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Than fume, or seething lust.

that is, than angry passion, or boiling lust.

JOHNSON.

Summer-seeming lust, may signify lust that seems as hot as summer. STEEV ENS.

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Read- summer seeding. plants; and the sense is,

The allusion is to "Avarice is a peren

nial weed; it has a deeper and more pernicious root than lust, which is a mere annual, and lasts but for a summer, when it sheds its seed and decays." BLACKSTONE.

I have paid the attention to this conjuncture which I think it deserves, by admitting it into the text. STEEVENS.

Summer-seeming is, I believe, the true reading. In Donne's poems, we meet with "winter seeming." MALONE.

Sir W. Blackstone's elegant emendation is countenanced by the following passage in The Rape of Lucrece:

"How will thy shame be seeded in thine age, "When thus thy vices bud before thy spring?" HENLEY

P. 68, 1. 28. -foysons· -] Plenty. PorE. It means provisions in plenty. So, in The Ordinary by Cartwright: "New foysons byu ygraced with new titles." The word was antiquated in the time of Cartwright, and is by him put into the mouth of an antiquary. STEEVENS.

P. 68, 1. 29. Portable is, perhaps here used for supportable. All these vices, being balanced by your virtues, may be endured. MALONE.

Portable answers exactly to a phrase now in Such failings may be borne with, or are bearable. STEEVENS

use.

P. 69, 1. 2-5. — Nay, had I power, &c. &c. J

Malcolm, I think, means to say, that if he bad a ility he would change the general state of tungs, and introduce into hell, and earth, perpetual vexation, uproar, and confusion. Hell, in its natural state, being always represented as full of discord and mutual enmity, in which its inhabitants may be supposed to take the greatest delight, he proposes as the severest stroke on them, to pour the sweet milk of concord amongst them, so as to render them peaceable and quiet, a state the most adverse to their natural disposition; while on the other hand he would throw the peaceable inhabitants of earth into uproar and confusion.

Perhaps, however, this may be thought too strained an interpretation. Malcolm, indeed, may only mean, that he will pour all that milk of human kindness, which is so beneficial to mankind, into the abyss, so as to leave the earth without any portion of it; and that by thus depriving mankind of those humane affections which are so ne-' cessary to their mutual happiness, he will throw the whole world into confusion. I believe, however, the former interpretation to be the true one. MALONE.

I believe, all that Malcolm designs to say is,→→ that, if he had power, he would even annihilate the gentle source or principle of peace: pour the soft milk by which it is nourished, among the flames of hell, which could not fail to dry it up.

Lady Macbeth has already observed that her husband was "too full of the milk of human kindDess. STEEVENS. >

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P. 69, 1. 20. Died every day she lived.] The expression is borrowed from the sacred writings: "I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus, I die daily. MALONE.

***

To die unto sin, and to live unto righteousness, are phrases employed in our liturgy. STEEvens. P. 69, 1. 30. From over-credulous haste:] From over-hasty credulity. MALONE.

P. 70, 1. 9. At a point, may mean all ready at a time; but Shakspeare meant more: He meant both time and place, and certainly wrote:

All ready at appoint,

i. e. at the place appointed, at the rendezvous. WARBURTON. There is no need of change. JOHNSON.

P. 70, 1. 10.

The chance of goodness, as it is commonly read, conveys no sense. If there be not some more important errour in the passage, it should at least be pointed thus:

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and the chance, of goodness,

Be like our warranted quarrel!

That is, may the event be, of the goodness of heaven, [pro justitia divina,] answerable to the

cause.

Mr. Heath conceives the sense of the passage to be rather this And may the success of that goodness, which is about to exert itself in my behalf, be such as may be equal to the justice of my quarrel.

But I am inclined to believe that Shakspeare

wrote:

and the chance, O goodness,

Be like our warranted quarrel!

If we And O now ap

This some of his transcribers 'wrote with a small •, which another imagined to mean of. adopt this reading, the sense will be: thou sovereign Goodness, to whom we peal, may our fortune answer to

our cause. JOHNSON.

P. 70, 1. 21. their malady convinces] i. e. overpowers, subdues. STEEVENS.

P. 70, 1. 33. he cures;] Dr Percy in his notes on the Northumberland Houshold Book says, "that our ancient Kings even in those dark times of superstition, do not seem to have affected to cure the King's evil. This miraculous gift was left to be claimed by the Stuarts: our ancient Plantagenets were humbly content to

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cure the cramp.' In this assertion however the learned editor of the above curious volume has been betrayed into a mistake by relying too implicitly on the authority of Mr. Anstis. The power of curing the King's evil was claimed by many of the Plantagenets. Dr. Borde who wrote in the time of Henry the 8th says, "The Kynges of England by the power that God hath given to them dothe make sicke men whole of a sycknes called the Kynge's Evyll." In Laneham's Account of the Entertainment at Kenelworth Castle it is said ". and also by her Highness [Q. Elizabeth] accustomed mercy and charitee, nyne cured of the peynful and dangerous diseaz called the King's Evil, for that Kings and Queens of this realm without oother medsin, (save only by handling and prayer) only doo it." Polydore Virgil asserts the same; and Will. Tooker in the reign of Queen Elizabeth published a book on this subject, an account of which is to be seen in Dr. Douglas's treatise entitled "The Criterion," p. 191. See Dodsley's Collection of Old Plays, Vol, XII. p. 428. edit. 1780. REED.

P. 70, last 1. but one, a golden stamp -] This was the coin called an angel. So, Shakspeare, in The Merchant of Venice:

"A coin that bears the figure of an angel

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"Stamped in gold, but that's insculp'd

upon,"

The value of the coin was ten shillings.

STEEVENS. P. 71, 1. 1. 2. To the succeeding royalty, he leaves

The healing benediction.] It must be own'd, that Shakspeare is often guilty of strange absurdities in point of history and chronology. Yet here he has artfully avoided one. He had a mind to hint, that the cure of the evil was to descend to the successors in the royal line, in compliment to James the first. But the Confessor was the first who pretended to the gift; How then could it be at that time generally spoken of, that the gift was hereditary? this he has solved by telling us that Edward had the gift of prophecy along with it. WARBURTON.

Dr. Warburton here invents an objection, in order to solve it. "The Confessor (says he) was the first who pretended to this gift: how then could it be at that time generally spoken of, that the gift was hereditary? This he [Shakspeare] bas solved, by telling us that Edward had the gift of prophecy along with it." But Shakspeare does not say, that it was hereditary in Edward, or, in other words that he had inherited this extraordinary power from his ancestors; but that "it was generally spoken, that he leaves the healing benediction to succeeding Kings:" and such a rumour. there might be in the time of Edward the Confessor, (supposing he had such a gift,) without his having the gift of prophecy along with it.

Shakspeare has merely transcribed what he found in Holinshed, without the conceit which Dr. Warhurton has imputed to him: "As hath beene

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