If you but knew, how you the purpose cherish,
Whiles thus you mock it! how, in stripping it,
You more inveft it! Ebbing men, indeed,
Most often do fo near the bottom run,

By their own fear, or floth.

SEB.

Pr'ythee, fay on:

The fetting of thine eye, and cheek, proclaim
A matter from thee; and a birth, indeed,
Which throes thee much to yield.

ANT.

Thus, fir:

Although this lord of weak remembrance,' this (Who fhall be of as little memory,

When he is earth'd,) hath here almoft perfuaded (For he's a spirit of perfuafion only,)

The king, his fon's alive; 'tis as impoffible
That he's undrown'd, as he that fleeps here, fwims."

4 If you but knew, how you the purpose cherish,

Whiles thus you mock it! how, in ftripping it,

You more inveft it!] A judicious critic in The Edinburgh Magazine for Nov. 1786, offers the following illuftration of this obfcure paffage. "Sebaftian introduces the fimile of water. It is taken up by Antonio, who fays he will teach his ftagnant water to flow.

It has already learned to ebb,' fays Sebaftian. To which Antonio replies, O if you but knew how much even that metaphor, which you use in jeft, encourages to the defign which I hint at; how in Stripping the words of their common meaning, and using them figuratively, you adapt them to your own fituation!" STEEVENS.

5 -this lord of weak remembrance,] This lord, who, being now in his dotage, has outlived his faculty of remembering; and who, once laid in the ground, fhall be as little remembered himself, as he can now remember other things. JOHNSON.

6

hath here almoft perfuaded

(For he's a fpirit of perfuafion, only

Profeffes to perfuade) the king his fon's alive;
'Tis as impoffible that he's undrown'd,

As he, that fleeps here, fwims.] Of this entangled fentence I

SEB. I have no hope That he's undrown'd.

can draw no fenfe from the prefent reading, and therefore imagine that the author gave it thus:

For he, a fpirit of perfuafion, only

Profeffes to perfuade the king, his fon's alive;

Of which the meaning may be either, that he alone, who is a fpirit of perfuafion, profefes to perfuade the king; or that, He only profefes to perfuade, that is, without being fo perfuaded himself, he makes a fbow of perfuading the king. JOHNSON.

The meaning may be-He is a mere rhetorician, one who profeffes the art of perfuafion, and nothing elfe; i. e. he profeffes to perfuade another to believe that of which he himself is not convinced; he is content to be plaufible, and has no further aim. So (as Mr. Malone obferves) in Troilus and Creffida: "—why he'll anfwer nobody, he professes not answering." STEEVENS.

The obfcurity of this paffage arifes from a mifconception of the word be's, which is not an abbreviation of he is, but of he has; and partly from the omiffion of the pronoun who, before the word profees, by a common poetical ellipfis. Supply that deficiency, and the fentence will run thus:

66

Although this lord of weak remembrance

hath here almoft perfuaded

"For he has a fpirit of perfuafion, who, only

"Profeffes to perfuade, the king his fon's alive;"And the meaning is clearly this.-This old lord, though a mere dotard, has almoft perfuaded the king that his fon is alive; for he is fo willing to believe it, that any man who undertakes to perfuade him of it, has the powers of perfuafion, and fucceeds in the attempt.

We find a fimilar expreffion in the First Part of Henry IV. When Poins undertakes to engage the Prince to make one of the party to Gads-hill, Falstaff fays,

"Well! may'ft thou have the fpirit of perfuafion, and he the ears of profiting! that what thou speakeft may move, and what he hears may be believed!" M. MASON.

The light Mr. M. Mafon's conjecture has thrown on this paffage, I think, enables me to discover and remedy the defect in it.

-

as

I cannot help regarding the words. "profeffes to perfuade”a mere glofs or paraphrafe on - he has a spirit of perfuafion." This explanatory fentence, being written in the margin of an actor's part, or playhouse copy, was afterwards injudicioufly incorporated

ANT.

O, out of that no hope,

What great hope have you! no hope, that way, is Another way fo high an hope, that even

Ambition cannot pierce a wink beyond,"

But doubts discovery there. Will you grant, with

me,

That Ferdinand is drown'd?

with our author's text. Read the paffage (as it now ftands in the text,) without these words, and nothing is wanting to its fense or metre.

On the contrary, the infertion of the words I have excluded, by lengthening the parenthefis, obfcures the meaning of the speaker, and, at the fame time, produces redundancy of measure.

Irregularity of metre ought always to excite fufpicions of omiffion or interpolation. Where fomewhat has been omitted, through chance or defign, a line is occafionally formed by the junction of hemiftichs previously unfitted to each other. Such a line will naturally exceed the established proportion of feet; and when marginal observations are crept into the text, they will have juft fuch aukward effects as I conceive to have been produced by one of them in the prefent instance.

Perhaps (fays that excellent scholar and perfpicacious critic Mr. Porfon, in his 6th Letter to Archdeacon Travis) you think it an affected and abfurd idea that a marginal note can ever creep into the text: yet I hope you are not fo ignorant as not to know that this has actually happened, not merely in hundreds or thousands, but in millions of places," &c. &c.—

"From this known propenfity of tranfcribers to turn every thing into the text which they found written in the margin of their MSS. or between the lines, fo many interpolations have proceeded, that at prefent the fureft canon of criticism is, Præferatur lectio brevior." p. 149. 150.

Though I once expreffed a different opinion, I am now well convinced that the metre of Shakspeare's plays had originally no other irregularity than was occafioned by an accidental ufe of hemiftichs. When we find the fmootheft feries of lines among our earliest dramatic writers (who could fairly boaft of no other requifites for poetry) are we to expect lefs polished verfification from Shakspeare? STEEVENS.

7 — a wink beyond,] That this is the utmoft extent of the profpect of ambition, the point where the eye can pafs no farther, and where objects lose their diftinctness, so that what is there difcovered is faint, obfcure, and doubtful. JOHNSON.

8

ANT. She that is queen of Tunis; fhe that dwells Ten leagues beyond man's life; fhe that from Naples

Can have no note, unless the fun were poft,
(The man i' the moon's too flow,) till new-born
chins

Be rough and razorable; fhe, from whom'
We were all fea-fwallow'd, though fome caft again; 3
And, by that, deftin'd+ to perform an act,

Whereof what's paft is prologue; what to come,

8-beyond man's life;] i. e. at a greater diftance than the life of man is long enough to reach. STEEVENS.

9-fhe that from Naples

Can have no note, &c.] Note (as Mr. Malone obferves) is notice, or information.

Shakspeare's great ignorance of geography is not more confpicuous in any inftance than in this, where he fuppofes Tunis and Naples to have been at fuch an immeafurable distance from each other. He may, however, be countenanced by Apollonius Rhodius, who fays, that both the Rhone and Po meet in one, and discharge themselves into the gulph of Venice; and by Æfchylus, who has placed the river Eridanus in Spain. STEEVENS.

2-fbe, from whom-] i. e. in coming from whom. The old copy has the that from, &c. which cannot be right. The compofitor's eye probably glanced on a preceding line," he that from Naples." The emendation was made by Mr. Rowe. MALONE. 3 -though fome caft again;] Caft is here ufed in the fame fenfe as in Macbeth, Act II. fc. iii: " though he took my legs from me, I made a fhift to caft him." STEEVENS.

4 And, by that, deftin'd-] It is a common plea of wickedness to call temptation destiny. JOHNSON.

The late Dr. Mufgrave very reafonably propofed to fubftitutedeftin'd for-deftiny. As the conftruction of the paffage is made cafier by this flight change, I have adopted it. STEEVENS.

In

yours and my discharge.'

SEB.

What ftuff is this?-How fay you?

'Tis true, my brother's daughter's queen of Tunis; So is the heir of Naples; 'twixt which regions There is some space.

ANT.

A space whofe every cubit Seems to cry out, How shall that Claribel

Measure us back to Naples ?-Keep in Tunis,"
And let Sebastian wake!-Say, this were death
That now hath feiz'd them; why, they were no

worfe

Than now they are: There be, that can rule Naples,
As well as he that fleeps; lords, that can prate
As amply, and unneceffarily,

As this Gonzalo; I myself could make

A chough' of as deep chat. O, that you bore
The mind that I do! what a fleep were this
For your advancement! Do you understand me?
SEB. Methinks, I do.

In yours and my difcharge.] i. e. depends on what you and I are to perform. STEEVENS.

--keep in Tunis,] There is in this paffage a propriety loft, which a flight alteration will reftore:

Sleep in Tunis,

"And let Sebaftian wake!" JOHNSON.

The old reading is fufficiently explicable. Claribel (fays he) keep where thou art, and allow Sebaftian time to awaken thofe fenfes by the help of which he may perceive the advantage which now prefents tfelf. STEEVENS.

A chough-] Is a bird of the jack-daw kind.

STEEVENS.