Scene 1. Page 410.

As range signifies compass, extent, so the verb seems to be used, rather licentiously, in the present instance, in the sense of spread, extended. It may be doubted, at least, whether there be any allusion to a triumphal arch, as Dr. Warburton supposed, or even of a fabric standing on pillars, according to Dr. Johnson. The wide arch may refer to the vast concave of the Roman world, its wide domains covered by the arch of heaven, which has been beautifully styled by some oriental writer "the star-built arch of heaven." See The tales of Inatulla by Dow, vol. i. p. 78.

Scene 3. Page 440.

She compares her memory to Antony, and says she is treacherously abandoned and neglected by both. Mr. Steevens's explanation of the first line is satisfactory; but one cannot well agree with him or Mason, that "I am all forgotten" can possibly mean, "I forget myself, or every thing."

ACT II.

Scene 4. Page 490.

It may be doubted whether quail-fighting was practised in Shakspeare's time, though Dr. Farmer appears to have thought so; but when our poet speaks of their being inhoop'd, he might suppose that CÆsar's or Antony's quails, which he found in Plutarch, were trained to battle like game cocks in a ring or circle. Hanmer plausibly reads incoop'd, but no change is necessary.

Quail combats were well known among the ancients, and especially at Athens. Julius Pollux relates that a circle was made in which the birds were placed, and he whose quail was driven out of this circle lost the stake, which was sometimes money, and occasionally the quails themselves. Another practice was to produce one of these birds, which being first smitten or filliped with the middle finger, a feather was then plucked from its head: if the quail bore this operation without flinching, his master gained the stake, but lost it if he ran away. The Chinese have been always extremely fond of quail-fighting, as appears from most of the accounts of that people, and particularly in Mr. Bell's excellent relation of his travels to China, where the reader will find much curious matter on the subject. See vol. i. p. 424, edit.. in 8vo. We are told by Mr. Marsden that the Sumatrans likewise use these birds in the manner of game cocks. The annexed copy from an elegant Chinese miniature painting represents some ladies engaged at this amusement, where the quails are actually inhoop'd.

Scene 5. Page 493.

This incident, which, as Mr. Steevens has already remarked, was borrowed from Plutarch, probably suggested a story related by Nashe, "of a scholler in Cambridge, that standing angling on the towne bridge there, as the country people on the market day passed by, secretly bayted his hooke wyth a red herring wyth a bell about the necke, and so conveying it into the water that no man perceived it, all on the sodayn, when he had a competent throng gathered about hym, up he twicht it agayne, and layd it openly before them, whereat the gaping rurall fooles, driven into no lesse admiration than the common people about London some few yeares since were at the bubbling of Moore-ditch, sware by their christendomes that as many dayes and yeeres as they had lived, they never saw such a myracle of a red herring taken in the fresh water before."—Lenten stuffe, or praise of the red herring, 1599, 4to, p. 60. But Cleopatra's trick was of a different nature. Antony had fished unsuccessfully in her presence, and she had laughed at him. The next time therefore he directed the boatman to dive under the water and attach a fish to his hook. The queen perceived the stratagem, but affecting not to notice it, congratulated him on his success. Another time, however, she determined to laugh at him once more, and gave orders to her own people to get the start of his divers, and put some dried salt-fish on his hook.

Scene 5. Page 499.

This alludes to a superstitious notion among the ancients, that they who were stricken with lightning were honoured by Jupiter, and therefore to be accounted holy. Their bodies were supposed not to putrify; and after having been shown for a certain time to the people, were not burned in the usual manner, but buried on the spot where the lightning fell, and a monument erected over them. Some, however, held a contrary opinion. See the various notes on the line in Persius,

The ground also that had been smitten by a thunderbolt was accounted sacred, and afterwards inclosed: nor did any one presume to walk on it. This we learn from Festus, "fulguritum, id quod est fulmine ictum; qui locus statim fieri putabatur religiosus, quod eum Deus sibi dicasse videretur." These places were therefore consecrated to the gods, and could not in future become the property of any one.

Scene 7. Page 512.

Dr. Johnson says the partizan is a pike, and so say many of our dictionaries; but it was in reality a weapon between a pike and a halbert. Not being so long as the former, it was made use of in trenches, in mounting a breach, and in attacking or defending a lodgment; on all which occasions the pike would have been unmanageable. Its upper extremity resembled that of a halbert, but was longer and broader. In more modern times it wanted the cutting axe which belongs to the halbert, though in that used by the old Switzers and Germans it seems to have had it. The etymology of the word has been much controverted, but appears to lie between the Latin pertica and the German bart, an axe, whence bardike, a little axe. Shakspeare himself has distinguished it from the pike, "Let us make him with our pikes and partizans a grave."—Cymbeline, Act IV. Scene 2.

Scene 7. Page 518.

Here is some corruption, and unless it was originally revels, the sense is irretrievable. In all events Mr. Steevens has erred in saying that "reel was not, in our author's time, employed to signify a dance." The following passage in a book with which the learned editor was well acquainted, and which had escaped his excellent memory, proves the contrary:—"Agnis Tompson was after brought againe before the king's majestie and confessed that upon the night of Allhollon even last, she was accompanied with a great many witches to the number of two hundreth; and that all they together went by sea each one in a riddle or cive, and went in the same very substantially with flaggons of wine making merrie and drinking by the waye in the same riddles or cives, to the kerke of North Barrick in Lowthian, and that after they had landed, tooke hands on the land, and daunced this reill or short daunce, singing all with one voice,

At which time she confessed, that Geilles Duncane did goe before them playing this reill or daunce upon a small trump, call a Jewes trump, untill they entered into the kerk of North Barrick."—Newes from Scotland declaring the damnable life and death of doctor Fian, a notable sorcerer, who was burned at Edenbrough in January last, 1591, sign. B iij.

ACT III.

Scene 6. Page 543.

An usher is a person who introduces others ceremoniously, though originally a door-keeper, from the French huissier, and that from huis, ostium. This is no otherwise worth the mention, than to mark the corrupt orthography of the word, which ought to be written husher. Thus Spencer,

Cavendish, the servant of Cardinal Wolsey, speaking of his master's arrest by the Earl of Northumberland, says, "he toke the Earle by the hande, and led him in to his bedchamber. And they being there all alone, save onely I who kept the dore according to my dutye, being gentleman ussher, &c."—Life of Wolsey, MS.

Scene 6. Page 544.

Mr. Steevens, in claiming the merit of this necessary change from ostentation, had forgotten that it had been already made by Sir Thomas Hanmer.

Scene 6. Page 544.

The change was made by Dr. Warburton from abstract, which he declares to be absurd; but, as an eminent critic has remarked, it has been made very unnecessarily. The canon somewhere laid down, viz. that where the old text is capable of a meaning, no alteration should be hazarded, ought to have been observed in this instance. The sense is obviously, "Octavia drew away or abstracted Cleopatra from Antony," and she might therefore be very properly called, in Shakspeare's bold language, an abstract.

Another reason for retaining the old reading is, that, generally speaking, Dr. Warburton's emendations are inadmissible.

Scene 11. Page 587.

The word nice, sometimes used by Shakspeare in a sense bordering on that of amorous or wanton, seems in the present instance to have precisely that meaning. Antony says that his former luxurious hours with Cleopatra were fortunate to those who asked his favours, but that now he will appear in blood. The historian Stowe, in recording an accident that happened to one Mary Breame in the year 1583, says that she "had beene accused by her husband to bee a nice woman of her body." We have also an old play entitled The nice wanton.

Scene 11. Page 589.

i. e. the falcon. See note p. 268, &c.

ACT IV.

Scene 9. Page 611.

In the old copy sleep. The alteration is by Mr. Steevens, and, as he says, for the sake of measure; but that was already complete. The harmony is certainly improved, as the accent is to be laid on to in the ensuing line.

Scene 12. Page 624.

One should really suppose that Shakspeare had written this speech just after having lost a game at cards, and before the manner in which it had been played was out of his mind. Dr. Warburton's explanation is too superficial to merit the commendation which Dr. Johnson has bestowed on it. That of Mr. Malone is much more judicious and satisfactory; but it has not been perceived that a marked and particular allusion is intended. This is to the old card game of trump, which bore a very strong resemblance to our modern whist. It was played by two against two, and sometimes by three against three. It is thus mentioned in Gammer Gurton's needle, Act II. Scene 2: "We be fast set at trump man, hard by the fire;" and like wise in Dekkar's Belman of London, among other card games. In Eliot's Fruits for the French, 1593, p. 53, it is called "a verie common alehouse game in England;" and Rice, in his Invective against vices, 12mo, b. l. n. d. but printed before 1600, speaking of sharpers' tricks at cards, mentions "renouncyng the trompe and comming in againe." The Italians call it triomphetto; see Florio's dictionary. In Capitolo's poem on Primero, another card game, 1526, 8vo, it is called trionfi, and consigned to the peasants. Minsheu, in his Spanish dialogues, p. 25, makes it a game for old men. We, in all probability, received it from the French triomphe, which occurs in Rabelais as one of Gargantua's games. The term indicates a winning or triumphant card; and therefore there can be no pretence for deriving it from tromper, whatever Ben Jonson might have thought to the contrary, who, in reality, seems only to indulge in a pun upon the word.

Scene 12. Page 627.

Mr. Steevens suspects that the author wrote life; surely without reason. Length is extension or protraction of life.

THE CLOWN.

He is a mere country fellow; but Shakspeare, in compliance with the usual expectations of the audience, has bestowed on him a due portion of wit and satire.