66

reverence.

Be

e

“ Copp's hills"-i. e. Hills rising in a conical form,

(you happily may think something of the shape of a sugar-loaf. Thus, in Hor. Are like the Trojan horse, WAR-STUFF'D wilhia man's Vulgaria," (1519:)—" Sometime men wear With bloody VEISS,") etc. copped caps like a sugar loaf.” So Baret:-" To make The old copies read :copped, or sharp at wp; cacumino." In Anglo-Saxon,

And these our ships you happily may think cop is a head.

Are like the Trojan horse, was stuff d within

With bloody reines, etc.
SCENE II.

The emendation is Stevens's. Mr. Boswell says that * — why should this CHANGE of thoughts”-So every

the old reading may mean, elliptically, “shich was

stuffed." old copy: every modern one, without necessity, alters

For “ bloody veins" the editors have generally giren "change" to charge. “Change" for charge, and vice

i ns - bloody views"-a reading at once harsh and upversa, was a common misprint. But Pericles, after

etical, and at the same time modern in its use; for commanding that none should disturb him," asks why this change in his spirits should do so. Two lines lower,

views, in this sense, gives not only a very uncouth mets

phor, but seems neither in the manner of Shakespeare as, of the old copies, was altered to is, by Malone. We

nor of his age. might, by a mere transposition of two letters, read, Be my, etc., for “ By me," and attain an easier sense than the editors have yet given :

ACT II. · why should this change of thoughts,

will prove AWFUL”-i. e. Entitled to ate and The sad companion, dull-eyed melancholy, my so usd a guest, is not an hour, etc.

“ Thinks all is writ he spoken can"- Meaning, Thinks - OSTENT of var"— The old copies have “stint of

all he can speak is as holy writ. war." retained in some editions, and explained by Knight—" Stint is synonymous with stop, in old wri- “ Build his statue”—“ All the old copies read · build: ters.” “Ostent" is an ingenious correction, and proba

but the word is invariably changed to gild, becane il bly the true reading, as it agrees with the context, “ will

the “Confessio Amantis' we find, with regard to this look so huge.” It is besides a frequent old poetic

statuephrase. Thus, in Decker's “ Entertainment to James 1."

It was of laton over-gilt. (1604:)—

But before the statue was gilt it was erected, according And why you bear alone th' ostent of warre.

to the samne authority :Again, in Chapman's translation of Homer's Batracho

For they were all of him so glad muomachia :

That they for ever in remembrance

Mode a figure in resemblance
Both heralds bearing the ostents of war,

Of him, and in a common place

They set it up. “ Are arms to princes”— Which are arms, etc., is here understood.

Why not then · build,' as well as gild?"-KNIGHT. " -- but smooth"_TO“ smooth" is to sooth, or coax.

"" — this 'longs the text”-i. e. (in Gower's elliptical Thus in Richard III.:

construction,) This belongs to the text. Excuse me

from comment upon it; you will see it.
Smile in men's faces, smooth, deceive, and cog.
So, in Titus ANDRONICUS :-

Scene I.
Yield to his honour, empoth, and speak him fair.
The verb to smooth is frequently used in this sense by

“ — when I saw the porpus"— The playing of porour older writers; for instance, by Stubbes, in bis

poises round a ship is a prognostic of a violent gale of

wind. “Anatomie of Abuses," (1583 :)—" If you will learn to deride, scoffe, mock, and flowt, to flatter and smooth," the Finny subject of the sea"-Sterens corrected etc.

the old copies, which read fenny, to “ finny," and rightly, shall ne'er CONVINCE"- In the sense of overcome.

as is shown by the words of the novel founded upon the

play :- Prince Pericles wondering that from the first SCENE III.

subjects of the sea, these poor country-people learner

the infirmities of men." " — he was a wise fellow"-Stevens has told us who this wise fellow was, from the following passage in Bar

“ – if it be a day fits you, search out of the caleadar, nabie Riche's "Souldier's Wishe to Briton's Welfare, or

and nobody look after it”—This is the reading of the

Does it Captaine Skill and Captaine Pill,” (1604, p. 27:)—1 original

, and has occasioned some discussion. will therefore commende the poet Phillipides, who being

not mean that the fisherman, laughing at the rarity of demaunded by King Lisimachus

, what favour he inight being honest, remarks, If it be a day (i. e. a saint's or doe uuto him for that he loved him, made this answere

red-letter day) fits you, search out of (not in) the calento the king—That your majesty would never impart

dar, and nobody look after it (there, as it would be use unto me any of your secrets."

less ?) Stevens supposes that the dialogue originally
ran thus:-

Per. Peace be at your labour, honest fishermen;
SCENE IV.

The day is rough and thuaris your occupation,

2 Fish Honest! good fellow, what's that? If it be not a day and seen with mischief's eyes"— Thns in the old

fits you, scratch it out of the calendar, and nobody will look copies. Malone proposed unseen, and Stevens prints * wistful eyes," instead of " mischief's;" but Dionyza means to say, that here their griefs are but felt and seen “ — puddings and FLAP-JACKS”-A “flap-jack" was with mischief's eyes-eyes of discontent and suffering ; a pancake, or fritter, and it seems to have been made but if topped with other tales—that is, cut down by the

of batter and apple. In some parts of the country it is comparison-like groves they will rise higher, be more

also still called an apple-jack. (See Holloway's * Pro unbearable.

vincial Dictionary.”) - dames 80 JETTED"-i. e. So strutted.

“ – things must be as they may"_"Things must be " Thou speak'st like him’s”-i. e. Like him who is ;

(says the speaker) as they are appointed to be; and

what a man is not sure to compass, he has yet a just an elliptical expression, misprinted hymnes in all the old

right to attempt." The Fisherman may then be sup copies.

posed to begin a new sentence-" His wife's soul ;" bu: “ — if he on peace consist”-i. e. If he stand on here he is interrupted by his comrades; and it would peace; a Latinisin.

be vain to conjecture the conclusion of his speech.

44

after it.

e

my life.

“ And spite of all the RAPTURE of the sea,

There is a dance callid Choria,
This jewel holds his biding on my arm," etc.

Which joy doth testify;

Another called Pyrricke In the old copies these lines run thus :

Which warlike feats doth try.

For men in armour gestures made,
And spite of all the rupture of the sea,
This jewel holds his building on my arm.

And lenp'd, that so they might,

When need requires, be more prompt The novel founded upon Pericles shows that the two

In public weal to fight." words, which in our text vary from the original copies, have been rightly changed by the commentators: Per

SCENE IV. icles, we are informed in the novel, got to land“ with

“ – the strongest in our CENSURE”-i. e. Opinion. a jewel, whom all the raptures of the sea could not be

We believe, (says the speaker,) that the probability of reave from his arm.” Sewel recommended “ rapture" the death of Pericles is the strongest. He then proceeds for rupture, and Malone substituted " biding" for build

to assume that the kingdom is without a head. So the ing. Rapture” was often used for violent seizing,

ancient readings, which we follow. taking away forcibly. “

SCENE V. - a pair of BASES"-Not “ armour for the legs," as explained in some of the annotators, but, as explained “Even as my life, or blood that fosters it." by a better antiquary, Nares, (in his “Glossary,'') kind of embroidered mantle, which hung from about

So in the old copies. Malone and Collier havem the middle to the knees, or lower; worn by knights on

Even as my life my blood, etc. horseback.” It resembled the Highland dress.

Even as my life loves my blood. The original is clear

I love you, even as my life, or as my blood that fusters SCENE II. " The word, Lux TUA VITA MIHI-"The word”

ACT III. means the mot, or motto. Of old, perhaps, the motto consisted of only one word. These “shreds of litera

“ Are the blither”—The old copies have, “ Are the ture" might have been picked up out of any heraldic blither," which several editors retain, as an elliptical books, common in that age. Douce has traced some of

expression. Stevens changes it to “ As the blither." It them to the “ Heroical Devices” of Paradin, " translated

is strange that no English editor has thought of "

“aye" into English by P. S.” (1591.) The second one, Piu

for over-a word used by Gower and Shakespeare, and per dulzura que per fuerza, (“ more by swiftness than

the contemporaries of both. Thus, in the MIDSUMMERby force,") has the Italian piu (more) instead of the Night's DREAM:Spanish mas—the rest being Spanish.

Fer aye to be in shady cloister 'mured.

Milton, too, has-
SCENE III.

the Muses who “ By Jove, I wonder, that is king of thoughts,

Aye round about Jove's altar sing.
These cates resist me, he not thought upon."

This was spelled, anciently, Aie, and may have been “This speech is usually assigned to Pericles; and in

so written here; which made Are an easy misprint for the second line, under this arrangement, we read, she

it. Like much other good old poetic English, antiquated not thought upon.' But, throughout the remainder of

at home, Ay, in this sense, is still both colloquial and the scene, Pericles gives no intimation of a sudden

poetic Scotch. Thus, the “crickets singing at the oven's attachment to the Princess. The King, on the contrary,

mouth”

Aye the blither for their drouthis evidently moved to treat him with marked attention, and to bestow his thoughts upon him almost as exclu- is precisely the same idiom with Burns's— sively as his daughter. If we leave the old reading, and

An' ay the ale was growing betterthe old indication of the speaker, Simonides wonders in " Tam O'Shanter." that he cannot eat—these cates resist me'-although he (Pericles) is not thought upon. This is an attempt ' — fancies quaintly Eche"-A form of eke, found in to disguise the cause of his solicitude even to himself.

Chaucer and Gower, as well as in later writers-here It must be observed that the succeeding speeches of

used for “eke out." Simonides, Thaisa, and Pericles, are all to be received as soliloquies. In the second speech, Simonides con

many a Dearn and painful PERCH"_“Dearn” tinues the idea of he not thought upon,' by attempting

siguifies lonely, solitary. A " perch” is the measure of to depreciate Pericles— He's but a country gentle

five yards and a half. “ The careful search of Pericles

is made by many a dearn and painful perch, by the four man.''-Ksight.

opposing corners which join ihe world together.” “ — princes, not doing so,

“ — and WELL-A-NEAR"-An ejaculatory phrase, equiAre like to gnats,” etc.

valent to Well-a-day! Alas, alas! still preserved in “When kings, like insects, lie dead before us, our ad.

Yorkshire use, and explained in some of the glossaries miration is excited by contemplating how, in both in- of that dialect. stances, the powers of creating bustle were superior to those which either object should seem to have promised.

* — in this self storm”-i. e. In this same, or selfThe worthless monarch, and the idle gnat, have only

Most modern editors corrupt the ancient lived to make an empty bluster; and when both alike text to "fell storm." are dead, we wonder how it happened that they made so much, or that we permitted them to make it: a natu

" Inilt relate"-i. e. I ne will, or will not relate. ral reflection on the death of an unserviceable prince,

SCENE I. who, having dispensed no blessings, can hope for no better character."-STEVENS.

- We, here belovo,

Recall not what we give, and therein may "— this stANDING-BOWL of wine"-A bowl with a

l'se honour with you." raised stand, or foot, was so called.

Barry Cornwall notices this last touch, as pecnliarly - a soldier's dance"— Malone says, “The dance ! Shakespearian. He adds, “ And the bold use of effechere introduced is thus described in an ancient · Dia. tive words, as where Pericles says that the surgesó wash logne against the Abuse of Dancing,' (black letter, no both heaven and hell;' when he prays that the winds

may by controlled, (bind them in brass ;') and his ap

.

same storm.

1

66

dute:)

66

66

peal to Lucina, not to descend personally, not to lend “ The very PRINCIPALS”-i. e. The strongest timbers her aid merely, but to send down her divinity upon of a building them. (“convey thy deity,')-(he says,) are all characteristic of our greatest of poets, and worthy of him.

“'T'is not our HUSBANDRY”—“Husbandry" here as The scene proceeds, and we hear Pericles mourning

nifies economical prudence. So in Hamlet, (act i soes over his lost wife, Thaisa, in terms at once homely and

3:)

- borrowing dulls the edge of kusbandry. beautiful:"A terrible childbirth, etc., etc.

And in HENRY V.:

For our bad neighbours m us early stirrers, * Quiet and gentle thy conditions !"

Which is both healthful and good kusbandry. “Condition,” in old English, was applied to temper. * Virtue and CUNNING"-"Cunning" here mens Thus, in HENRY V.:-"Our tongue is rough, etc.; my condition is not smooth.” “ The late Earl of Essex told

knowledge, as in the old English versions of the Pana,

and elsewhere. Queen Elizabeth (says Sir Walter Raleigh) that her conditions were as crooked as her carcase-but it cost him

“Or tie my treasure up in silken bags, his head."

To please the fool and death." “ That e'er was prince's child"— The novel founded

“ Death” and the "Fool" were both personages farriupon the play of Pericles here employs an expression liar to the amusements of the middle ages, and were which (says Collier) is evidently Shakespearian. It

acted, and painted, and engraved. Stevens mentions gives this part of the speech of Pericles as follows:

an old Flemish print, in which Death was exhibited in “ Poor inch of nature! (quoth he.) thou art as rudely

the act of plundering a miser of his bags, and ibe Fool welcome to the world, as ever princess' babe was, and

(discriminated by his bauble, etc.) was standing behind hast as chiding a nativity, as fire, air, earth and water

and grinning at the process. The “ Dance of Death can afford thee.” This quotation shows that Malone

appears to have been anciently a popular exhibition. A (who is followed in nearly all editions) was wrong in

venerable and aged clergyman informed Stevens tba: altering “ welcome” to welcom'd: the novel proves that

he had once been a spectator of it. The dance cos "welcome” was the Poet's word.

sisted of Death's contrivances to surprise the Merry

Andrew, and of the Merry Andrew's efforts to elude the “ Thy loss is more than can thy PORTAGE quit," etc. stratagems of Death, by whom at last he was overpow. That is, Thou hast already lost more (by the death of

ered; his finale being attended with such circumstances thy mother) than thy safe arrival at the port of life can

as mark the exit of the Dragon of Wantley. It should counterbalance, with all to boot that we can give thee. seem that the general idea of this serio-comic pisade • Portage" is here used for conveyance into life.

deur had been borrowed from the ancient “Dance of This is the common interpretation of this obscure

Machabre," commonly called the “ Dance of Death." phrase. I observe that, in Warner's “ Albion,” “ port

which appears to have been anciently acted in churches, age" seems used, as its analogous word bearing, often

like the Moralities. The subject was a frequent ornafor bchaviour :

ment of cloisters, both here and abroad. The reader The Muses barely begge or bribbe,

will remember the beautiful series of wood-cuts of the Or both, and must, for why?

Dance of Death," attributed (though erroneously) to They find as bad bestow as is

Holbein. Douce describes an exquisite set of initial Their portage beggarly.

letters, representing the same subject; in one of which As Pericles has just referred to the hoped-for future the Fool is engaged in a very stout combat with his ad. gentle bearing of the child, the Poet may have meant versary, and is actually buffeting him with a bladder that he should add, that the babe's loss was greater than filled with peas or pebbles-an instrument used by can be compensated by its future conduct, with all else modern Merry Andrews. that it can find here on earth.

SCENE III. " — we are strong in custom”—The old copies have strong in easterne,” which (Malone says) means that “ Though I show will in't"-i. e. Though I may there is a strong easterly wind. Knight would read, seem viljul and perverse in so doing. There may be here

strong astern"-i. e. we are driving strongly astern. a misprint for “ Though I show ill in it," as Pericles Neither of these ideas could well be in the author's (act v. scene iii.) says that his long hair “makes me thoughts. This edition prefers Boswell's ingenious and look dismal." most probable supposition, that easterne was a misprint for "custom," as meaning, they say they have always its dangers with calm. The epithet is singularly Shake

“ – the mask'd Neptune”-i. e. The ocean masking observed it at sea, and that they are strong in their adherence to old usages. He refers to the experience of

spearian in manner; even the article prefixed, (* ike his own correction of the press, that this is a natural

masked Neptune,'') is in his peculiar fashion. mistake.

SCENE IV. “ Bring me the satin coffin”—“Coffin” and coffer are words of the same original meaning. Subsequently,

“ – on my EANING time”—This is the folio reading. Cerimon says to Thaisa

and that of one quarto. The others have “learning

time,” which the editors have amended to "yearning Madam, this letter, and some certain jewels, Lay with you in your coffer.

time"—the time of that internal uneasiness preceding The Poet, therefore, did not mean that his queen should

labour. But “eaning" is a common old English word. be laid in this coffin, but that it was the coffer, or chest,

for bringing forth young, usually applied to sheep, but containing satins, which Pericles terms the "cloth of

not contined to them. Shylock speaks of “the ewes in state," used for her shroud. (See next scene.)

eaning time;" but there is no reason or evidence that

it was not used for the birth of children. SCENE II.

ACT. IV. Give this to the 'pothecary"— The precedent words show that the physic cannot be designed for the

“- ripe for marriage ritx"— The original has sight. master of the servants here introduced. Perhaps the

which has afforded place for various conjectures and incircumstance was introduced for no other reason than terpretations. The reading here adopted seems the to mark more strongly the extensive benevolence of

most probably that which the author wrote. Cerimon. It could not be meant for the poor men who " — the sleided silk"-"Sleided" silk (says Percy) have just left the stage, to whom he has ordered kitchen is untristed silk, prepared to be used in the weaver's physic.

sley, or slay

e

the lorde hath to him writte

RECORDS with moan"-To "record" anciently

I am afraid to think what I have done; signified to sing, Thus, in Sir Philip Sydney's “Oura

Look on't again I dare not, etc. nia," (by Nicholas Breton, 1606 :)

The stern, sustained resolution of Lady Macbeth, her

complaint for her husband's scruples, as Recording songs unto the Deitie.

what beast was it, then, The word is still used by bird-fanciers.

That made you break this enterprise to me l

and her “ Prest for this blow"-" Prest” is ready_(prét,

things without remedy French.)

Should be without regard, -
SCENE I.

are, when compared with Dionyza's cool reply, “ that

she's dead," and her- for her OLD NURSE's death”—In the old copy

I do shame

To think of what a noble strain you are,
She comes weeping her onely mistresse death.

And what a coward spirit, “ As Marina (says Percy) had been trained in music,

like the finished work of some great painter by the side letters, etc., and had gained all the graces of education, Lychorida could not have been her only mistress. I

of the first rough, spirited outline, in which he had em

bodied his conceptions. would therefore read Here comes she weeping her old nurse's death."

- Now, please you, wit"-i. e. Now, be pleased to

know. The word, as well as its context, is Gower's own “- as a carpet, hang upon thy grave”—“ So the old

language, in whom we findcopies. The modern reading is chaplet. But it is evi. dent that the Poet was thinking of the green mound

That he should understande and witte. that marks the last resting-place of the humble, and not of the sculptured tomb to be adorned with wreaths.

SCENE VI. Upon the grassy grave Marina will hang a carpet of Howers—she will strew flowers, she has before said. “ – PersévER"— The old mode of writing and acThe carpet of Shakespeare's time was a piece of tapes. centing the word, as it often occurs in the older dramatry, or embroidery, spread upon tables; and the real

tists. flowers with which Marina will cover the grave of her

“ – under the cope"-i. e. Under the cope, or cover friend might have been, in her imagination, so inter

ing of heaven. twined as to resemble a carpet, usually bright with the flowers of the needle."-Knight.

"--door-keeper to every coYSTREL"_" Coystrel" is

said, by Collier and Gifford, to be a corruption of kesScege IV.

trel-a bastard kind of hawk. But it rather seems to

mean a low servant, or what Marina calls “the basest “ Becoming well thy facr”—The old editions all have groom,” as it is so used in Hollingshed and Palsgrave, thy face." This, though retained by the latest editors, as quoted by Dyce. seems to afford no appropriate meaning, and to be an error of the press. Malone supposed the word intended

ACT V. was feat-i. e. thy exploit. I prefer Dyce's suggestion of " fact," as it requires but the change of a letter, and "Her inkle"-" Inkle" is a kind of tape, but here it agrees with Shakespearian usage, in the sense of “your means coloured thread, crewel, or worsted, used in the guilty act." Thus in the Winter's Tale, (act iii. scene working of fruit and flowers. 2,) the king reproaching his wife with her supposed guilt, says, " As you are past all shame, (those of your fact

SCENE I. are so,") etc.; for those who are guilty of the same crime with you. We retain this sense only in legal phrase,

" — DEAFEN D parts”—The old copies all read “ dedrawn from the old common law, " taken in the fact”

fended parts." Malone made the alteration, which he i. e. in the very act of crime.

explains thus :—“His ears, which are to be assailed by

Marina's melodious voice." Stevens would read “deat' - DISTAIN my child”—The old reading is disdain, en'd ports," meaning “ the oppilated doors of hearing." which may be right, but does not agree with the conGower has said of Marina's grace

“ — AFFLICT our province”—The old copies have in

flict-a use of the word quite anomalous, and therefore, this so darkes

probably, a misprint for «afflict." In Philoten all graceful marks. ** Distain " is a common old poetical word for sullying;

“Enter Lord, Marina, and a young Lady." defiling; either literally or by contrast. It is so used “It appears that when PERICLES was originally perby Chaucer, in his “ Troilus," and by Gower; both formed, the theatres were furnished with no such appaof them authors familiar to Shakespeare.

ratus as, by any stretch of imagination, could be sup

posed to present either a sea or a ship; and that the “ – and held a MALKIN,

audience were contented to behold vessels sailing in Not worth the time of day."

and out of port in their mind's eye only. This license That is, a coarse wench, not worth a “good morrow.” being once granted to the poet, the lord, in the instance

now before us, walked off the stage, and returned " You are like one, that superstitiously

again in a few minutes, leading in Marina without any Doth swear to the gods, that winter kills the flies," etc.

sensible impropriety; and the present drama exhibited “ This passage appears to mean, 'You are so affectedly before such indulgent spectators was not more incomhumane, that you would appeal to heaven against the modious in the representation than any other would cruelty of winter in killing Aies.' Superstitious is ex- have been.”—Malone. plained by Johnson, scrupulous beyond need."-Bos

“ – AWKWARD casualties"_" Awkward” is here used in its oldest sense, for

wrong, adverse.

Thus Udal “- I know, you'll do as I advise"-Throughout this says of the Pharisees, that "they with awkward judgwhole scene, slight and sketchy as it is, the reader can- ment put goodness in outward things;" and he terms not but be strongly reminded of Macbeth and his wife. them “blind guides of an awkward religion." Cleon's “infirmity of purpose," shocked at the crime, and willing to give " the spacious world to undo the

“ Like Patience, gazing on kings' graves, and smiling deed," while he immediately yields to his wife's energy Extremity out of act.” of guilty will, and follows out her leading, is in the “By her beauty and patient meekness disarming same spirit with Macbeth's—

Calamity, and preventing her from using her uplifted

text.

66

WELL.

word. •Extremity' (though not personified as here) is, of our great Poet is only visible in the last act; for ! in like manner, used for the utmost of human suffering, think it appears in several passages, dispersed over each in KING LEAR:

of these divisions. I find it difficult, however, to per another,

suade myself that he was the original fabricator of the To amplify too much, would much more,

plot, or the author of every dialogue, chorus, etc. And top extremity. So in Twelfth Night:

“Were the intrinsic merits of PERICLES yet less than She sat like Patience on a monument,

they are, it would be entitled to respeci among the Smiling at Grief."

Malose.

curious in dramatic literature. As the engraving of “ Hare you a working pulse ? and are no fairy Mark Antonio are valuable not only on account of their Motion ?

beauty, but because they are supposed to have been That is, No fairy puppet, made by enchantment. A executed under the eye of Raffaelle, so PERICLES “motion" was the old synonym for puppet. The phrase continue to owe some part of its reputation to the is poetic and Shakespearian, which in many editions is

touches it is said to have received from the hand of altered, without authority, to

Shakespeare."-STEVENS.
and no fairy,
No motion.

Mr. Hallam is not much more liberal in his com

mendations than Stevens :" - 0 Helicanus! strike me"-Barry Cornwall re- ** Pericles is generally reckoned to be in part, and marks, that there is no one of the dramatic authors of

only in part, the work of Shakespeare. From the ibe Elizabethan period whose pen can be so readily poverty and bad management of the fable, the want of traced as Shakespeare's.” Of this, Pericles, with all

any effective or distinguishable character-for Marina its original defects, offers repeated examples of lines, is no more than the common form of female virtue, such phrases, passages, which cannot be ascribed to any other as all the dramatists of that age could draw-and a gespen. One of these characteristics, which is scarcely eral feebleness of the tragedy as a whole, I should on Riscernible in any of his contemporaries, is, (in the believe the structure to have been Shakespeare's Bat words of Barry Cornwall,)“ that his speeches, instead many passages are far more in his manner than in that of being directed and limited for the time to one sub- of any contemporary writer with whom I am acquainted: ject and person only, radiate, so to speak, or point on and the extrinsic testimony, though not conclusive, being all sides; dealing with all persons present, and with all of some value, I should not dissent from the judgment subjects that can be supposed to influence the speaker. of Stevens and Malone, that it was in no inconsiderable Thus, in the speech commencing o Helicanus!' Per degree repaired and improved by his touch. Drake icles, in the course of a few lines, addresses himself to

has placed it under the year 1590, as the earliest of Helicans, to Lysimachus, to Marina, to his own condi- Shakespeare's plays; for no better reason, apparents, tion, etc. Hence his scenes, instead of being conversa- than that he thought it inferior to all the rest. But, if tions confined for the time to two speakers, are often | it were not quite his own, this reason will have some matters of extensive and complicated interest, in which

less weight; and the language seems to me rather that the sentiments and humours of various persons are inter- of his second or third manner than of his first."—HALwoven and brought to play upon each other, as in the

LAM, (Literature of Europe.) natural world."-(Life of Ben Jonson.)

“ — another Life”-“ Another like" in the old copies, Hazlitt notices, that "the grammatical construction, which, as it gives no fit sense, is probably a misprint like that of Titus ANDRONICƯs, is constantly false, and for “life." The same error also occurs in Diana's mixed up with vulgarisms, which, (says he,) with the *peech.

halting measure of the verse, are the chief objectious

to PERICLES OF TYRE, if we except the far-fetched and SCENE II.

complicated absurdity of the story. The movement of “Do it, and happy"—i. e. Do it, and live happy: Shakespeare, and several of the descriptions are either

the thoughts and passions has something in it not unlike This would hardly seem to want explanation, had not several editors thought it so obscure as to require a his other plays, or are imitations of them by some con

the original hints of passages which he has engrafted on change of the text, so as to readDo't, and be happy.

temporary poet. The most memorable idea in it is in Marina's speech, where she compares the world to a

lasting storin, hurrying her from her friends.?” SCENE III. “ Voice and FavoUR"_" Favour" is here, as in other

William GIFFORD goes further, and dismisses it siminstances, countenance.

marily, as “ the worthless Pericles." ('pon this Barry

Cornwall (Life of Jonson, note on Pericles) thus retorts:“What means the woman"—“So the quarto, (1619,)

" It is certainly not one of Shakespeare's first-cla and subsequent editions: the quarto of 1609, * What plays. Nor is it to be lauded as a play full of character. means the mum ?' which may have been a misprint for But it stands higher, as a composition, than several of It would suit the measure better, and it would

Shakespeare's undoubted works, and it comprehends not be unprecedented to call a priestess of Diana a passages finer in style and sentiment than any thing ta nun.”—COLLIER.

be found in the serious dramas of Ben Jonson. We " This ornament,

cannot but think that the preceding critics (and among Makes me look dismal, will I clip to form," etc.

the rest Mr. Gifford) must have condemned it unread."

He then proceeds to extract and comment upon some That is, My beard, that makes me look dismal, will I

passages, in " vindication (to use his words) of this much clip to form.

slandered play." “ In Antioch, and his daughter"-i. e. The king of Antioch. The old copy reads Antiochus. Stevens made

William Gopwis, (Life of Chaucer, chap. Frii..) the alteration, observing that in Shakespeare's other without expressing equal confideuce in Shakespeare's plays we have France for the king of France; Morocco authorship of the play, speaks of the piece itself with for the king of Morocco, etc.

warm and unqualified admiration. In his account of old Gower, as the contemporary and fellow-labourer of

Chaucer, in forming our language, he says:-* Another “ That this tragedy has some merit, it were vain to circumstance which is worthy to be mentioned, in this deny: but that it is the entire composition of Shake slight enumeration of the literary deservings of Gower, speare, is more than can be hastily granted. I shall not is, that what is usually considered as the best of his venture, with Dr. Farmer, to determine that the hand tales, the tale of · Apollynus of Tyre,' is the foundation

e.

nun.