P. 119, 1. 13. These dangerous unsafe lunes o'the King!] I have no where, but in our author, observed this word adopted in our tongue, to signify, frenzy, lunacy. But it is a mode of expression with the French. Il y a de la lune: (i. e. he has got the moon in his head; he 'is frantick.) Cotgrave. Lune, folie. Les femmes ont des lunes dans la tête. Richelet." THEOBALD.

A similar expression occurs in As you like it, Act III. sc. ii: At which time would I, being but a moonish youth, etc. STEEVENS.

P. 120, 1. 30. 31. Is quite beyond mine arm, out of the blank

And level of my brain,] Beyond the aim of any attempt that I can make against him. Blank and evel are terms of archery. JOHNSON.

Blank and level, mean mark and aim; but they are terms of gunnery, not of archery. DovCE.

Leave me solely:] That is, leave

me alone. M. MASON.

P. 121, l. 13.

P. 122, 1. 30.

--

in comforting your evils,] Com forting is here used in the legal sense of comforting and abetting in a criminal action. M. MASON. To comfort, in old language, is to aid and encourage. Evils here mean wicked courses.

MALONE.

P. 123, 1. 2. A man, worst means only the lowest. of your servants, I would yet claim the combat against any accuser. JHNSON.

the worst about you.] The Were I the meanest

The worst, (as Mr. M. Mason and Mr. Henley observe,) rather means the weakest, or the least expert in the use of arms.

STEEVENS.

that The worst about

Mr. Edwards observes, you" may mean the weakest, or least warlike. So, "a better man, the best man in company, frequently

refer to skill in fighting, not to moral goodness." I think he is right. MALONE.

P. 123, 1. 11. A mankind witch!] A mankind woman is yet used in the midland counties, for a woman violent, ferocious, and mischievous. It has the same sense in this passage.

Witches are supposed to be mankind, to put off the softness and delicacy of women; therefore Sir Hugh, in The Merry Wives of Windsor, says of a women suspected to be a witch, that he does not like when a woman has a beard." Of this meaning Mr. Theobald has given examples.

JOHNSON.

I shall offer an etymology of the adjective mankind, which may perhaps more fully explain it. Dr. Hickes's Anglo-Saxon grammar, p. 119. edit. 170, observes: Saxonice man est a mein quod Cimbricè est nocumentum, Francicè est nefas, scelus." So that mankind may signify one of a wicked and pernicious nature, from the Saxon man, mischief or wickedness, and from kind, nature. TOLLET.

Notwithstanding the many learned notes on this expression, I am confident that mankind, in this passage, means nothing more than masculine.

M. MASON,

P. 123, 1. 20. Woman-tir'd, is peck'd by a woman; hen-pecked. The phrase is taken from falconry, and is often employed by writers contemporary with Shakspeare. STEEVENS.

P. 123, 1. 22. Partlet is the name of the hen in the old story book of Reynard the Fox.

P. 123, 1. 23.

give't to thy crone.

STEEVENS.

i. e. thy old worn-out woman. A croan is an old toothless sheep: thence an old woman. STEEVENS.

Tak'st up the Princess, by that forced baseness] Leontes had ordered Antigonus to take up the bas tard; Paulina forbids him to touch the Princess under that appellation. Forced is false, uttered JOHNSON.

with violence to truth.

A base son was a common term in our author's time. MALONE.

P. 124, first 1. His hopeful son's, his babe's,] The female infant then on the stage. MALONE.

P. 124, 1. 23.

his smiles;] These two redundant words might be rejected, especially as the child has already been represented as the inheritor of its father's dimples and frowns. STEEVENS.

P. 124, 1. 28. Yellow is the colour of jealousy.

P. 124, 1. 28. 29.

JOHNSON.

lest she suspect, as he does,

Her children not her husband's!] In the ardour of composition Shakspeare seems here to have forgotten the difference of sexes. No suspicion that the babe in question might entertain of her future husband's fidelity, could affect the legitimacy of her offspring. Unless she were herself a „bed-swerver," (which is not supposed,) she could have no doubt of his being the father of her children. However painful female jealousy may be to her that feels it, Paulina, therefore, certainly attributes to it, in the present instance, a pang that it can never give. MALONE.

I regard this circumstance as a beauty, rather than a defect. The seeming absurdity in the last clause of Paulina's ardent address to Nature, was undoubtedly designed, being an extravagance characteristically preferable to languid correctness, and chastised declamation. STEEVENS.

P. 124, 1. 51. A Losel is one that hath lost, neglected, or cast off his owne good and welfare, and so is become lewde and carelesse of credit and honesty." Verstegan's Restitution, 1605, p. 535. REED.

This is a term of contempt, frequently used by Spenser. A lozel is a worthless fellow. STEEVENS. P. 126, 1. 25. So sure as this beard's grey,] The King must mean the beard of Antigonus, which perhaps both here and on a former occasion, it was intended, he should lay hold of. Leontes has himself told us that twenty three years ago he was unbreech'd, in his green velvet coat, his dagger muzzled; and of course his age at the opening of this play must be under thirty. He cannot therefore mean his own beard. MALONE.

P. 126, 1. 33. Swear by this sword,] It was anciently the custom to swear by the cross on the handle of a sword. See Hamlet, Act I. sc. v.

STEEVENS.

I remember to have seen the name of Jesus engraved upon the pummel of the sword of a Crusader in the Church at Winchelsea. DOUCE.

P. 127, 1. 14.

That thou commend it strangely to some place,] Commit to some place, as a stranger, without more provi sion. JOHNSON.

To commend is to commit. See Minsheu's Dict.
MALONE.

in v.

P. 127, 1. 22.

-

heaven. MALONE.

and blessing.] i. e. the favour of

P. 127, l. 24. Poor thing, condemn'd to loss!] i. e. to exposure, similar to that of a child whom its parents have lost. MALONE.

P. 127, last 1. 'Tis good speed; foretels,] Surely we should read the passage thus:

This good speed fortetels, etc. M. MASON.

P. 128, 1. 12.

Enter CLEOMENES and DION.] These two names, and those of Antigonus and Archidamus, our author found in North's Plutarch.

MALONE. But the temple

P. 128, 1. 14. Fertile the isle ;] of Apollo at Delphi was not in an island, but in Phocis, on the continent. Either Shakspeare, or his editors, had their heads running on Delos, an island of the Cyclades. If it was the editor's blunder, then Shakspeare wrote: Fertile the soil, which is more elegant too, than the present reading. WARBURTON.

Shakspeare is little careful of geography. There is no need of this emendation in a play of which the whole plot depends upon a geographical error, by which Bohemia is supposed to be a maritime country. JOHNSON.

In the History of Dorastus and Faunia, the Queen desires the King to send six of his noblemen, whom he best trusted, to the isle of Delphos," etc.

STEEVENS.

P. 128, l. 17. For most it caught me,] It may relate to the whole spectacle. JOHNSON.

P. 128, 1. 29. The time is worth the use on't, means, the time which we have spent in visiting Delos, has recompensed us for the trouble of so spending it. JOHNSON.

If the event prove fortunate to the Queen, the time which we have spent in our journey is worth the trouble it hath cost us. In other words, the happy issue of our journey will compensate for the time expended in it, and the fatigue we have undergone. We meet with nearly the same expression in Florio's translation of Montaigne's Essaies, 1603: The common saying is, the time we live, is worth the moncy we pay for it." MALONE.