And not your knowledge, personal pain, but even Your purse, still open, hath built lord Cerimon Such strong renown as time shall never Set it down, let's look on it. Did the sea toss upon our shore this chest ; 'Tis of some wreck. CER. 2 GENT. 'Tis like a coffin, sir. Whate'er it be, It belches upon us3. 2 GENT. 'Tis so, my lord. CER. How close 'tis caulk'd and bitum'd"!Did the sea cast it up? that these initials are of foreign workmanship; and the inference is, that such farces were common upon the continent, and are here alluded to by the artist. I should not omit to mention, that the letter in question has been rudely copied in an edition of Stowe's Survey of London. DOUCE. 4 If the sea's stomach be o'ERCHARG'D with gold, &c.] This indelicate allusion has already occurred in the scene between Pericles and the Fishermen, and may also be found in King Richard III.: "Whom their o'ercloyed country vomits forth." STEEVENS. 5 It is a good constraint of fortune, that It BELCHES upon us.] This singular expression is again ap plied by our author to the sea, in The Tempest : "You are three men of sin, whom destiny (That hath to instrument this lower world, "And what is in't,) the never-surfeited sea "Hath caused to belch up!" MALONE. • How close 'tis caulk'd and BITUM'D!] Bottom'd, which is the reading of all the copies, is evidently a corruption. We had before: SERV. I never saw so huge a billow, sir, As toss'd it upon shore. CER. Come, wrench it open; Soft, soft!-it smells most sweetly in my sense. 2 GENT. A delicate odour. CER. As ever hit my nostril'; so, up with it,. O you most potent god! what's here ? a corse! 1 GENT. Most strange! CER. Shrouded in cloth of state; balm'd and entreasur'd With bags of spices full! A passport too! Apollo, perfect me i' the characters! Here I give to understand, [Unfolds a Scroll. [Reads. (If e'er this coffin drive a-land",) I, king Pericles, have lost This queen, worth all our mundane cost. Who finds her, give her burying, Sir, we have a chest beneath the hatches, caulked and bitumed ready." MALONE. 7 As ever hit my nostril ;] So, in The Merry Wives of Windsor: 66 ➡as ever offended nostril." STEEVENS. 8 Apolio, perfect me i' the characters!] Cerimon, having made physick his peculiar study, would naturally, in any emer gency, invoke Apollo. On the present occasion, however, he addresses him as the patron of learning. MALONE. 9 (If e'er this coffin drive A-LAND,)] This uncommon phrase is repeatedly used in Twine's translation: "Then give thanks unto God, who in my flight hath brought me a-land into your costes." Again : certaine pyrats which were come a 1 66 Who finds her, give her burying, a-land,” STEEVENS. She was the daughter of a king:] The following, in Twine's translation, are the first words of Lucina on her recovery : "-touch me not otherwise than thou oughtest to doe, for I am a king's daughter and the wife of a king." STEEVENS. So, in King Henry VIII. Queen Catharine says: If thou liy'st, Pericles, thou hast a heart That even cracks for woe2!-This chanc'd to-night. 2 GENT. Most likely, sir. CER. For look, how fresh she looks!-They were too rough, That threw her in the sea. Fetch hither all the boxes in Nay, certainly to-night; Make fire within: my closet. Death may usurp on nature many hours, Enter a Servant, with Bo.res, Napkins, and Fire. Well said, well said; the fire and the cloths '.- Embalm me, “ Then lay me forth : although unqueen'd, yet like thou hast a heart That even CRACKS for woe!] So, in Hamlet: ،، Now cracks a noble heart." Even is the reading of the second quarto. The first has ever. MALONE. 3 I HAVE heard-] For the insertion of the word—have, which both the metre and the sense require, I am responsible. 4 66 MALONE. nine hours LLEN dead,] So, in the lxviiith Psalm : though ye have lien among the pots-." STEEVENS. S WELL SAID, WELL SAID; the fire and the cloths.] So, on a similar occasion, in Othello, Act V. Sc. I.: "Some good man bear him carefully from hence." 6 The rough and woful musick that we have, MALONE. Cause it to sound, 'beseech you.] Paulina in like manner in The Winter's Tale, when she pretends to bring Hermione to life, orders musick to be played, to awake her from her trance. So The vial once more; How thou stirr'st, thou block? The musick there'.-I pray you, give her air:Gentlemen, This queen will live: nature awakes; a warmth also, the Physician in King Lear, when the King is about to wake from the sleep he had fallen into, after his frenzy: "Please you draw near ;-Louder the musick there!” MALONE. 7 The VIAL once more ;-How thou stirr'st, thou block?— The musick there.] The first quarto reads "The viol once more." The second and the subsequent editions-the vial. If the first be right, Cerimon must be supposed to repeat his orders that they should again sound their rough and woeful musick. So, in Twelth-Night: "That strain again!" The word viol has occurred before in this play in the sense of violin. I think, however, the reading of the second quarto is right. Cerimon, in order to revive the Queen, first commands loud musick to be played, and then a second time administers some cordial to her, which we may suppose had been before administered to her when his servants entered with the napkins, &c. See Confessio Amantis, p. 180: this worthie kinges wife 66 Hir colde breste began to heate, "Hir herte also to slacke and beate. "Whiche is to fewe clerkes couthe." Little weight is to be laid on the spelling of the first quarto, for vial was formerly spelt viol. In the quarto edition of King Richard II. 1615: "Edward's seven sons, whereof thyself art one, "Were seven viols of his sacred blood," Again, in the folio 1633, ibidem: "One viol full of Edward's sacred blood." Again, in The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet, 1562: "She poured forth into the vyoll of the fryer "Water." MALONE. Breathes out of her; she hath not been entranc'd Above five hours. See, how she 'gins to blow Into life's flower again! 1 GENT. The heavens, sir, Through you, increase our wonder, and set up CER. She is alive; behold, Her eyelids, cases to those heavenly jewels' Begin to part their fringes of bright gold 2; Appear, to make the world twice rich. O live, O dear Diana, THAI. Where am I? Where's my lord? What world is this? 9- a warmth BREATHES Out of her;] The old copies read- -a warmth breath out of her. The correction was suggested by Mr. SteeThe second quarto, and the modern editions, read unin vens. telligibly: 66 "Nature awakes a warm breath out of her." MALONE. In Twine's translation it is to Cerimon's pupil Machaon, and not to Cerimon himself, that the lady is indebted for her recovery : he pulled the clothes from the ladies bosome, and powred foorth the ointment, and bestowing it abroad with his hand perceived some warmth in her breast, and that there was life in her body. Then went Machaon unto his master Cerimon, and saide: The woman whom thou thinkest to be deade is alive," &c. STEEVENS. -CASES to those heavenly jewels-] The same expression occurs in The Winter's Tale: " - they seem'd almost, with staring on one another, to tear the cases of their eyes." MALONE. Her eyelids, cases to those heavenly jewels -." So, in Sidney's Arcadia, book iii.: "Her faire lids, then hiding her fairer eyes, seemed unto him sweet boxes, rich in themselves, but containing in them far richer jewels." STEEVENS. 66 - 2 Begin to part their fringes of bright gold;] So, in The Tempest: "The fringed curtains of thine eye advance, |