Their rotten privilege and cuftom 'gainst
My hate to Marcius: where I find him, were it
At home, upon my brother's guard,5 even there
Against the hofpitable canon, would I

Wash my fierce hand in his heart. Go you to the

city;

Learn, how 'tis held; and what they are, that must Be hoftages for Rome.

1 SOL.

Will not you go ?

AUF. I am attended at the cypress grove : I pray you,

(Tis fouth the city mills,") bring me word thither

copy, is fpelt embarquements, and, as Cotgrave fays, meant not only an embarkation, but an embargoing. The rotten privilege and custom that follow, feem to favour this explanation, and therefore the old reading may well enough stand, as an embargo is undoubtedly an impediment. STEEVENS.

In Sherwood's English and French Dictionary at the end of Cotgrave's, we find

"To imbark, to imbargue. Embarquer.

"An imbarking, an imbarguing. Embarquement." Cole, in his Latin Dictionary, 1679, has " to imbargue, or lay an imbargo upon." There can be no doubt therefore that the old copy is right. If we derive the word from the Spanish, embargar, perhaps we ought to write embargement; but Shak fpeare's word certainly came to us from the French, and therefore is more properly written embarquements, or embarkments. MALONE.

5 At home, upon my brother's guard,] In my own house, my brother pofted to protect him. JOHNSON.

with

So, in Othello:

and on the court of guard,-." STEEVENS. ·attended-] i. e. waited for. So, in Twelfth-Night:

66 -thy intercepter-attends thee at the orchard end."

STEEVENS.

7 ('Tis fouth the city mills,)] But where could Shakspeare have heard of these mills at Antium? I believe we ought to read :

('Tis fouth the city a mile.)

The old edition reads mils. TYRWHITT.

How the world goes; that to the pace of it
I may fpur on my journey.

1 SOL.

I fhall, fir.

[Exeunt.

Shakspeare is feldom careful about fuch little improprieties. Coriolanus fpeaks of our divines, and Menenius of graves in the holy churchyard. It is faid afterwards, that Coriolanus talks like a knell; and drums, and Hob, and Dick, are with as little attention to time or place, introduced in this tragedy.

STEEVENS. Shakspeare frequently introduces those minute local descriptions, probably to give an air of truth to his pieces. So, in Romeo and -Juliet:

Again:

66

underneath the grove of Sycamore,
"That weftward rooteth from the city's fide."

"It was the nightingale and not the lark

Nightly the fings on yon pomegranate tree." Mr. Tyrwhitt's queftion, "where could Shakspeare have heard of these mills at Antium?" may be answered_by_another queftion: Where could Lydgate hear of the mills near Troy? "And as I ride upon this flode,

"On eche fyde many a mylle ftode,

"When nede was their graine and corne to grinde," &c. Auncyent Hiftorie, &c. 1555. MALONE.

ACT II. SCENE I.

Rome. A publick Place.

Enter MENENIUS, SICINIUS, and BRUTUS.

MEN. The augurer tells me, we shall have news to-night.

BRU. Good, or bad?

MEN. Not according to the prayer of the people, for they love not Marcius.

Sic. Nature teaches beafts to know their friends.
MEN. Pray you, who does the wolf love ?8
SIC. The lamb.

MEN. Ay, to devour him; as the hungry plebeians would the noble Marcius.

BRU. He's a lamb indeed, that baes like a bear. MEN. He's a bear, indeed, that lives like a lamb. You two are old men; tell me one thing that I fhall afk you.

BOTH TRIB. Well, fir.

MEN. In what enormity is Marcius poor, that you two have not in abundance ?

8 Pray you, &c.] When the tribune, in reply to Menenius's remark, on the people's hate of Coriolanus, had obferved that even beafts know their friends, Menenius afks, whom does the wolf love? implying that there are beafts which love nobody, and that among those beasts are the people. JOHNSON.

in.]`

9 In what enormity is Marcius poor,] [Old copy-poor in. Here we have another of our author's peculiar modes of phrafeology; which, however, the modern editors have not fuffered

all.

BRU. He's poor in no one fault, but ftored with

SIC. Efpecially, in pride.

BRU. And topping all others in boafting.

MEN. This is strange now: Do you two know how you are cenfured here in the city, I mean of us o' the right-hand file? Do you?

BOTH TRIB. Why, how are we cenfured?

MEN. Because you talk of pride now,-Will you

not be angry?

BOTH TRIB. Well, well, fir, well.

little

pa

MEN. Why, 'tis no great matter; for a very thief of occafion will rob you of a great deal of tience: give your difpofition the reins, and be angry at your pleasures; at the leaft, if you take it as a pleafure to you, in being fo. You blame Marcius for being proud?

BRU. We do it not alone, fir.

MEN. I know, you can do very little alone; for your helps are many; or elfe your actions would grow wondrous fingle: your abilities are too infantlike, for doing much alone. You talk of pride : O, that you could turn your eyes towards the napes

him to retain; having difmiffed the redundant in at the end of this part of the fentence. MALONE.

I shall continue to dismiss it, till fuch peculiarities can, by authority, be discriminated from the corruptions of the stage, the transcriber, or the printer.

It is fcarce credible, that, in the expreffion of a common idea, in profe, our modest Shakspeare should have advanced a phraseology of his own, in equal defiance of customary language, and established grammar.

As, on the prefent occafion, the word-in might have stood with propriety at either end of the question, it has been casually, or ignorantly, inserted at both. STEEVENS.

of

1 your necks, and make but an interior furvey of your good felves! O, that you could!

BRU. What then, fir?

MEN. Why, then you fhould difcover a brace of unmeriting, proud, violent, tefly magiftrates, (alias, fools,) as any in Rome.

Sic. Menenius, you are known well enough too. MEN. I am known to be a humorous patrician, and one that loves a cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying Tyber in't;3 faid to be fomething imperfect, in favouring the firft complaint: hafty, and tinder-like, upon too trivial motion: one that converfes more with the buttock of the night,+ than

I

towards the napes of your necks,] With allufion to the fable, which fays, that every man has a bag hanging before him, in which he puts his neighbour's faults, and another behind him, in which he ftows his own. JOHNSON.

2a trace of unmeriting,-magiftrates,-as any in Rome.] This was the phrafeology of Shakspeare's age, of which I have met with many inftances in the books of that time. Mr. Pope, as ufual, reduced the paffage to the modern standard, by reading -a brace of as unmeriting, &c. as any in Rome: and all the fubfequent editors have adopted his emendation. MALONE.

3 with not a drop of allaying Tyber in't ;] Lovelace, in his Verfes to Althea from Prifon, has borrowed this expreffion : "When flowing cups run fwiftly round "With no allaying Thames," &c.

See Dr. Percy's Reliques &c. Vol. II. p. 324, 3d edit.

4

STEEVENS.

one that converfes more &c.] Rather a late lier down than an early rifer. JOHNSON.

So, in Love's Labour's Loft: "It is the king's most sweet pleasure and affection, to congratulate the princefs at her pavilion, in the pofteriors of this day; which the rude multitude call, the afternoon." Again, in King Henry IV. P. II :

Thou art a fummer bird,

"Which ever in the haunch of winter fings
"The lifting up of day." MALONE.