fweet tale of the fon! if thou didft, then behold that compound. 2 Didft thou never fee Titan kifs a dish of butter? pitiful-hearted Titan! that melted at the fweet tale of the fon!] The usual reading has hitherto been-the fweet tale of the fun. The prefent change will be accounted for in the course of the following annotations. STEEVENS. All that wants reftoring is a parenthefis, into which (pitifulhearted Titan!) fhould be put. Pitiful-hearted means only amorous, which was Titan's character: the pronoun that refers to butter. The heat of the fun is figuratively represented as a love-tale, the poet having before called him pitiful-hearted, or amorous. WARBURTON. The fame thought, as Dr. Farmer obferved to me, is found among Turberville's Epitaphs, p. 142: "It melts as butter doth against the funne." The reader, who inclines to Dr. Warburton's opinion, will please to furnish himself with fome proof that pitiful-hearted was ever ufed to fignify amorous, before he pronounces this learned critick's emendation to be juft. In the oldeft copy, the contefted part of the paffage appears thus: at the fweet tale of the fonnes. Our author might have written-pitiful-hearted Titan, who melted at the feet tale of his fon, i. e. of Phaeton, who, by a plaufible ftory, won on the eafy nature of his father fo far, as to obtain from him the guidance of his own chariot for a day. As grofs a mythological corruption, as the foregoing occurs in Locrine, 1595: "The arm-ftrong offspring of the doubted knight, "Stout Hercules" &c. Thus all the copies, ancient and modern. But I should not hefi tate to read-doubled night, i. e. the night lengthened to twice its ufual proportion, while Jupiter poffeffed himself of Alcmena; a circumstance with which every school-boy is acquainted. STEEVENS. I have followed the reading of the original copy in 1598, rejecting only the double genitive, for it reads-of the fon's. Sun, which is the reading of the folio, derives no authority from its being found in that copy; for the change was made arbitrarily in the quarto 1604, and adopted of courfe in that of 1608 and 1613, from the latter of which the folio was printed; in confequence of which the accumulated errors of the five preceding editions were incorporated in the folio copy of this play. FAL. You rogue, here's lime in this fack too: Mr. Theobald reads-pitiful-hearted butter, that melted at the fweet tale of the fun;-which is not fo abfurd as-pitiful-hearted Titan, that melted at the fweet tale of the fun,-but yet very exceptionable; for what is the meaning of butter melting at a tale? or what idea does the tale of the fun here convey? Dr. Warburton, who, with Mr. Theobald, reads-fun, has extracted fome fenfe from the paffage by placing the words" pitiful-hearted Titan” in a parenthefis, and referring the word that to butter; but then," befides that his interpretation pitiful-hearted, which he says means amorous, is unauthorized and inadmiffible, the fame objection will lie to the fentence when thus regulated, that has already been made to the reading introduced by Mr. Theobald. The Prince undoubtedly, as Mr. Theobald obferves, by the words "Didft thou never fee Titan kifs a difh of butter?" alludes to Falstaff's entering in a great heat," his fat dripping with the violence of his motion, as butter does with the heat of the fun." Our author here, as in many other places, having started an idea, leaves it, and goes to another that has but a very flight connection with the former. Thus the idea of butter melted by Titan, or the Sun, fuggefts to him the idea of Titan's being melted or foftened by the tale of his fon, Phaëton: a tale, which undoubtedly Shakspeare had read in the third book of Golding's Tranflation of Ovid, having, in his defcription of Winter, in The Midsummer Night's Dream, imitated a paffage that is found in the fame page in which the hiftory of Phaeton is related. I should add that the explanation now given was fuggefted by the foregoing note.-I would, however, wifh to read-thy fon. In the old copies, the, thee, and thy are frequently confounded. I am now [This conclufion of Mr. Malone's note is taken from his Appendix.] perfuaded that the original reading-fon's, however ungrammatical, is right; for fuch was the phrafeology of our poet's age. So again in this play: "This abfence of your father's draws a curtain." not-of your father. So, in The Winter's Tale: " Again, in K. John: the letters of Hermione's-.” "With them a baftard of the king's deceas'd.” Again, in Antony and Cleopatra: 66 Nay, but this dotage of our general's—,” Again, in Cymbeline: or could this carl, "A very drudge of nature's,-." How little attention the reading of the folio, (" of the fun's,)" is entitled to, may appear from hence. In the quarto copy There is nothing but roguery to be found in villainous man: Yet a coward is worfe than a cup of 1613 we find "Why then 'tis like, if there comes a hot fun,"-instead of a hot June. There, as in the instance before us, the error is implicitly copied in the folio.-In that copy alfo, in Timon of Athens, Act IV. fc. ult. we find "-'twixt natural funne and fire," instead of " -'twixt natural fon and fire." MALONE. Till the deviation from established grammar, which Mr. Malone has styled "the phrafeology of our poet's age," be fupported by other examples than fuch as are drawn from the most incorrect and vitiated of all publications, I muft continue to exclude the double genitive, as one of the numerous vulgarifms by which the early printers of Shakspeare have difgraced his compofitions. It must frequently happen, that while we fuppofe ourselves ftruggling with the defects and obfcurities of our author, we are in reality bufied by omiffions, interpolations, and corruptions chargeable only on the ignorance and careleffnefs of his original. tranfcribers and editors. STEEVENS. 3 — here's lime in this fack too: There is nothing but roguery to be found in villainous man:] Sir Richard Hawkins, one of Queen Elizabeth's fea-captains, in his Voyages, p. 379, fays: "Since the Spanish facks have been common in our taverns, which for confervation are mingled with lime in the making, our nation complains of calentures, of the ftone, the dropfy, and infinite other distempers, not heard of before this wine came into frequent use. Befides, there is no year that it wasteth not two millions of crowns of our fubftance, by conveyance into foreign countries." I think Lord Clarendon, in his Apology, tells us, "That fweet wines before the Restoration were fo much to the English tafte, that we engroffed the whole product of the Canaries; and that not a pipe of it was expended in any other country in Europe." But the banifhed cavaliers brought home with them the goust for French wines, which has continued ever fince. WARBURTON. Dr. Warburton does not confider that fack, in Shakspeare, is most probably thought to mean what we now call herry, which, when it is drank, is still drank with fugar. JOHNSON. Rhenifh is drank with fugar, but never sherry. The difference between the true jack and fherry, is diftinctly marked by the following paffage in Fortune by Land and Sea, by Heywood and Rowley, 1655: "Rayns. Some fack boy &c. "Rayns, I meant canary, fir: what, haft no brains?" STEEVENS, of fack with lime in it; a villainous coward.-Go thy ways, old Jack; die when thou wilt, if manhood, good manhood, be not forgot upon the face of the earth, then am I a shotten herring. There live not three good men unhang'd in England; and one of them is fat, and grows old: God help the while! a bad world, I fay! I would I were a weaver; I could fing pfalms or any thing: A plague of all cowards, I fay ftill ftill Eliot, in his Orthoepia, 1593, fpeaking of sack and rhenish, fays: "The vintners of London put in lime, and thence proceed infinite maladies, fpecially the gouttes." FARMER. From the following paffage in Greene's Ghoft haunting Coniecatchers, 1604, it feems as though lime was mixed with the fack for the purpose of giving strength to the liquor: " a christian ex hortation to Mother Bunch would not have done amiffe, that the should not mixe lime with her ale to make it mightie." REED. Sack, the favourite beverage of Sir John Falstaff, was, according to the information of a very old gentleman, a liquor compounded of fberry, cyder, and fugar. Sometimes it fhould feem to have been brewed with eggs, i. e. mulled. And that the vintners played tricks with it, appears from Falftaff's charge in the text. It does not feem to be at prefent known; the fweet wine fo called, being apparently of a quite different nature. RITSON. That the sweet wine at prefent called fack, is different from Falstaff's favourite liquor, I am by no means convinced. On the contrary, from the fondnefs of the English nation for fugar at this period, I am rather inclined to Dr. Warburton's opinion on this fubject. If the English drank only rough wine with fugar, there appears nothing extraordinary, or worthy of particular notice; and that their partiality for fugar was very great, will appear from the paffage in Hentzner already quoted, p. 381, as well as the paffage from Moryfon's Itinerary, which being adopted by Mr. Malone in his note, ibid. need not to be here repeated. The addition of fugar even to fack, might, perhaps, to a taste habituated to sweets, operate only in a manner to improve the flavour of the wine. I would I were a the first edition [the quarto could fing pfalms or any thing. REED. weaver; I could fing pfalms &c.] In 1598,] the paffage is read thus: I In the firft folio thus: I could fing P. HEN. How now, wool-fack? what mutter you? FAL. A king's fon! If I do not beat thee out of thy kingdom with a dagger of lath,' and drive all all manner of fongs. Many expreffions bordering on indecency or profanenefs are found in the first editions, which are afterwards corrected. The reading of the three laft editions, I could fing pfalms and all manner of fongs, is made without authority out of different copies. JOHNSON. The editors of the folio, 1623, to avoid the penalty of the statute, 3 Jac. I. c. xxi. changed the text here, as they did in many other places from the fame motive. MALONE. In the persecutions of the Proteftants in Flanders under Philip II. those who came over into England on that occafion, brought with them the woollen manufactory. These were Calvinists, who were always diftinguished for their love of pfalmody. WARBURTON. I believe nothing more is here meant than to allude to the practice of weavers, who, having their hands more employed than their minds, amuse themselves frequently with fongs at the loom. The knight, being full of vexation, wishes he could fing to divert hist thoughts. Weavers are mentioned as lovers of mufick in The Merchant of Venice. [Twelfth Night, Vol. IV. p. 56, n. 3.] Perhaps " to fing like a weaver" might be proverbial. JOHNSON. Dr. Warburton's obfervation may be confirmed by the following paffage Ben Jonfon, in The Silent Woman, makes Cutberd tell Morofe, that the parfon caught his cold by fitting up late, and finging catches with cloth-workers." STEEVENS. So, in The Winter's Tale: " -but one puritan among them, and he fings pfalms to hornpipes." MALONE. The Proteftants who fled from the perfecution of the Duke d'Alva were moftly weavers and woollen manufacturers: they settled in Glocestershire, Somersetshire, and other counties, and (as Dr. Warburton obferves,) being Calvinifts, were diftinguished for their love of pfalmody. For many years the inhabitants of these counties have excelled the reft of the kingdom in the skill of vocal harmony. SIR J. HAWKINS. a dagger of lath,] i. e. fuch a dagger as the Vice in the old moralities was arm'd with. So, in Twelfth Night: |