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Line 144. -the imposition clear'd,

Hereditary ours:] i. e. setting aside original sin; bating the imposition from the offence of our first parents, we might have boldly protested our innocence to heaven. WARBURTON.

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Of this make no conclusion; lest you say, &c.] each part of this observation the queen answers in order. To that of temptations she replies, Grace to boot! i. e. though temptations have grown up, yet I hope grace too has kept pace with them. Grace to boot, was a proverbial expression

on these occasions.

WARBURTON.

Line 185. And clap thyself my love;] She open'd her hand, to clap the palm of it into his, as people do when they confirm a bargain. Hence the phrase-to clap up a bargain, i. e. make one with no other ceremony than the junction of hands. STEEVENS.

Line 202.

The mort o' the deer;] A lesson upon the horn at the death of the deer. THEOBALD. Line 206. I'fecks!] Now pronounced I'fegs—in fuith. -bawcock.] Bawcock is a fine fellow.

207.

210.

We must be neat;] Leontes, seeing his son's nose smutted, cries we must be neat, then recollecting that neat is the term for horned cattle, he says, not neat, but cleanly. JOHNSON.

Line 212.

net.

still virginalling-] Still playing with her JOHNSON.

fingers, as a girl playing on the virginals. A virginal, as I am informed, is a very small kind of spinQueen Elizabeth's virginal book is yet in being, and many of the lessons in it have proved so difficult, as to baffle our most expert players on the harpsichord. STEEVENS. Line 223. No bourn-} Bourn is limit, boundary.

225. —welkin-eye :] Blue eye; an eye of the same colour with the welkin, or sky.

JOHNSON.

Line 255. Will you take eggs for money?] This seems to be a proverbial expression, used when a man sees himself wronged and makes no resistance. Its original, or precise meaning, I cannot find, but I believe it means, will you be a cuckold for hire. The cuckow is reported to lay her eggs in another bird's nest; he therefore that has eggs laid in his nest, is said to be cucullatus, cuckow'd, or cuckold. JOHNSON. -hoxes honesty behind,] To hox, is to hough,

Line 357.

to cut the hamstrings.

Line 448. I have lov'd thee, &c.] Camillo, desirous to defend the queen, and willing to secure credit to his apology, begins, by telling the king that he has loved him, is about to give instances of his love, and to infer from them his present zeal, when he is interrupted. JOHNSON.

Line 554. I am appointed Him to murder you.] i. e. I am the person appointed to murder you. STEEVENS.

Line 561. To vice you to 't,] The vice is an instrument well known; its operation is to hold things together. So the bailiff speaking of Falstaff, "If he come but within my vice," &c. STEEVENS.

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By each particular star in Heaven, &c.] May, perhaps mean, overswear his present persuasion, that is, endeavour to overcome his opinion, by swearing oaths numerous as

the stars.

JOHNSON.

Line 608. Good expedition be my friend, and comfort

The gracious queen, part of his theme, but nothing Of his ill-ta'en suspicion !] Jealousy is a passion compounded of love and suspicion, this passion is the theme or subject of the king's thoughts.-Polixenes, perhaps, wishes the queen, for her comfort, so much of that theme or subject as is good, but deprecates that which causes misery. May part of the king's present sentiments comfort the queen, but away with his suspicion. JOHNSON

ACT II.

Line 58. Alack, for lesser knowledge!] That is, O thut my knowledge were less. JOHNSON. Line 190. -land-damn him;] Land-damn is probably one of those words which caprice brought into fashion, and which, after a short time, reason and grammar drove irrecoverably away. It perhaps meant no more than I will rid the country of him; condemn him to quit the lund. JOHNSON. Line 197. And I had rather glib myself, &c.] For glib I think we should read lib, which in the northern language, is the same with geld. GREY.

Though lib may probably be the right word, yet glib is at this time current in many counties, where they say-to glib STEEVENS. a boar, to glib a horse.

Line 251. Lest that the treachery of the two, &c.] He has before declared, that there is a plot against his life and crown, and that Hermione is federary with Polixenes and Camillo.

JOHNSON.

Line 294. These dangerous, unsafe lunes o' the king!] There is a mode of expression with the French- -11 ya de la lune : i. e. He has got the moon in his head; he is frantick.

Line 343.

-out of the blank

THEOBALD.

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

Line 424. 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 woman suspected to be a witch, that he does not like when a woman has a beard. JOHNSON.

АСТ III.]

Line 433.

ed by a woman.

Line 436.

THE WINTER'S TALE.

5

-thou art a woman-tir'd ;] Woman-tir'd, is peck

STEEVENS.

-thy crone.] i. e. thy old worn-out woman.

438 Unvenerable be thy hands, if thou

STEEVENS.

Tak'st up the princess, by that forced baseness—] Leontes had ordered Antigonous to take up the bastard, Paulina forbids him to touch the princess under that appellation. Forced is false, uttered with violence to truth.

JOHNSON.

478. And, lozel,] A lozel or losel, is a sorry or worthless fellow.

Line 564.

-commend it strangely to some place,] Commit to some place, as a stranger, without more provision.

JOHNSON.

ACT III.

Line 2. Fertile the isle ;] But the temple 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 WARBURTON. more elegant too, than the present reading. 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.

JOHNSON.

Line 5. For most it caught me,] It may relate to the whole spectacle. Line 47. -pretence-] Is, in this place, taken for a scheme laid, a design formed; to pretend means to design, in the

Gent. of Verona.

Line 72.

JOHNSON.

-1 would spare:] To spare any thing is to let

it go, to quit the possession of it.

JOHNSON,

ANNOTATIONS ON

[ACT III.

Line 84.

I ne'er heard yet,

That any of these bolder vices wanted

Less impudence to gainsay what they did,

Than to perform it first.] It is apparent that according to the proper, at least according to the present use of words, less should be more, or wanted should be had. But Shakspeare is very uncertain in his use of negatives. It may be necessary once to observe, that in our language two negatives did not originally affirm, but strengthen the negation. This mode of speech was in time changed, but as the change was made in opposition to long custom, it proceeded gradually, and uniformity was not obtained but through an intermediate confusion. JOHNSON. Line 114. My life stands in the level of your dreams,] To be in the level is by a metaphor from archery to be within the reach.

JOHNSON.

Line 135. Starr'd most unluckily,] i. e. born under an inauspicious planet. STEEVENS. Line 220. Does my deeds make the blacker!] This vehement retraction of Leontes, accompanied with the confession of more crimes than he was suspected of, is agreeable to our daily experience of the vicissitudes of violent tempers, and the eruptions of minds oppressed with guilt. JOHNSON.

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Would have shed water out of fire, ere done't :] i. e. a devil would have shed tears of pity o'er the damn'd ere he would have committed such an action.

STEEVENS.

Line 275. I am sorry for't;] This is another instance of the sudden changes incident to vehement and ungovernable minds.

Line 303.

JOHNSON. Thou art perfect then,] Perfect is often used by Shakspeare for certain, well assured, or well informed.

JOHNSON.

Line 366. A savage clamour?] This clamour was the cry

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