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.