• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

IV.i.19 (322,2)

[Imagine me,

Gentle spectators, that I now may be

In fair Bohemia]

Time is every where alike. I know not whether both sense and grammar may not dictate,

—imagine we,

Gentle spectators, that_ you now may be, &c.

Let us imagine that you, who behold these scenes, are now in

Bohemia?

IV.i.29 (322,3) [Is the argument of time] Argument is the same with subject.

IV.i.32 (322,4) [He wishes earnestly you newer may] I believe this speech of time rather begins the fourth act than concludes the third.

IV.ii.21 (323,6) [and my profit therein, the heaping friendships] [W. reaping] I see not that the present reading is nonsense; the sense of heaping friendships is, though like many other of our author's, unusual, at least unusual to modern ears, is not very obscure. To be more thankful shall be my study; and my profit therein the heaping friendships. That is, I will for the future be more liberal of recompence, from which I shall receive this advantage, that as I heap benefits I shall heap friendships, as I confer favours on thee I shall increase the friendship between us.

IV.ii.35 (324,7) [but I have, missingly, noted] [W. missing him]

[Hammer; musingly noted] I see not how the sense is mended by Sir

T. Hammer's alteration, nor how is it at all changed by Dr. Warburton's.

IV.iii.3 (325,9)

[Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year; For the red blood reigns in the winter pale]

Dr. Thirlby reads, perhaps rightly, certainly with much more probability, and easiness of construction;

For the red blood runs in the winter pale. That is, for the red blood runs pale in the winter. Sir T. Banner reads,

For the red blood reigns o'er the winter's pale.

IV.iii.7 (326,1) [pugging tooth] Sir T. Hammer, and after his, Dr. Warburton, read, progging tooth. It is certain that pugging is not now understood. But Dr. Thirlby observes, that this is the cant of gypsies.

IV.iii.28 (327,7) [Gallows, and knock, are too powerful on the highway; beating and hanging are terrors to me] The resistance which a highwayman encounters in the fact, and the punishment which he suffers on detection, withold me from daring robbery, and determine me to the silly cheat and petty theft. (1773)

IV.iii.99 (330,4) [abide] To abide, here, must signify, to sojourn, to live for a time without a settled habitation.

IV.iv.6 (331,7) [To chide at your extremes, it not becomes me] That is, your excesses, the extravagance of your praises.

IV.iv.8 (331,8) [The gracious mark o' the land] The object of all men's notice and expectation.

IV.iv.13 (332,9) [sworn, 1 think, To shew myself a glass] [Banner: swoon] Dr. Thirlby inclines rather to Sir T. Hanmer's emendation, which certainly makes an easy sense, and is, in my opinion, preferable to the present reading. But concerning this passage I know not what to decide.

IV.ii.21 (333,1) [How would he look, to see his work, so noble, Vilely bound up!] It is impossible for any man to rid his mind of his profession. The authorship of Shakespeare has supplied him with a metaphor, which rather than he would lose it, he has put with no great propriety into the month of a country maid. Thinking of his own works, his mind passed naturally to the binder. I am glad that he has no hint at an editor.

IV.ii.76 (335,2) [Grace and remembrance] Rue was called herb of grace. Rosemary was the emblem of remembrance; I know not why, unless because it was carried at funerals. (see 1765, II,300,5)

IV.iv.143 (338,6)

[Each your doing,

So singular in each particular,

Crowns what you're doing in the present deeds]

That is, your manner in each act crowns the act.

IV.iv.155 (338,8) [Per. I'll swear for 'em] I fancy this half line is placed to a wrong person. And that the king begins his speech aside

Pol. I'll swear for 'em

This is the prettiest. &c.

IV.iv.164 (339,1) [we stand upon our manners] That is, we are now on our behaviour.

IV.iv.169 (339,2) [a worthy feeding] I conceive feeding to be a pasture, and a worthy feeding to be a tract of pasturage not inconsiderable, not unworthy of my daughter's fortune.

IV.iv.204 (340,3)