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which I cite the rather, because ill had there also been changed into in, by an error of the press, which Mr. Sympson has corrected from the edition 1647.

TYRWHITT.

This is a very reasonable conjecture, though I think it hardly right. JOHNSON. We meet with this phrase in an old poem by Robert Dabourne:

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-Men shift their fashions

"They are in souls the same."

FARMER.

360. A trim exploit, a manly enterprize, &c.] This is written much in the manner and spirit of Juno's reproach to Venus in the 4th book of the Æneid:

"Egregiam verò laudem et spolia ampla refertis,

"Tuque puerque tuus; magnum et memorabile

nomen,

"Una dolo divûm si fœmina victa duorum est." STEEVENS.

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A poor soul's patience,-] Harass, torment.

JOHNSON. 874. My heart to her- -] We should read: My heart with her but as guest-wise sojourn’d.

So, Prior:

"No matter what beauties I saw in my way,
"They were but my visits, but thou art my home."

JOHNSON.

So, in our author's 109th Sonnet:

"This is my home of love; if I have rang'd,
"Like him that travels, I return again."

MALONE.

379. Lest, to thy peril, thou aby it dear.] The folio MALONE.

has abide.

386.

392.

thy sound.] Fol.-that sound. MALONE. -all yon fiery O's——] Shakspere uses O

for a circle. So, in the prologue to Henry V.

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"Within this little 0, the very casques

"That did affright the air at Agincourt?"

Again, in the Partheneia Sacra, 1633:

"-the purple canopy of the earth, powder'd over and beset with silver o'es, or rather an azure vault," &c. STEEVENS. D'Ewes's Journal of Queen Elizabeth's Parliament, p. 650, mentions a patent to make spangles and o'es of gold; and I think haberdashers call small curtain rings, O's, as being circular. TOLLET.

This little O in the passage from Henry V. refers, I apprehend, to the orbicular form of the globe theatre. HENLEY.

398. in spight of me.] I read, in spite to me.

JOHNSON.

407. artificial gods,] Artificial is ingenious, artful.

STEEVENS.

408. Have with our neelds, &c.] Neelds for needles, a common contraction in the inland counties at this day. See Gammer Gurton's Needle.

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Again, in Sir Arthur Gorges's translation of Lucan, 1614:

"Thus Cato spake, whose feeling words

"Like pricking neelds, or points of swords," &c. Again, in Pericles Prince of Tyre, 1609:

"Deep clerks she dumbs, and with her neeld composes

"Nature's own shape."

Again, in Stanyhurst's Virgil, 1582:
"On neeld-wrought carpets."

The same ideas occur in Pericles Prince of Tyre, 1609:

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"Would ever with Marina be:

"Be't when they weav'd the sleded silk,
"With fingers long, small, white as milk,
"Or when she would with sharp neeld wound
"The cambrick," &c.

In the age of Shakspere many contractions were used.
Ben Jonson has wher for whether in the prologue to his
Sad Shepherd; and in the earl of Sterline's Darius
is sport for support, and twards for towards.

STEEVENS.

441. Ay, do, persever,-] Persever is the reading of all the old copies. The word was formerly so pronounced. Thus our author in All's Well that End's Well, act iv.

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say thou art mine, and ever

"My love, as it begins, so shall persever.' So, in Glapthorne's Argalus and Parthenia, 1639:

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-for

-for.ever

"May they in love and union still persever.”

STEEVENS. 446. such an argument.] Such a subject of light

merriment. JOHNSON. So, in the first part of King Henry IV. act ii. "it would be argument for a week," &c.

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A modern editor very plausibly reads-than her weak prays. The using the verb as a substantive is much in our author's manner; and the transcriber's ear might have deceived him here as in many other places. MALONE. -you canker-blossom!] The canker-blossom is not in this place the blossom of the canker or wild rose, which our author alludes to in Much Ado About Nothing, act i.

492.

"I had rather be a canker in a hedge

"Than a rose in his grace;"

but a worm that preys on the leaves or buds of flowers, always beginning in the middle. So, in this play, act ii.

it :

"Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds."

529.

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STEEVENS.

-how fond I am.] Fond, i. e. foolish. STEEVENS.

543. You minimus,-] Shakspere might have given

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"You Minim, you”

i. e. You Diminutive of the creation, you reptile, as in Milton. THEOBALD.

543. of hind'ring knot-grass made;] It appears that knot-grass was anciently supposed to prevent the growth of any animal or child.

Beaumont and Fletcher mention this property of it in The Knight of the Burning Pestle :

"Should they put him into a straight pair of gaskins, 'twere worse than knot-grass, he would never grow after it."

Again, in The Coxcomb :

"We want a boy extremely for this function, kept under, for a year, with milk and knot-grass." Daisyroots were supposed to have had the same effect.

That prince of verbose and pedantick coxcombs, Richard Tomlinson, apothecary, in his translation of Renodaus his Dispensatory, 1657, informs us that knotgrass "is a low reptant hearb, with exile, copious, nodose, and geniculated' branches." Perhaps no hypochondriack is to be found who might not derive his cure from the perusal of any single chapter in this work. STEEVENS. 550. Thou shalt aby it.] To aby is to pay dear for, So, in the Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntingdon, 1601:

to suffer.

"Had I sword and buckler here,

"You should aby these questions.'

The word has occured before in this play.
Again, in The Pinner of Wakefield, 1599:

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"-but

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