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by whom the wealth and power of this city is fupported, will cry out of injuftice. For the known ftated law being their guide and fecurity, they will never bear to have the current of it stopped on any pretence of equity whatsoever. WARB.

P. 392. 1. 4. Of lineaments, of manners, &c.-] The wrong pointing has made this fine fentiment nonfenfe. As implying that friendship could not only make a fimilitude of manners, but of faces. The true fenfe is lineaments of manners, i. e. form of the manners, which, fays the speaker, must needs be proportional. WARB.

L. 11. This comes too near the praising of myself ;

Therefore no more of it; here other things, Lorenzo, I commit, &c.] Portia finding the reflections fhe had made came too near felf-praise, begins to chide herself for it: fays, fhe'll fay no more of that fort; but call a new fubject. I have therefore, changed here to bear by the advice of Dr. Thirlby.

THEOB.

P. 393. 1. 1. I thank you for your wish, and am well pleafed To wish it back on you :I fhould rather think Shakefpeare wrote,

And am well 'pris'd,

from the French appris, taught, instructed, i. e. you teach me, in the politeness of your good wishes, what I ought to with you. WARB.*

Ibid.] Why Mr. Warburton fhould rather think so, I cannot imagine; except for the fake of introducing a word of his dear French origine: Shakespeare neither uses French words fo needlessly, nor does he hack and mangle his words at this rate, to fit them for a place they were not defigned for-" am well pleased to wish it back," &c. is the fame with-" with it back to you with a great deal of pleasure." CANONS.*

P. 393. 1. 7. In fpeed to Mantua ;] Thus all the old copies; and thus all the modern editors implicitly after them. But 'tis evident to any diligent reader, that we must restore, as I have done, In fpeed to Padua: For it was there, and not at Mantua, Bellario liv'd. So afterwards; A messenger, with letters from the Doctor, Now come from Padua And again, Come you from Padua, from Bellario?

-And again,

It comes from Padua, from Bellario.

-Befides, Padua, not
Mantua, is the place of education for the civil law in Italy.

THEOB.
P. 396. 1. 10. How his words are fuited.] I believe the
meaning is, What a series or fuite of words he has indepen-
dent of meaning; how one word draws on another without
relation to the matter.

JOHNS.

P. 398. 1. 4. Apparent.] That is, feeming; not real.

L. 5.] Where for whereas.

JOHNS.
JOHNS.

L. 12. Enough to prefs a royal merchant doron.] We are not
to imagine the word royal to be only a ranting founding epi-
thet. It is ufed with great propriety, and fhews the poet
well acquainted with the hiftory of the people whom he
here brings upon the stage. For when the French and the
Venetians, in the beginning of the thirteenth century, had
won Conftantinople; the French, under the emperor Henry,
endeavoured to extend their conquefts into the provinces of
the Grecian empire on the terra firma; while the Venetians,
who were mafters of the fea, gave liberty to any fubject of
the Republic, who would fit out veffels, to make themselves
mafters of the ifles in the Archipelago, and other maritime.
places; and to enjoy their conquefts in fovereignty; only
doing homage to the Republic for their feveral principalities.
By virtue of this licence, the Sanudo's, the Juftiniani, the
Grimaldi, the Summaripo's, and others, all Venetian mer-
chants, erected principalities in feveral places of the Archi-
pelago, (which their defcendants enjoyed for many genera-
tions) and thereby became truly and properly royal merchants.
Which indeed was the title generally given them all over
Europe. Hence, the moft eminent of our own merchants
(while public fpirit refided amongst them, and before it was
aped by faction) were called royal merchants.
WARB.

Ibid.] This epithet was in our poet's time more striking
and better understood, because Gresham was then commonly
dignified with the title of royal merchant.
JOHNS.
-I'll not anfwer that,

L. 25.
But fay, it is my humour.-] This Jew is the ftrangeft fellow.
He is afked a queftion; fays he will not anfwer it; in the
very next line fays, he has answered it, and then spends the.

19 following lines to justify and explain his anfwer. Who can doubt then, but we should read,

I'll nou answer that,

By faying, 'tis my humour

WARB.

Ibid.] Dr. Warburton has mistaken the fenfe. The Jew being asked a queftion which the law does not require him to anfwer, ftands upon his right, and refufes; but afterwards gratifies his own malignity by fuch anfwers as he knows will aggravate the pain of the enquirer. I will not answer, fays he, as to a legal or ferious queftion, but fince you want an anfwer, will this ferve you? JOHNS. & REV.

P. 399. 1. 2. Mr. Rowe reads,

Cannot contain their urine for affection,

Mafterlefs paffion fays it to the mood

Of what it likes, or loaths.] Mafterless peffion Mr. Pope has fince copied. I don't know what word there is to which this relative it is to be referred. Dr. Thirlby would thus adjust the paffage,

Cannot contain their urine; for affection,

Majier of paffion, sways it, &c.

And then it is govern'd of Paffion: and the two old quartos and folios read- -Mafters of paffion, &c.

It may be objected, that affection aud paffion mean the fame thing. But I obferve, the writers of our author's age made a diftinction; as Jonfon in Sejanus:

he hath ftudied

Affection's paffions, knows their fprings and ends. And then, in this place, affection will ftand for that sympathy or antipathy of foul, by which we are provoked to fhew a liking or difguft in the working of our paffions.

THEOB.

Ibid. Maferlefs paffion fways it to the mood] The two old quarto's and folios read, Mafters of paffion.

And this is certainly right. He is fpeaking of the power of found over the human affections, and concludes, very naturally, that the mafters of paffion (for fo he finely calls the muficians) fway the paffions or affections as they please. Alluding to what the ancients tell us of the feats that Timotheus and other musicians worked by the power of mufic. Can any thing be more natural! WARB.

Ibid.] Read thus,

-cannot contain their urine. For affections, Mafters of paffion, fway it to the mood

Of what it likes or loaths.

As for affection, thofe that know to operate upon the paffons of men, rule it by making it operate in obedience to the notes which please or disgust it.

Ibid.]

For affection,

Miftrefs of paffion, fways it to the mood
Of what it likes, or loaths :--

JOHNS.

CAPELL.

L. 7. Why be, a woollen bag-pipe.] This incident Shakefpeare feems to have taken from J. C. Scaliger's Exot. Exercit, against Cardan. A book that our author was well read in, and much indebted to for a great deal of his phyfics: It being then much in vogue, and indeed is excellent, though now long fince forgot. In his 344 Exercit. Sect. 6. he has thefe words, "Narrabo nunc tili jocofam Sympathiam Reguli Vafconis Equitis. Is dum viveret audito phorming is fono, urinam illico facere cogebatur."-And to make this jocular story fill more ridiculous, Shakespeare, I fuppofe, tranflated borminx by bag-pipes. But what I would chiefly obferve from hence is this, that as Scaliger uses the word Sympathiam, which fignifies, and fo he interprets it, communem affectionem duabus rebus, fo Shakespeare tranflates it by affection Cannot contain their urine for affection.

Which fhews the truth of the preceding emendation of the text according to the old copies; which have a full stop at affection, and read, Mafters of paffion. WAKE.

Ibid.] Shakespeare never looked into Scaliger. He confulted an old book tranflated from the French of Peter le Loier, entitled a Treatife of Spectres, in which is the identical ftory from Scaliger, and what is more remarkable, has in a marginal note the very fact alluded to, as well as the word of Shakespeare, "Another gentleman of this quality lived of late at Devon, neere Excefter, who could not endure the playing on a bag-pipe. FARMER.*

Woollen Lag-pipe.] As all the editors agree in this reading, I can hardly forbear to imagine they that understood it. But I never faw a woollen bag-pipe, nor can well conceive it. I fuppofe the author wrote wooden bag-pipe, meaning that the bag was of leather, and the pipe of wood. JOHNS. & REVIS. VOL. I. PART II. C

P. 399. 1. 25. Why he hath made the ewe bleat for the lamb.] i. e. why he hath robbed her of her offspring. Which, the Oxford Editor not understanding, he hath altered the line thus, When you behold the ewe bleat for the lamb.

i. e. when you hear.

WARB.* P. 400. 1. 9. Mary a purchas'd flave.] This argument confidered as ufed to the particular perfons, feems conclufive. I fee not how Venetians or Englishmen, while they practise the purchase and fale of flaves, can much enforce or demand the law of doing to others as we would that they should do to us. JOHNS.

L. 24. Bellario a learned doctor, Whom I bave fent for- -] The doctor and court are here fomewhat unskilfully brought together. That the duke would, on fuch an occafion, confult a doctor of great reputation, is not unlikely, but how fhould this be foreknown by Portia ? JOHNS.

P. 401. 1. 11. Not on thy foale, but on thy foul, harsh Jew.] I was obliged, from the authority of the old folios, to restore this jingle upon two words alike in found, but differing in fenfe. Gratiano thus rates the Jew; "Though thou thinkeft, that thou art whetting thy knife on the foale of thy fhoe, yet it is upon thy foul, thy immortal part, that thou do'st it. There is no room to doubt, but this was our author's antithefis; as it is fo ufual with him to play on words in this THEOB.*

manner.

Ibid.] This loft jingle Mr. Theobald found again; but knew not what to make of it, as appears by his paraphrase. The conceit is, that his foul was fo hard that it had given an edge to his knife. WARB.

P. 404. 1. 13. That malice bears down truth.] By truth is here meant the reafonable offers of accommodation which had been made. WARB.* Ibid.] Malice oppreffes honefty: a true man in old language is an honest man. We now call the jury good men and true. JOHNS.

P. 409. 1. 6. The danger formerly by me rebears'd.] This danger was a judicial penalty, which the fpeaker had juft before recited, in the very terms and formality of law itself: we fhould therefore read formally.

WAR B.

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