Scarce is dividant, -touch them with several for

tunes;

7

The greater scorns the lesser: Notnature,

To whom all fores lay siege, can bear great fortune,

But by contempt of nature."

Raise me this beggar, and denude that lord;

? Not nature,

To whom all fores lay frege, can beax great fortune,

But by contempt of nature.] The meaning I take to be this: Brother, when his fortune is enlarged, will fcorn brother: for this is the general depravity of human nature, which, besieged as it is by mifery, admonished as it is of want and imperfe&ion, when elevated by fortune, will despise beings of nature like its own.

JOHNSON.

Mr. M. Mafon observes, that this passage " but by the addition of a single letter may be rendered clearly intelligible; by merely reading natures instead of nature." The meaning will then be "Not even being reduced to the utmost extremity of wretchedness, can bear good fortune, without contemning their fellowcreatures."- The word natures is afterwards used in a fimilar sense by Apemantus:

" Whose naked natures live in all the spite
"Of wreakful heaven," &c.

Perhaps, in the present inftance, we ought to complete the measure by reading:.

But by is here used for without. MALONE.

* Raise me this beggar, and denude that lord; ) (Old copy ---deny't that lord.) Where is the sense and English of deny't that lord? Deny him what? What preceding noun is there to which the pronoun it is to be referr'd? And it would be abfurd to think the poet meant, deny to raise that lord. The antithesis must be, let fortune raise this beggar, and let her trip and despoil that lord of all his pomp and ornaments, &c. which sense is completed by this flight alteration :

and denude that lord;

So, lord Rea, in his relation of M. Hamilton's plot, written in 1650: "All these Hamiltons had denuded themselves of their fortunes and estates." And Charles the First, in his message to the parliament says: Denude ourselves of all." - Clar. Vol. HI. p. 15, odavo edit. WARBURTON.

The fenator shall bear contempt hereditary,
The beggar native honour.

It is the pasture lards the brother's fides,

So, as Theobald has observed, in our author's Venus and Adonis: "Pluck down the rich, enrich the poor with treasures."

MALONE.

Perhaps the former reading, however irregular, is the true one. Raise me that beggar, and deny a proportionable degree of elevation to that lord. A lord is not so high a title in the ftate, but that a man originally poor might be raised to one above it. We might read deveft that lord. Devest is an English law phrafe, which Shakspeare uses in King Lear:

" Since now we will deveft us both of rule," &c. The word which Dr. Warburton would introduce, is not, however, uncommon. I find it in The Tragedie of Crafus, 1604:

" As one of all happiness denuded." STEEVENS.

It is the pasture lards the brother's sides, ) This, as the editors have ordered it, is an idle repetition at the best, supposing it did, indeed, contain the same sentiment as the foregoing lines. But Shakspeare meant quite a different thing: and having, like a senfible writer, made a smart observation, he illuftrates it by a fimili. tude thus:

It is the pasture lards the wether's fides,
The want that makes him lean.

And the similitude is extremely beautiful, as conveying this fatirical reflection; there is no more difference between man and man in the esteem of fuperficial and corrupt judgments, than between a fat sheep and a lean one. WARBURTON

This paffage is very obfcure, nor do I discover any clear sense, even though we should admit the emendation. Let us inspect the text as it stands in the original edition:

It is the paftour lards the brother's fides,
The want that makes him leave.

Dr. Warburton found the passage already changed thus:
It is the pasture lards the beggar's fides,
The want that makes him lean.

And upon this reading of no authority, raised another equally uncertain.

Alterations are never to be made without neceffity. Let us fee what sense the genuine reading will afford. Poverty, fays the poet, bears contempt hereditary, and wealth native honour. To illnftrate this position, having already mentioned the case of a poor and rich

The want that makes him lean. Who dares, whe

dares,

brother, he remarks, that this preference is given to wealth by those whom it leaft becomes: it is the pastour that greases or flatters the rich brother, and will grease him on till want make him leave. The poet then goes on to ask, Who dares to say this man, this pastour is a flatterer; the crime is universal; through all the word the learned pate, with allufion to the paftour, ducks to the golden fool. If it be objected, as it may juftly be, that the mention of a pastour is unsuitable, we must remember the mention of grace and cherubims in this play, and many such anachronisms in many others. I would therefore read thus:

It is the paftour lards the brother's fides,
'Tis want that makes him leave.

The obscurity is still great. Perhaps a line is loft. I have at leaft given the original reading. JOHNSON.

Perhaps Shakspeare wrote pafterer, for I meet with such a word in Greene's Farewell to Follie, 1617: " Alexander, before he fell into the Perfian delicacies, refused those cooks and pafterers that Ada queen of Caria sent to him." There is likewife a proverb among Ray's colletion, which seems to afford much the fame meaning as this passage in Shakspeare: " Every one basteth the fat hog, while the lean one burneth." Again, in Troilus and Greffida, A& II:

1

" That were to enlard his fat-already pride."

STEEVENS.

In this very difficult passage, which still remains obfcure, some liberty may be indulged. Dr. Farmer proposes to read it thus:

It is the pafterer lards the broader fides,

The gaunt that makes him leave.

And in fupport of this conjecture, he observes, that the Saxon dis frequently converted into th, as in murther, murder, burthen, burden, &c. REED.

That the passage is corrupt as it stands in the old copy, no one, I suppose, can doubt; emendation therefore in this and a few other places, is not a matter of choice but neceffity. I have already more than once observed, that many corruptions have crept into the old copy, by the transcriber's ear deceiving him. In Coriolanus we have higher for hire, and hope for holp; in the present play reverends for reverends't; and in almost every play similar corruptions. In King Richard II. quarto, 1598, we find the very error that happened here:

In purity of manhood stand upright,

" and bedew

"Her paftors' grafs with faithful English blood." Again, in As you like it, folio, 1623, we find, "I have heard him read many lectors against it;" inftead of lectures.

Pasture, when the u is founded thin, and pastor, are scarcely diftinguishable.

Thus, as I conceive, the true reading of the first disputed word of this contefted paffage is afcertained. In As you like it we have " good pafture makes fat sheep." Again, in the fame play:

"Anon, a careless herd,

"Full of the pasture, jumps along by him," &c.

The meaning then of the passage is, - It is the land alone whicli each man poffefses that makes him rich, and proud, and flattered: and the want of it, that makes him poor, and an object of contempt. I suppose, with Dr. Johnson, that Shakspeare was ftill thinking of the rich and poor brother already described.

I doubt much whether Dr. Johnson himself was satisfied with his far-fetched explication of paftour, as applied to brother; [See his note.] and I think no one else can be fatisfied with it. In order to give it some little support, he supposes " This man's a flatterer," in the following passage, to relate to the imaginary paftor in this; whereas those words indubitably relate to any one individual selected out of the aggregate mafs of mankind.

Dr. Warburton reads wether's fides; which affords a commodious sense, but is so far removed from the original reading as to be inadmiffible. Shakspeare, I have no doubt, thought at first of those animals that are fatted by pasture, and passed from thence to the proprietor of the foil.

I have sometimes thought that he might have written the breather's fides. He has thrice used the word elsewhere. "I will chide no breather in the world, but myself," says Orlando in As you like it. Again, in one of his Sonnets:

"When all the breathers of this world are dead."

Again, in Antony and Cleopatra:

"She shows a body, rather than a life;
"A ftatue than a breather."

If this was the author's word in the passage before us, it must mean every living animal. But I have little faith in such conjectures.

Leane

Concerning the third word there can be no difficulty. was the old spelling of lean, and the u in the MSS. of our author's time is not to be diftinguished from an n. Add to this, that in the

And say, This man's a flatterer? If one be,

first folio u is constantly employed where we now use a v; and hence, by inverfion, the two letters were often confounded (as they are at this day in almost every proof-theet of every book that paffes through the press). Of this I have given various infiances in a note in Vol. V. p. 178, n. 3. See alfo Vol. X. p. 197, n. 6.

But it is not necessary to have recourse to these inftances. This very word leave is again printed inftead of leane, in King Henry IV. Part II. quarto, 1600:

" The lives of all your loving complices
"Leave on your health."

A

On the other hand, in King Henry VIII. 1623, we have leane instead of leave: "You'll leane your noise anon, you rascals." But any argument on this point is superfluous, fince the context clearly shews that lean must have been the word intended by Shakspeare.

Such emendations as those now adopted, thus founded and supported, are not capricious conjectures, against which no one has fet his face more than myself, but almost certainties.

This note has run out into an inordinate length, for which I shall make no other apology than that finding it necessary to depart from the reading of the old copy, to obtain any sense, I thought it incumbent on me to fupport the readings I have chosen, in the best manner in my power. MALONE.

As a brother (meaning, I suppose, a churchman) does not, literally speaking, fatten himself by feeding on land, it is probable that pasture fignifies eating in general, without reference to terra firma. So, in Love's Labour's Loft:

" Food for his rage, repasture for his den."

Pasture, in the sense of nourishment collected from fields, will undoubtedly fatten the fides of a sheep or an ox, but who ever describes the owner of the fields as having derived from them his embonpoint?

The emendation-lean is found in the second folio, which should not have been denied the praise to which it is entitled.

Breather's fides can never be right, for who is likely to grow fat through the mere privilege of breathing? or who indeed can receive fustenance without it?

The reading in the text may be the true one; but the condition in which this play was tranfmitted to us, is such as will warrant repeated doubts in almost every scene of it. STEEVENS.

And say, This man's a flatterer? This man does not refer to any particular perfon before mentioned, as Dr. Johnson thought,