the greatest general of that age, and the conductor of the Low-country wars against Spain, under whom all the English gentry and nobility were bred to the service. Being frequently overborne with numbers, he became famous for his fine retreats, in which a stand of pikes is of great service. Hence the pikes of his army became famous for their military exploits. WARBURTON. This conjecture is very ingenious, yet the commentator talks unnecessarily of the rest of a musket, by which he makes the hero of the speech set up the rest of a musket, to do exploits with a pike. The rest of a pike was a common term, and signified, I believe, the manner in which it was fixed to receive the rush of the enemy. A morris-pike was a pike used in a morris or a military dance, and with which great exploits were done, that is, great feats of dexterity were shewn. There is no need of change. JOHNSON. 33 Mistress, respice finem, respect your end;] These words seem to allude to a famous pamphlet of that time, wrote by Buchanan against the lord of Lid. dington; which ends with these words, Respice finem, respice funem. But to what purpose, unless our author would shew that he could quibble as well in English, as the other in Latin, I confess I know not. As for prophesying like the parrot, this alludes to people's teaching that bird unlucky words; with which, when any passenger was offended, it was the standing joke of the wise owner to say, Take heed, sir, my parrot prophesies. To this, Butler hints, where, speaking of Ralpho's skill in augury, he says, Could tell what subtlest parrots mean, That speak and think contrary clean; What member 'tis of whom they talk, When they cry ROPE, and walk, knave, walk. WARBURTON. 36 Kitchen-vestal.] Her charge being like that of the vestal virgins, to keep the fire burning. JOHNSON. 37 Kinsman to grim and comfortless despair?] Shakspeare could never make melancholy a male in this line, and a female in the next. This was the foolish insertion of the first editors. I have therefore put it into hooks, as spurious. WARBURTON. The defective metre of the second line, is a plain proof that some dissyllable word hath been dropped there. I think it therefore probable our poet may have written, Sweet recreation barr'd, what doth ensue, REVISAL. 38 Whom I made lord of me and all I had, At your important letters,-] Shakspeare, who gives to all nations the customs of his own, seems from this passage to allude to a court of wards in Ephesus. Important seems to be for importunate. JOHNSON. STEEVENS. 39 with his mad attendant and himself,] We should read, -MAD himself. WARBURTON. 40 Twenty-five years-] In former editions, Thirty-three years. 'Tis impossible the poet could be so forgetful, as to design this number here: and therefore I have ventured to alter it to twenty-five, upon a proof, that, I think, amounts to demonstration. The number, I presume, was at first wrote in figures, and, perhaps, blindly; and thence the mistake might arise. Ægeon, in the first scene of the first act, is precise as to the time his son left him, in quest of his brother: My youngest boy, and yet my eldest care, After his brother, &c. And how long it was from the son's thus parting from his father, to their meeting again at Ephesus, where Ægeon, mistakingly, recognizes the twinbrother, for him, we as precisely learn from another passage in the fifth act. Æge. But seven years since, in Syracusa-bay, Thou knowest we parted; So that these two numbers, put together, settle the date of their birth beyond dispute. THEOBALD. 41 —and go with me:] We should read, and GAUDE with me: i. e. rejoice, from the French, gaudir. WARBURTON. The sense is clear enough without the alteration. The Revisal offers to read, more plausibly, I think, -joy with me. STEEVENS. 42 A, er so long grief, such nativity.] We should surely read, After so long grief, such festivity. Nativity lying so near, and the termination being the same of both words, the mistake was easy. |