From hence your memory death cannot take, LXXXII. I grant thou wert not married to my muse, LXXXIII. I never saw that you did painting need, 2 When all the BREATHERS OF THIS world are dead ;] So, in As You Like It: "I will chide no breather in the world but myself, against whom I know most faults." MALONE. I found, or thought I found, you did exceed When others would give life, and bring a tomb". LXXXIV. Who is it that says most? which can say more, Which should example where your equal grew. 3 The barren TENDER of a POET's debt:] So, the poet in Timon of Athens: "Their services to lord Timon." Again, in King John: "And the like tender of our love we make." 4 And therefore have I SLEPT in your report,] I have not sounded your praises. MALONE. The same phrase occurs in King Henry VIII.: 66 - Heaven will one day open MALOne. And therefore "The king's eyes, that so long have slept upon Again, in King Henry IV. Part I. : hung their eyelids down, Slept in his face." STEEVENS. 5 How far a MODERN quill doth come too short,] Modern formerly signified common or trite. See vol. vi. p. 409, n. 4. MALONE. 6 -WHAT worth in you doth grow.] We might better read: that worth in you doth grow." 66 i. e. that worth, which, &c. MALONE. 7 When others would give life, and bring a tomb.] When Lean penury within that pen doth dwell, You to your beauteous blessings add a curse, Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse 9. LXXXV. My tongue-ty'd muse in manners holds her still, And, like unletter'd clerk, still cry Amen Hearing you prais'd, I say, 'tis so, 'tis true, others endeavour to celebrate your character, while, in fact, they disgrace it by the meanness of their compositions. MALONE. 8 Being FOND ON praise, which makes your praises worse.] i. e. being fond of such panegyrick as debases what is praiseworthy in you, instead of exalting it. On in ancient books is often printed for of. It may mean, "behaving foolishly on receiving praise." STEEVENS. Fond on was certainly used by Shakspeare for fond of. So, in Twelfth Night: my master loves her dearly; "And I, poor monster, fond as much on him." Again, in Holland's translation of Suetonius, folio, 1606, p. 21: "He was enamoured also upon queenes." MALONE. 9 RESERVE their character with golden quill,] Reserve has here the sense of preserve. See p. 256, n. 9. MALONE. But that is in my thought, whose love to you, Though words come hindmost, holds his rank before. Then others for the breath of words respect, LXXXVI. Was it the proud full sail of his great verse, But when your countenance fil'd up his line 3, LXXXVII. Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing, Making their TOMB the WOMB wherein they grew ?] So, in Romeo and Juliet : "The earth, that's nature's mother, is her tomb; "What is her burying grave, that is her womb." Again, in Pericles : "For he's their parent, and he is their grave." So also, Milton: "The womb of nature, and perhaps her grave." MALONE. 2 — that affable familiar ghost, Which nightly gulls him with intelligence ;] Alluding perhaps to the celebrated Dr. Dee's pretended intercourse with an angel, and other familiar spirits. STEEVENS. 3 -FIL'D up his line,] i. e. polish'd it. So, in Ben Jonson's Verses on Shakspeare: "In his well-torned and true-filed lines." STEEVENS. My bonds in thee are all determinate 1. Or me, to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking; LXXXVIII. When thou shalt be dispos'd to set me light, And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn. Of faults conceal'd, wherein I am attainted R; For bending all my loving thoughts on thee, Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me. 4 - determinate.] i. e. determined, ended, out of date. The term is used in legal conveyances. MALONE. 5-PATENT- Old copy-pattent. Perhaps we should read, patient. BosWELL. In sleep a king,] Thus, in Romeo and Juliet: -I dreamt, &c. "That I reviv'd, and was an emperor." STEEVENS. 7 And place my merit in THE EYE OF SCORN,] Our author has again personified Scorn in Othello: 8 1 "A fixed figure, for the time of Scorn Of faults conceal'd, wherein I am attainted;] let: " MALONE. So, in Ham - but yet I could accuse me of such things, that it were better my mother had not borne me." STEEVENS. |