whether pride,
Which out of daily fortune ever taints
The happy man; whether]
Ausidius assigns three probable reasons of the miscarriage of
Coriolanus; pride, which easily follows an uninterrupted train of
success; unskilfulness to regulate the consequences of his own
victories; a stubborn uniformity of nature, which could not make the
proper transition from the _casque_ or _helmet_ to the _cushion_ or
_chair of civil authority_; but acted with the same despotism in peace
as in war.
IV.vii.48 (418,2) he has a merit,/To choak it in the utterance] He has a
merit, for no other purpose than to destroy it by boasting it.
IV.vii.55 (418,4) Right's by right fouler] [W: fouled] I believe
_rights_, like _strengths_, is a plural noon. I read,
_Rights by rights_ founder, _strengths by strengths do fail_.
That is, by the exertion of one right another right is lamed.
V.i.20 (420,2) It was a bare petition] [_Bare_, for mean, beggarly.
WARBURTON.] I believe rather, a petition unsupported, unaided by names
that might give it influence.
V.i.63 (422,4) I tell you, he does sit in gold] He is inthroned in all
the pomp and pride of imperial splendour.
[Greek: Chruzothronos Aerae]--Hom.
V.i.69 (422,5) Bound with an oath to yield to his conditions] This if
apparently wrong. Sir T. Hanmer, and Dr. Warburton after him, read,
_Bound with an oath_ not to _yield to_ new _conditions_.
They might have read more smoothly,
--_to yield no new conditions_.
But the whole speech is in confusion, and I suspect something left out.
I should read,
--_What he would do,
He sent in writing after; what he would not,
Bound with an oath. To yield to his conditions_.
Here is, I think, a chasm. The speaker's purpose seems to be this: _To
yield to his conditions_ is ruin, and better cannot be obtained, _so
that all hope is vain_.
V.ii.10 (424,7) it is lots to blanks] A _lot_ here is a _prize_.