The Plays of William Shakspeare. In Fifteen Volumes

Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands,
Was fick almost to doomsday with eclipfe.

Again, in our author's 18th Sonnet:

"Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,
" And often is his gold complexion dimm'd."

I fufpect that the words As ftars are a corruption, and have no doubt that either a line preceding or following the first of those quoted at the head of this note, has been loft; or that the beginning of one line has been joined to the end of another, the intervening words being omitted. That such conjectures are not merely chimerical, I have already proved. See Vol. VIII. p. 543, &c. n. 7; and Vol. X. p. 535, n. 7.

The following lines in Julius Cæfar, in which the prodigies that are faid to have preceded his death, are recounted, may throw fome light on the passage before us :

There is one within,

" Befides the things that we have heard and feen,

" Recounts moft horrid fights seen by the watch.

"A lioness hath whelped in the streets;

" And graves have yawn'd and yielded up their dead:

" Fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds,

" In ranks, and squadrons, and right form of war,
" Which drizzled blood upon the capitol:
"The noife of battle hurtled in the air,
"Horses do neigh, and dying men did groan;

" And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets." The loft words perhaps contained a description of fiery warriors fighting on the clouds, or of brands burning bright beneath the stars. The 15th book of Ovid's Metamorphofes, translated by Golding, in which an account is given of the prodigies that preceded Cæfar's death, furnished Shakspeare with fome of the images in both these passages:

-battels fighting in the clouds with crashing armour flew, " And dreadful trumpets founded in the ayre, and hornes eke blew,

" As warning men beforehand of the mischiefe that did

brew;

" And Phœbus also looking dim did cast a drowsie light,

Uppon the earth, which seemde likewife to be in fory

plighte:

" From underneath beneath the starres brandes oft seemde

i !

And even the like precurse of fierce events,-
As harbingers preceding still the fates,

" It often rain'd drops of blood. The morning star look'd

blew, "And was bespotted here and there with specks of rustie hew. "The moone had also spots of blood.

"Salt teares from ivorie-images in sundry places fell ;"The dogges did howle, and every where appeared ghaftly

sprights,

"And with an earthquake shaken was the towne.". Plutarch only says, that "the funne was darkened," that " diverse men were feen going up and down in fire;" there were "fires in the element; sprites were seene running up and downe in the night, and folitarie birds fitting in the great market-place."

The difagreeable recurrence of the word ftars in the fecond line induces me to believe that As ftars in that which precedes, is a corruption. Perhaps Shakspeare wrote:

Aftres with trains of fire,
and dews of blood

Disastrous dimm'd the fun.

The word aftre is used in an old collection of poems entitled Diana, addressed to the Earl of Oxenforde, a book of which I know not the date, but believe it was printed about 1580. In Othello we have antres, a word exactly of a fimilar formation.

MALONE.

The word-aftre (which is no where else to be found) was affectedly taken from the French by John Southern, author of the poems cited by Mr. Malone. This wretched plagiarist stands indebted both for his verbiage and his imagery to Ronsard. See the European Magazine, for June, 1788, p. 389. STEEVENS.

and the moist star, &c.] i. e. the moon. So, in Marlowe's

Hero and Leander, 1598:
"Not that night-wand'ring, pale, and watry star," &c.

MALONE.

And even- Not only such prodigies have been seen in Rome, but the elements have shown our countrymen like forerunners and foretokens of violent events. JOHNSON.

3-precurse of fierce events, Fierce, for terrible.

WARBURTON.

I rather believe that fierce fignifies confpicuous, glaring. It is used in a fomewhat fimilar sense in Timon of Athens :

"O the fierce wretchedness that glory brings!" Again, in King Henry VIII. we have " fierce vanities."

STEEVENS.

And prologue to the omen coming on,4-
Have heaven and earth together démonstrated
Unto our climatures and countrymen.-]

Re-enter Ghoft.

But, foft; behold! lo, where it comes again!
I'll cross it, though it blast me.-Stay, illufion!
If thou hast any found, or use of voice,

4 And prologue to the omen coming on,] But prologue and omen are merely synonymous here. The poet means, that these strange poenomena are prologues and forerunners of the events prefag'd: and fuch sense the flight alteration, which I have ventured to make, by changing omen to omen'd, very aptly gives. THEOBALD.

Omen, for fate. WARBURTON.

Hanmer follows Theobald.

A diftich from the life of Merlin, by Heywood, however, will show that there is no occafion for correction :

" Merlin well vers'd in many a hidden spell,

" His countries omen did long since foretell." FARMER,

Again, in The Vowbreaker :

"And much I fear the weakness of her braine

" Should draw her to some ominous exigent."

Omen, I believe, is danger. STEEVENS.

And even the like precurse of fierce events,

As harbingers preceding still the fates,

And prologue to the omen coming on,] So, in one of our author's

poems:

Augur of the fever's end," &c.

The omen coming on is, the approaching dreadful and portentous

event. So, in King Richard III :

Thy name is ominous to children."

i. e. (not boding ill fortune, but) deftructive to children.

Again, ibidem:

"O Pomfret, Pomfret, O, thou bloody prifon,
" Fatal and ominous to noble peers." MALONE.

6 If thou hast any found,] The speech of Horatio to the spectre

is very elegant and noble, and congruous to the common traditions

of the causes of apparitions. JOHNSON.

Speak to me:

If there be any good thing to be done,
That may to thee do ease, and grace to me,
Speak to me:

If thou art privy to thy country's fate,
Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid,
O, speak!

Or, if thou hast uphoarded in thy life
Extorted treasure in the womb of earth,
For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death,
[Cock crows.

Speak of it :-stay, and speak.-Stop it, Marcellus.
MAR. Shall I strike at it with my partizan?
HOR. Do, if it will not stand.

BER.

HOR.

'Tis here!

Or, if thou hast uphoarded &c.] So, in Decker's Knight's Conjuring, &c. "- - If any of them had bound the spirit of gold by any charmes in caves, or in iron fetters under the ground, they should for their own foules quiet (which questionlesse else would whine up and down) if not for the good of their children, release it."

8-Stop it, Marcellus.

STEEVENS.

Hor. Do, if it will not stand.] I am unwilling to suppose that Shakspeare could appropriate these absurd effusions to Horatio, who is a scholar, and has fufficiently proved his good understanding by the propriety of his addresses to the phantom. Such a man therefore must have known that

"As easy might he the intrenchant air
"With his keen sword impress,"

as commit any act of violence on the royal shadow. The words-
Stop it, Marcellus, and Do, if it will not stand better fuit the next
speaker, Bernardo, who, in the true spirit of an unlettered officer,
nihil non arroget armis. Perhaps the first idea that occurs to a man of
this description, is to strike at what offends him. Nicholas Pouffin,
in his celebrated picture of the Crucifixion, has introduced a similar
occurrence. While lots are cafting for the facred vesture, the graves
are giving up their dead. This prodigy is perceived by one of the
foldiers, who instantly grafps his sword, as if preparing to defend
himself, or resent such an invasion from the other world.

MAR. 'Tis gone!

We do it wrong, being so majestical,

To offer it the show of violence;

For it is, as the air, invulnerable,

[Exit Ghost.

And our vain blows malicious mockery.

BER. It was about to speak, when the cock crew

Hor. And then it started, like a guilty thing

Upon a fearful summons. I have heard,
The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
Doth with his lofty and shrill-founding throat
Awake the god of day; and, at his warning,
Whether in fea or fire, in earth or air,

The two next speeches-'Tis here! - 'Tis here!-may be allotted to Marcellus and Bernardo; and the third 'Tis gone! &c. to Horatio, whose superiority of character indeed seems to demand it.As the text now stands, Marcellus proposes to strike the Ghost with his partizan, and yet afterwards is made to descant on the indecorum and impotence of such an attempt.

The names of speakers have so often been confounded by the first publishers of our author, that I suggest this change with less hefitation than I should express concerning any conjecture that could operate to the disadvantage of his words or meaning.-Had the affignment of the old copies been such, would it have been thought liable to objection? STEEVENS.

- it is, as the air, invulnerable,] So, in Macbeth;