What our contempts do often hurl from us, The oppofite of itfelf: fhe's good, being gone, The hand could pluck (6) her back, that fhov'd her on. The Mutability of the People. Our flippery people (Whose love is never link'd to the deserver, SCENE III. Cleopatra's contemptuous Raillery. Now, pray you, feek no colour for your going, But bid farewell, and go: when you fued ftaying, Then (5) The prefent pleasure, &c.] The allufion is to the fun's diurnal courfe: which, rifing in the east, and by revolution lowering, or setting in the weft, becomes the oppofite of itfelf. W. (6) The band could pluck.] The verb could has a peculiar fignification in this place. It does not denote power, but inclination. The fenfe is, The hand which drove her off, wou'd now willingly pluck her back again. Revifal. (7) For, &c.] This topic is finely touched again in the fourth fcene where Cafar fays, -I fhould have known no lefs : It hath been taught us from the primal state, Then was the time for words: no going then : Blifs on our brows' bent; none our parts fo poor, Cleopatra's anxious Tenderness. Ant. I'll leave you, lady. Cleo. Courteous lord, one word. Sir, you and I muft part,-but that's not it: Cleopatra's Wishes for Antony on parting. Your honour calls you hence ; SCENE IV. Antony's Vices and Virtues. (8) A race of heaven.] i. e. had a smack or flavour of I heaven. The race of the wine is the taste of the foil. W. and J. (9) My oblivion, &c.] The plain meaning is, My forgetfulness makes me forget myself. But the expreffes it, by calling forgetfulness Antony, becaufe forgetfulness had forgot her, as Antony had done. W. There is great beauty and force in the expreffion. (10) I muft, &c.] The judicious reader will be much pleased to find the vices and virtues of Antony so justly set 4 forth, His faults in him fcem, as the spots of heav'n, Rather than purchas'd; (11) what he cannot change, Than what he chooses. Caf. You are too indulgent. Let us grant, it is not Amifs to tumble on the bed of Ptolomy, And keep the turn of tipling with a slave; To reel the streets at noon, and stand the buffet With knaves that smell of sweat; fay this becomes him; (As his compofure must be rare indeed, Whom these things cannot blemish) yet muft Antony So great weight in his lightness. (12) If he fill'd Full furfeits, and the dryness of his bones, As we rate boys, who being mature (13) in knowledge, Pawn forth, fo agreeable to all the accounts we have of his character in hiftory: doubtless no small knowledge in antiquity was neceffary for fo exact a conformity to the characters of the ancients. It is furprifing, that the Oxford editor should read the third line in the text, when the image is fo apt and beautiful as it now ftands, and almost incapable of being misunderstood. (11) Purchas'd.] i. e. Procured by his own fault or endeavour. J. (12) Weight in bis lightness.] i. e. His trifling levity throws fo much burden upon us. J. (13) Being mature.] The Oxford editor reads, who immature in knowledge, to which W. agrees, and admits the alteration. Pawn their experience to their present pleasure, Antony, Leave thy lafcivious waffals When thou once Wer't beaten from Mutina, where thou flew'st Did famine follow, whom thou fought'ft against, Which beafts would cough at. Thy palate then did The rougheit berry on the rudeft hedge, Yea, like the ftag, when fnow the pafture fheets, Which fome did die to look on; and all this, SCENE V. Cleopatra on the Absence of Antony. Oh, (14) Charmian! Where think'ft thou he is now? ftands he? or fits he? Or does he walk or is he on his horse? O happy alteration. I.cannot be fatisfied with the criticism, but apprehend there is much more propriety in the words as they now stand, than as the Oxford editor would read them. For, if the boys were immature in knowledge [or, had not any knowledge] they could not pawn their experience to their prefent pleasure, nor rebel to judgment: whereas, if they were mature in knowledge, all that follows is just. By boys mature in knowledge lays 7, are meant boys old enough to know their duty. (14) Oh, &c.] Nothing can be more natural than this folicitude of Cleopatra, fo peculiar to lovers: in Philafter, Act 3. the lady says, O happy horfe to bear the weight of Antony! Do bravely, horse, for wot'ft thou, whom thou mov'st? The demy Atlas of this earth, the arm And burgonet (15) of man. He's fpeaking now, Or I marvel my boy comes not back again; But that I know my love will question him, Over and over, how I flept, wak'd, talk'd: How I remember'd him, when his dear name Was last spoke, and how; when I figh'd, wept, fung, And ten thousand fuch: I fhould be angry at his stay. (15) Burgonet.] i. e. A fteel cap, worn for the defence of the head in battle. The ingenious Mr. Seward remarks, on the next lines," That the editors who distinguish Antony's speech either by italics or commas, make him only fay, Where's my ferpent of old Nile? The reft is Cleopatra's own. But fure it is a strange compliment only to call her a ferpent of Nile. And why then does the mention it as a wonder, that he fhould fay fuch rapturous things of her in her decline of life? No; Antony's speech fhould be continued, as the metaphor is, Where's my ferpent of old Nile? With most delicious poison. Both parts belong to him, and then she goes on ;“ Think,” fays fhe," that he utters fuch raptures as thefe of me, though wrinkled deep in time." But, in my opinion, the feems not to imagine any fuch raptures: all the dwells upon is, her Antony's thinking and fpeaking of her, by that fond expreffion; which, however uncouth a compliment it may appear to us, we are to fuppofe, was a common one between them, and ufed by Antony in the midst of their freedom and rapture: "He's fpeaking now," fays fhe, "of me, or murmuring out his ufual fond appellation of me, wishing to know, where his ferpent of old Nile is-(for fo [apolologizing for the oddnefs of it] my Antony calls me :)" recollecting herself, fhe goes on: "Now, indeed, I do feed myself with most delicious poifon : think of me, that am thus fwarthy and thus wrinkled, to be fo kindly remembered by this arm and burgonet of man.". Seward has made |