I do not think that "harrows," here, signifies subdues. Does Mr. Steevens suppose that to be the meaning of it in the following passage, in the last scene of this Act, on which there is no note?

"I would a tale unfold, whose lightest word "Would harrow up thy soul."

If he does, what is the force of the particle up, in this last quoted passage?

LORD CHEDWORTH.

This application of " to harrow" is, I believe, in reference, howsoever licentiously, to the agricultural implement, the harrow, and its rugged construction, although employed to compose the still more rugged operation of the plough.

It harrows me with fear and wonder.” Milton has a similar expression in Comus : “Amaz'd I stood, harrow'd with grief and fear." Is it not like the king?" Hor. "As thou art to thyself."

11.

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This vicious idiom occurs in The Historie of King Leir and his Three Daughters:

"So like to me as I am to myself."

"'Tis strange."

This I take to be an interpolated exclamation. 12. "In what particular thought to work I

know not,

"But, in the gross and scope of mine opinion, "This bodes some strange eruption to our state."

I know not how to adjust my thoughts, or form a systematic conclusion as to this wonderful event, but the preponderating influence of it, on

my mind, is, that it is the awful foreboder of some dreadful calamity.-This is sense and nature; yet I once saw a most eloquent and able man decried and hooted by a senatorial rabble, for an alleged inconsistency, in his having said, upon a deep and complicated question, that he, decidedly, condemned the principle, though he was not prepared, at the exigence of the moment, to enter into the detail.

13.

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A most emulate pride."

Perhaps, emulant, but we find, in other places, the simple verb put for the participle.

15.

"Shark'd up a list of landless resolutes,
"For food and diet, to some enterprise
"That hath a stomach in't."

The meaning of this passage is not very clear: by having a stomach in it, I suppose, is being prompt to excite or occasion war, eager for quarrel; and so having an appetite for the employ-⠀ ment of those resolutes who are to be his food and diet. In K. Henry V. stomach is used to express liking, or relish :

Proclaim it,

"That he who has no stomach to this fight, "May strait depart," &c.

Dr. Johnson says, that, in the present instance, stomach is constancy, resolution; but will this explain the passage?

17.

The moist star,

"Upon whose influence Neptune's empire

stands."

As here the moon is called a star, so, perhaps, by "Day Star," in Lycidas, Milton means, not Hesperus, but the sun.

но

21.

22.

"Avoid" for "prevent.

It is, as the air, invulnerable, "And our vain blows malicious mockery." Howsoever hypercritical it may appear, I cannot help remarking the impropriety of impressing, thus, by means of a conjunction, the singular verb into the plural service." It" is invulnerable, and our blows "are," it should be, mockery. 25. "No fairy takes."

Thus in King Lear:

"Strike her young bones, ye taking airs, with lameness."

27.

SCENE II.

Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's

death

"The memory be green; and that it us befitted.

The redundancy in this line must be removed by other means than what Mr. Steevens has recommended: no ellipsis will warrant his construction: the altered designation of the sentence after the conjunction, makes the pronoun "it" indispensible: we might, perhaps, read, with better conformity to grammar, in the first part of the line, and by a fair ellipsis in the latter part,

"Though yet, &c.

"The memory's green; and it befitted us
"To bear," &c.

The particles "if" and "though" are continually misleading our writers, and their readers, to con

found the moods, subjunctive and indicative: to the former, one or other of these signs is always necessary; yet they often belong to the latter, as in the instance before us. The greenness or freshness of the memory is not hypothetic or suppositious, but possitive and real; and the proper mood of the verb could not be mistaken, if, for "though" we substitute " as," a word that here may take its place.

WVisest sorrow.”

Should not this be "wiser" sorrow, i. e. discreet sorrow. According to a mode of speech very common, not only with Shakspeare, but others," the safer sense," "his better fortune," &c. are expressions always understood, positively, his sound understanding, his propitious fortune,

Perhaps, a joy disappointed, baffled: yet I rather think the poet here uses "defeated" for defeatur'd, or disfeatur'd: the countenance of joy clouded and deformed with grief, seems to agree better with the context.

"With one auspicious, and one dropping eye."

This last line, from the folio, appears to me inferior to that which the quarto exhibits: "With an auspicious and a dropping eye.'

28. "Our state to be disjoint."

The simple verb, again, for the participle. 29. "Out of his subject."

Out of the country, subject to his government, i. e. out of his dominion.

This passage is perplexed, and Dr. Johnson has not succeeded in clearing it up. "We dispatch," says the King, you, Cornelius, &c. to Norway, giving you no further personal power to business with the King, than the scope of these dilated articles allows;" but, as the sentence stands, there is both bad grammar and tautology in it.

We here dispatch you

Giving to you no further personal power "To business with the king, more than the scope Of these dilated articles allow."

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I would propose:

We have dispatched you, &c. Giving to you no further personal power "To business with the king, than does the scope "Of thess dilated articles allow."

This, indeed, as well as most of the other deviations from grammar, occurring in these plays, I readily admit, with Mr. Steevens, to be the blunders of ignorant or careless printers, or transcribers." To business" seems here as if it were a verb; but I rather think the sense is, power for business, or power of business: the prepositions are frequently perverted.

"You cannot speak of reason to the Dane, "And lose your voice."

This may either mean, you cannot speak, &c, and waste your breath, by speaking in vain, or lose the object of your request, that which you wish to have, your will or desire: thus, in Othello, "Your voices, lords!" i. e. declare your wills, lords,