Of any thing the image tell me, that
Hath kept with thy remembrance.

MIRA.

"Tis far off;

And rather like a dream than an affurance -
That my remembrance warrants: Had I not
Four or five women once, that tended me?

PRO. Thou had'ft, and more, Miranda: But how

is it,

That this lives in thy mind? What feest thou else
In the dark backward and abysm of time?9.
If thou remember'ft aught, ere thou cam'ft here,
How thou cam'ft here, thou may'st.

MIRA.

But that I do not.

PRO. Twelve years fince, Miranda, twelve

fince,1

Thy father was the duke of Milan, and

A prince of power.

MIRA.

years

Sir, are not you my father?

PRO. Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and She faid-thou waft my daughter; and thy father Was duke of Milan; and his only heir

9 abyfm of time?] i. e. Abyss. This method of fpelling the word is common to other ancient writers. They took it from the French abyfme, now written abime. So, in Heywood's Brazen Age, 1613:

"And chafe him from the deep alyfms below."

STEEVENS.

1 Twelve years fince, Miranda, twelve years fince,] Years, in the first inftance, is ufed as a diffyllable, in the fecond as a monofyllable. But this is not a licence peculiar to the profody of Shakspeare. In the fecond book of Sidney's Arcadia are the following lines, exhibiting the fame word with a fimilar profodical variation:

"And fhall the die? fhall cruel fier fpill
"Those beames that fet fo many hearts on fire?"

A princefs;-no worfe iffued.*

MIRA.

O, the heavens !

What foul play had we, that we came from thence? Or bleffed was't, we did?

PRO.

By foul play, as thou fay'ft,
But bleffedly holp hither.

Both, both, my girl:

were we heav'd thence;

MIRA.
O, my heart bleeds
To think o' the teen 3 that I have turn'd you to,
Which is from my remembrance!

further.

Please you,

PRO. My brother, and thy uncle, call'd Antonio,

I pray thee, mark me,-that a brother should
Be fo perfidious!-he whom, next thyself,
Of all the world I lov'd, and to him put
The manage of my ftate; as, at that time,
Through all the figniories it was the first,
And Profpero the prime duke; being so reputed
In dignity, and, for the liberal arts,

Without a parallel; thofe being all my ftudy,
The government I caft upon my brother,

And to my ftate grew ftranger, being transported,
And rapt in fecret ftudies. Thy falfe uncle-
Doft thou attend me?

MIRA.

Sir, moft heedfully.

PRO. Being once perfected how to grant fuits,

2 A princefs;-no worse itfued.] The old copy reads-" Aud princess." For the trivial change in the text I am an werable. Jued is defcended. So, in Greene's Card of Fancy, 1608:

3

Juliet:

"For I am by birth a gentleman, and issued of fuch parents," &c. STEEVENS.

teen-] is forrow, grief, trouble. So, in Romeo and

to my teen be it fpoken." STEEVENS.

How to deny them; whom to advance, and whom To trash for over-topping;5 new created

whom to advance, and whom-] The old copy has who in both places. Corrected by the editor of the second folio. MALONE.

To trash for over-topping;] To trafh, as Dr. Warburton obferves, is to cut away the fuperfluities. This word I have met with in books containing directions for gardeners, published in the time of queen Elizabeth.

The prefent explanation may be countenanced by the following paffage in Warner's Albion's England, 1602, B. X. ch. 57:

"Who fuffreth none by might, by wealth or blood to

overtopp,

"Himfelf gives all preferment, and whom listeth him doth lop."

Again, in our author's K. Richard II:

"Go thou, and, like an executioner,

"Cut off the heads of too-faft-growing sprays

"That look too lofty in our commonwealth."

Mr. Warton's note, however, on-" trash for his quick hunting," in the fecond act of Othello, leaves my interprétation of this paffage fomewhat difputable.

Mr. M. Mafon obferves, that to trash for overtopping, "may mean to lop them, because they did overtop, or in order to prevent them from overtopping. So Lucetta, in the second scene of The Two Gentlemen of Verona, fays:

"I was taken up for laying them down,

"Yet here they fhall not lie, for catching cold." That is, left they should catch cold. See Mr. M. Mason's note on this paffage.

In another place (a note on Othello) Mr. M. Mafon obferves, that Shakspeare had probably in view, when he wrote the paffage before us," the manner in which Tarquin conveyed to Sextus his advice to deftroy the principal citizens of Gabii, by ftriking off, in the presence of his meffengers, the heads of all the talleft poppies, as he walked with them in his garden." STEEVENS.

I think this phrase means "to correct for too much haughtinefs or overbearing." It is used by sportsmen in the North when they correct a dog for mifbehaviour in purfuing the game. This explanation is warranted by the following paffage in Othello, A& II. fc. i:

"If this poor trash of Venice, whom I trash
"For his quick hunting."

The creatures that were mine; I fay, or chang'd

them,

Or elfe new form'd them: having both the key
Of officer and office, fet all hearts 7

To what tune pleas'd his ear; that now he was
The ivy, which had hid my princely trunk,
And fuck'd my verdure out on't.

not:

I pray thee, mark me.9

MIRA.

Thou attend'st

O good fir, I do.

PRO. I thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicate1

It was not till after I had made this remark, that I faw Mr. Warton's note on the above lines in Othello, which corroborates it.

DOUCE.

A trash is a term ftill in ufe among hunters, to denote a piece of leather, couples, or any other weight faftened round the neck of a dog, when his fpeed is fuperior to the reft of the pack; i. e. when he over-tops them, when he hunts too quick. C.

See Othello, A& II. fc. i. STEEVENS.

6 both the key-] This is meant of a key for tuning the harpsichord, spinnet, or virginal; we call it now a tuning hammer. SIR J. HAWKINS.

7 Of officer and office, fet all hearts-] The old copy reads"all hearts i'th fiate," but redundantly in regard to metre, and unneceffarily refpecting fenfe; for what hearts, except fuch as were i'th' ftate, could Alonfo incline to his purposes?

I have followed the advice of Mr. Ritfon, who judiciously proposes to omit the words now ejected from the text. STEEVENS.

And fuck'd my verdure out on't.] So, in Arthur Hall's tranflation of the firft book of Homer, 1581, where Achilles fwears by his fceptre :

"Who having loft the fapp of wood, eft greenenesse cannot drawe." STEEVENS.

I pray thee, mark me.] In the old copy, these words are the beginning of Profpero's next speech; but, for the restoration of metre, I have changed their place. STEEVENS.

I

I thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicate-] The old copy has dedicated;" but we fhould read, as in the present text, dedicate." Thus, in Meafure for Measure:

To clofenefs, and the bettering of my mind
With that, which, but by being fo retir'd,
O'er-priz'd all popular rate, in my falfe brother
Awak'd an evil nature: and my truft,

Like a good parent,2 did beget of him
A falichood, in its contrary as great

As my truft was; which had, indeed, no limit,
A confidence fans bound. He being thus lorded,
Not only with what my revenue yielded,
But what my power might elfe exact,-like one,
Who having, unto truth, by telling of it,
Made fuch a finner of his memory,

To credit his own lie,3—he did believe

2

"Prayers from fafting maids, whofe minds are dedicate "To nothing temporal." RITSON.

Like a good parent, &c.] Alluding to the obfervation, that a father above the common rate of men has commonly a fon below it. Heroum filii noxie. JOHNSON.

Who having, unto truth, by telling of it,
Made fuch a finner of his memory,

To credit his own lie,] There is, perhaps, no correlative, to which the word it can with grammatical propriety belong. Lie, however, feems to have been the correlative to which the poet meant to refer, however ungrammatically.

The old copy reads "into truth." The neceffary correction was made by Dr. Warburton. STEEVENS.

Mr. Steevens juftly observes that there is no correlative, &c. This obfervation has induced me to mend the paffage, and to read: Who having unto truth, by telling of 't-inftead of, of it. And I am confirmed in this conjecture, by the following paffage quoted by Mr. Malone, &c. M. MASON.

There is a very fingular coincidence between this paffage and one in Bacon's Hiftory of King Henry VII. [Perkin Warbeck] "did in all things notably acquit himself; infomuch as it was generally believed, that he was indeed Duke Richard. Nay, himfelf, with long and continual counterfeiting, and with OFT telling a lye, was turned by habit almoft into the thing he seemed to be; and from a liar to be a believer." MALONE.