That little thinks fhe has been fluic'd in his abfence, none; It is a bawdy planet, that will strike Where 'tis predominant ; and 'tis powerful, think it, From eaft, weft, north and fouth: Be it concluded, No barricado for a belly; know it; It will let in and out the enemy, With bag and baggage: many a thousand of us Have the disease, and feel't not.-How now, boy? MAM. I am like you, they fay." LEON. Why, that's fome comfort. What! Camillo there? CAM. Ay, my good lord. LEON. Go play, Mamillius; thou'rt an honest man. [Exit MAMILLIUS. Camillo, this great fir will yet ftay longer. CAM. You had much ado to make his anchor hold; When you caft out, it ftill came home.3 LEON. Didft note it? "And his pond fish'd by his next neighbour,] This metaphor perhaps owed its introduction and currency, to the once frequent depredations of neighbours on each others fish, a complaint that often occurs in ancient correfpondence. Thus in one of the Pafton Letters, Vol. IV. p. 15: "My mother bade me fend you word that Waryn Herman hath daily fifhed her water all this year." STEEVENS. 2 they say.] They, which was omitted in the original copy by the careleffnefs of the tranfcriber or printer, was added by the editor of the fecond folio. MALONE. 3-it ftill came home.] This is a fea-faring expreffion, mean.. ing, the anchor would not take hold. STEEVENS. CAM. He would not stay at your petitions; made His business more material.' LEON. Didft perceive it?— They're here with me already;' whispering, round ing,* Sicilia is a fo-forth: 'Tis far gone, made His bufinefs more material.] i. e. the more you requested him to ftay, the more urgent he reprefented that business to be which fummoned him away. STEEVENS. 3 They're here with me already ;] Not Polixenes and Hermione, but cafual obfervers, people accidentally prefent. THIRLBY. -whispering, rounding,] To round in the car is to whisper, or to tell fecretly. The expreffion is very copioufly explained by M. Cafaubon, in his book de Ling. Sax. JOHNSON, The word is frequently used by Chaucer, as well as later writers. So, in Lingua, 1607: "1 help'd Herodotus to pen fome part of his Mufes; lent Pliny ink to write his hiftory; and rounded Rabelais in the ear, when he hiftorified Pantagruel." Again, in The Spanish Tragedy: "Forthwith revenge the rounded me i' th' ear." STEEVENS. 5 Sicilia is a fo-forth:] This was a phrafe employed when the fpeaker, through caution or difguft, wifhed to efcape the utterance of an obnoxious term. A commentator on Shakspeare will often derive more advantage from liftening to vulgar than to polite converfation. At the corner of Flect-market, I lately heard one woman, defcribing another, fay" every body knows that her hufband is a fo-forth." As the fpoke the laft word, her fingers expreffed the emblem of cuckoldom. Mr. Malone reads--Sicilia is fo-forth. STEEVENS. In regulating this line I have adopted a hint fuggefted by Mr. M. Mafon. I have more than once obferved that almoft every abrupt fentence in thefe plays is corrupted. These words without the break now introduced are to me unintelligible. Leontes means I think I already hear my courtiers whispering to each other," Sicilia is a cuckold, a tame cuckold," to which (fays he) they will add every other opprobrious name and epithet they can think of;" for fuch, I fuppofe, the meaning of the words-fo forth. He avoids naming the word cuckold from a horrour of the very found. I fufpect, however, that our author wrote-Sicilia is—and fo forth. So, in The Merchant of Venice: "I will buy with you, fell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and fo following. When I fhall guft it laft.-How came't, Camillo, That he did ftay? CAM. At the good queen's entreaty. LEON. At the queen's, be't: good, fhould be pertinent; But fo it is, it is not. Was this taken Again, in Hamlet: "I faw him enter fuch a house of fale, Again, more appofitely, in K. Henry IV. P. II: with a difh of carraways, AND fo forth." Again, in Troilus and Creffida: "Is not birth, beauty, good fhape, difcourfe, manhood, learning, AND fe forth, the fpice and falt that feafon a man?" MALONE. 6 -guft it. —] i. e. taste it. STEEVENS. "Dedecus ille domus fciet ultimus." Juv. Sat. 10. MALONE. 7-is foaking,] Dr. Grey would read-in foaking; but I think without neceffity. Thy conceit is of an abforbent nature, will draw in more, &c. feems to be the meaning. STEEVENS. lower mees,] I believe, lower messes is only ufed as an expreffion to fignify the loweft degree about the court, See Anfis. Ord. Gart. I. App. p. 15: "The earl of Surry began the borde in prefence: the earl of Arundel washed with him, and fat both at the firft mele." Formerly not only at every great man's table the vifitants were placed according to their confequence or dignity, but with additional marks of inferiority, viz. of fitting below the great faltfeller placed in the center of the table, and of having coarfer provifions fet before them. The former cuftom is mentioned in The Honeft Whore, by Decker, 1604: "Plague him; fet him beneath the falt, and let him not touch a bit till every one has had his full cut." The latter was as much a fubject of complaint in the time of Beaumont and Fletcher, as in that of Juvenal, as the following inftance may prove; CAM. Bufinefs, my lord? I think, moft understand Bohemia ftays here longer. LEON. Ha? Сам. Stays here longer. LEON. Ay, but why? CAM. To fatisfy your highness, and the entreaties Of our most gracious mistress. Satisfy LEON. The entreaties of your mistress?—fatisfy?— Let that fuffice. I have trufted thee, Camillo, With all the nearest things to my heart, as well My chamber-councils: wherein, priest-like, thou Haft cleans'd my bofom; I from thee departed Thy penitent reform'd: but we have been Deceiv'd in thy integrity, deceiv'd In that which feems fo. CAM. Be it forbid, my lord! LEON. To bide upon't ;-Thou art not honeft: or, If thou inclin'ft that way, thou art a coward; Which hoxes honefty behind, restraining "Uncut up pies at the nether end, filled with mofs and " ftones, Partly to make a fhew with, "And partly to keep the lower mefs from eating." Woman Hater, A& I. fc. ii. This paffage may be yet somewhat differently explained. It ap pears from a paffage in The merye Jeft of a Man called Howleglas, bl. 1. no date, that it was anciently the custom in publick houses to keep ordinaries of different prices: "What table will you be at? for at the lordes table thei give me no less than to fhylinges, and at the merchaunts table xvi pence, and at my houfhold fervantes geve me twelve pence."-Leontes comprehends inferiority of understanding in the idea of inferiority of rank. STEEVENS. Concerning the different meffes in the great families of our ancient nobility, fee the Houshold Book of the 5th Earl of Northumber land, 8vo. 1770. PERCY. 9 hoxes honefty behind,] To be is to ham-ftring. So, in Knolles' Hiftory of the Turks : From courfe requir'd: Or elfe thou must be counted A fervant, grafted in my serious trust, And therein negligent; or elfe a fool, That feeft a game play'd home, the rich stake drawn, CAM. It was my folly; if industriously I play'd the fool, it was my negligence, 2 Against the non-performance, 'twas a fear alighted, and with his fword boxed his horfe." King James VI. in his 11th Parliament, had an act to punish "bochares," or flayers of horse, oxen, &c. STEEVENS. The proper word is, to hough, i. e. to cut the hough, or hamftring. MALONE. Whereof the execution did cry out Agamft the non-performance,] This is one of the expreffions by which Shakspeare too frequently clouds his meaning. This founding phrafe means, I think, no more than a thing neceffary to be done. JOHNSON. I think we ought to read the now-performance," which gives us this very reasonable meaning:-At the execution whereof, fuch circumftances difcovered themselves, as made it prudent to fufpend all further proceeding in it. HEATH. I do not fee that this attempt does any thing more, than produce a harfher word without an easier fenfe. JOHNSON. I have preferved this note, [Mr. Heath's] because I think it a good interpretation of the original text. I have, however, no doubt, that Shakspeare wrote non-performance, he having often entangled himself in the fame manner; but it is clear that he should |