Shalt have thy trespass cited up in rhymes',
And sung by children in succeeding times 2.

But if thou yield, I rest thy secret friend :
The fault unknown is as a thought unacted;
A little harm, done to a great good end,
For lawful policy remains enacted.

The poisonous simple sometimes is compacted
In a pure compound; being so applied,
His venom in effect is purified.

Gentlemen of Verona: "That's as much as to say bastard virtues, that indeed know not their father's names, and therefore have no names." The poet calls bastardy nameless, because an illegitimate child has no name by inheritance, being considered by the law as nullius filius. MALONE.

Shalt have thy TRESPASS CITED up in rhymes,] So, in King Henry IV. Part I.:

"He made a blushing cital of his faults."

Again, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona :

for we cite our faults."

STEEVENS.

2 Shalt have thy trespass CITED UP in RHYMES,

AND SUNG by children in succeeding times.] So, in King Richard III.:

Thence we looked towards England, "And cited up a thousand heavy times."

Again, in Antony and Cleopatra:

Saucy lictors

"Will catch at us like strumpets, and scald rhymers
"Ballad us out o' tune."

Qui me commôrit, (melius non tangere, clamo,)
Flebit, et insignis tota cantabitur urbe. Hor.

Thus elegantly imitated by Pope:

"Whoe'er offends, at some unlucky time

"Slides into verse, and hitches in a rhyme;
"Sacred to ridicule his whole life long,

"And the sad burthen of some merry song." MALONE.

3 In A PURE Compound -] Thus the quarto. 1616 reads:

MALONE.

The edition of

"In purest compounds —.” A thought somewhat similar occurs in Romeo and Juliet: "Within the infant rind of this small flower "Poison hath residence, and medicine power."

STEEVENS.

Then for thy husband and thy children's sake,
Tender my suit3: bequeath not to their lot
The shame that from them no device can take,
The blemish that will never be forgot;

Worse than a slavish wipe, or birth-hour's blot *:
For marks descried in men's nativity

Are nature's faults, not their own infamy".

Here with a cockatrice' dead-killing eye",
He rouseth up himself, and makes a pause;
While she, the picture of pure piety,

3 TENDER my suit-] Cherish, regard my suit. So, in Hamlet:

"Tender yourself more dearly." MALONE.

4 Worse than a SLAVISH WIPE,] More disgraceful than the brand with which slaves were marked. MALONE.

or birth-hour's BLOT:] So, in King John:
"If thou that bid'st me be content, wert grim,

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66

Ugly and slanderous to thy mother's womb,

Full of unpleasing blots, and sightless stains,-
"Patch'd with foul moles and eye-offending marks,
"I would not care."

Again, in A Midsummer-Night's Dream:

"And the blots of nature's hand,

"Shall not in their issue stand;
"Never mole, hair-lip, nor scar,
"Nor mark prodigious-."

It appears that in Shakspeare's time the arms of bastards were distinguished by some kind of blot. Thus, in the play above quoted:

"To look into the blots and stains of right."

But in the passage now before us, those corporal blemishes with which children are sometimes born, seem alone to have been in our author's contemplation. MAlone.

6 For MARKS descried in men's NATIVITY

Are NATURE's faults, NOT THEIR OWN INFAMY.] So, in Hamlet:

"That for some vicious mole of nature in them,
"As, in their birth (wherein they are not guilty)-."
STEEVENS.

7 with a cockatrice' dead-killing eye,] So, in Romeo and Juliet:

"From the death-darting eye of cockatrice." STEEVENS.

Like a white hind under the grype's sharp claws3, Pleads in a wilderness, where are no laws,

To the rough beast that knows no gentle right, Nor aught obeys but his foul appetite.

Look, when a black-fac'd cloud the world doth threat 9,

9

,

In his dim mist the aspiring mountains hiding, From earth's dark womb some gentle gust doth get,

8 Like a white hind UNDER the GRYPE's sharp claws,] So, in King Richard III. :

"Ah me! I see the ruin of my house;

"The tyger now hath seiz'd the gentle hind."

All the modern editions read:

The quarto, 1594, has:

"Like a white hinde under the grype's sharp claws —." The gryphon was meant, which in our author's time was usually written grype, or gripe. MALONE.

The gripe is properly the griffin. See Cotgrave's Dictionary, and Mr. Reed's improved edition of Dodsley's Old Plays, vol. i. p. 124, where gripe seems to be used for vulture:

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Ixion's wheele,

"Or cruell gripe to gnaw my growing harte."

Ferrex and Porrex.

It was also a term in the hermetick art. Thus, in Ben Jonson's Alchemist:

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let the water in glass E be filter'd,

"And put into the gripe's egg.'

As griffe is the French word for a claw, perhaps anciently those birds which are remarkable for griping their prey in their talons, were occasionally called gripes." STEEVENS.

9 Look, when a black-fac'd cloud the world doth threat,] The quarto 1594 reads-But when, &c. For the emendation I am responsible.

But was evidently a misprint; there being no opposition whatsoever between this and the preceding passage. We had before: 'Look, as the fair and firy-pointed sun,

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"Even so -.”

Again, in a subsequent stanza, we have:

"Look, as the full-fed hound, &c.

"So surfeit-taking Tarquin-."

Again, in Venus and Adonis:

"Look, how the world's poor people are amaz'd,

"So she with fearful eyes-:'

MALONE.

Which blows these pitchy vapours from their biding,
Hindering their present fall by this dividing:
So his unhallow'd haste her words delays,
And moody Pluto winks while Orpheus plays.

Yet, foul night-waking cat, he doth but dally,
While in his hold-fast foot the weak mouse panteth:
Her sad behaviour feeds his vulture folly',
A swallowing gulf that even in plenty wanteth:
His ear her prayers admits, but his heart granteth
No penetrable entrance to her plaining:

Tears harden lust, though marble wear with
raining.

Her pity-pleading eyes are sadly fix'd
In the remorseless wrinkles of his face2;
Her modest eloquence with sighs is mix'd,
Which to her oratory adds more grace.
She puts the period often from his place;

And 'midst the sentence so her accent breaks,
That twice she doth begin, ere once she speaks 3.

She conjures him by high almighty Jove,

By knighthood, gentry, and sweet friendship's oath, By her untimely tears, her husband's love,

By holy human-law, and common troth,

By heaven and earth, and all the power of both,

The old copy, I think, is correct :-" He knows no gentle right, but still her words delay him, as a gentle gust blows away a blackfaced cloud." BOSWELL.

1 —his vulture FOLLY,] Folly is used here, as it is in the sacred writings, for depravity of mind. So also, in Othello:

"She turn'd to folly, and she was a whore." MALone. 2 In the REMORSELESS wrinkles of his face ;] Remorseless is pitiless. See vol. ix. p. 60, n. 7; and p. 391, n. 1. MALONE. 3 She PUTS THE PERIOD OFTEN FROM HIS PLACE,

And 'MIDST THE SENTENCE SO her ACCENT BREAKS,

That twice she doth begin,] So, in A Midsummer-Night's Dream:

"Make periods in the midst of sentences,

"Throttle their practis'd accent in their fears,

"And in conclusion dumbly have broke off," &c. STEEvens.

That to his borrow'd bed he make retire,
And stoop to honour, not to foul desire.

Quoth she, reward not hospitality

With such black payment as thou hast pretended";
Mud not the fountain that gave drink to thee;
Mar not the thing that cannot be amended;
End thy ill aim, before thy shoot be ended;
He is no wood-man that doth bend his bow
To strike a poor unseasonable doe.

4

5

reward not HOSPITALITY, &c.] So, in King Lear:
my hospitable favours

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"You should not ruffle thus."

STEEVENS.

pretended;] i. e. proposed to thyself. So, in Macbeth : Alas the day!

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"What good could they pretend?" STEEVENS.

6 End thy ill aim, before thy SHOOT be ended:] It is manifest, from the context, that the author intended the word shoot to be taken in a double sense; suit and shoot being in his time pronounced alike. So, in The London Prodigal, 1605:

"But there's the other black-browes, a shrood girl,
"She hath wit at will, and shuters two or three."

Again, in The Puritan, a Comedy, 1607:

"Enter the Sutors.

"Are not these archers?—what do you call them,—shooters,” &c.

Again, in Lilly's Euphues and his England, 1580: "There was a lady in Spaine, who after the death of her father had three suters, and yet never a good archer," &c. MALONE,

I adhere to the old reading, nor apprehend the least equivoque. A sentiment nearly parallel occurs in Macbeth:

66 the murd'rous shaft that's shot,

"Hath not yet lighted."

"He is no wood-man that doth bend his bow," very strongly supports my opinion. STEEVens.

There is no doubt that shoot was one of the ideas intended to be conveyed. It is, in my apprehension, equally clear, that the suit or solicitation of a lover was also in our author's thoughts. Shoot (the pronunciation of the two words being granted to be the same) suggests both ideas. The passage quoted from Macbeth, in the preceding note, does not, as I conceive, prove any thing. The word shot has there its usual signification, and no double meaning could have been intended. MALONE.