91. to steal a shive,-] A shive is a slice. So, in the Tale of Argentile and Curan, in Warner's Albion's England, 1602: "A sheeve of bread as browne as nut."' Demetrius is again indebted to a Scots proverb: "It is safe taking a shive of a cut loaf." STEEVENS. 97. -struck a doe,] Mr. Holt is willing to infer from this passage that Titus Andronicus was not only the work of Shakspere, but one of his earliest performances, because the stratagems of his former profession seem to have been yet fresh in his mind. I had made the same observation in K. Kenry VI. before I had seen his; but when we consider how many phrases are borrowed from the sports of the field, which were more followed in our author's time, than any other amusement; I do not think there is much in either his remark or my own.-Let me add, that we have here Demetrius, the son of a queen, demanding of his brother prince if he has not often been reduced to practise the common artifices of a deer-stealer:-an absurdity right worthy of the rest of the piece. STEEVENS! 106. To square for this? To square is tó quarrel.So, in the Midsummer Night's Dream;1&2 IG” 3. ———they never meet, But they do • square Again, in Drant's translation of Horace's Art of Poes try, 45674x "Let "Let them not sing 'twixt act and act, “What squareth from the rest.” But to square, which in the last instance signifies to differ, is now used only in the very opposite sense, and means to agree."STEEVENS 117. A speedier course than lingering languishment] The old copy reads: this lingering, &c. which may mean, this coy languishing dame, this piece of reluctant softness. STEEVENS. 50123. by kind- -] That is, by nature, which is the old signification of kind. 130-file our engines with advice, JOHNSON. i. e. remove all impediments from our designs by advice. The allusion is to the operation of the file, which, by conferring smoothness, facilitates the motion of the wheels which compose an engine or piece of machinery. STEEVENS. 142. Per Styga, &c.] These scraps of Latin are, I believe, taken, though not exactly, from some of Seneca's tragedies. STEEVENS. 143. The division of this play into acts, which was first made by the editors in 1623, is improper. There is here an interval of action, and here the second act ought to have begun. JOHNSON. the morn is bright and grey,] i. e. bright and yet not red, which was a sign of storms and rain, but grey, which foretold fair weather. Yet the Oxford editor alters grey to gay. WARBURTON. Surely the Oxford editor is in the right; unless we reason like the Witches in Macbeth, and say, "Fair is foul, and foul is fair." The old reading is justified by the following passage in Shakspere's Venus and Adonis : "Mine eyes are bright and grey, and quick in Again, by another example in The Old Wives Tale, 1595: "The day is clear, the welkin, bright and grey." STEEVENS. 178.for their unrest,] Unrest, for disquiet, is a word frequently used by the old writers. So, in The Spanish Tragedy, 1605; "Thus therefore will I rest me, in unrest." Thus in Eliosto Libidinoso, an ancient novel, by John Hinde, 1606: "For the ease of whose unrest, "Thus his furie was exprest." я Again, in An excellent pastoral Dittie, by Shep. Tonie; published in England's Helicon, 1614: » "With lute in hand did paint out her unrest.” STEEVENS. 175. That have their alms, &c.] This is obscure. It seems to mean only, that they who are to come at this gold of the empress are to suffer by it. JOHNSon. 180. My lovely Aaron, wherefore look'st thou sad?] In the course of the following notes several examples of the savage genius of Ravenscroft, who altered this play in the reign of K. Charles II. are set down for the the entertainment of the reader. The following is a specimen of his descriptive talents. Instead of the line with which this speech of Tamora begins, she is made to say: The emperor, with wine and luxury o'ercome, Made of the feathers pluck'd from Indian birds, This time I chose to come to thee, my Moor. My lovely Aaron, wherefore, &c.. An emperor who has had too large a dose of love and wine, and in consequence of satiety in both, falls asleep on a bed which partakes of the nature of a sailor's hammock and a child's cradle, is a curiosity which only Ravenscroft could have ventured to describe on the stage. I hope I may be excused for transplanting a few of his flowers into the barren desart of our comments on this tragedy. STEEVENS. * 185. ———a chequer'd shadow. -] Milton has the same expression: 200. many a maid Dancing in the chequer'd shade." STEEVENS. though Venis govern your desires, Saturn is dominator over mine :] The meaning of this passage may be illustrated by the astronomical 3 description description of Saturn, which Venus gives in Greene's Planetomachia, 1585. "The star of Saturn is especially cooling, and somewhat drie," &c. Again, in the Sea Voyage, by Beaumont and Fletcher: 66 -for your aspect "You're much inclin❜d to melancholy, and that "Tells me the sullen Saturn had predominance At your nativity, a malignant planet! ge "And if not qualified by a sweet conjunction "Of a soft ruddy wench, born under Venus, 9 "It may prove fatal." COLLINS. 234. · Should drive upon thy new-transformed limbs.} The author of the Revisal suspects that the poet wrote: Should thrive upon thy new transformed limbs, as the former is an expression that suggests no image to the fancy. But drive, I think, may stand, with this meaning: the hounds should pass with impetuous haste, &c. So, in Hamlet: "Pyrrhus at Priam drives," &c.}/ i. e. flies with impetuosity at him. 242. STEEVENS. swarth Cimmerian] Swarth is black. The Moor is called Cimmerian, from the affinity of blackness to darkness. JOHNSON.1 256. —noted long:] He had yet been married but: one night. JOHNSON. 266. Here never shines the sun, &c.] Mr. Rowe seems to have thought on this passage in his Jane Shore: |