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ANNOTATIONS

ON

CYMBELINE.

ACT I. SCENE I.

LINE 1. You do not meet a man, but frowns: our bloods
No more obey the heavens, than our courtiers ;

Still seem, as does the king's.] We do not meet a man but frowns; our bloods—our countenances, which, in popular speech, are said to be regulated by the temper of the blood,-no more obey the laws of heaven,—which direct us to appear what we really are,—than our courtiers:—that is, than the bloods of our courtiers; but our bloods, like theirs,-still seem, as doth the king's. JOHNSON.

Line 31. You speak him far.] You are lavish in your encomiums on him: your eulogium has a wide compass. MALONE. Line 32. I do extend him, sir, within himself;] I extend him within himself: my praise, however extensive, is within his merit. JOHNSON.

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(Which rare it is to do,) most prais'd, most lov'd :]

This encomium is high and artful. To be at once in any great degree loved and praised, is truly rare.

JOHNSON.

Line 59. A glass that feated them ;] A glass that formed them ; a model, by the contemplation and inspection of which they formed their manners. JOHNSON.

ACT I. SCENE II.

Line 110. (Always reserv'd my holy duty,)] I say I do not fear my father, so far as I may say it without breach of duty. JOHNSON.

Line 125. Though ink be made of gall.] Shakspeare, even in this poor conceit, has confounded the vegetable galls used in ink with the animal gall, supposed to be bitter. JOHNSON.

Line 145. While sense can keep it on!] This expression means, While sense can maintain its operations; while sense continues to have its usual power. STEEVENS.

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Subdues all pangs, all fears.] A touch more rare, may

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Almost the sum he pays.] So small is my value, and

so great is his, that in the purchase he has made (for which he paid himself), for much the greater part, and nearly the whole, of what he has given, he has nothing in return. MALONE.

Line 261.

ACT I. SCENE III.

her beauty and her brain go not together:] I

believe the lord means to speak a sentence," Sir, as I told you always, beauty and brain go not together."

JOHNSON.

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As offer'd mercy is.] I believe the poet's meaning

is, that the loss of that paper would prove as fatal to her, as the loss of a pardon to a condemned criminal.

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STEEVENS.

Of space had pointed him sharp as my needle:] The diminution of space, is the diminution of which space is the cause.

Trees are killed by a blast of lightning, that is, by blasting, not

blasted lightning. Line 306.

320.

JOHNSON.

next vantage.] Next opportunity. JOHNSON. -like the tyrannous breathing of the north, Shakes all our buds from growing.] i. e. our buds of love, as our author has elsewhere expressed it. MALONE. A bud without any distinct idea, whether of flower or fruit, is a natural representation of any thing incipient or immature; and the buds of flowers, if flowers are meant, grow to flowers, as the buds of fruits grow to fruits. JOHNSON.

ACT I. SCENE V.

-makes him-] In the sense in which we say,

Line 336.

This will make or mar you.

Line 343.

JOHNSON.

words him,‚———a great deal from the matter,] Makes the description of him very distant from the truth.

JOHNSON.

Line 347. -under her colours,] Under her banner; by

her influence.

Line 369.

place to reconcile.

JOHNSON.

-I did atone &c.] To atone signifies in this

STEEVENS.

Line 371. upon importance of so slight and trivial a nature.] Importance is here, as elsewhere in Shakspeare, importunity, instigation.

MALONE.

Line 374. rather shunned to go even with what I heard, &c.] This is expressed with a kind of fantastical perplexity. He means, I was then willing to take for my direction the experience of others, more than such intelligence as I had gathered myself. JOHNSON.

Line 400. though I profess &c.] Though I have not the common obligations of a lover to his mistress, and regard her not with the fondness of a friend, but the reverence of an adorer.

Line 429.

vince for overcome.

Line 448.

458.

JOHNSON.

-to convince the honour of my mistress;] Con

-abused- Deceived.

-approbation-] Proof.

WARBURTON.

JOHNSON.

JOHNSON.

Line 469. You are a friend, and therein the wiser.] You are a friend to the lady, and therein the wiser, as you will not expose her to hazard; and that you fear is a proof of your religious fidelity. . JOHNSON.

ACT I. SCENE VI.

Line 530. Other conclusions ?] Other experiments. I commend, says Walton, an angler that trieth conclusions, and improves his

art.

Line 536. Your highness

JOHNSON.

Shall from this practice but make hard your heart:] There is in this passage nothing that much requires a note, yet I cannot forbear to push it forward into observation. The thought would probably have been more amplified, had our author lived to be shocked with such experiments as have been published in later times, by a race of men who have practised tortures without -pity, and related them without shame, and are yet suffered to erect their heads among human beings.

66

Cape saxa manu, cape robora, pastor."

JOHNSON.

Line 549. I do not like her.] This soliloquy is very inartificial. The speaker is under no strong pressure of thought; he is neither resolving, repenting, suspecting, nor deliberating, and yet makes a long speech to tell himself what himself knows.

Line 575.

579.

JOHNSON. -to shift his being,] To change his abode.

JOHNSON. -that leans?] That inclines towards its fall.

JOHNSON.

602. Of liegers for her sweet ;] A lieger ambassador is one that resides in a foreign court to promote his master's interest.

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ACT I. SCENE VII.

JOHNSON.

Line 613.

-O, that husband?

My supreme crown of grief!] Imogen means to

say, that her separation.from her husband is the completion of her distress.

MALONE.

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