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If ever I were wilful-negligent,

It was my folly; if industriously

I play'd the fool, it was my negligence,
Not weighing well the end; if ever fearful
To do a thing, where I the issue doubted,
Whereof the execution did cry out

Against the non-performance, 'twas a fear
Which oft infects the wisest.

I think Dr. Johnson has given the true meaning of this obscure expression in the latter part of his note, which Mr. Malone (for what reason I do not conceive) has thought fit to suppress.

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Believe this crack to be in my dread mistress,
So sovereignly being honourable.

I have lov'd thee,

Leon. Make't thy question, and go rot!

I rather incline with Theobald to give these words to Leontes, but I am by no means confident.

Pol.

P. 323.-144.-41.

Camillo,-
As you are certainly a gentleman; thereto
Clerklike, experienc'd, which no less adorns
Our gentry, than our parents' noble names,
In whose success we are gentle.

Success here means succession.

P. 324.-145.-42.

Cam. He thinks, nay, with all confidence he swears,
As he had seen't, or been an instrument

To vice you to't,- -that have touch'd his queen

Forbiddenly.

you

Mr. Steevens's explanation (the first of those in the edition of Johnson and Steevens) is, I believe, the true one.

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Give me thy hand;

Be pilot to me, and thy places shall
Still neighbour mine.

The old reading is right, and means the offices or places which thou shalt fill shall be of the highest degree, next to my own place, i. e. that of the king.

P. 327.-147.—45.

Fear o'ershades me:

Good expedition be my friend, and comfort
The gracious queen, part of his theme, but nothing
Of his ill-ta'en suspicion.

I wish to read the gracious queen's with Warburton; but I know not what to do with the following words, which I cannot understand. I now incline to Malone's explanation, but with hesitation.

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Whom I employ'd, was pre-employ'd by him:
He has discover'd my design, and I

Remain a pinch'd thing; yea, a very trick

For them to play at will.

I cannot think the sense proposed by the author of the Revisal the true one.. I prefer that given by Warburton.

P. 335.-154.—56.

Ant. You are abus'd, and by some putter-on,
That will be damn'd for't; 'would I knew the villain,
I would land-damn him..

I cannot think Sir Thomas Hanmer's the true interpretation of land-damn. Dr. Farmer's strange emendation cannot surely be right.

Leon.

P. 338.-156.-60.

Our prerogative

Calls not your counsels; but our natural goodness
Imparts this which,-if you (or stupified,
Or seeming so in skill,) cannot, or will not,
Relish a truth, like us; inform yourselves,
We need no more of your advice.

I would read, with the late editors, relish as

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The good queen,

For she is good, hath brought you forth a daughter;
Here 'tis; commends it to your blessing.

Leon.

[Laying down the child.

Out!

A mankind witch! Hence with her, out o' door:

A most intelligencing bawd!

I incline to believe with Mr. Henley that mankind means masculine.

Herm.

P. 354.-172.-82.

I appeal

To your own conscience, sir, before Polixenes
Came to your court, how I was in your grace,
How merited to be so; since he came,
With what encounter so uncurrent I

Have strain'd, to appear thus: if one jot beyond
The bound of honour; or, in act, or will,
That way inclining; harden'd be the hearts
Of all that hear me, and my near'st of kin
Cry, fie upon my grave.

This is rightly explained by Mr. Malone.

Leon.

P. 355.-173.-84.

I ne'er heard yet,

That any of these bolder vices wanted
Less impudence to gainsay what they did,
Than to perform it first.

I dissent from Dr. Johnson, and think the anonymous remarker (whose note Mr. Malone has suppressed) is right. (Mr. Seymour's explanation I now take to be the true one).

Leon.

P. 357.-175.-86.

'As you were past all shame,

(Those of your fact are so,) so past all truth.

I take fact to be the right word, and to be rightly explained by Steevens.

Time.

P. 371.-187.-101.

-Impute it not a crime,

To me, or my swift passage, that I slide

O'er sixteen years, and leave the growth untried

Of that wide gap.

Dr. Johnson is right.

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There is no need of the correction proposed by Dr. Johnson. We may suppose Shakespeare not to be so philosophically accurate as Dr. Johnson would have him. He wished to inform his audience that the scene was now to be laid in Bohemia, and made use of Time as chorus for this and other purposes, without constantly attending to the strict preservation of the character of Time personified. He thought nothing about Time's being every where alike.

P. 373. 190.-105.

Pol.
thou, having made me businesses,
which none, without thee, can sufficiently manage, must
either stay to execute them thyself, or take away with
thee the very services thou hast done: which if I have
not enough consider'd, (as too much I cannot,) to be
more thankful to thee, shall be my study; and my pro-
fit therein, the heaping friendships.

I incline to believe Mr. Malone is right.

3

P. 347.-190.-106.

Cam. What his happier affairs may be, are to me un-
known: but I have, missingly, noted, he is of late much
retired from court.

I am not sure that missingly is rightly explained by Mr. Steevens. I doubt whether it does not mean missing him, discovering him not to be present. This, it may be said, is tautology; but into tautology Shakespeare sometimes falls. P. 374.-191.-106.

Pol. But, I fear the angle that plucks our son thither. Mr. Steevens is right.

P. 375.-191,-107.

When daffodils begin to peer,

With, heigh! the doxy over the dale,—
Why, then comes in the sweet o'the year;

For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.

I would read with Sir Thomas Hanmer.

P. 377.-193.-110.

Aut. My traffick is sheets; when the kite builds look
to lesser linen.

Mason is right.

Ibid.

When the kite builds look to lesser linen.

When poor people, in solitary cottages near woods, where kites build, miss any of their lesser linen, as it hangs to dry on the hedge in spring, they conclude that the kite has been marauding, for a lining to her nest, and there it is frequently found.-Gent. Mag. for Jan. 1787, p. 45.

P. 378.-194.-112.

Clown. Let me see:-Every 'leven wether tods; every
tod yields-pound and odd shilling: fifteen hundred
shorn,- -What comes the wool to?

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