The poet might likewise have read of them in Pliny's Natural History, translated by P. Holland, 1601, and in Stowe's Chronicle. STEEVENS. "Iliacosque, iterum demens audire labores, 474. -and with a greedy ear MONCK MASON. Devour up my discourse:] So, in Marlow's Lust's Dominion: "Hang both your greedy ears upon my lips; MALONE. 480. But not intentively:-]Thus the eldest quarto. The folio reads, instinctively. The old word, however, may stand. Intention and attention were once synonymous. So, in a play called The Isle of Gulls, 1633: “Grace! at sitting down they cannot intend it for hunger," i. e. attend to it. Desdemona, who was often called out of the room on the score of house-affairs, could not have heard Othello's tale intentively, i. e. with attention to all its parts. STEEVENS. Distinctively is the reading of the second folio. MALONE. 503. Destruction, &c.] The quartos read, destruc tion light on me. STEEVENS. 511. You are the lord of duty,] The first quarto reads, You are lord of all my duty. STEEVENS. J 1 3 522. Which, &c.] This line is omitted in the first quarto. STEEVENS. 527. Let me speak like yourself:—] i. e. let me speak as yourself would speak, were you not too much heated with passion. Sir J. REYNOLDS, 528. -as a grize-] Grize from degrees. A grize is a step. So in Timon of Athens: the In the will of K. Henry VI. where the dimensions of King's College chapel at Cambridge are set down, the word occurs, as spelt in some of the old editions of Shakspere. "From the provost's stall, unto greece called Gradus Chori, 90 feet." STEEVENS, 529. Into your favour.] This is wanting in the folio, but found in the quarto. JOHNSON, 530. When remedies are past, &c.] According to the old proverb : "What can't be cur'd, must be endur'd." 533. New mischief on.] The quarto's read-more mischief.STEEVENS. 541. But the free comfort which from thence he hears:] But the moral precepts of consolation, which are liberally bestowed on occasion of the sentence. JOHNSON. 546. That the bruised heart was pierced through the ear.] Shakspere was continually changing his first expression for another, either stronger or more uncommon; so that very often the reader, who has not the the same continuity or succession of ideas, is at a loss for its meaning. Many of Shakspere's uncouth strain, ed epithets may be explained, by going back to the obvious and simple expression, which is most likely to occur to the mind in that state. I can imagine the first mode of expression that occurred to the poet was this: The troubled heart was never cured by words. To give it poetical force, he altered the phrase: The wounded heart was never reached through the ear. Wounded heart he changed to broken, and that to bruised, as a more uncommon expression. Reach he altered to touched, and the transition is then easy to pierced, i. e. thoroughly touched. When the sentiment is brought to this state, the commentator, without this unravelling clue, expounds piercing the heart, in its common acceptation, wounding the heart, which making in this place nonsense, is corrected to pierced the heart, which is very stiff, and, as Polonius says, is a vile phrase. Sir J. REYNOLDS. Pierced may be right. The consequence of a bruise is sometimes matter collected, and this can no way be cured without piercing or letting it out. Thus, in Hamlet: "It will but skin and film the ulcerous place, Again, "This is th' imposthume of much wealth and peace, "That "That inward breaks, and shews no cause with out, "Why the man dies." STEEVENS. Pierced, I believe, only means, as Sir Joshua Reynolds supposes, penetrated, thoroughly affected. The heart being enclosed by the body, the former could not, in a literal sense, be touched but by piercing through the latter. Hence our author's figurative use of the word in this place. The reading of the old copy may derive some support from Shakspere's 46th Sonnet, where the contested word again occurs : "My heart doth plead that thou in him doth lie "(A closet never pierc'd by chrystal eye)." Again, from Love's Labour Lost: "Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief." Again, from The Merchant of Venice: "With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear.” The wounded heart being reached by counsel, and so healed, through the medium of the ear, is just the same kind of conceit, as the sound heart's being transfixed by the shaft of love through the medium of the eye. In Marlow's Tamburlaine, 1591, pierced is used nearly in the same figurative sense: "Nor thee nor them, thrice noble Tamburlaine, "Shall want my heart to be with gladness pierc'd." MALONE. 555. To slubber the gloss, &c.] To slubber, on this occasion, is to obscure. So, in the First Part of Jeronimo, &c. 1605: "The "The evening too begins to slubber day.” STEEVENS. 558. The flinty and steel couch of war] So called from the soldier's being reduced to the necessity of sleeping in iron armour, and on flinty ground. * 559. -thrice-driven bed of down-:] A driven bed, is a bed for which the feathers are selected, by driving with a fan, which separates the light from the heavy. JOHNSON. 559. I do agnize] i. e. acknowledge, confess, So, in the old play of Cambyses: avow. "The tenor of your princely will, from you for to agnize." In this instance, however, it signifies to know; as likewise in the following, from the same piece : "Why so? I pray you let me agnize." STEEVENS, 564. I crave fit disposition for my wife; Due reference of place, and exhibition, &c.] I desire, that proper disposition be made for my wife, that she may have precedency and revenue, accommodation and company, suitable to her rank. For reference of place, the old quartos have reverence, which Hanmer has received. I should read, Due preference of place.Exhibition is allowance. used only at the universities. Most gracious duke, 574. JOHNSON. The word is at present STEEVENS. To my unfolding lend a gracious ear;] Thus the quarto, 1622, The folio, to avoid the repetition of |