All these words (in either copy) mean no more than this : When the pleasures and idle toys of love make me unfit either for seeing the duties of my office, or for the ready performance of them, &c.

STEEVENS. 606. --my

estimation!] Thus the folio; the quarto -reputation.

STEEVENS. 625. If virtue no delighted beauty lack,] This is a senseless epithet. We should read belighted beauty, i, e. white and fair

WARBURTON. Hanmer reads, more plausibly, delighting. I do not know that belighted has any authority. I should rather read,

If virtue no delight or beauty lack. Delight, for delectation, or power of pleasing, as it is frequently used.

JOHNSON, There is no such word as belighted. The plain meaning, I believe, is, if virtue comprehends every thing in itself, then your virtuous son-in-law of course is beautiful : he has that beauty which delights every one. Delighted, for delighting; Shakspere often uses the active and passive participles indiscriminately. Of this practice I have already given many instances. The same sentiment seems to occur in the Twelfth Night:

“ In nature is no blemish, but ihe mind;
“ None can be call'd deform’d, but the unkind :
“ Virtue is beauty."-

STEEVENS. Delighted is used by Shakspere in the sense of delighting, or delightful. See Cymbeline, act v:

Diij

" Whom

« Whom best I love I cross, to make my gift,

“ The more delay'd, delighted." TYRWHITT, 628. -have a quick eye to see] Thus the eldest quarto. The folio reads, -if thou hast eyes to see.

STEEYENS. 633. best advantage.-] Fairest opportunity.

JOHNSON. 651, -a Guinea-hen,-) A showy bird with fine feathers.

JOHNSON, A Guinea-hen was anciently the cant term for a prostitute.

STEEVENS. 663. If the balance] The folio reads-If the brain.

STEEVENS. Beam, which Mr. Theobald suggested, was proba. bly our author's word, on a revision of his play.

MALONE. 669. -asect or scyon.] Thus the folio and quarto. A sect is what the more modern gardeners call a cutting. The modern editors read-a set. STEEYENS,

677.' Defeat thy favour with an usurped beard :] Favour here means that combination of features which gives the face its distinguishing character. Defeat, from defaire, in French, signifies to unmake, de. compose, or give a different appearance to, either by taking away something, or adding. Thus, in Don Quixotte, Cardenio defeated his favour by cutting off his beard, and the Barber his, by putting one

The beard which Mr. Ashton usurped, when he escaped from the Tower, gave so different an appearance to his face, that he passed through his guards

without

on,

without the least suspicion. In the Winter's Tale,
Autolycus had recourse to an expedient like Cardenio's
(as appears from the pocketing up his pedlar's excrement)
to prevent his being known in the garb of the prince.

HENLEY.
681, it was a violent commencement in her, and
thou shalt see an answerable sequestration.---] There
seems to be an opposition of terms here intended,
which has been lost in transcription. We may read,
it was a violent conjunction, and thou shalt see an an-
swerable sequestration ; or, what seems to me prefer-
able, it was a violent commencement, and thou shalt see an
answerable sequel.

JOHNSON. I believe the poet uses sequestration for sequel. He might conclude that it was immediately derived from sequor. Sequestration, however, may mean no more than separation. So, in this play" a sequester from liberty."

Steevens. 686. -as luscious as locusts-] Whether you understand by this the insect or the fruit, it cannot be given as an instance of a delicious morsel, notwithstanding the exaggerations of lying travellers. The true reading is lohocks, a very pleasant confection introduced into medicine by the Arabian physicians; and so very fitly opposed both to the bitterness and use of coloquintida.

WARBURTON. The censure of the learned Bishop upon travellers is here certainly misplaced ; nor is he more fortunate in his proposed emendation. That viscous substance which the pod of the locust contains, is, perhaps, of

all

all others the most luscious. From its likeness to honey, in consistency and flavour, the locust is called the honey-tree also. Its seeds, enclosed in a long pod, lie bedded in the juice.

Hender. 687. - bitter as coloquintida.] The old quarto reads—as acerb as coloquintida.

STEEVENS. 694. --betwixt an erring Barbarian. -] We should read errant; that is, a vagabond, one who has no house nor country.

WARBURTON. Hanmer reads, arrant. Erring is as well as either.

JOHNSON. So, in Hamlet:

“ Th'extravagant and erring spirit hies
“ To his confine."

STEEVENS. An erring Barbarian; perhaps meaning a rover from Barbary. He had before said, “You'll have your daughter covered with a Barbary horse." MALONE.

The word erring is sufficiently explained by a passage in the first scene of the play, where Roderigo tells Brabantio that his daughter was

Tying her duty, beauty, wit, and fortune,

To an extravagant and wheeling stranger.
Erring is the same as erraticus in Latin.

The word erring is used in the same sense in some of Orlando's verses in As You Like It:

“ Tongues I'll hang on ev'ry tree,
“ That shall civil sayings shew;
“ Some, how brief the life of inan
“ Runs his erring pilgrimage."

MonCK MASON,

700. -If I depend on the issue?] These words are wanting in the first quarto.

STEEVENS. 705. -conjunctive.] · The first quarto reads, communicative.

STEEVENS. 715 What say you?] This speech is omitted in the folio.

STEEVENS. 717. I am chang’d.] This is omitted in the folio.

STEEVENS. 718. Go to; farewel : put money enough in your purse.] The folio omits this line.

STEEVENS. 729. -to plume up, &c.] The first quarto reads to make up, &c.

STEEVENS. 735. The Moor is of a free and open nature,] The first quarto reads,

The Moor, a free and open nature too,
That thinks, &c.

STEEVENS,

ACT II.

Line 8. _WHEN mountains melt on them,] Thus the folio. The quarto reads,

" when the huge mountain melts." This latter reading might be countenanced by the following passage in the Second Part of King Henry IV.

-the