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she never possessed any when she was young. Her declaration that she would continue unmarried, increases the probability of the present supposition.

STEEVENS.

219. in strong proof] In chastity of proof, as we say in armour of proof. JOHNSON.

225. with beauty dies her store.] Mr. Theobald reads, "With her dies beauty's store ;" and is followed by the two succeeding editors. I have replaced the old reading, because I think it at least as plausible as the correction. She is rich, says he, in beauty, and only poor in being subject to the lot of humanity, that her store, or riches, can be destroyed by death, who shall, by the same blow, put an end to beauty.

JOHNSON.

Theobald's alteration may be countenanced by the following passage in Swetnam Arraign'd, a comedy, 1620:

"Nature now shall boast no more
"Of the riches of her store;

"Since, in this her chiefest prize,

"All the stock of beauty dies."

Again, in the 14th Sonnet of Shakspere

"Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date."

Again, in Massinger's Virgin-Martyr:

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"The abstract of all sweetness that's in woman."

STEEVENS.

227. Rom. She hath, and in that sparing, &c.] None of the following speeches of this scene are in the first edition of 1597. POPE.

228. For beauty, starv'd with her severity,

Cuts beauty off from all posterity.] So, in our

author's 3d Sonnet:

"Or who is he so fond will be the tomb

"Of his self-love, to stop posterity?"

Again, in his Venus and Adonis :

"What is thy body but a swallowing grave,

"Seeming to bury that posterity,

"Which by the rights of time thou needs must

have."

MALONE.

239. To call hers, exquisite, in question more:] That is, to call hers, which is exquisite, the more into my remembrance and contemplation. It is in this sense, and not in that of doubt, or dispute, that the word question is here used. REVISAL.

240. These happy masks, &c.] i. e. the masks worn by female spectators of the play. Former editors print those instead of these, but without authority. STEEVENS,

247.
-thou canst not teach me to forget.]
"Of all afflictions taught a lover yet,
"'Tis sure the hardest science, to forget."

261.

Pope's Eloisa

STEEVENS.

And too soon marr'd are those so early made.]

The quarto, 1597, reads:

And too soon marr'd are those so early married.

Puttenham,

Puttenham, in his Art of Poetry, 1589, uses this expression, which seems to be proverbial, as an instance of a figure which he calls the Rebound:

"The maid that soon married is, soon marred is." The jingle between marr'd and made is likewise frequent among the old writers. So Sidney:

"Oh! he is marr'd that is for others made!" Spenser introduces it very often in his different poems. STEEVENS.

263. She is the hopeful lady of my earth:] This linę is not in the first edition.

POPE.

She is the hopeful lady of my earth,-] This is a Gallicism: Fille de terre is the French phrase for an heiress.

King Richard II. calls his land, i. e. his kingdom, his earth:

"Feed not thy sovereign's foe, my gentle earth." Again:

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"So weeping, smiling, greet I thee, my earth." Earth, in other old plays, is likewise put for lands, i. e. landed estate. So, in A Trick to catch the Old One, 1619:

"A rich widow, and four hundred a year in good earth." STEEVENS. 274. do lusty young men feel] To say, and to say in pompous words, that a young man shall feel as - much in an assembly of beauties, as young men feel in the month of April, is surely to waste sound upon a very poor sentiment. I read :

Such comfort as do lusty yeomen feel.

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You shall feel from the sight and conversation of these ladies, such hopes of happiness and such pleasure, as the farmer receives from the spring, when the plenty of the year begins, and the prospect of the harvest fills him with delight. JOHNSON.

The author of THE REMARKs observes, that young men "are perpetually used for yeomen in old writings. See particularly the Legends of Robin Hood and Adam Bell. So in a subsequent scene of this very play, yew trees are in the old editions called young

trees."

REED.

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The following passage from Chaucer's Romaunt of the Rose, will support the present reading, and shew the propriety of Shakspere's comparison: for to tell Paris that he should feel the same sort of pleasure in an assembly of beauties, which young folks feel in that season when they are most gay and amorous, was surely as much as the old man ought to say:

"That it was May, thus dremid me,
"In time of love and jolite,

"That al thing ginnith waxin gay, &c.→

"Then yonge folke entendin aye,
"For to ben gaie and amorous,

"The time is then so savorous."

Romaunt of the Rose, v. 51, &c.
STEEVENS.

Our author's 98th Sonnet may also serve to con

firm the reading of the text':

"From you have I been absent in the spring,
"When proud-pied April dress'd in all his trim,
"Hath put a spirit of youth in ev'ry thing."

Again, in Tancred and Gismund, a tragedy, 1592: "Tell me not of the date of Nature's days, "Then in the April of her springing age.”

MALONE. 280. Such, amongst view of many, mine, being one, May stand in number, though in reckoning none.] The first of these lines I do not understand. The old folio gives no help; the passage is there, Which one more view. I can offer nothing better than this:

Within your view of many, mine, being one,
May stand in number, &c.

JOHNSON.

A very slight alteration will restore the clearest sense to this passage. Shakspere might have written

the lines thus:

Search among view of many: mine, being one,

May stand in number, though in reckoning

none.

i. e. Amongst the many you will view there, search for one that will please you. Choose out of the multitude. This agrees exactly with what he had already said to him:

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"And like her most, whose merit most shall be."

My daughter (he proceeds) will, it is true, be one of the number, but her beauty can be of no reckoning (i. e. estimation) among those whom you will see here. Reckoning for estimation, is used before in this very scene:

"Of honourable reckoning you are both.”

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