In law, what plea so tainted and corru But, being season'd with a gracious voi Obscures the show of evil? In religion, What damned error, but some sober b Will bless it, 3 and approve it with a te Hiding the grossness with fair ornamen There is no vice so simple, but assume Some mark of virtue on his outward par How many cowards, whose hearts are false As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their The beards of Hercules, and frowning Who, inward search'd, have livers wh milk? And these assume but valour's excrement To render them redoubted. Look on bea gracious voice,] Pleasing; winni JOHNSON. 3 Will bless it, and approve it, &c.] Bless to be here used in the sense of regarded as sacred. E. Sanctify, -approve it] i. e. justify it. So, in -I am full sorry "That he approves the common liar, fa STEE valour's excrement,] i. e. what a higher is called the beard of Hercules. So, "Pe "excrement," in the Winter's Tale. MALONE. -Look on beauty, &c.] This passag first view, seems pretty obscure, but, by bear And you shall see 'tis purchas'd by the weight; Upon supposed fairness, often known To be the dowry of a second head, The scull that bred them, in the sepulchre. Thus ornament is but the gilded shore 8 To meant only artificial beauty, which is procured by painting, and is mere adscititious show and ornament superinduced upon true and real nature, like that false hair, the mention of which immediately follows. This factitious beauty, though purchased by weight, the more of it is laid on, the more lightness it indicates in the wearer. HEATH. 7 So are those crisped snaky golden locks,] The five lines which follow are expressed with an uncommon degree of elegance; and, in the concluding one, there is a certain air of melancholy connected with the use of the absolute case, that is very sweet and affecting. See Appendix. E. -crisped] i. e. curled. So, in The Philosopher's Satires, by Robert Anton: "Her face as beauteous as the crisped morn." STEEVENS. 8 -the guiled shore] i. e. the treacherous shore. I should not have thought the word wanted explanation, but that some of our modern editors have rejected it, and read gilded. Guiled is the reading of all the ancient copies. Shakspeare in this instance, as in many others, confounds the participles. Guiled stands for guiling. STEEVENS. "Guilded To a most dangerous sea; the beauteou Veiling an Indian beauty;9 in a word, The seeming truth which cunning times To entrap the wisest. Therefore, thou gold, Hard food for Midas, I will none of Guilded shore, in the folio of 1632, and in Hanmer: Guiled shore in Mr. Theobald's 2 Guilded or gilded seems to be the true readin the subsequent lines. DR. GREY. Gilded, (corrupted in some editions to is a well chosen epithet; expressing the gli cliffs and rocks, and of the sea's beach, wh sun lies upon them. CAPELL. If gilded be, indeed, the right word, it perhaps, bear an allusion to the golden lock before mentioned. E. "Guiled shore" is deceived shore. read guiling shore, i. e. deceitful. We CONCORD. TO SHAKSP Indian beauty;] Sir Tho. Hanmer If we lay the stress upon Indian we shall no occasion, with the Oxford Editor, to chang following word to-dowdy. CAPELL. One of the causes, no doubt, for suspecting a co tion here is that the words beauteous and beauty so close together, but in that the writer might designed something like an antithesis. E. 1 cunning times] Must, I think, be u stood to mean those seasons in which cunning itself under a temptation to exert itself, and tice deceit. E. Nor none of thee, thou pale and common drudge "Tween man and man: but thou, thou meager lead, Which rather threat'nest, than dost promise aught, Thy plainness moves me more than eloquence,2 And 2 Thy plainness moves me, &c.] The old copies read paleness. STEEVENS. Bassanio is displeased at the golden casket for its gaudiness, and the silver one for its paleness; but what! is he charmed with the leaden one for having the very same quality that displeased him in the silver? The poet certainly wrote: "Thy plainness moves me more than eloquence :" This characterizes the lead from the silver, which paleness does not, they being both pale. Besides, there is a beauty in the antithesis between plainness and eloquence; between paleness and eloquence none. So it is said before of the leaden casket: "This third, dull lead, with warning all as blunt.” WARBURTON. Opposition between the terms that compose it appearing manifestly the intention in this line, palines" (the word of the original quarto) must have been a corruption, and that for "plainness," in the manuscript plaines. CAPELL. It may be that Dr. Warburton has altered the wrong word, if any alteration be necessary. I would rather give the character of silver, 66 -Thou stale, and common drudge ""Tween man and man.' The paleness of lead is for ever alluded to. Says And here choose I; Joy be the consequence ! Por. How all the other passions fleet to air!3 As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embrac'd despair, And Says Stephen Hawes. In Fairfax's Tasso, we have "The lord Tancredie, pale with rage as lead." Again, Sackville, in his Legend of the Duke of Buckingham: "Now pale as lead, now cold as any stone." And in the old ballad of the King and the Beggar: She blushed scarlet red, "Then straight again, as pale as lead." As to the antithesis, Shakspeare has already made it in the Midsummer-Night's Dream: "When (says Theseus) I have seen great clerks look pale, "I read as much, as from the rattling tongue "Of saucy and audacious eloquence.' FARMER. By laying an emphasis on Thy, [Thy paleness moves me, &c.] Dr. Warburton's objection is obviated. Though Bassanio might object to silver, that pale and common drudge," lead, though pale also, yet not being in daily use, might, in his opinion, deserve a preference. I have therefore great doubts concerning Dr. Warburton's emendation. MALONE. Theobald, Hanmer, Johnson, and Capell, as well as the editions of Mr. Steevens and Mr. Reed, have all admitted the reading of Dr. Warburton into the text. E. 3 How all the other passions fleet to air!] Notwithstanding that dramas composed in rhyme have been justly censured, the use of it deserves not, perhaps, to be altogether banished from the stage: Here, in particular, the rhymes have, I cannot help thinking, a very pleasing effect, as seeming strongly expressive of joy and exultation. E. |