Scene 2. Page 18. Imo. ... he is A man worth any woman; overbuys me Almost the sum he pays. This has already been so ingeniously interpreted, that there is considerable hazard in the offer of any other conjecture on the subject; yet, may not Imogen mean, "the possession of me is much too dearly bought by the banishment to which you sentence him; he has almost nothing for so large a price." Scene 5. Page 27. Enter Philario, Iachimo, &c. Mr. Malone having shown that this name is borrowed from the Italian Giacomo, it should be printed Jachimo, in order to prevent any mistake in the pronunciation. ACT II.Scene 2. Page 65. Imo. From fairies and the tempters of the night, Guard me, beseech ye! See p. 128. Scene 3. Page 72. Hark, hark, the lark at heaven's gate sings. The frequent mention of the lark, especially among our older poets, has been already exemplified in a variety of corresponding passages with the above, which either Shakspeare "On morowe tho the dai sprong And the larke bigan her song." Romance of Sir Oluel. MS. "Even at the twelyght in the dawnynge Whan the larke of custome gynneth synge For to salue in her heavenly laye The lusty goddesse of the morowe graye." Lydgate's Sege of Troye, B. i. "Whan the larke messager of day Of custome aye Aurora doth salue, With sondry notes hir sorowe to transmue, Or Phebus ryse to joye and gladnesse." Lydgate's Sege of Troye, B. iii. "Upsprang the golden candle matutyne, With cleir depurit bemys chrystallyne, Glading the mirry fowlis in thair nest: Or Phebus was in purpour kaip revest Upsprang the lark, the hevene's mynstral syne In may intill a morrow mirth fullest." Dunbar's Golden terge. "With merry note her loud salutes the mounting lark." Spenser's Fairy queen, B. I. Canto xi. st. 51. "Early, cheerful, mounting lark, Light's gentle usher, morning's clerk, In merry notes delighting; Stint awhile thy song, and hark, And learn my new inditing. "Bear up this hymn, to heav'n it bear E'en up to heav'n, and sing it there," &c. Davies's Acrostick hymns, 1599. "... and then my state, (Like to the lark, at break of day arising From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate." Shakspeare's 29th Sonnet. "The larke that left her food, her nest, her yong, And early mounting, first with her sweet song Saluted heaven." Niccolls's London Artillery, 1616, 4to. "And the lark from out the furrow, Soars upright on matin wings, And at the gate of heaven sings." Penshurst. In Dodsley's collection, vol. iv. Scene 4. Page 88. Iach. The roof o' the chamber With golden cherubims is fretted; her andirons (I had forgot them) were two winking Cupids Of silver, each on one foot standing, nicely Depending on their brands. Mr. Steevens calls the golden cherubims a tawdry image, and proceeds, justly enough, to ridicule an idle representation of the heavenly choirs; but the poet must be cleared from any imputation of blame. He is not accountable for the fashions or follies of his age, and has, in this instance, given a faithful description of the mode in which the rooms in great houses were sometimes ornamented. That brands were those parts of the andirons which supported the wood, according to Mr. Whalley, remains to be proved. The Cupids would not lean or hang over these bars, but rather stand with their faces turned from them, and opposite to the spectator. The brands are more likely to have been the inverted torches mentioned by Mr. Steevens. Scene 5. Page 94. Post. Me of my lawful pleasure she restrain'd, And pray'd me, oft, forbearance: did it With a pudency so rosy, &c. A useless note on this speech, which would make our poet equally vulgar and obscene, when he was expressing a sentiment of the most refined delicacy, may be well dispensed with in any future edition. ACT III.Scene 1. Page 99. Cym. Our ancestor was that Mulmutius, which Ordain'd our laws ... ... Mulmutius, Who was the first of Britain, &c. The judicious and necessary omission of the words "made Scene 1. Page 100. Cym. Thy CÆsar knighted me. Although our old writers frequently make mention of Roman knights, that is, military chieftains, it is very much to be apprehended that the present expression must be regarded as a downright anachronism, as well as another similar passage, in p. 213, where Cymbeline addresses Belarius and his sons: "Bow your knees; arise my knights of the battle, &c." The word knight was formerly used with great latitude. Dr. Bullein calls Dioscorides "that olde famous Egyptian knyghte." Scene 2. Page 105. Imo. (Some griefs are med'cinable;) that is one of them, For it doth physick love;—— The whole of this should be included in the parenthesis, as in Mr. Malone's edition. No reason has been assigned by Mr. Steevens for the variation, which may be an error of the press. Scene 3. Page 117. Bel. ... Euriphile, Thou wast their nurse—— The above name might have been borrowed from the story of Amphiaraus and Eriphile, in Pettie's Petite palace, 1598, 4to. Scene 4. Page 120. Pis. ... whose tongue Outvenoms all the worms of Nile. So in the anonymous play of Wily beguilde, "Whose tongue more venom than the serpent's sting." It is difficult to say which is the imitation. ACT IV.Scene 2. Page 154. Gui. But his neat cookery. This speech has exercised the talents of a certain ingenious female illustrator of Shakspeare, who has endeavoured to ridicule the character of Imogen, and indeed the whole of the play. She degrades our heroine into a mere kitchen wench, and adverts to what she calls her oeconomical education. Now what is this but to expose her own ignorance of ancient manners? If she had missed the advantage of qualifying herself as a commentator on Shakspeare's plots by a perusal of our old romances, she ought at least to have remembered, what every well informed woman of the present age is acquainted with, the education of the princesses in Homer's Odyssey. It is idle to attempt to judge of ancient simplicity by a mere knowledge of modern manners; and such fastidious critics had better close the book of Shakspeare for ever. In another part of her critique on this play, she condemns the giving of the drug to Imogen which Pisanio had received from the queen, from an idea that he was sufficiently warned of its soporific quality; and she positively states that the physician had, by a whisper, informed Pisanio of its property; not one word of which is to be found in Shakspeare. So much for the criticism and accuracy of a work to which Dr. Johnson condescended to write a dedication. He has likewise too often confided in its opinions in the course of several of his remarks on Shakspeare's plays. Scene 2. Page 156. Clo. Know'st me not by my clothes? Gui. No, nor thy tailor, rascal. Mr. Steevens's correct ear has on this, perhaps single, occasion been deceived. He objects to the negation no, as "at once superfluous and injurious to the metre;" yet it is "Know'st not my clothes? No, nor thy tailor, rascal." Scene 2. Page 164. Bel. O thou goddess, Thou divine nature, how thyself thou blazon'st—— This judicious emendation from thou thyself, &c., claimed by one learned gentleman and adopted by another, is the original property of Sir Thomas Hanmer. Scene 2. Page 168. Gui. With female fairies will his tomb be haunted. i. e. harmless and protecting spirits, not fairies of a mischievous nature. Scene 2. Page 169. Gui. And worms will not come to thee. Mr. Steevens imputes great violence to this change of person, and would read "come to him;" but there is no impropriety in Guiderius's sudden address to the body itself. It might indeed be ascribed to our author's careless manner, of which an instance like the present occurs at the beginning of the next act, where Posthumus says, "... you married ones, If each of you would take this course, how many Must murder wives much better than themselves." Scene 2. Page 169. Arv. ... the ruddock would, With charitable bill,—bring thee all this; Yea and furr'd moss besides, when flowers are none To winter-ground thy corse. The question made by Dr. Percy, whether the notion of the redbreast covering dead bodies be older than the celebrated ballad of the babes of the wood, has been satisfactorily an With respect to winter-ground; until some other example of the use of this word be produced, there will be no impropriety in offering a substitute in winter-green, that is, "to preserve thy tomb green with moss in the winter season, when there will be no flowers wherewith to deck it." Such a verb might have been suggested to Shakspeare, who often coins in this way, by the plant winter-green, the pyrola. Ruddock was the Saxon name ?u??uc, for the redbreast, and long continued to be so. In Bullokar's Æsop, 1585, 12mo, there is a fable "Of a fowlor and the bird cale'd Robin-red-brest," which concludes in these words: "Then the fowlor, hop of-taking many being lost, when it waz now tym too-rest, drawing the netz, he cauht only on Robin-ruddok, which being unhappy [unlucky] had abydd stil in the shrap." Scene 2. Page 175. Imo. 'Od's pittikins! Mr. Steevens's derivation from God's my pity, is not quite correct. It is rather from God's pity, diminutively used by the addition of kin. In this manner we have 'od's bodikins. ON THE STORY OF THIS PLAY.For the plot of Cymbeline, Shakspeare has been almost exclusively indebted to Boccaccio's novel of Bernabo Lomellin, Day 2, novel 9, as Mr. Malone has proved beyond the possibility of doubt. Unless we suppose, what is not probable, that Shakspeare was acquainted with the Italian language, or that he had heard the above novel read by some person in |