ent, I'll take no part in the cause, but leave it entirely to you of whose wisdom and integrity I am fully persuaded." As "impartial" is here used for "indifferent," so is "indifferent," in another place, put for "impartial."

"Look on my wrongs with an indifferent eye." King Richard II. Act 2, Scene 3.

395. "Who thinks, he knows, that he ne'er knew my body,

"But knows, he thinks, that he knows Isabel's."

A similar jingle we find in As You Like It, Act 5:

"I sometimes do believe, and sometimes do not, "As those that fear; they hope and know they fear."

But, remarks Dr. Johnson, Lucio had not, in the former conversation, mentioned coward. I believe it is not necessary, either to the consistency of the character or the humour of the scene, that Lucio should here repeat, with fidelity, the exact terms of the abuse which his invention had produced before; and his mentioning coward now is enough for the Duke to lay hold of it afterwards.

410.

Till he did look on me."

I believe there are very few who, in contemplating the scene before us, will not agree in the justness of Dr. Johnson's comment upon it: it is true that Isabella is not prompt to comply with the request of Mariana, but when she yields at length female vanity is very conspicuously a motive with her.

413. "As like almost to Claudio as himself." The same comparison is attempted in Hamlet: Like

"As thou art to thyself."

"Her worth, worth yours.”

Dr. Johnson's question upon Hanmer's reading, (her worth, works yours, which Dr. Warburton adopted) "how does her worth work Angelo's worth?" need not go unanswered :-her virtues are sufficient to atone for your offences; and, for her sake, I deem you again eligible to my favour."

Dr. Johnson's judgment of the serious parts of this play appears rather a harsh one: Mr. Harris, the author of Hermes, once spoke of it to me as a great favourite of his. LORD CHED WORTH.

LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST.

ACT I. SCENE I.

5. "Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives, "Be register'd upon our brazen tombs.”

All, here, is evidently to be understood in an abstracted, and not an absolute sense. Milton gives occasion for a similar remark, in these words of Paradise Lost:

6.

"Doleful shades, where peace

"And rest can never dwell; hope never comes "That comes to all.".

Dainty bits

"Make rich the ribs, but bankerout quite

the wits."

Dr. Johnson derives the noun bankrupt from the French banqueroute.

Bankeroute, as appears from Minshew, was the ancient way of spelling bankrupt: respecting the etymology of the word, see Blackstone, 26th commentary, p. 472, note.

LORD CHEDWORTH.

"With all these living in philosophy." Dumain means to say, that he shall find in philosophy an equivalent to all the pleasures which, as themselves, he renounces, and is weary of.

7.

To study where I well may dine, "When I to feast expressly am forbid."

The quarto has fast, which is right: "forbid" is commanded, as in other places. See The Merchant of Venice:

"You may as well forbid the mountain pines "To wag their high tops, and to make no noise "When they are fretted," &c.

And Chaucer:

"Moses law forbode it, tho',

"That priests should no lordships welde," "Christ's gospel willeth also

"That they should no lordships helde."

Theobald's not perceiving this sense of forbid, is less remarkable than that Mr. Steevens should have overlooked it.

31. "

SCENE II,

The rational hind Costard."

I incline to think we should read irrational, with Mr. Tyrwhit and Dr. Farmer; I do not think the passages produced by Mr. Steevens prove that for which they are cited. I do not see why hind, in the passage quoted from Henry IV, does not mean peasant, used as a term of contempt; as when Petruchio calls Grumio peasant swain ! LORD CHEDWORTH,

ACT II. SCENE I.

46. "God's blessing on your beard."

Longueville, I believe, was not so profoundly moral in this place as Dr. Johnson would make him he seems merely to utter a sarcasm, God's blessing on your extraordinary wisdom.

ACT IV. SCENE I.

73. "When for fame's sake, for praise, an outward part,

"We bend to that the working of the heart."

:

Upon this couplet is this wonderful note, which I need not tell you is by Warburton :— The harmony of the measure, the easiness of the expression, and the good sense in the thought, all concur to recommend these two lines to the reader's notice. The lines will, I doubt not, strike you, and every man of common sense, not to say common taste, as utterly destitute of every quality this apostolic alchymist recommends, who, in his dream, tries to convert the very dirt of Shakspeare into gold. The preservation of such nonsensical comments much arraigns the taste of his various editors.

Mr. Steevens calls this the dew that nightly falls down his cheeks; but then it were better called the nightly dew: besides, we cannot suppose that the King's sorrows were confined to