[_S. Ant._ Where France?
_S. Dro._ In her forehead; arm'd and reverted,
making war against her hair]
[T, from the first Folio: heir] With this correction and explication
Dr. Warburton concurs, and sir T. Hammer thinks an equivocation
intended, though he retains _hair_ in the text. Yet surely
they have all lost the sense by looking beyond it. Our authour,
in my opinion, only sports with an allusion, in which he takes
too much delight, and means that his mistress had the French
disease. The ideas are rather too offensive to be dilated. By
a forehead _armed_, he means covered with incrusted eruptions: by
reverted, he means having the hair turning backwards. An equivocal
word must have senses applicable to both the subjects to
which it is applied. Both _forehead_ and _France_ might in some sort
make war against their _hair_, but how did the _forehead_ make war
against its _heir_? The sense which I have given immediately occurred
to me, and will, I believe, arise to every reader who is
contented with the meaning that lies before him, without sending
out conjecture in search of refinements.
IV.ii.19 (192,9) [sere] that is, _dry_, withered.
IV.ii.22 (192,1) [Stigmatical in making] This is, _marked_ or _stigmatized_
by nature with deformity, as a token of his vicious disposition.
IV.ii.35 (193,3) [A fiend, a fairy, pitiless and rough] [T: A fiend,
a fury] There were fairies like _hobgoblins_, pitiless and rough,
and described as malevolent and mischievous, (see 1765, III,143,3)
IV.ii.39 (193,5) [A hound that runs counter, and yet draws dry-foot
well] To _run counter_ is to _run backward_, by mistaking the course
of the animal pursued; to _draw dry-foot_ is, I believe, to pursue
by the _track_ or _prick of the foot_; to _run counter_ and _draw dry-foot
well are_, therefore, inconsistent. The jest consists in
the ambiguity of the word _counter_, which means the _wrong way in_*
_the chase._ and a _prison_ in London. The officer that arrested him was
a serjeant of the counter. For the congruity of this jest with the scene of
action, let our authour answer.
IV.iii.13 (196,9) [what, have you got the picture of old Adam new
apparel'd] [T: got rid of the picture] The explanation is very
good, but the text does not require to be amended.
IV.iii.27 (`is rest to do more exploits with his mace than a morris
pike] [W: a Maurice-pike] This conjecture is very ingenious, yet the
commentator talks unnecessarily of the _rest of a musket._ by which
he makes the hero of the speech set up the _rest_ of a _musket,_ to
do exploits with a _pike._ The rest of a _pike_ was a common term,
and signified, I believe, the manner in which it was fixed to
receive the rush of the enemy. A _morris-pike_ was a pike used in a
morris or a military dance, and with which great _exploits_ were
_done,_ that is, great feats of dexterity were shewn. There is no
need of change.
IV.iv.78 (202,3) [kitchen-vestal] Her charge being like that of the
vestal virgins, to keep the fire burning.
V.1.137 (210,6) [important letters]_Important_ seems to be for
_importunate._ (1773)
V.i.298 (216,2) [time's deformed hand Have written strange defeatures
in my face] _Defeature_ is the privative of _feature._ The meaning is,
time hath cancelled my features.
V.i.406 (220,7) [After so long grief such nativity!] We should surely
read.
_After so long grief, such_ festivity.
_Nativity_ lying so near, and the termination being the same of both words,
the mistake was easy.