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Lascivious metres, &c.

Reports of fashions in proud Italy," &c.

Hence in As You Like It, ii. 7,—

"And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant," &c.

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I have no doubt that Shakespeare wrote, As, first," &c. (So in Browne, Britannia's Pastorals, Book ii. Song v. Clarke, p. 295, line 7,

't is sentenc'd so by those,

That here on earth at destinies dispose
The lives and deaths of men," &c.;

read as.)

It occurs also where only one particular is in question. As You Like It, v. 4, "—but when one of the parties were met themselves, one of them thought but of an If, as, ‘If you said so, then I said so and they shook hands," &c.

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XVIII.

Inversion of the Indefinite Article.

Tempest, iv. 1,—

i.e., "

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so rare-wonder'd a father." So King John, iv. 2,— "Makes sound opinion sick, and truth suspected, For putting on so new a fashion'd robe."

The

looks to me like a sophistication for the sake of the sense. variation, however, does not interfere with Walker's interpretation of the word as.— -Ed.

VOL. I.

9

Comedy of Errors, iii. 2, near the end,

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there's no man is so vain

That would refuse so fair an offer'd chain;

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i.e., "so fair- [fairly-] offer'd a chain." (Compare Milton's Masque, 1. 322, "thy honest-offer'd courtesy.") Love's Labour's Lost, i. 1,—

"Or, having sworn too hard-a-keeping oath,
Study to break it," &c.

Beaumont and Fletcher, Island Princess, iv. 3,

"So brave a mingled temper saw I never;

i.e., "a temper so well mixed, so happily balanced."

Sir F. Kinaston on Chaucer's Troilus and Cresside, printed 1796, p. 8,—“ It cannot be imagined that Chaucer, who was so great a learned scholler, should be ignorant of the story,”—“ a scholar so great-learned;" (compare Sidney, Defence of Poesy, p. 493, l. 39,-" I shall not do it without the testimonie of great learned [great-learned] men, both ancient and moderne;" p. 517, line 15, "diverse smalllerned courtiers ; Chapman, Lines to the Reader, prefixed to his Iliad, 4th page, old folio, "those great

learn'd men

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that were his [Homer's] commentars; " and Selden as quoted in Gifford's Jonson, vol. i. p. civ., " a common-learned reader.") Chaucer, Frankeleines Tale, 1. 11825,

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Considering the best on every side,

That fro his lust yet were him lever abide,

Than do so high a churlish wretchednesse
Ageins fraunchise, and alle gentillesse."

Chapman, Odyss. xii. note,-" But thus they botch, &c.— imagining so huge a great body must needs have a voice as huge."

XIX.

Certain Preterites used as Participles.

Antony and Cleopatra, ii. 2,

that the present need

Speaks to atone you.

Lep.

Worthily spoken, Mecenas."

Spoke; and so it is printed in Johnson and Steevens's

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Cas. Not till he hears how Antony is touch'd
With what is spoke already."

Venus and Adonis, St. clviii.,

"Hadst thou but bid beware, then he had spoke." And so I think we should read, Winter's Tale, v. 1,— “You might have spoke a thousand things that would Have done the time more benefit."

And so write, Fletcher, Valentinian, i. 3, Moxon, vol. i. p. 442, col. 1,

"I have spoken too much, sir.

Val.

Aecius.

I'll have all.

It fits not

Your ears should hear their vanities."

The parliamentary spoke is perhaps a relic of antiquity. So chose, took, &c., in the Elizabethan poets, and indeed much later. Gave seems to be used thus, Sonnet clii.,

"For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness,
Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy;
And to enlighten thee, gave eyes to blindness,
To make them swear against the thing they see;
For I have sworn thee fair," &c.

In Chapman, Il. iii. Taylor, vol. i. p. 92, 1. 8,—

"And now my lance hath miss'd his end; my sword in

shivers flew ;

And he scapes all;"

flew seems to be the participle.

XX.

Occasional licenses of rhyme in Shakespeare and his contemporaries, more especially as regards the interchange Venus and Adonis, St. xcv.,

of m and n.

"What wax so frozen but dissolves with temp'ring,
And yields at last to ev'ry light impression?
Things out of hope are compass'd oft with vent'ring,
Chiefly in love, whose leave exceeds commission."

Sonnet cxx.,—

"O that our night of woe might have remember'd
My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits;
And soon to you, as you to me then, tender'd
The humble salve which wounded bosoms fits!"

Tarquin and Lucrece, St. cxciv.,—

"The more she saw the blood his cheeks replenish,
The more she thought he spied in her some blemish."

Venus and Adonis, St. viii., broken-open; lxxvi., open'dbetoken'd; Sonnet lxi., open-broken. Timon of Athens, iv. 3,

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For this one wish, That you had power and wealth
To requite me, by making rich yourself."

(As Sir Henry Moody on Fletcher, Moxon's B. and F.

vol. i. p. lvii.,

"Though thou diedst not possess'd of that same pelf,
That nobler souls call dirt, the city, wealth," &c.)

Troilus and Cressida, iii. 3,

"Great Hector's sister did Achilles win;

But our great Ajax bravely beat down him."

Cymbeline, v. 4,

"Like hardiment Posthumus hath

To Cymbeline perform'd:
Then, Jupiter, thon king of gods,
Why hast thou thus adjourn'd
The graces for his merits due,

Being all to dolours turn'd."

Other writers. Surrey, ed. 1831, p. 10, demean-stream, some undone; p. 27, mine—time, soon-doom; pp. 28-9, come-son; p. 41, myself—stealth; p. 48, rewarded--deserved (pron. desarved); p. 59, bemoan—swoln; p. 66, time -define.

Spenser, F. Q.,B. v. C. v. St.xix., thondred-sondred-encombred-numbred; ii. ix. i., alternate rhymes, adorne—forme. Hymne in Honour of Beautie, St. xxvi. vv. 6, 7, reflexion -impression. Spenser, however, is, I think, very sparing in licenses of this particular kind. Beaumont and Fletcher, Wit at Several Weapons, iv. 1, ad fin., rhyme, I think,—

"These should be sure signs of her affection's truth;
Yet I'll go forward with ny surer proof."

Ford, Fame's Memorial, Gifford, vol. ii. p. 588,-
"Sincerest justice is not to discern,

But to defend, aid, further, and confirm."

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