He chid Andromache, and struck his armourer; And, like as there were husbandry in war,1 Before the sun rose, he was harness'd light,2

here given, where his thought is so much better and nobler expressed. WARBURTON.

I think the present text may stand. Hector's patience was as a virtue, not variable and accidental, but fixed and constant. If I would alter it, it should be thus:

Hector, whose patience

Is all a virtue fix'd,

All, in old English, is the intensive or enforcing particle.

JOHNSON.

I had once almost persuaded myself that Shakspeare wrote, whose patience

Is, as a statue fix'd.

So, in The Winter's Tale, sc. ult:

"The statue is but newly fix'd."

The same idea occurs also in the celebrated passage in TwelfthNight:

66

sat like patience on a monument.”

The old adage-Patience is a virtue, was perhaps uppermost in the compositor's mind, and he therefore inadvertently substituted the one word for the other. A virtue fixed may, however, mean the stationary image of a virtue. STEEVENS.

:

1

- husbandry in war,] So, in Macbeth:

"There's husbandry in heaven.” STEEVENS. Husbandry means economical prudence. Troilus alludes to Hector's early rising. So, in King Henry V:

our bad neighbours make us early stirrers, "Which is both healthful and good husbandry."

MALONE.

* Before the sun rose, he was harness'd light,] Does the poet mean (says Mr. Theobald) that Hector had put on light ar? Mean! what else could he mean? He goes to fight on and was not that the armour for his purpose? So, Fairfax, in Tasso's Jerusalem:

mour

foot;

"The other princes put on harness light

"As footmen use.

Yet, as if this had been the highest absurdity, he goes on, Or does he mean that Hector was sprightly in his arms even before sunrise? or is a conundrum aimed at, in sun rose and harness'd light? Was any thing like it? But, to get out of this per

And to the field goes he; where every flower
Did, as a prophet, weep what it foresaw
In Hector's wrath.

plexity, he tells us, that a very slight alteration makes all these constructions unnecessary, and so changes it to harness-dight. Yet indeed the very slightest alteration will, at any time, let the poet's sense through the critick's fingers: and the Oxford editor very contentedly takes up what is left behind, and reads harness-dight too, in order, as Mr. Theobald well expresses it, to make all construction unnecessary. WARBURTON.

How does it appear that Hector was to fight on foot rather to-day than any other day? It is to be remembered, that the ancient heroes never fought on horseback; nor does their manner of fighting in chariots seem to require less activity than on foot. JOHNSON.

It is true that the heroes of Homer never fought on horseback; yet such of them as make a second appearance in the Eneid, like their antagonists the Rutulians, had cavalry among their troops. Little can be inferred from the manner in which Ascanius and the young nobility of Troy are introduced at the conclusion of the funereal games; as Virgil very probably, at the expence of an anachronism, meant to pay a compliment to the military exercises instituted by Julius Cæsar, and improved by Augustus. It appears from different passages in this play, that Hector fights on horseback; and it should be remembered that Shakspeare was indebted for most of his materials to a book which enumerates Esdras and Pythagoras among the bastard children of King Priamus. Our author, however, might have been led into his mistake by the manner in which Chapman has translated several parts of the Iliad, where the heroes mount their chariots or descend from them. Thus, Book VI. speaking of Glaucus and Diomed:

66 -from horse then both descend."

STEEVENS.

If Dr. Warburton had looked into The Destruction of Troy, already quoted, he would have found, in every page, that the leaders on each side were alternately tumbled from their horses by the prowess of their adversaries. MALONE.

- where every flower

Did, as a prophet, weep-] So, in A Midsummer-Night's Dream, Vol. IV. p. 406:

"And when she weeps, weeps every little flower,
"Lamenting" &c. STEEVENS.

CRES.

What was his cause of anger?

ALEX. The noise goes, this: There is among the

Greeks

A lord of Trojan blood, nephew to Hector;
They call him, Ajax.

CRES.

Good; And what of him?

ALEX. They say he is a very man per se, And stands alone.

CRES. So do all men; unless they are drunk, sick, or have no legs.

ALEX. This man, lady, hath robbed many beasts of their particular additions; he is as valiant as the lion, churlish as the bear, slow as the elephant: a man into whom nature hath so crouded humours, that his valour is crushed into folly, his folly sauced with discretion: there is no man hath a

-per se,] So, in Chaucer's Testament of Cresseide: "Of faire Cresseide the floure and a per se

"Of Troie and Greece."

Again, in the old comedy of Wily Beguiled: " In faith, my sweet honeycomb, I'll love thee a per se a."

Again, in Blurt Master Constable, 1602:

"That is the a per se of all, the creame of all."

STEEVENS.

- their particular additions;] Their peculiar and characteristick qualities or denominations. The term in this sense is originally forensick. MALONE.

So, in Macbeth:

"whereby he doth receive

"Particular addition, from the bill

"That writes them all alike." STEEVENS.

that his valour is crushed into folly,] To be crushed into folly, is to be confused and mingled with folly, so as that they make one mass together. JOHNSON.

So, in Cymbeline:

"Crush him together, rather than unfold
"His measure duly." STEEVENS.

virtue that he hath not a glimpse of; nor any man an attaint, but he carries some stain of it: he is melancholy without cause, and merry against the hair: He hath the joints of every thing; but every thing so out of joint, that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and no use; or purblind Argus, all eyes and no sight.

CRES. But how should this man, that makes me smile, make Hector angry?

ALEX. They say, he yesterday coped Hector in the battle, and struck him down; the disdain and shame whereof hath ever since kept Hector fasting and waking.

Enter PANDarus.

CRES. Who comes here?

ALEX. Madam, your uncle Pandarus.
CRES. Hector's a gallant man.

ALEX. As may be in the world, lady.
PAN. What's that? what's that?

CRES. Good morrow, uncle Pandarus.

PAN. Good morrow, cousin Cressid: What do you talk of?-Good morrow, Alexander.-How do you, cousin? When were you at Ilium?9

"—against the hair :] Is a phrase equivalent to another now in use against the grain. The French say-à contrepoil. See Vol. XI. p. 374, n. 7. STEEVENS.

See Vol. V. p. 103, n. 3. MALONE.

• Good morrow, cousin Cressid: What do you talk of ?-Good morrow, Alexander.-How do you, cousin?] Good morrow, Alexander, is added, in all the editions, (says Mr. Pope,) very absurdly, Paris not being on the stage. Wonderful acuteness!

CRES. This morning, uncle.

PAN. What were you talking of, when I came? Was Hector armed, and gone, ere ye came to Ilium? Helen was not up, was she?

CRES. Hector was gone; but Helen was not up.
PAN. E'en so; Hector was stirring early.
CRES. That were we talking of, and of his anger.
PAN. Was he angry?

CRES. So he says here.

PAN. True, he was so; I know the cause too; he'll lay about him to-day, I can tell them that: and there is Troilus will not come far behind him; let them take heed of Troilus; I can tell them that too.

But, with submission, this gentleman's note is much more absurd; for it falls out very unluckily for his remark, that though Paris is, for the generality, in Homer called Alexander; yet, in this play, by any one of the characters introduced, he is called nothing but Paris. The truth of the fact is this: Pandarus is of a busy, impertinent, insinuating character; and it is natural for him, so soon as he has given his cousin the good-morrow, to pay his civilities too to her attendant. This is purely év, as the grammarians call it; and gives us an admirable touch of Pandarus's character. And why might not Alexander be the name of Cressida's man? Paris had no patent, I suppose, for engrossing it to himself. But the late editor, perhaps, because we have had Alexander the Great, Pope Alexander, and Alexander Pope, would not have so eminent a name prostituted to a common varlet. THEOBALD.

This note is not preserved on account of any intelligence it brings, but as a curious specimen of Mr. Theobald's mode of animadversion on the remarks of Mr. Pope. STEEvens.

9

at Ilium?] Ilium, or Ilion, (for it is spelt both ways,) was, according to Lydgate, and the author of The Destruction of Troy, the name of Priam's palace, which is said by these writers to have been built upon a high rock. See a note in Act IV. sc. v. on the words " Yon towers," &c.

MALONE.