I question whether there exists a parallel instance of a phrase, that like this of 'horns' is universal in all languages, and yet for which no one has discovered even a plausible origin.

TWELFTH NIGHT.

ACT I. sc. 1. Duke's speech:

- so full of shapes is fancy, That it alone is high fantastical.

WARBURTON'S alteration of is into in is

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preted exclusive affection,' or 'passionate preference.' Thus, bird-fanciers, gentlemen of the fancy, that is, amateurs of boxing, &c. The play of assimilation, the meaning one sense chiefly, and yet keeping both senses in view, is perfectly Shakspearian.

Act ii. sc. 3. Sir Andrew's speech :

An explanatory note on Pigrogromitus would have been more acceptable than Theobald's grand discovery that 'lemon' ought to be 'leman.'

Ib. Sir Toby's speech: (Warburton's note on the Peripatetic philosophy.)

Shall we rouse the night-owl in a catch, that will draw three souls out of one weaver?

O genuine, and inimitable (at least I hope so) Warburton ! This note of thine, if but one in five millions, would be half a one too much.

Duke. My life upon't, young though thou art, thine eye Hath stay'd upon some favour that it loves;

Hath it not, boy?

Vio. A little, by your favour.

Duke. What kind of woman is't?

And yet Viola was to have been presented to Orsino as a eunuch!—Act i. sc. 2. Viola's speech. Either she forgot this, or else she had altered her plan.

Ib.

Vio. A blank, my lord: she never told her love!—

But let concealment, &c.

After the first line, (of which the last five words should be spoken with, and drop down in, a deep sigh) the actress ought to make a pause; and then start afresh, from the activity of thought, born of suppressed feelings, and which thought had accumulated during the brief interval, as vital heat under the skin during a dip in cold water.

Ib. sc. 5.

Fabian. Though our silence be drawn from us by cars, yet peace.

Perhaps, 'cables.'

Act iii. sc. 1.

Clown. A sentence is but a cheveril glove to a good wit. (Theobald's note.)

Theobald's etymology of 'cheveril' is, of course, quite right;-but he is mistaken in supposing that

there were no such things as gloves of chickenskin. They were at one time a main article in chirocosmetics.

Act v. sc. 1. Clown's speech :

So that, conclusions to be as kisses, if your four negatives make your two affirmatives, why, then, the worse for my friends, and the better for my foes.

(Warburton reads 'conclusion to be asked, is.') Surely Warburton could never have wooed by kisses and won, or he would not have flounderflatted so just and humorous, nor less pleasing than humorous, an image into so profound a nihility. In the name of love and wonder, do not four kisses make a double affirmative? The humour lies in the whispered No!' and the inviting Don't! with which the maiden's kisses are accompanied, and thence compared to negatives, which by repetition constitute an affirmative.

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

ACT I. sc. I.

Count. If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it soon mortal.

Bert. Madam, I desire your holy wishes.

Luf. How understand we that?

B

ERTRAM and Lafeu, I imagine, both speak

together, Lafeu referring to the Countess's rather obscure remark.

Act. ii. sc. 1. (Warburton's note.)

King.

let higher Italy

(Those 'buted, that inherit but the fall

Of the last monarchy) see, that you come

Not to woo honour, but to wed it.

It would be, I own, an audacious and unjustifiable change of the text; but yet, as a mere conjecture, I venture to suggest 'bastards,' for ''bated.' As it stands, in spite of Warburton's note, I can make little or nothing of it. Why should the king except the then most illustrious states, which, as being republics, were the more truly inheritors of the Roman grandeur?-With my conjecture, the sense would be;— let higher, or the more northern part of Italy-(unless higher' be a corruption for 'hir'd,' the metre seeming to demand a monosyllable) (those bastards that inherit the infamy only of their fathers) see, &c.' The following 'woo' and 'wed' are so far confirmative as they indicate Shakspeare's manner of connexion by unmarked\ influences of association from some preceding metaphor. This it is which makes his style so peculiarly vital and organic. Likewise 'those girls of Italy' strengthen the guess. The absurdity of Warburton's gloss, which represents the king calling Italy superior, and then excepting the only part the lords were going to visit, must strike every one.

Ib. sc. 3.

Laf. They say, miracles are past; and we have our phi

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losophical persons to make modern and familiar, things supernatural and causeless.

Shakspeare, inspired, as it might seem, with all knowledge, here uses the word 'causeless' in its strict philosophical sense; cause being truly predicable only of phenomena, that is, things natural, and not of noumena, or things supernatural. Act iii. sc. 5.

Dia. The Count Rousillon:-know you such a one?
Hel. But by the ear that hears most nobly of him;
His face I know not.

Shall we say here, that Shakspeare has unnecessarily made his loveliest character utter a lic?-Or shall we dare think that, where to deceive was necessary, he thought a pretended verbal verity a double crime, equally with the other a lie to the hearer, and at the same time an attempt to lie to one's own conscience?

MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.

ACT I. sc. 1.

Shal. The luce is the fresh fish, the salt fish is an old coat.

CANNOT understand this. Perhaps there is a corruption both of words and speakers. Shallow no sooner corrects one mistake of Sir Hugh's, namely, 'louse' for 'luce,' a pike, but the honest Welch