phrase for evading the law. STEEVENS. This word is again used in our author's Lover's Complaints: "In him a plenitude of subtle matter, σε Applied to cautels, all strange forms receives." MALONE. Virtue seems here to comprise both excellence and power, and may be explained the pure effect. JOHNSON. 503. -unmaster'd~] i. e. licentious. JOHNSON. 507. The chariest maid] Chary is cautious. So in Greene's Never too Late, 1616: "Love requires not chastity, but that her soldiers be chary." Again, She liveth chastly enough, that liveth charily.” STEEVENS. 522. —recks not his own read.] That is, heeds not his own lessons. POPE. So in Hycke Storner: I reik not a feder." Ben Jonson uses the word reed in his Catiline: "So that thou couldst not move "Against a publick reed.” STEEVENS. BLACKSTONE. 530. And these few precepts in thy memory Look thou character.. -] i. e. engrave, im print. The same phrase is again used by our author in his 122d Sonnet : -thy tables are within my brain « Full character'd in lasting memory." Again, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona: 66 -I do conjure thee, "Who art the table wherein all my thoughts MALONE. 586. But do not dull thy palm with entertainment Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade.- -] The literal sense is, Do not make thy palm callous by shaking shaking every man by the hand. The figurative mean ing may be, Do not, by promiscuous conversation, make thy mind insensible to the difference of charaders. JOHNSON. 541. each man's censure, -] Censure is opinion.* STEEVENS. 546. Are most select, and generous chief, in that.] Chief is an adjective used adverbially, a practice common to our author. Chiefly generous. Yet it must be owned that the punctuation recommended is very stiff and harsh. STEEVENS. Here has been a silent deviation in all the modern editions from the old copies, which all read, Are of a most select and generous chef in that. May we suppose that Shakspere borrowed the word chef from heraldry, with which he seems to have been very conversant? They in France approve themselves to be of a most select and generous escutcheon by their dress. Chef in heraldry is the upper third part of the shield. This is very harsh; yet I hardly think that the words" of a" could have been introduced withont some authority from the MS. MALONE. The genuine meaning of the passage requires us to point the line thus: Are most select and generous, chief in that. i. e. the nobility of France are select and generous above all other nations, and chiefly in the point of apparel; the richness and elegance of their dress. - REMARKS, 551. And it must follow, as the night the day,] So in the 145th Sonnet of Shakspere: "That "That follow'd it as gentle day "Doth follow night," &c. STEEVENS. 553. my blessing season this in thee !] Season, for infuse. WARBURTON. It is more than to infuse, it is to infix it in such a manner as that it may never wear out. JOHNSON. So in the mock tragedy represented before the king: "who in want a hollow friend did try, "Directly seasons him his enemy." STEEVENS. 555. The time invites you ;-] Macbeth says, "I go, and it is done, the bell invites me." STEEVENS. -your servants tend] i. e. your servants are waiting for you. JOHNSON. 559. —yourself shall keep the key of it.] The meaning is, that your counsels are so sure of remaining locked up in my memory, as if yourself carried the key of it. So in Northward Hoe, by Decker and Webster, 1607: “You shall close it up like a treasure of your own, and yourself shall keep the key of it." STEEVENS. 575. Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.] Unsifted, for untried.] Untried signifies either not tempted, or not refined; Unsifted signifies the latter only, though the sense requires the former. WARBURTON. 585. -fashion you may call it ;—] She uses fashion for manner, and he for a transient practice. JOHNSON. 588. -springes to catch woodcocks.-] A pro verbial saying, "Every woman has a springe to catch a woodcock." 595. Set your entreatments STEEVENS. -] Entreatments here mean company, conversation, from the French entrétien. JOHNSON. 598. -larger tether-] Tether is a string by which any animal is fastened, whether for the sake of feeding, or the air. STEEVENS. 600. Do not believe his vows: for they are brokers;] A broker in old English meant a bawd or pimp. See the Glossary to Gawin Douglasses Translation of Virgil, in verb. Broker. MALONE. 603. Breathing like sandlified and pious bonds,] Do not believe (says Polonius to his daughter) Hamlet's amorous vows made to you; which pretend religion in them (the better to beguile), like those sanctified and pious vows [or bonds] made to heaven. And why should not this pass without suspicion? WARBURTON. We have in our author's 142d Sonnet: -false bonds of love." MALONE. 618. take his rouse,] A rouse is a large dose of liquor, a debauch. So in Othello: (6 —they have given me a rouse already.” It should seem from the following passage in Decker's Guls Hornbook, 1609, that the word rouse was of Danish extraction. "Teach me, thou soveraigne skinker, how to take the German's upsy freeze, the Danish rousa, the Switzer's stoop of rhenish," &c. STEEVENS. |