Act ii.  Scene ix. (II. iii. 11-12.)

     Who falling in the flaws of her own youth,
     Hath blister’d her report.

Who doth not see that the integrity of the metaphor requires we should read “flames of her own youth.”—­Warburton.

Who does not see that upon such principles there is no end of correction.

Act iii.  Scene i. (III. i. 13-15.)

                  Thou art not noble: 
     For all th’ accommodations, that thou bear’st
     Are nurs’d by baseness.

Dr. Warburton is undoubtedly mistaken in supposing that by “baseness” is meant “self-love” here assigned as the motive of all human actions.  Shakespeare meant only to observe, that a minute analysis of life at once destroys that splendour which dazzles the imagination.  Whatever grandeur can display, or luxury enjoy, is procured by “baseness”, by offices of which the mind shrinks from the contemplation.  All the delicacies of the table may be traced back to the shambles and the dunghill, all magnificence of building was hewn from the quarry, and all the pomp of ornaments, dug from among the damps and darkness of the mine.

Act iii.  Scene i. (III. i. 16-17.)

       The soft and tender fork
     of a poor worm.

“Worm” is put for any creeping thing or “serpent”.  Shakespeare supposes falsely, but according to the vulgar notion, that a serpent wounds with his tongue, and that his tongue is “forked”.  He confounds reality and fiction, a serpent’s tongue is “soft” but not “forked” nor hurtful.  If it could hurt, it could not be soft.  In Midsummer-night’s Dream he has the same notion.

     —­With doubler tongue
     Then thine, O serpent, never adder stung.

Act iii.  Scene i. (III. i. 32-4.)

       Thou hast nor youth, nor age: 
     But as it were an after dinner’s sleep,
     Dreaming on both.

This is exquisitely imagined.  When we are young we busy ourselves in forming schemes for succeeding time, and miss the gratifications that are before us; when we are old we amuse the languour of age with the recollection of youthful pleasures or performances; so that our life, of which no part is filled with the business of the present time, resembles our dreams after dinner, when the events of the morning are mingled with the designs of the evening.

Act iii.  Scene i. (III. i. 36-8.)

         When thou’rt old and rich,
       Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty
       To make thy riches pleasant.

But how does beauty make “riches pleasant”?  We should read “bounty”, which compleats the sense, and is this; Thou hast neither the pleasure of enjoying riches thy self, for thou wantest vigour:  nor of seeing it enjoyed by others, for thou wantest “bounty”.  Where the making the want of “bounty” as inseparable from old age as the want of “health”, is extremely satyrical tho’ not altogether just. —­Warburton.