And may it be, that you have quite forgot Ev'n in the spring of love, thy love-springs rot? This passage has hitherto labour'd under a double corruption. What conceit could our editors have of love in buildings growing ruinate? Our poet meant no more than this: Shall thy love-springs rot, even in the spring of love? and shall thy love grow ruinous, even while 'tis but building up? The next corruption is by an accident at press, as I take it; this scene for fifty-two lines successively is strictly in alternate rhimes; and this measure is never broken, but in the second and fourth lines of these two couplets. 'Tis certain, I think, a monosyllable dropt from the tail of the second verse: and I have ventured to supply it by, I hope, a probable conjecture. THEOBALD. Love-springs are young plants of love. Thus in the Faithful Shepherdess of Beaumont and Fletcher: "The nightingale among the thick-leav'd springs "That sits alone in sorrow." STEEVENS. Love-springs I believe, are not the young plants of love, but the SHOOTS. Love is here considered by Luciana, as a root or stock in the heart of Antipholis, the first (or what is called the maiden) growth of which having been lopped off by marriage, a renovation of shoots springs forth. This sense of the metaphor is confirmed by the following passage from Evelyn::-"There are some who would have no stakes cut from the trees, save here and there one, sɔ as to leave half the head naked, and the other standing ; but the overhanging bows will kill what is under them, and ruin the tree; so pernicious is this halftopping: let this be a total amputation for a new and lusty SPRING." See Mr. Tollet's note on Coriolanus, act v. line 134. The thick-leaved SPRINGS, in the passage from the Faithful Shepherdess, are the luxuriant young grow th of the coppice, which are even the nightingale's favourite haunt. HENLEY. Shall Love in building grow so ruinate?] So in our author's 119th Sonnet: "And ruin'd love, when it is built anew.In support of Theobald's emendation, a passage in our author's tenth Sonnet may be produced : 66 -thou art so possess'd with murderous hate, "That 'gainst thyself thou stick'st not to conspire, "Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate, "Which to repair should be thy chief desire." Again, in the Rape of Lucrece : "To ruinate proud buildings with thy hours." MALONE. 151. Alas, poor women! make us not believe, &c.] From the whole tenour of the context it is evident, that this negative (not), got place in the first copies instead of but. And these two monosyllables have by mistake reciprocally dispossess'd one another in many other passages of our author's works. THEOBALD. 152. Being compact of credit, means, being made altogether of credulity. So in Heywood's Iron Age, Part II. 1633: 66 -she's compact "Merely of blood STEEVENS. 157. vain,] is light of tongue, not veracious. JOHNSON. 175. -sweet mermaid,] Mermaid is only another name for syren. So in the Index to P. Holland's translation of Pliny's Nat. Hist. "Mermaids in Homer were witches, and their songs enchauntements." STEEVENS. 179. -as a bed I'll take thee,] The old copy reads -as a bud. Mr. Edwards suspects a mistake of one letter in the passage, and would read: And as a bed I'll take them, and there lye. Perhaps, however, both the ancient readings may be right: As a bud I'll take thee, &c. ¿. e. I, like an insect, will take thy bosom for a rose, or some other flower, and, 66 -phoenix like, beneath thine eye "Involv'd in fragrance, burn and die.” It is common for Shakspere to shift hastily from one image to another. Mr. Edward's conjecture may, however, receive support from the following passage in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, act i. sc 2: -my bosom as a bed "Shall lodge thee." The second folio has bed. STEEVENS. TYRWHITT. 182. - -if she sink!] I know not to whom the pronoun she can be referred. I have made no scruple to remove a letter from it. The author of the Revisal has the same observation. STEEVENS. The author of REMARKS, however, thinks there can be little doubt but that the pronoun she must be referred to Love, that is Venus; and Mr. Reed, in confirmation of this interpretation, cites the following lines from the old ballad of The Spanish Lady: "I will spend my days in prayer, "Love and all HER laws defy." 184. Not mad, but mated,] i. e. confounded. So in Macbeth: "My mind she has mated, and amaz'd my sight.” STEEVENS. 187. Gaze where] The old copy reads, when. STEEVENS. 196. My sole earth's heaven, and my heaven's claim.] When he calls the girls his only heaven on the earth, he utters the common cant of lovers. When he calls her his heaven's claim, I cannot understand him. Perhaps he means that which he asks of heaven. JOHNSON. 198. for I mean thee:] Thus the modern ediThe folio reads, tors. -for I am thee. Perhaps we should read: for Iaim thee. He has just told her, that she was his sweet hope's aim. So So in Orlando Furioso, 1594: -like Cassius, "Sits sadly dumping, aiming Cæsar's death." Again, in Drayton's Legend of Robert Duke of Normandy: "I make my changes aim one certain end." 243. S. Ant. What's her name? STEEVENS. S. Dro. Nell, sir; but her name is three quarters; that is, an ell and three quarters, &c.] This passage has hitherto lain as perplexed and unintelligible, as it is now easy and truly humourous. If a conundrum be restored, in setting it right, who can help it? I owe the correction to the sagacity of the ingenious Dr. Thirlby. THEOBALD. This poor conundrum is borrowed by Massinger in The Old Law, 1653: "Cook. That Nell was Hellen of Greece. “Clown. As long as she tarried with her husband she was Ellen, but after she came to Troy she was Nell of Troy. "Cook. Why did she grow shorter when she came to Troy? "Clown. She grew longer, if you mark the story, when she grew to be an ell," &c. MALONE. 257. S. Ant. Where France? S. Dro. In her forehead arm'd and reverted, making war against her hair.] Our author here sports with an allusion, in which he takes too much delight, and means that his mistress had the French disease. The ideas are rather too offens ve to be dilated. By a fore head |