IV.iv.10 (215,1) Briefly, sir] That is, quickly, sir.

IV.v.17 (218,3) Dispatch.  Enobarbus!] Thus [Dispatch, my Eros] the modern editors.  The old edition reads,

  —­Dispatch Enobarbus.

Perhaps, it should be,

  —­Dispatch!  To Enobarbus! (see 1765, VII, 208, 3)

IV.vi.12 (219,6) persuade] The old copy has dissuade, perhaps rightly.

IV.vi.34 (219,7) This blows my heart] All the latter editions have,

   —­This bows my heart;

I have given the original word again the place from which I think it unjustly excluded. This generosity, (says Enobarbus) swells my heart, so that it will quickly break, if thought break it not, a swifter mean.

IV.vii.2 (220,8) and our oppression] Sir T. Hanmer has received opposition.  Perhaps rightly.

IV.viii.1 (221,9) run one before,/And let the queen know of our guests] [W:  gests] This passage needs neither correction nor explanation.  Antony after his success intends to bring his officers to sup with Cleopatra, and orders notice to be given her of their guests.

IV.viii.12 (222,1) To this great fairy] Mr. Upton has well observed, that fairy; which Dr. Warburton and sir T. Hanmer explain by Inchantress, comprises the idea of power and beauty.

IV.viii.22 (222,2) get goal for goal of youth] At all plays of barriers, the boundary is called a goal; to win a goal, is to be superiour in a contest of activity.

IV.viii.31 (223,4) Bear our hack’d targets like the men that owe them] i.e. hack’d as much as the men are to whom they belong.  WARB.] Why not rather, Bear our hack’d targets with spirit and exaltation, such as becomes the brave warriors that own them?

IV.ix.15 (224,5)

  Throw my heart
  Against the flint and hardness of my fault;
  Which, being dried with grief, will break to powder,
  And finish all foul thoughts]

The pathetick of Shakespeare too often ends in the ridiculous.  It is painful to find the gloomy dignity of this noble scene destroyed by the intrusion of a conceit so far-fetched and unaffecting.

IV.xii.13 (226,1) Triple turn’d whore!] She was first for Antony, then was supposed by him to have turned to Caesar, when he found his messenger kissing her hand, then she turned again to Antony, and now has turned to Caesar.  Shall I mention what has dropped into my imagination, that our author might perhaps have written triple-tongued? Double-tongued is a common term of reproach, which rage might improve to triple-tongued.  But the present reading may stand.

IV.xii.21 (227,2) That pannell’d me at heels] All the editions read,

  That pannell’d me at heels,—­

Sir T. Hanmer substituted spaniel’d by an emendation, with which it was reasonable to expect that even rival commentators would be satisfied; yet Dr. Warburton proposes pantler’d, in a note, of which he is not injur’d by the suppression; and Mr. Upton having in his first edition proposed plausibly enough,