and in Beaumont and Fletcher's Custom of the Country, the same expression occurs :

"With any base, or hir'd persuasions."

To strain, I believe, means to go awry. So, in the 6th song of Drayton's Polyolbion:

"As wantonly she strains in her lascivious course."

Drayton is speaking of the irregular course of the river Wye. STEEVENS. To strain, I believe, here signifies to swerve. The word occurs again nearly in the same sense in Romeo and Juliet:

"Nor aught so good but strain'd from that fair

use,
"Revolts-

A bed-swerver has already occurred in this play.

MALONE.

The bounds of honour, which are mentioned immediately after, justify Mr. Steevens in supposing the imagery to have been taken from tilting. HENLEY. 81. I ne'er heard yet,

That any of these bolder vices wanted

Less impudence to gain-say what they did,

Than to perform it first.] It is apparent that according to the proper, at least according to the present use of words, less should be more, or wanted should be had. But Shakspere is very uncertain in his use of negatives. It may be necessary once to observe, that in our language two negatives did not originally

originally affirm, but strengthen the negation. This mode of speech was in time changed, but, as the change was made in opposition to long custom, it proceeded gradually, and uniformity was not obtained, but through an intermediate confusion.

JOHNSON,

"I never heard, says Leontes, that any of these greater offenders wanted (¿. e. wère deficient in) less impudence to deny their crime than to commit it You therefore, he means to tell the queen, who have had sufficient impudence to do what I charge you with, can be at no loss for impudence to deny it." REMARKS. 110. My life stands in the level of your dreams.] To be in the level is, by a metaphor from archery, to be within the reach.

114.

JOHNSON.

-As you were past all shame, (Those of your fact are so) so past all truth;] I do not remember that fact is used any where absolutely for guilt, which must be its sense in this place, JOHNSON.

Those of your fact are so.- -I should guess sect to be the right word. See King Henry IV. P. II. act ii. line 480 :

In Middleton's Mad World my Masters, a courtezan says: "It is the easiest art and cunning for our sect to counterfeit sick, that are always full of fits when we are well.” FARMER.

Thus, Falstaff speaking to Doll Tearsheet: "So is all her sect: if they be once in a calm, they are

Diij

sick."

sick." Those of your fact may, however, mean-those who have done as you do. STEEVENS.

130. Starr'd most unluckily,—] i. c. born under an inauspicious planet. STEEVENS.

137. I have got strength of limit.- -] I know not well how strength of limit can mean strength to pass the limits of the child-bed chamber, which yet it must mean in this place, unless we read in a more easy phrase, strength of limb. And now, &c. JOHNSON.

I have got strength of limit.] From the following passage in the black letter history of Titana and Theseus (of which I have no earlier edition than that in 1636), it appears that limit was anciently used for limb:

"thought it very strange that nature should endow so fair a face with so hard a heart, such comely limits with such perverse conditions.”

STEEVENS.

Limits, in this passage, signifies exteriors, and not HENLEY.

;

limbs. 154. The flatness of my misery ;] That is, how low, how flat I am laid by my calamity. So, Milton, Paradise Lost, B. II.

JOHNSON,

165. Hermione is chaste, &c.] This is taken al、 most literally from Lodge's Novel:

"The Oracle.

"Suspicion is no proofe: jealousie is an unequal judge. Bellaria is chaste; Egisthus blameless ;

Franion

3

Franion a true subject; Pandosto treacherous; his babe innocent; and the king shall dye without an heire, if that which is lost be not found." MALONE. 179. Of the queen's speed,- -] Of the event of

the queen's trial: so we still say, he sped well or ill.

205.

and to the certain hazard

JOHNSON.

Of all incertainties himself commended,] The
-The defect in

old copy reads-and to the hazard.

the metre shews clearly that some word of two syllables was omitted by the transcriber or compositor. Certain was added by the editor of the second folio ; and is less likely to have been the epithet applied to "hazard," than almost any that can be named. Fearful appears to me to have a much better claim to a place in the text.

Commended is here, as in a former scene, used for committed. MALONE.

208. Through my dark rust! -] The word dark is not in the original copy, being like that just mentioned, an arbitrary addition made by the editor of the second folio, who did not perceive that through was printed erroneously for thorough, a word as fre quently used in our author's time as the other. There is clearly no need of any other amendment. Shakspere seldom deals in such common-place epithets as that which has been unnecessarily introduced in this line. MALONE.

209. Does my deeds make the blacker !] This vehement retraction of Leontes, accompanied with the confession

confession of more crimes than he was suspected of, is agreeable to our daily experience of the vicissitudes of violent tempers, and the eruptions of minds oppressed with guilt. JOHNSON. 224. That thou betrayd'st Polixenes, 'twas nothing; That did but shew thee, of a fool, inconstant, And damnable ungrateful:] It shew'd thee first a fool, then inconstant and ungrateful.

JOHNSON.

227. Thou would'st have poison'd good Camillo's honour,] How should Paulina know this? No one had charged the king with this crime except himself, while Paulina was absent, attending on Hermione. The poet seems to have forgot this circumstance.

231.

-tho' a devil

MALONE.

Would have shed water out of fire, ere don't :] i, e. a devil would have shed tears of pity o'er the damn'd, ere he would have committed such an action. STEEVENS.

261. I am sorry for't:] This is another instance of the sudden changes incident to vehement and ungovernable minds. JOHNSON. 288. Thou art perfect then,- -] Perfect is often used by Shakspere for certain, well assured, or wellinformed.

JOHNSON.

It is so used by almost all our ancient writers.

STEEVENS.

337. -thy character:-] i. e. the writing after

wards discovered with Perdita:

"the letters of

Antigonus