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4 There is no boot-no use in delay. What boots it?

5 Mowbray's woven coat. In the folio, waxen coat.' Mr Swynfen Jervis suggests the alteration, supported by Spenser': 'In woven mail all armed warily.'

• Warder, a kind of truncheon or staff of authority.

ACT II.

1 Those rough rug-headed kerns. The " 'kern' was the Irish footsoldier. "They [the Scythians and Parthians] came running with a terrible yell, as if heaven and earth would have gone together, which is the very image of the Irish hubbub which their kerne use at their first encounter.'-Spenser's View of the State of Ireland.

2 Imp out our drooping country's broken wing. The term 'imp' is derived, like many other of Shakespeare's illustrations, from the sport of falconry. When the hawk's wing had lost any of its feathers, the falconer added others to supply the deficiency. This was to imp the hawk.

3 Like perspectives, which, rightly gaz'd upon,

Shew nothing but confusion-ey'd awry,

Distinguish form.

The 'perspectives' here mentioned were not pictures, but round crystal glasses, the convex surface of which was cut into faces, like those of the rose-diamond; the concave left uniformly smooth. These crystalswhich were sometimes mounted on tortoiseshell box-lids, and sometimes fixed into ivory cases-if placed as here represented, would exhibit the different appearances described by the poet.-HENLEY.

4 Get thee to Plashy. The lordship of Plashy, in Essex, was a town belonging to the Duchess of Gloster.

5 And ostentation of despised arms. Warburton proposed 'disposed arms;' but no change is necessary. The poet meant an ostentatious

display of arms which York and his friends despised.

6 The bay-trees in our country are all withered. The bay-tree was of old invested with something of a sacred character; and its decay or blight was a prognostic of evil. Shakespeare's enumeration of prodigies in this passage is, as Johnson remarks, in the highest degree poctical and striking.

ACT III.

1 Double-fatal yew. An allusion to the alleged poisonous qualities of the yew-tree-fruit and shade-and to its being employed in the manufacture of bows. Steevens conjectures that the fact of yew-trees being so common in churchyards, arose partly on account of their use in making bows, and partly, that being enclosed, their poisonous quality was kept

Naturalists now deny the tradition—as

from doing mischief to cattle.

old as Plutarch-that the yew is poisonous.

2 To ear the land; that is, to till or plough the land.

3 The flower of England's face. Warburton interpreted this expression as meaning the choicest youth of England. Steevens read it as indicating the flowery surface of England's soil-and Steevens was undoubtedly right. The context shews this, and see also Drayton :

And in the field advance our plumy crest,

And march upon fair England's flowery breast.'

ACT IV.

1 Westminster Hall. The old hall of the palace of our kings at Westminster, well and wisely incorporated by Mr Barry into his new Houses of Parliament, to serve as their vestibule. It was originally built in the reign of William Rufus (Pope calls it 'Rufus' roaring Hall'), and during the recent refacing of the outer walls, a Norman arcade of the time of Rufus was uncovered, but has, I believe, been since destroyed. The present hall was built, or rather repaired, 1397-1399 (in the last three years of Richard II.), when the walls were carried up two feet higher, the windows altered, and a stately porch and new roof constructed according to the design of Master Henry Zenely. The stone moulding or string-course that runs round the hall preserves the white hart couchant, the favourite device of Richard II. The roof, with its hammer beams (carved with angels) to diminish the lateral pressure that falls upon the walls, is of chestnut, and very fine; the finest of its kind in this country.-Cunningham's London. In this hall, on the 30th of September 1399, the renunciation of the crown by Richard II. was read and accepted by the parliament. How many historical associations cling to the noble old pile!

2 Fetch hither Richard, that in common view, &c. The 'new additions,' first inserted in the quarto of 1608, commenced here, and ended with the line: "That rise thus nimbly by a true king's fall.'

3 With mine own tears I wash away my balm. The balm or oil with which he was consecrated as king. In Act III. sc. 2, we have 'wash the balm from an anointed king.'

4 A sort of traitors here; a common expression of Shakespeare and his contemporaries for a company or assortment.

5 0, good! convey?-conveyers are you all,

That rise thus nimbly by a true king's fall.

This is one of the poet's favourite equivoques. 'Conveyers' were conjurors as well as lawyers, and the term also included pickpockets.

ACT V.

1 To Julius Cæsar's ill-erected tower. of London was built by Julius Cæsar. sc. 1.

Tradition states, that the Tower
See also Richard III., Act III.

2 Tell thou the lamentable tale of me. The folio, in opposition to all the quartos, has 'fall of me'—an expression less characteristic of Richard.

3 She came adorned hither like sweet May,

Sent back like Hallowmas, or short'st of day.

All-hallow Tide, the 1st of November. We suspect Shakespeare wrote: 'Sent back like Hallowmas or shortest day.'

4 Better far off than near, be ne'er the near'. To be never the nigher, or, as it is commonly spoken in the midland counties, ne'er the ne'er, is to make no advance towards the good desired.-JOHNSON. Better be far off than near, if, being near, we are still separated.

5 As in a theatre, the eyes of men, &c. "The painting of this description is so lively, and the words so moving, that I have scarce read anything comparable to it in any other language.'-DRYDEN; Preface to Troilus and Cressida.

6 Thou sheer, immaculate, and silver fountain. The word 'sheer' is here, as in Spenser, meant to designate a pure, unmixed, pellucid fountain.

"'The Beggar and the King;' an allusion to the old ballad of the same title, which is printed in Richard Johnson's Crown Garland of Goulden Roses, 1612. See also 'King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid' in Percy's Reliques.

8 His Jack o' the clock. An automaton that struck the hours. See Richard III. Act IV. sc. 2.

THE

MERCHANT OF VENICE.

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