SCENE I.--Britain. A Room of State in Cymbeline's Palace.

Queen. That opportunity, Which then they had to take from us, to resume We have again.-Remember, sir, my liege,

The kings your ancestors; together with
The natural bravery of your isle, which stands
As Neptune's park, ribbed and paled in
With rocks unscaleable, and roaring waters;
With sands that will not bear your enemies'
boats,

But suck them up to the top-mast. A kind of conquest

Cæsar made here; but made not here his brag Of came, and saw, and overcame with shame (The first that ever touch'd him) he was carried From off our coast, twice beaten; and his shipping

(Poor ignorant baubles!) on our terrible seas, Like egg-shells mov'd upon their surges, crack'd As easily 'gainst our rocks: For joy whereof, The fam'd Cassibelan, who was once at point (0, giglot b fortune!) to master Caesar's sword, Made Lud's town with rejoicing fires bright,' And Britons strut with courage.

a

For fury not to be resisted:-Thus defied, I thank thee for myself. Cym. Thou art welcome, Caius. Thy Cæsar knighted me;3 my youth 1 spent Much under him; of him I gather'd honour; Which he to seek of me again, perforce, Behoves me keep at utterance." I am perfect b That the Pannonians and Dalmatians, for Their liberties, are now in arms: a precedent Which not to read would show the Britons cold: So Cæsar shall not find them. Luc. Let proof speak. Clo. His majesty bids you welcome. Make pastime with us a day, or two, or longer: If you seek us afterwards in other terms, you shall find us in our salt-water girdle: if you beat us out of it, it is yours; if you fall in the adventure, our crows shall fare the better for you; and there's an end.

Luc. So, sir.

Cym. I know your master's pleasure, and he mine :

All the remain is, welcome.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.-Another Room in the Palace.
Enter PISANIO, reading a Letter.

Pis. How of adultery? Wherefore write you not

What monster's her accuser?-Leonatus!
O, master! what a strange infection

Is fallen into thy ear! What false Italian
(As poisonous tongued as handed) hath pre-
vail'd

On thy too ready hearing ?-Disloyal? No:
She's punish'd for her truth; and undergoes,
More goddess-like than wife-like, such assaults
As would take in some virtue.-O, my master!
Thy mind to her is now as low as were
Thy fortunes. How! that I should murther
her?

Upon the love, and truth, and vows, which I Have made to thy command?-I, her ?-her blood ?

If it be so to do good service, never

Let me be counted serviceable. How look I,
That I should seem to lack humanity

So much as this fact comes to ?-Do 't: The letter

Utterance. To fight at utterance is to fight without quarter-to the death; the French-Combat à outrance. b Perfect-assured. So in The Winter's Tale

"Thou art perfect then, our ship hath touch'd upon The deserts of Bohemia."

The original has, what_monsters her accuse? The modern correction, which is Rowe's, appears to be justified by the subsequent passage, what false Ilalian?

That I have sent her, by her own command
Shall give thee opportunity :-O damn'd paper!
Black as the ink that's on thee! Senseless bauble,
Art thou a foodaryb for this act, and look'st
So virgin-like without? Lo, here she comes.

Enter IMOGEN.

I am ignorant in what I am commanded.
Imo. How now, Pisanio ?

Pis. Madam, here is a letter from my lord. Imo. Who? thy lord? that is my lord? Leonatus?

O, learn'd indeed were that astronomer
That knew the stars as I his characters;
He'd lay the future open.-You good gods,
Let what is here contain'd relish of love,
Of my lord's health, of his content,—yet not,
That we two are asunder, let that grieve him,-
Some griefs are med'cinable; that is one of
them,

For it doth physic love ;-of his content,
All but in that!-Good wax, thy leave:-
Bless'd be

*

* *

a The original stage direction at the commencement of this scene is "Enter Pisanio reading of a letter." The modern editors, when they come to the passage beginning do't, insert another stage direction-reading. Upon this Malone raises up the following curious theory:-"Our poet from negligence sometimes makes words change their form under the eye of the speaker, who in different parts of the same play recites them differently, though he has a paper or letter in his hand, and actually reads from it. * * The words here read by Pisanio from his master's letter (which is afterwards given at length, and in prose) are not found there, though the substance of them is contained in it. This is one of many proofs that Shakspere had no view to the publication of his pieces. There was little danger that such an inaccuracy should be detected by the ear of the spectator, though it could hardly escape an attentive reader." Now, we would ask, what can be more natural-what can be more truly in Shakspere's own manner, which is a reflection of nature-than that a person having been deeply moved by a letter which he has been reading, should comment upon the substance of it without repeating the exact words? The very commencement of Pisanio's soliloquy-"How! of adultery?"-is an example of this. The word adultery is not mentioned in the letter upon which he comments. Malone refers to a similar negligence in the last scene of All's Well that Ends Well, where Helena thus addresses Bertram

"There is your ring,

And, look you, here's your letter: This it says, When from my finger you can get this ring," &c.

Malone adds, "she reads the words from Bertram's letter." He has no right to assume this, nor does he even give a stage direction to that effect in his edition; but, because the letter whi Helena reads in Act III. Co ains these words -"when thou canst get the ring upon my finger,"-Shakspere has been guilty of negligence, oversight, inattention, &c. &c., in not giving the exact words of the letter, when she offers it to Bertram. Really, a critic, putting on a pair of spectacles, to compare the recollections of deep feeling with the document which has stirred that feeling, as he would compare the copy of an affidavit with the original, is a ludicrous exhibition.

b Feodary-feudary. Hanmer says, "A feodary is one who holds his estate under the tenure of suit and service to a superior lord." Malone says, "The feodary was the escheator's associate, and hence Shakspere, with his usual licence, uses the word for a confederate or associate in general." We beg to refer our readers to the Illustrations of Henry IV., Part 1., Act 1., in which we endeavour to show that the feudal vassal and the companion were each meant by the same word-fere-feudary-feodary.

You bees that make these locks of counsel ! Lovers,

And men in dangerous bonds, pray not alike; Though forfeiters you cast in prison, yet You clasp young Cupid's tables."-Good news, gods! [Reads.

'Justice, and your father's wrath, should he take me in his dominion, could not be so cruel to me, an you, O the dearest of creatures, would even renew me with your eyes.b Take notice that I am in Cambria, at Milford-Haven: What your own love will out of this advise you, follow. So, he wishes you all happiness, that remains loyal to his vow, and your, increasing in love,

LEONATUS POSTHUMUS.'

O, for a horse with wings!-Hear'st thou, Pisanio ?

He is at Milford-Haven: Read, and tell me How far 't is thither. If one of mean affairs May plod it in a week, why may not I Glide thither in a day ?-Then, true Pisanio, (Who long'st, like me, to see thy lord; who long'st,

O, let me 'bate, but not like me: - yet long'st,

But in a fainter kind:-O, not like me;
For mine's beyond beyond,°) say, and speak thick,
(Love's counsellor should fill the bores of hearing,
To the smothering of the sense,) how far it is
To this same blessed Milford: And, by the way,
Tell me how Wales was made so happy, as
To inherit such a haven: But, first of all,
How we may steal from hence; and, for the gap
That we shall make in time, from our hence-

going

a This address to the bees contains one of Shakspere's legal allusions. The forfeiters (in the first folio forfeytours) had sealed to dangerous bonds; and in that age the seal was as binding as the signature, and rather more so.

b This sentence is very difficult; but it does not appear to us to be mended by the departure from the original reading, which we ordinarily find- Justice, and your father's wrath, should he take me in his dominion, could not be so cruel to me, as you, O the dearest of creatures, would not even renew me with your eyes." Malone inserted not; and explains the reading thus-Justice, &c., could not be so cruel to me, bui that you would be able to renew me, &c. This may be the meaning: but it is scarcely borne out by the construction of Malone's improved sentence. In the original it stands thus -"Justice, and your father's wrath, (should he take me in his dominion,) could not be so cruel to me, as you: (oh the dearest of creatures) would even renew me with your eyes.' It is here evident that the printer has mistaken the sense in his "could not be so cruel to me, as you :" and when printers have a crotchet as to the meaning of a sentence, they seldom scruple to deviate from the copy before them. The so required therefore from them its parallel conjunction as. But if we alter a single letter we have a clear meaning, without any forced construction. An is often used familiarly for if by . Shakspere and the other old dramatists, as it was in discourse and correspondence. We have the word repeatedly in Measure for Measure:-for example, "An he should, it were an alms to hang him." Let us therefore read the sentence with the substitution of an for as-"Justice, and your father's wrath, should he take me in his dominion, could not be so cruel to me, an you, (O the dearest of creatures,) would even renew me with your eyes." Even is here used in the old sense of equally, even-so, and is opposed to "so cruel."

c Beyond beyond. The second beyond is used as a substantive, which gives us the meaning of further than beyond. The Scotch have a saying-" at the back of beyont."

Enter BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, and Arviragus. Bel. A goodly day not to keep house, with such Whose roof's as low as ours! Stoop, boys: This gate

Instructs you how to adore the heavens; and
bows
you
To a morning's holy office: The gates of mo-
narchs

Are arch'd so high that giants may jet through
And keep their impious turbands on, without
Good morrow to the sun.-
-Hail, thou fair heaven,
We house i'the rock, yet use thee not so hardly
As prouder livers do.

Gui.

Hail, heaven!

Arv.

Hail, heaven! Bel. Now for our mountain sport: Up to yon hill,

Monck Mason has, we think, given us the true interpretation of this passage. I see before me, man, is, I see clearly. that my course is for Milford. Nor here, nor here, nor what ensues neither this way, nor that way, nor the way behind me, but have a fog in them.

b Stoop. The original reads sleep-a manifest error. Rowe corrected it to see; Malone would read sweet. The correction of stoop, by Hanmer, is certainly conceived in a poetical spirit. It accords with

"This gate

Instructs you how to adore the heavens; and bows you To a morning's holy office."

a These lines are ordinarily printed, as in the folio"O, this life Is nobler than attending for a check; Richer than doing nothing for a babe." Conjecture has here exhausted itself, and has fallen back upon the authority of the original text. We shall endeavour to explain the whole passage, and to justify our adoption of Hanmer's alteration of babe to bribe, by referring to the source of the ideas thus briefly expressed, which we think Shakspere had in his mind. We believe that source to have been Spenser's Mother Hubbard's Tale.' Belarius begs his boys to

"revolve what tales I have told you Of co of princes;" and he then goes on to say that their own life "Is nobler than attending for a check."

Spenser describes, in one of the finest didactic passages of our language, the condition of the man "whom wicked fate hath brought to court:

""

"Full little knowest thou, that hast not tried,
What hell it is in suing long to bide:

To lose good days that might be better spent ;
To waste long nights in pensive discontent;
To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow;
To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow;
To have thy Prince's grace, yet want her Peers';
To have thy asking, yet wait many years;
To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares;
To eat thy heart through comfortless despairs;
To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run,
To spend, to give, to want, to be undone.
Unhappy wight, born to disastrous end,

That doth his life in so long tendance spend!" Here we have the precise meaning of attending furnished us by tendance; and, we think, the meaning of cheek, which has been controverted, is supplied us by to be put back to-morrow. The whole passage is, indeed, a description of the alternate progress and check, which the "miserable man" of Spenser receives. Compared with such a life of humiliation, the wild mountain life is nobler. We have next the life described in a line, than which the mountain life is richer. According to the original text it is, "than doing nothing for a babe." If we take it in the common sense of babe, (in which sense it occurs again in the same scene-"I stole these babes,") it is impossible to extract a meaning from it. Warburton reads, therefore, bauble. Steevens bable, which he says was the ancient spelling of bauble. Capell affirms that babe and bable are synonymous. Johnson would read brabe, from brabium, a badge of honour. Looking at the usual course of typographical errors, we should say, it is the easiest thing possible for babe to be printed for bribe, even if the word were bribe in the manuscript. But, putting aside these considerations, and rejecting altogether the nonsense of George Chalmers, that the word was babee (the Scotch bawbee), what is the meaning of doing nothing for a babe, bable, or bauble? Is it, that the courtier is idle, that he may receive some outward mark of honour-a title, as Capell says? We think not. Spenser has told us distinctly what it is to do nothing for a bribe-to give nothing in return for a bribe: and we believe Shakspere had this in view. His mountain life is certainly richer than riches so corruptly derived.

But there is a more recent conjecture as to the word of the original text. The Corrector of Mr. Collier's has bub,

Prouder, than rustling in unpaid-for silk:
Such gains the cap of him that makes him fine,
Yet keeps his book uncross'd: no life to ours.

Gui. Out of your proof you speak: we, poor unfledg'd,

Have never wing'd from view o' the nest; nor know not

What air's from home. Haply, this life is best, If quiet life be best; sweeter to you,

your

:

That have a sharper known; well corresponding
With stiff age but unto us it is
A cell of ignorance; travelling abed;
A prison for a debtor, that not dares
To stride a limit.

Aro. What should we speak of, When we are old as you? when we shall hear The rain and wind beat dark December, how, In this our pinching cave, shall we discourse The freezing hours away? We have seen nothing: We are beastly; subtle as the fox, for prey; Like warlike as the wolf, for what we eat : Our valour is to chase what flies; our cage We make a quire, as doth the prison'd bird, And sing our bondage freely. Bel. How you speak! Did you but know the city's usuries, And felt them knowingly: the art o' the court, As hard to leave, as keep; whose top to climb Is certain falling, or so slippery that

The fear's as bad as falling: the toil of the

war,

A pain that only seems to seek out danger

I' the name of fame and honour: which dies i' the search;

And hath as oft a slanderous epitaph
As record of fair act; nay, many times,
Doth ill deserve by doing well: what's worse,

which Mr. Collier interprets to mean a blow. Shakspere uses bob in two senses. He has "beaten, bobbed, and thumped "(Richard III. Act v. Sc. 11.), where bob has the meaning of a blow. But he also has, "You shall not bob us out of our melody" (Troilus and Cressida, Act III. Sc. 1.). Massinger has one of his characters describing a king whispering, the object of which was, he says, "to give me the bob (Maid of Honour). The word in these cases seems to mean to get rid of-to put aside. In this sense bob may be used in the passage before us. But, nevertheles, bribe will not be hastily rejected.

As we have had the nobler and the richer life, we have now the prouder. The mountain life is compared with that

of

king;

Nor Cymbeline dreams that they are alive.

They think they are mine: and, though train'd up thus meanly

I' the cave, wherein they bow," their thoughts do hit

The roofs of palaces; and nature prompts them,
In simple and low things, to prince it much
Beyond the trick of others. This Polydore,―
The heir of Cymbeline and Britain, whom
The king his father call'd Guiderius,—Jove!
When on my three-foot stool I sit, and tell
The warlike feats I have done, his spirits fly

out

Into my story say,-'Thus mine enemy fell; And thus I set my foot on his neck '—even then The princely blood flows in his check, he sweats, Strains his young nerves, and puts himself in

posturc

a The old reading is, whereon the bowe-clearly a misprint. It was corrected by Warburton, with this explanation: "In this very cave, which is so low that they must bend or bow on entering it, yet are their thoughts so exalted," &c.