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8

Sans check, to good and bad: But, when the planets,
In evil mixture, to diforder wander,
What plagues, and what portents? what mutiny?
What raging of the fea? shaking of earth?
Commotion in the winds? frights, changes, horrors,
Divert and crack, rend and deracinate

8

But, when the planets,

In evil mixture, to disorder wander, &c.] I believe the poet, according to aftrological opinions, means, when the planets form malignant configurations, when their aspects are evil towards one another. This he terms evil mixture. JOHNSON.

The poet's meaning may be fomewhat explained by Spenser, to whom he seems to be indebted for his present allufion : "For who so liste into the heavens looke, "And search the courses of the rowling spheres, "Shall find that from the point where they first tooke "Their fetting forth, in these few thousand yeares

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They all are wandred much; that plaine appeares.

"For that fame golden fleecy ram, which bore
"Phrixus and Helle from their stepdames feares,
"Hath now forgot where he was plast of yore,
And shouldred hath the bull which fayre Europa bore.
"And eke the bull hath with his bow-bent horne
"So hardly butted those two twins of Jove,

"That they have crush'd the crab, and quite him borne
"Into the great Nemæan lion's grove.

"So now all range, and do at random rove
"Out of their proper places far away,
"And all this world with them amisse doe move,
"And all his creatures from their course astray,

"Till they arrive at their last ruinous decay."

Faery Queen, Book V. ch. i.
STEEVENS.

The apparent irregular motions of the planets were supposed to portend some difaiters to mankind; indeed the planets themfelves were not thought formerly to be confined in any fixed orbits of their own, but to wander about ad libitum, as the etymology of their names demonstrates. ANONYMOUS.

9 deracinate ] i. e. force up by the roots. So again, in King Henry V:

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- the coulter rufts

"That should deracinate such savag'ry." STEEVENS.

!

The unity and married calm of states *
Quite from their fixure? O, when degree is shak'd,
Which is the ladder of all high defigns,
The enterprize is fick! How could communities,
Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities,
Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,
The primogenitive and due of birth,
Prerogative of age, crowns, scepters, laurels,
But by degree, stand in authentick place?
Take but degree away, untune that string,

married calm of states - The epithet-married, which is used to denote an intimate union, is employed in the same sense by Milton:

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Lydian airs

"Married to immortal verse."

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"Wed your divine sounds."

Again, in Sylvester's translation of Du Bartas's Eden:

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-shady groves of noble palm-tree sprays, "Of amorous myrtles and immortal bays; "Never unleav'd, but evermore they're new, Self-arching, in a thousand arbours grew. "Birds marrying their sweet tunes to the angels' lays, Sung Adam's bliss, and their great Maker's praife." The subject of Milton's larger poem would naturally have led him to read this description in Sylvefter. The quotation from him I owe to Dr. Farmer.

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Shakspeare calls a harmony of features, married lineaments, in Romeo and Juliet, Act I. sc. iii. See note on this passage.

3

-0, when degree is shak'd,] I would read:
-So when degree is shak'd. JOHNSON.

4 The enterprize - Perhaps we should read:
Then enterprize is fick! - JOHNSON.

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6

STEEVENS.

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dividable hores,] i. e. divided. So, in Antony and Cleopatra our author uses corrigible for corrected. Mr. M. Mafon has the fame observation. STEEVENS.

1

And, hark, what discord follows! each thing meets
In mere oppugnancy: The bounded waters
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores,
And make a fop of all this folid globe:
Strength should be lord of imbecility,
And the rude son should strike his father dead:
Force should be right; or, rather, right and wrong,
(Between whose endless jar justice refides,)
Should lose their names, and so should justice too.
Then every thing includes itself in power,
Power into will, will into appetite;
And appetite, an univerfal wolf,
So doubly seconded with will and power,
Must make perforce an universal prey,
And, last, eat up himself. Great Agamemnon,
This chaos, when degree is fuffocate,

Follows the choking.

2

And this neglection of degree it is,
That by a pace goes backward, with a purpose
It hath to climb. The general's disdain'd
By him one step below; he, by the next;
That next, by him beneath: so every step,
Exampled by the first pace that is fick
Of his fuperior, grows to an envious fever

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mere oppugnancy:) Mere is absolute. So, in Hamlet: things rank and gross in nature

"Possess it merely." STEEVENS.

- this neglection-] This uncommon word occurs again in

Pericles, 1609:

"If neglection

"Should therein make me vile, ." MALONE.

9 That by a pace-] That goes backward ftep by step.

2

with a purpose

JOHNSON.

It hath to climb. With a design in each man to aggrandize

himself, by flighting his immediate superior. JOHNSON.

Thus the quarto. Folio:-in a purpose. MALONE.

Of pale and bloodless emulation: 9
And 'tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot,
Not her own finews. To end a tale of length,
Troy in our weakness stands, not in her strength.

NEST. Most wisely hath Ulysses here discover'd The fever whereof all our power is fick.

AGAM. The nature of the sickness found, Ulysses, What is the remedy?

ULYss. The great Achilles, whom opinion

crowns

The finew and the forehand of our hoft,-
Having his ear full of his airy fame,

Grows dainty of his worth, and in his tent
Lies mocking our designs: With him, Patroclus,
Upon a lazy bed, the livelong day

Breaks fcurril jests;

And with ridiculous and aukward action
(Which, flanderer, he imitation calls,)
He pageants us. Sometime, great Agamemnon,
Thy toplefs deputation + he puts on;
And, like a strutting player,-whose conceit
Lies in his hamstring, and doth think it rich
To hear the wooden dialogue and found

9-bloodless emulation: An emulation not vigorous and active, but malignant and fluggish. JOHNSON.

2

our power-] i. e. our army. So, in another of our

author's plays:

3

Who leads his power?" STEEVENS.

his airy fame,] Verbal elogium; what our author in Macbeth has called mouth honour. See p. 249, note. MALONE. 4 Thy topless deputation - Topless is that which has nothing topping or overtopping it; fupreme; sovereign. JOHNSON. So, in Doctor Fauftus, 1604:

"Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships,
"And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?"

Again, in The Blind Beggar of Alexandria, 1598:

" And topless honours be bestow'd on thee," STEEVENS,

'Twixt his stretch'd footing and the scaffoldage,Such to-be-pitied and o'er-wrested seeming He acts thy greatness in: and when he speaks, 'Tis like a chime a mending; with terms un

squar'd,

Which, from the tongue of roaring Typhon dropp'd,
Would feem hyperboles. At this fusty stuff,
The large Achilles, on his press'd bed lolling,
From his deep chest laughs out a loud applaufe;
Cries-Excellent!-'tis Agamemnon juft.-
Now play me Nestor ;-hem, and stroke thy beard,
As be, being 'dreft to fome oration.
That's done;-as near as the extremest ends
Of parallels; as like.as Vulcan and his wife:
Yet good Achilles still cries, Excellent!
'Tis Neftor right! Now play him me, Patroclus,

5 'Twixt his ftretch'd footing and the scaffoldage,) The galleries of the theatre, in the time of our author, were fometimes termed the scaffolds. See The Account of the ancient Theatres, Vol. II.

MALONE.

6-o'er-wrested seeming-] i. e. wrested beyond the truth; overcharged. Both the old copies, as well as all the modern editions, haves'er-rested, which affords no meaning.

MALONE.

Over-wrested is wound up too high. A wrest was an instrument for tuning a harp, by drawing up the strings. See Mr. Douce's note on Act III. fc. ini. STEEVENS.

7

- a chime a mending;) To this comparison the praife of originality must be allowed. He who, like myself, has been in the tower of a church while the chimes were repairing, will never wish a second time to be present at so dissonantly noify an operation. STEEVENS.

8-unsquar'd,] i. e. unadapted to their subject, as stones are unfitted to the purposes of architecture, while they are yet unSquared. STEEVENS.

9 as near as the extremest ends

Of parallels;] The parallels to which the allusion seems to

be made, are the parallels on a map. As like as east to west.

JOHNSON.

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