ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Page 410.

ANT. Let Rome in Tiber melt! and the wide arch
Of the rang'd empire fall! Here is my space.

As range signifies compass, extent, so the verb seems to be used, rather licentiously, in the present instance, in the sense of spread, extended. It may be doubted, at least, whether there be any allusion to a triumphal arch, as Dr. Warburton supposed, or even of a fabric standing on pillars, according to Dr. Johnson. The wide arch may refer to the vast concave of the Roman world, its wide domains covered by the arch of heaven, which has been beautifully styled by some oriental writer "the star-built arch of heaven." See The tales of Inatulla by Dow, vol. i. p. 78.

SCENE 3. Page 440.

CLEO. O my oblivion is a very Antony

And I am all forgotten.

She compares her memory to Antony, and says she is treacherously abandoned and neglected by both. Mr. Steevens's explanation of the first line is satisfactory; but one cannot well agree with him or Mason, that "I am all forgotten" can possibly mean, "I forget myself, or every thing."

It may be doubted whether quail-fighting was practised in Shakspeare's time, though Dr. Farmer appears to have thought

so; but when our poet speaks of their being inhoop'd, he might suppose that Cæsar's or Antony's quails, which he found in Plutarch, were trained to battle like game cocks in a ring or circle. Hanmer plausibly reads incoop'd, but no change is necessary.

Quail combats were well known among the ancients, and especially at Athens. Julius Pollux relates that a circle was made in which the birds were placed, and he whose quail was driven out of this circle lost the stake, which was sometimes money, and occasionally the quails themselves. Another practice was to produce one of these birds, which being first smitten or filliped with the middle finger, a feather was then plucked from its head: if the quail bore this operation without flinching, his master gained the stake, but lost it if he ran away. The Chinese have been always extremely fond of quail-fighting, as appears from most of the accounts of that people, and particularly in Mr. Bell's excellent relation of his travels to China, where the reader will find much curious matter on the subject. See vol. i. p. 424, edit. in 8vo. We are told by Mr. Marsden that the Sumatrans likewise use these birds in the manner of game cocks. The annexed copy from an elegant Chinese miniature painting represents some ladies engaged at this amusement, where the quails are actually inhoop'd.

You wager'd on your angling; when your diver
Did hang a salt-fish on his hook, which he
With fervency drew up.

This incident, which, as Mr. Steevens has already remarked, was borrowed from Plutarch, probably suggested a story related by Nashe, "of a scholler in Cambridge, that standing angling on the towne bridge there, as the country people on the market day passed by, secretly bayted his hooke wyth a red herring wyth a bell about the necke, and so conveying it

into the water that no man perceived it, all on the sodayn, when he had a competent throng gathered about hym, up he twicht it agayne, and layd it openly before them, whereat the gaping rurall fooles, driven into no lesse admiration than the common people about London some few yeares since were at the bubbling of Moore-ditch, sware by their christendomes that as many dayes and yeeres as they had lived, they never saw such a myracle of a red herring taken in the fresh water before."-Lenten stuffe, or praise of the red herring, 1599, 4to, p. 60. But Cleopatra's trick was of a different nature. Antony had fished unsuccessfully in her presence, and she had laughed at him. The next time therefore he directed the boatman to dive under the water and attach a fish to his hook. The queen perceived the stratagem, but affecting not to notice it, congratulated him on his success. Another time, however, she determined to laugh at him once more, and gave orders to her own people to get the start of his divers, and put some dried salt-fish on his hook.

SCENE 5. Page 499.

CLEO. Some innocents 'scape not the thunder bolt.

This alludes to a superstitious notion among the ancients, that they who were stricken with lightning were honoured by Jupiter, and therefore to be accounted holy. Their bodies were supposed not to putrify; and after having been shown for a certain time to the people, were not burned in the usual manner, but buried on the spot where the lightning fell, and a monument erected over them. Some, however, held a contrary opinion. See the various notes on the line in Persius,

"Triste jaces lucis, evitandumque bidental," Sat. ii.

The ground also that had been smitten by a thunderbolt was accounted sacred, and afterwards inclosed: nor did any one presume to walk on it. This we learn from Festus, "fulguritum, id quod est fulmine ictum; qui locus statim fieri

putabatur religiosus, quod eum Deus sibi dicasse videretur." These places were therefore consecrated to the gods, and could not in future become the property of any one.

SCENE 7. Page 512.

2. SER. I had as lief have a reed that will do me no service, as a partizan I could not heave.

Dr. Johnson says the partizan is a pike, and so say many of our dictionaries; but it was in reality a weapon between a pike and a halbert. Not being so long as the former, it was made use of in trenches, in mounting a breach, and in attacking or defending a lodgment; on all which occasions the pike would have been unmanageable. Its upper extremity resembled that of a halbert, but was longer and broader. In more modern times it wanted the cutting axe which belongs to the halbert, though in that used by the old Switzers and Germans it seems to have had it. The etymology of the word has been much controverted, but appears to lie between the Latin pertica and the German bart, an axe, whence bardike, a little axe. Shakspeare himself has distinguished it from the pike, "Let us make him with our pikes and partizans a grave.”—Cymbeline, Act IV. Scene 2.

SCENE 7. Page 518.

ENO. Drink thou; increase the reels.

Here is some corruption, and unless it was originally revels, the sense is irretrievable. In all events Mr. Steevens has erred in saying that "reel was not, in our author's time, employed to signify a dance." The following passage in a book with which the learned editor was well acquainted, and which had escaped his excellent memory, proves the contrary:"Agnis Tompson was after brought againe before the king's majestie and confessed that upon the night of Allhollon even last, she was accompanied with a great many witches to the number of two hundreth; and that all they together went by