• The stones of the beach are each so like the other that the epithet twinn'd is appropriate. If number'd be the right word it must be taken in the sense of numerous, numberous. Theobald read "th' unnumber'd beach."

Dr. Johnson has given an explanation of this passage, which is an amusing specimen of his Lexiphanic style: "to feel the convulsions of eructation without plenitude." * Raps you-transports you. We are familiar with the participle rapt, but this form of the verb is uncommon.

Iach. Two creatures, heartily.

Imo.

You look on me. What wreck discern you in me Deserves your pity?

Iach.

Lamentable! What!

To hide me from the radiant sun, and solace
I' the dungeon by a snuff?

Imo.
I pray you, sir,
Deliver with more openness your answers
To my demands. Why do you pity me?
Iach. That others do,

I was about to say, enjoy your—But
It is an office of the gods to venge it,
Not mine to speak on't.

Imo.
You do seem to know
Something of me, or what concerns me. 'Pray

you,

(Since doubting things go ill often hurts more
Than to be sure they do: For certainties
Either are past remedies; or, timely knowing,
The remedy then born,) discover to me
What both you spur and stop.

Iach.
Had I this cheek,
To bathe my lips upon; this hand, whose touch,
Whose every touch, would force the feeler's soul
To the oath of loyalty; this object, which
Takes prisoner the wild motion of mine eye,
Fixing it only here: should I (damn'd then)

Thou would'st have told this tale for virtue, not For such an end thou seek'st; as base, as strange.

Thou wrong'st a gentleman, who is as far
From thy report, as thou from honour; and
Solicit❜st here a lady, that disdains
Thee and the devil alike.-What, ho! Pisanio!-
The king my father shall be made acquainted
Of thy assault; if he shall think it fit,
A saucy stranger, in his court, to mart
As in a Romish stew, and to expound
His beastly mind to us; he hath a court
He little cares for, and a daughter whom
He not respects at all.-What ho, Pisanio!
Iach. O happy Leonatus! I may say:
The credit that thy lady hath of thee
Deserves thy trust; and thy most perfect good-

SCENE IV. "I would have broke mine eyestrings," &c.

IN Arthur Golding's Translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses (1567) there is a description which might have suggested to Shakspere this beautiful passage:

"She lifting up her watery eyes beheld her husband stand Upon the hatches, making signs by becking with his hand: And she made signs to him again. And after that the land Was far removed from the ship, and that the sight began To be unable to discern the face of any man,

As long as ere she could she look'd upon the rowing keel. And when she could no longer time for distance ken it weel She looked still upon the sails that flashed with the wind Upon the mast. And when she could the sails no longer find,

She gat her to her empty bed with sad and sorry heart."

2 SCENE VI.-"Whiles yet the dew's on ground, gather those flowers."

The Queen, distilling herbs for wicked purposes, is a striking contrast to the benevolent Friar in Romeo and Juliet. Shakspere has beautifully indicated the philosophy of the use or abuse by man of Nature's productions, in the Friar's soliloquy :

"For nought so vile that on the earth doth live,
But to the earth some special good doth give;
Nor aught so good, but, strain'd from that fair use,
Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse."

3 SCENE VI. "Your highness Shall from this practice but make hard your heart."

Dr. Johnson, in that spirit of kindness which essentially belonged to his nature, remarks upon this passage:-" The thought would probably have been more amplified had our author lived to be shocked with such experiments as have been published in later times by a race of men who have practised tortures without pity, and related them without shame, and are yet suffered to erect their heads among human beings." We are by no means

sure, however, that Shakspere meant to apply a sweeping denunciation to such experiments upon the power of particular medicines. There can be no doubt that, the medical art being wholly tentative, it becomes in some cases a positive duty of a scientific experimenter to inflict pain upon an inferior animal for the ultimate purpose of assuaging pain or curing disease. It is the useless repetition of such experiments which makes hard the heart. It is the exhibition of such experiments in the lecture room which is "noisome and infectious." The Queen was unauthorised by her position to

"Try the forces

Of these thy compounds on such creatures as We count not worth the hanging.".

SCENE VII. "Or, like the Parthian, I shall flying fight."

Every one will remember the noble passage in 'Paradise Regained,' book iii.:

in

"He saw them in their forms of battle rang'd, How quick they wheel'd, and flying behind them shot Sharp sleet of arrowy show'rs against the face Of their pursuers, and overcame by flight." The editors of Milton refer to parallel passages Virgil and Horace as amongst the images with which our great epic poet was familiar. The commentators of Shakspere suffer his line to pass without a single observation. In the same scene we have the following most characteristic expression in the mouth of a Roman :

"As common as the stairs That mount the Capitol."

Upon this Steevens remarks, "Shakspere has bestowed some ornament on the proverbial phrase, as common as the highway."" Shakspere's phrase proves, amidst a thousand similar proofs, his perfect familiarity with all the knowledge that was necessary to make his characters speak appropriately with reference to their social position.

SCENE I-Court before Cymbeline's Palace.

Enter CLOTEN and Two Lords.

Clo. Was there ever man had such luck! when I kissed the jack, upon an up-cast to be hit away! I had a hundred pound on 't: And then a whoreson jackanapes must take me up for swearing; as if I borrowed mine oaths of him, and might not spend them at my pleasure. 1 Lord. What got he by that? You have broke his pate with your bowl.

2 Lord. If his wit had been like him that broke it, it would have run all out.

[Aside.

2 Lord. No, my lord; nor [Aside.] crop the ears of them.

Clo. Whoreson dog!-I give him satisfaction? 'Would he had been one of my rank!

2 Lord. To have smelt like a fool. [Aside. Clo. I am not vexed more at any thing in the earth,-A pox on 't! I had rather not be so noble as I am. They dare not fight with me, because of the queen my mother: every jackslave hath his belly full of fighting, and I must go up and down like a cock that no body can match.

2 Lord. You are cock and capon too; and you crow, cock, with your comb on. [Aside. Clo. Sayest thou ?

2 Lord. It is not fit your lordship should undertake every companion that you give of fence to.