life and crown, and that Hermione is federary with Polixenes and Camillo. JOHNSON. 269. These dangerous, unsafe lunes o' the king!-] I have no where, but in our author, observed this word adopted in our tongue, to signify frenzy, lunacy. But it is a mode of expression with the French.Il y a de la lune; (i.e. he has got the moon in his head; he is frantick.) Cotgrave. Les femmes ont des lunes dans la tête."

"Lune, folie. Richelet.

THEOBALD,

A similar expression occurs in the Revenger's Tragedy, 1608: "I know 'twas but some peevish moon in him." Lunes, however, were part of the accoutrements of a hawk. So, in Greene's Mamillia: "-yea, in seeking to unloose the lunes, the more she was intangled." STEEVENS.

314.

-out of the blank

And level of my brain,

-] Beyond the aim of any attempt that I can make against him. Blank and level are terms of archery.

JOHNSON. 381. And would by combat make her good, so were I A man, the worst about you.] The worst means only the lowest. Were I the meanest of your servants, I would yet claim the combat against any accuser. JOHNSON. This is scarcely accurate. The worst man, as applied by Paulina, means, the least expert in the use of HENLEY.

arms.

390. A mankind witch!- -] A mankind woman is yet used in the midland counties, for a woman vio

lent,

lent, ferocious, and mischievous. It has the same sense in this passage. Witches are supposed to be mankind, to put off the softness and delicacy of women; therefore Sir Hugh, in the Merry Wives of Windsor, says of a woman suspected to be a witch, "that he does not like when a woman has a beard." Of this mean

ing Mr. Theobald has given examples. JOHNSON. Só, in the Two Angry Women of Abingdon, 1599: "That e'er I should be seen to strike a woman.

"Why she is mankind, therefore thou may'st strike her." STEEVENS.

399.

-thou art womann-tyr'd ;] Woman-tyr'd is peck'd by a woman. The phrase is taken from falconry, and is often employed by writers contemporary with Shakspere.-So, in The Widow's Tears, by Chapman, 1612:

"He has given me a bone to tire on.” Again, in Decker's Match me in London, 1631: 66 -the vulture tires

"Upon the eagle's heart."

Again, in Heywood's Rape of Lucrece, 1630:

"Must with keen fang tire upon thy flesh."

Partlet is the name of the hen in the old story-book of

Reynard the Fox.

Woman-tyr'd is, simply, hen-pecked.

401.

STEEVENS.

EDITOR.

-thy crone.] i. e. thy old worn-out woman. A croan is an old toothless sheep: thence an old woman. So, in Love's Mistress, by T. Heywood, 1636:

"Witch and hag, crone and beldam.”

403. Unvenerable be thy hands, if thou

STEEVENS.

Tak'st up the princess, by that forced baseness] Leontes had ordered Antigonus to take up the bastard; Paulina forbids him to touch the princess under that appellation. Forced is false, uttered with violence to JOHNSON.

truth.

432. -his smiles ;] These two redundant words might be rejected, especially as the child has already been represented as the inheritor of its father's

dimples and frowns.

437. No yellow in't;

of jealousy.

STEEVENS.

-] Yellow is the colour

JOHNSON.

So, Nym says in the Merry Wives of Windsor: “I

will possess him with yellowness.”

STEEVENS.

440. And, lozel,—— -]"A losel is one that hath lost, neglected, or cast off his owne good and welfare, and so is become lewde and carelesse of credit and honesty." Verstigan's Institution, 1634, p. 335. REED.

507. -swear by this sword,] See a note on Hamlet, act i. sc. 5.

STEEVENS. 522. commend it strangely to some place,] Commit to some place, as a stranger, without more provision.

JOHNSON.

ACT III.

Line 2. FERTILE the isle ;

-] In the History

of Dorastus and Faunia, the queen desires the king to send "six of his nobles, whom he best trusted, to the isle of Delphos," &c.

STEEVENS.

17. The time is worth the use on't.] The time worth the use on't, means, the time which we have spent in visiting Delphos, has recompensed us for the trouble of so spending it. JOHNSON,

34. Even to the guilt, or the purgation.- - Mr. Roderick observes, that the word even is not to be understood here as an adverb, but as an adjective, signifying equal or indifferent. STEEVENS.

The epithet even-handed, as applied in Macbeth to Justice, seems to unite both senses.

44.

HENLEY.

pretence] Is, in this place, taken for a scheme laid, a design formed; to pretend means to design, in the Two Gentlemen of Verona. JOHNSON. 52. -mine integrity, &c.] That is, my virtue being accounted wickedness, my assertion of it will pass but for a lie. Falsehood means both treachery and lie. JOHNSON. It is frequently used in the former sense in Othello,

act v.

"He says, thou told'st him that his wife was false,"

Again :

68. -For life, I prize it, &c.] Life is to me now only grief, and as such only is considered by me, I would therefore willingly dismiss it.

JOHNSON.

69. I would spare :- -] To spare any thing is, tọ let it go, to quit the possession of it. JOHNSON.

70. 'Tis a derivative from me to mine,] This sentiment, which is probably borrowed from Ecclesiasticus, chap. iii. verse 41. cannot be too often impressed on 'the female mind: "The glory of a man is from the honour of his father; and a mother in dishonour is a reproach unto her children.” STEEVENS,

74.

-Since he came,

With what encounter so uncurrent I
Have strain'd, to appear thus ?

-] The sense seems to be this :-What sudden slip have I made, that I should catch a wrench in my character?

-a noble nature

"May catch a wrench." Timon.

An uncurrent encounter seems to mean an irregular, unjustifiable congress. Perhaps it may be a metaphor from tilting, in which the shock of meeting adversaries was so called. Thus, in Drayton's Legend of T. Cromwell, Earl of Essex:

"Yet these encounters thrust me not awry.” The sense would then be:— -In what base reciprocation of love have I caught this strain? Uncurrent iş what will not pass.

Mrs. Ford talks of-some strain in her character;