120. if I mistake▬▬▬ The centre, &c.- -] That is, if the proofs which I can offer will not support the opinion I have formed, no foundation can be trusted. JOHNSON. 124. He, who shall speak for her, is far off guilty, But that he speaks.] Far off guilty, signifies, guilty in a remote degree. JOHNSON, The same expression occurs in King Henry V. "Or shall we sparingly shew you far off "The dauphin's meaning ?" 143. MALONE. -this action,—] The word action is here taken in the lawyer's sense, for indictment, charge, or accusation. 158. -I'll keep my stable where JOHNSON. I lodge my wife;- -] Stable-stand (stabilis statio, as Spelman interprets it) is a term of the forestlaws, and signifies a place where a deer-stealer fixes his stand, under some convenient cover, and keeps watch for the purpose of killing deer as they pass by. From the place it came to be applied also to the person, and any man taken in a forest in that situation, with a gun or bow in his hand, was presumed to be an offender, and had the name of a stable-stand. In all former editions this hath been printed stable; and it may, perhaps, be objected, that another syllable added spoils the smoothness of the verse. But by pronouncing stable short, the measure will very well bear it, according to the liberty allowed in this kind of writing, and which Shakspere never scruples to use; therefore I read, stable-stand. HANMER. There is no need of Hanmer's addition to the text. So, in the ancient interlude of the Repentaunce of Marie Magdalaine, 1567: "Where thou dwellest, the devyll may have a STEEVENS. stable." 160. Than when I feel-] The old copy readsThen when I feel, &c. I am aware, than was formerly spelt then; but here, perhaps, the latter word was intended, MALONE. -] Sir T. Hanmer. 169. land-damn him :interprets, stops his urine. Land or lant being the old word for urine. Land-damn is, probably, one of those words which caprice brought into fashion, and which, after a short time, reason and grammar drove irrecoverably away. It perhaps meant no more than I will rid the country of him, condemn him to quit the land. JOHNSON. Land-damn him, if such a reading can be admitted, may mean, he would procure sentence to be past on him in this world, on this earth. Antigonus could no way make good the threat of stopping his urine. Besides, it appears too ridiculous a punishment for so atrocious a criminal. It must be confessed, that what Sir T. Hanmer has said concerning the word lant is true. I meet with the following instance in Glapthorne's Wit in a Constable, 1629: "Your frequent drinking country ale with lant in't." And, in Shakspere's time, to drink a lady's health in urine appears to have been esteemed an act of gallantry. One instance (for I could produce many) may suffice: "Have I not religiously vow'd my heart to you, been drunk for your health, eat glasses, drank urine, stabb'd arms, and done all the offices of protested gallantry for your sake?" Antigonus, on this occasion, may therefore have a dirty meaning. It should be remembered, however, that to damn anci ently signified to condemn. So, in Promos and Cassandra, 1578: "Vouchsafe to give my damned husband life." Again, in Julius Cæsar, act iv. scene 1. "He shall not live; look, with a spot I damn STEEVENS. him." That will be damn'd for it; would I knew the villain, I would land-damn him:] I am persuaded that this is a corruption, and that the Printer caught the word damn from the preceding line. What the poet's word was, it is difficult to conjecture; but the sentiment was probably similar to that in Othello: "O heaven, that such companions thou'dst un, fold," &c. Perhaps we should read-land-dam, i. e. kill him; bury him in earth. So, in Kendall's Flowers of Epigrams, 1577: "That here engrav'd doth lie.". MALONE. By adding only the third part of a letter, I believe the the original reading may be recovered. This expression cannot be so properly called a pun, as an antiphonesis, on the word damn. Perhaps the poet, who was no slave to orthography, wrote DAMM for DAM. ར -To land-dam may here signify to fix upright alive in the earth. The same idea occurs elsewhere; with an addition indeed, not suited to the present occasion, —“ of being bowled to death with turnips.” HENLEY. 171. The second, and the third, nine, and some five.] This line appears obscure, because the word nine seems to refer to both "the second and the third." But it is sufficiently clear, referendo singula singulis. The second is of the age of nine, and the third is some five years old. The same expression, as Theobald has remarked, is found in King Lear : "For that I am, some twelve or fourteen moon shines, "Lag of a brother." The second folio reads, sonnes five. MALONE. REED. 175. And I had rather glib myself, &c.] Glib is at this time current in many countries, where they say —to glib a boar, to glib a horse. So, in St. Patrick for Ireland, a play by Shirley, 1640: "If I come back, let me be glib'd.” STEEVENS. 181. Striking his brows.] This stage direction is not in the old copy. I doubt its propriety. Leontes might feel a stroke upon his brows, but could not see the instruments that feel, i. e. his brows. TOLLET. Dr. Johnson's former edition reads――sinking his brows, which I corrected into striking. Sir T. Hanmer gives-Laying hold of his arm. Some stage direction seems necessary, but what it should be, is not very easy to decide. STEEVENS. As a stage direction is certainly requisite, and as there is none in the old copy, I will venture to propose a different one from any hitherto mentioned. Leontes, perhaps, touches the forehead of Antigonus with his fore and middle fingers forked in imitation of a SNAIL'S HORNS; for these, or imaginary horns of his own like them, are the instruments that feel, to which he alluded. There is a similar reference in the Merry Wives of Windsor, from whence the present direction of striking his brows seems to have been adopted :— "he so takes on-so curses all Eve's daughters, and so buffets himself on the forehead, crying, Peer out, peer out!" The word lunes, it should be noted, occurs in the context of both passages, and in the same HENLEY. sense. 209. nought for approbation, But only seeing,] Approbation, in this place, is put for proof. 217. JOHNSON. —stuff'd sufficiency;] That is, of abi lities more than enough. JOHNSON. 227. Lest that the treachery of the two, &c. He has before declared, that there is a plot against his |