The beauties of Shakespear: regularly selected from each play, with explanatory notes and similar passages from ancient and modern authors by W. Dodd

(1) Shall damp. 1 i. e. wet, moisten : the old editions, and with them the Oxford, read dawb; there seems to me something greatly like Shakespear in that word, but I have kept damp, it is generally approv'd. The word files, in the fourth line

following,

No more shall trenching war channel her fields,
Nor bruise her flowrets with the armed hoofs
Of hostile paces. Those opposed files,
Which like the meteors of a troubled heav'n,
All of one nature, of one substance bred,
Did lately meet in the intestine shock
And furious clofe of civil butchery,
Shall now, in mutual, well-beseeming, ranks,
March all one way; and be no more oppos’d
Against acquaintance, kindred, and allies :
The edge of war, like an ill-fheathed knife,
No more shall cut his master.

Scene. IV. Hotspur's Description of a finical

Courtier,

But I remember, when the fight was done,
When I was dry with rage, and extreme to:I,
Breathless, and faint, leaning upon my sword ;
Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly dress’d:
Fresh as a bridegroom, and his chin, new-reap'd,
Shew'd like a stubble-land at harvest-home.
He was perfumed like a milliner ;
And 'twixt his finger and his thumb, he held
(2) A pouncet-box, which ever and anon
He gave his nose : (and took't away again ;
Who, therewith angry, when it next came there,

following, is in the old editions eyes ; and thus alter'd by Mr. Warburton : others read arms. I don't know whether eyes might not be justified, but I think files preferable See Upt. p. 334.

(2) Pouncet-box.) A small box for musk, or other perfumes, then in fashion, the lid of which being cut with open work, gave it its name : from poinfoner, to prick, pierce, or engrave. So says Mr. Warburton, and then condemns the next lines as stupid interpolation of the players : they are certainly not very easy to be defended, but we find many such conceits as these in Sb. kespear.

Took

Took it in fnuff). And still he smild and talk'd :
And as the soldiers bare dead bodies by,
He call’d them untaught knaves, unmannerly,
To bring a slovenly, unhandsome coarse
Betwixt the wind, and his nobility.
With many holiday and lady terms
He question d me: amongst the rest, demanded
My prisoners in your majesty's behalf.
(3) I then, all smarting with my wounds, being cold,
Out of my grief, and my impatience
To be so pelter'd with a popinjay,
Answer'd, neglectingly, I know not what ;
He should, or should not ; for he made me mad,
To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,
And talk fo like a waiting gentlewoman,
of guns, and drums, and wounds ; (God fave the

mark !)
And telling me the sovereign'st thing on earth
Was parmacety, for an inward bruise ;
And that it was great pity, so it was,
This villainous falt-petre should be digg'd

(3) I then, &c.) When I first read this passage, I mark'd the lines, as I have printed them, and turning to the ingenious Mr. Ed. wards’s canons of Criticilia (p. 13.) I found he was of opinion, the lines should be fo transposed : by this means the sense of the parfage is quite clear, and we have no occasion for any alteration, “ Mr. Warburton in order to make a contradiction in the common reading, and fo make way for his emendation, misrepresents Hotspur as at this time when he gave this answer | not cold, but but. It is true, that at the beginning of the speech he describes himself as

Dry with rage and extreme toil,

Breathless, and faint, &c Then comes in this gay gentleman, and holds him in an idle dilcourse, the heads of which Hotspur gives us ; and it is plain by the context, it must have lasted a considerable while. Now the more he had heated himself in the action, the more when he came to stand still any time, wou'd the cold air affect his wounds, Gc."

EOWARDS.

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The beauties of Shakespear: regularly selected from each play, with ..., 2 tomas