Made friends of them, jointing their force 'gainst

Cæfar;

Whofe better iffue in the war, from Italy,

Upon the first encounter, drave them.9

ANT. What worst?

Well,

MESS. The nature of bad news infects the teller. ANT. When it concerns the fool, or coward.-On: Things, that are past, are done, with me.-'Tis thus ; Who tells me true, though in his tale lie death, I hear him as he flatter'd.

Labienus

MESS. (This is stiff news') hath, with his Parthian force, Extended Afia from Euphrates;

2

9 drave them.] Drave is the ancient preterite of the verb, to drive, and frequently occurs in the Bible. Thus, in Joshua, xxiv. 12: "-and drave them out from before you." Again, in Chapman's verfion of the 24th Iliad:

I

66

to chariot he arofe,

"Drave forth,-." STEEVENS.

(This is ftiff news)] So, in The Rape of Lucrece:
Fearing fome hard news from the warlike band."

66

MALONE.

2 Extended Afia from Euphrates;] i. e. widened or extended the bounds of the Leffer Afia. WARBURTON.

To extend, is a term used for to feixe; I know not whether this be not the fenfe here. JOHNSON.

I believe Dr. Johnfon's explanation is right. So, in Selimus, Emperor of the Turks, 1594:

Ay, though on all the world we make extent, "From the fouth pole unto the northern bear."

Again, in Twelfth-Night:

this uncivil and unjust extent

"Againft thy peace."

Again, in Maflinger's New Way to pay old Debts, the Extortioner fays:

"This manor is extended to my ufe."

Mr. Tollet has likewife no doubt but that Dr. Johnfon's ex

His conquering banner fhook, from Syria
To Lydia, and to Ionia;

Whilft

ANT. Antony, thou would'ft fay,—
MESS.

O, my

lord!

ANT. Speak to me home, mince not the general tongue;

Name Cleopatra as fhe's call'd in Rome :
Rail thou in Fulvia's phrafe; and taunt my faults
With fuch full licence, as both truth and malice
Have power to utter. O, then we bring forth weeds,
When our quick winds lie ftill; and our ills told us,
Is as our earing. Fare thee well a while.

planation is juft; "for (fays he) Plutarch informs us that Labienus was by the Parthian king made general of his troops, and had over-run Afia from Euphrates and Syria to Lydia and Ionia.” To extend is a law term ufed for to feize lands and tenements. In fupport of his affertion he adds the following inftance: "Those wafteful companions had neither lands to extend nor goods to be feized." Savile's tranflation of Tacitus, dedicated to Queen Elizabeth. And then obferves, that " Shakspeare knew the legal fignification of the term, as appears from a pasfage in As you like it :

"And let my officers of fuch a nature

"Make an extent upon his house and lands."

See Vol. VIII. p. 82, n. 6.

Our ancient English writers almoft always give us Euphrates inftead of Euphrates.

Thus, in Drayton's Polyolbion, Song 21:

"That gliding go in ftate, like fwelling Euphrates.”

See note on Cymbeline, A& III. fc. iii. STEEVENS.

3 When our quick winds lie fiill;] The fenfe is, that man, not agitated by cenfure, like foil not ventilated by quick winds, produces more evil than good. JOHNSON.

An idea, fomewhat fimilar, occurs alfo in The First Part of King Henry IV: "the cankers of a calm world and a long peace." Again, in The Puritan: "-hatched and nourished in the idle calms of peace,"

MESS. At your noble pleasure.

[Exit.

Again, and yet more appofitely, in King Henry VI. P. III: "For what doth cherish weeds, but gentle air?"

Dr. Warburton has proposed to read-minds. It is at least a conjecture that deferves to be mentioned.

Dr. Johnson, however, might, in fome degree, have countenanced his explanation by a fingular epithet, that occurs twice in the Iliad-aveμorpeès; literally, wind-nourished. In the first instance, L. XI. 256, it is applied to the tree of which a fpear had been made; in the fecond, L. XV. 625, to a wave, impelled upon a fhip. STEEVENS.

I fufpect that quick winds is, or is a corruption of, fome provincial word, fignifying either arable lands, or the infiruments of husbandry used in tilling them. Earing fignifies plowing both here and in page 48. So, in Genefis, c. xlv: "Yet there are five years, in the which there fhall neither be earing nor harveft.' BLACKSTONE.

This conjecture is well founded. The ridges left in lands. turned up by the plough, that they may fweeten during their fallow ftate, are ftill called wind-rows. Quick winds, I fuppofe to be the fame as teeming fallows; for fuch fallows are always fruitful in weeds.

Wind-row's likewife fignify heaps of manure, confifting of dung or lime mixed up with virgin earth, and diftributed in long rows under hedges. If thefe wind-rows are fuffered to lie ftill, in two fenfes, the farmer muft fare the worse for his want of activity. First, if this compoft be not frequently turned over, it will bring forth weeds fpontaneously; fecondly, if it be fuffered to continue where it is made, the fields receive no benefit from it, being fit only in their turn to produce a crop of useless and obnoxious herbage. STEEVENS..

Mr. Steevens's defcription of wind-row's will gain him, I fear, but little reputation with the husbandman; nor, were it more accurate, does it appear to be in point, unless it can be fhown that quick winds and wind-rows are fynonymous; and, further, that his interpretation will fuit with the context. Dr. Johnfon hath confidered the position as a general one, which indeed it is; but being made by Antony, and applied to himself, he, figuratively, is the idle foil; the MALICE that speaks home, the quick, or cutting winds, whofe frofty blafts deftroy the profufion of weeds; whilft our ILLS (that is the TRUTH faithfully) told us; a reprefentation of our vices in their naked odioufnefs-is as our

ANT. From Sicyon how the news? Speak there.

EARING; ferves to plough up the neglected foil, and enable it to produce a profitable crop.

When the quick winds lie ftill, that is, in a mild winter, thofe weeds which "the tyrannous breathings of the north" would have cut off, will continue to grow and feed, to the no small detriment of the crop to follow. HENLEY.

Whether my definition of winds or wind-rows be exact or erroneous, in justice to myself I must inform Mr. Henley, that I received it from an Effex farmer; obferving, at the fame time, that in different counties the fame terms are differently applied. STEEVENS.

The words lie ftill are oppofed to earing; quick means pregnant; and the fenfe of the paffage is: "When our pregnant minds lie idle and untilled, they bring forth weeds; but the telling us of our faults is a kind of culture to them." The pronoun our before quick, fhows that the fubftantive to which it refers must be something belonging to us, not merely an external object, as the wind is. To talk of quick winds lying fill, is little better than nonfenfe. M. MASON.

The words-lie ftill, appear to have been technically used by those who borrow their metaphors from hufbandry. Thus Afcham, in his Toxophilus, edit. 1589, p. 32: "—as a grounde which is apt for corne, &c. if a man let it lye ftill, &c. if it be wheate it will turne into rye." STEEVENS.

Dr. Johnson thus explains the old reading:

"The fenfe is, that man, not agitated by cenfure, like foil not ventilated by quick winds, produces more evil than good." This certainly is true of foil, but where did Dr. Johnson find the word foil in this paffage? He found only winds, and was forced to fubftitute foil ventilated by winds in the room of the word in the old copy; as Mr. Steevens, in order to extract a meaning from it, fuppofes winds to mean fallows, because "the ridges left in lands turned up by the plough, are termed wind-rows;" though furely the obvious explication of the latter word, rows expofed to the wind, is the true one. Hence the rows of new-mown grafs laid in heaps to dry, are also called wind-rows.

The emendation which I have adopted, [minds,] and which was made by Dr. Warburton, makes all perfectly clear; for if in Dr. Johnson's note we fubftitute, not cultivated, instead of"not ventilated by quick winds," we have a true interpretation of Antony's words as now exhibited. Our quick minds, means,

1 ATT. The man from Sicyon.-Is there such an

Or lofe myself in dotage.-What are you? 2 MESS. Fulvia thy wife is dead.

ANT.

Where died fhe?

our lively, apprehenfive minds. So, in King Henry IV. P. II: "It afcends me into the brain ;-makes it apprehenfive, quick, forgetive."

Again, in this play: "The quick comedians," &c.

It is, however, proper to add Dr. Warburton's own interpretation: "While the active principle within us lies immerged in floth and luxury, we bring forth vices, inftead of virtues, weeds instead of flowers and fruits; but the laying before us our ill condition plainly and honeftly, is, as it were, the first culture of the mind, which gives hope of a future harvest."

Being at all times very unwilling to depart from the old copy, I fhould not have done it in this inftance, but that the word winds, in the only fenfe in which it has yet been proved to be ufed, affords no meaning; and I had the lefs fcruple on the prefent occafion, because the fame error is found in King John, A& V. fc. vii. where we have, in the only authentick copy: "Death, having prey'd upon the outward parts, "Leaves them invifible; and his fiege is now

Against the wind." MALONE.

The obfervations of fix commentators are here exhibited. To offer an additional line on this fubject, (as the Meffenger fays to Lady Macduff,) were fell cruelty" to the reader.

STEEVENS.

He stays upon your will.] We meet with a fimilar phrase

in Macbeth:

"Worthy Macbeth, we ftay upon your leifure."

STEEVENS.