1 ^^^^^^K^~ ■■i i^H i '1 lit \ymMm %m^t[^il«m%. Presented to The Cornell University, 1870, BY GoLDwiN Smith, M. A. Oxon., Regius Profeflbr of Hiftory in the Univerfity of Ox^ '. ^_ Cornell University Library PR2951.A21852 Notes and emendations to the text of Sha 3 1924 013 154 806 The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013154806 NOTES AND EMENDATIONS TO THE TEXT OE SHAKESPEARE^S PLAYS, FKOM EAELT MANUSCETPT COEEECTIONS IN A COPT OF THE POLIO, 1632, IN THE POSSESSION OF jrPAYNE QOLLTER, ESQ. F.S.A. FORMING A SUPPLEMENTAL VOLUME TO THE WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE BY THE SAME EDITOR, IN EIGHT VOLUMES, OCTAVO. LONDON: PRINTED FOR THE SHAKESPEARE SOCIETY. 1J52. LONDON : GILBERT AND KIVINGTON, PBIfllERS, ST. JOHN'S SQUARE. GOUNCIL OF THE SHAKESPEAKE SOCIETY. Presttteitt. THE EARL OF ELLESMERE. THE RT. HON. THE EARL OF CLARENDON. THE RT. HON. THE EARL 6F GLENGALL. THE RT. HON. THE EARL HOWE. THE RT. HON. LORD BRAYBROOKB. THE RT. HON. THE LORD JUSTICE SIR JAMES KNIGHT BRUCE. Ctltinttl. WILLIAM AYRTON, ESQ., F.R.S., F.S.A. BAYLE BERNARD, ESQ. J. PAYNE COLLIER, ESa, V.P.S.A., Director. W. DURRANT COOPER, ESQ., F.S.A. BOLTON CORNEY, ESQ., M.R.S.L. PETER CUNNINGHAM, ESQ., F.S.A., Treasurer. JOHN FORSTER, ESQ. J. O. HALLIWELL, ESQ., F.R.S., F.S.A. THE REV. WILLIAM HARNESS. SWYNFEN JERVIS, ESQ. CHARLES KNIGHT, ESQ. DAVID LAING, ESQ. MARK LEMON, ESQ. THE HON. GEORGE O'CALLAGHAN. FREDERIC OUVRY, ESQ., F.S.A. T. J. PETTIGREW, ESQ., F.R.S., F.S.A. GEORGE SMITH, ESa WILLIAM JOHN THOMS, ESQ., F.S.A. BENJAMIN WEBSTER, ESQ. HIS EXCELLENCY M. SILVAIN VAN DE WEYER. F. GUEST TOMLINS, ESQ., Secretary. A 2 The Council of the Shakespeare Society desire it to be understood, that they are not answerable for any opinions or obsen'ations that may appear in the Society's publications ; the Editors of the several works being alone responsible for the same. INTRODUCTION. In preparing the following sheets it has been a main object with me to give an impartial notion of the singular and interesting volume from which the materials have been derived. It is a copy of the folio of " Mr. William Shake- speare's Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies," which was published in 1632: we need hardly say, that that edition was a reprint of a previous impression in the same form in 1623 ; and that it was again reprinted (with additional plays) in 1664, and for the fourth time in 1685. The reprint of 1632 has, therefore, been usually known as the second folio of the collected plays of Shakespeare. The singularity and interest of the volume arise out of the fact, that, from the first page to the last, it contains notes and emendations in a hand-writing not much later than the time when it came from the press. Unfortunately it is not perfect : it begins, indeed, with " The Tempest," the earliest drama, but it wants four leaves at the end of " Cymbeline," the latest drama, and there are several deficiencies in the ' body of the book', while all the preliminary matter, con- sisting of dedication, address, commendatory verses, &c., may be said to be wanting, in as much as it has been ' It deserves remark that all the defects in the body of the book are in the division of " Histories," the plays forming which have been especially thumbed and maltreated. A 2 Y INTRODUCTION. supplied by a comparatively recent possessor, from another copy of the second folio, and loosely fastened within the cover. Without adverting to sundry known mistakes of pagina- tion, it may be stated that the entire volume consists of nearly 900 pages, divided between thirty-six plays; and, besides the correction of literal and verbal errors, as well as lapses of a graver and more extensive kind, the punctuation has been carefully set right throughout. As there is no page without from ten to thirty of these minor emenda- tions, they do not, in the whole, fall short of 20,000 : most of them have, of course, been introduced in modem editions, since the plain meaning of a passage often contradicts the old careless and absurd pointing ; but it will be seen here- after, that in not a few instances the sense of the poet has thus been elucidated in a way that has not been anticipated'. With regard to changes of a different and more important character, where letters are added or expunged, where words are supplied or struck out, or where lines and sentences, omitted by the early printer, have been inserted, together ■with all other emendations of a similar kind, it is dif- ficult to form any correct estimate of their number. The volume in the hands of the reader includes considerably more than a thousand of such alterations ; but to have in- serted all would have swelled its bulk to unreasonable dimensions, and would have wearied the patience of most persons, not merely by the sameness of the information, but by the monotony of the language in which it was neces- sarily conveyed. Nothing that was deemed essential has been left out : no striking or valuable emendation has been passed over, and many changes have been mentioned, upon which the writer of the notes seems to have insisted, but in which, in ' As it is not easy to put the explanation of this apparently trifling matter in a short compass, the reader is referred particularly to pp. Ill, 117, 325, 399, and 507. INTRODUCTION. V some cases, concurrence must either be withheld, or douht expressed. Whenever I have seen ground for dissenting from a proposed amendment, or for giving it only a qualified approbation, I have plainly stated my reasons, more par- ticularly in the later portion of the work : I pursued, indeed, the same method, to a certain extent, in the earlier portion ; but while I have there, perhaps, more sparingly questioned the fitness of adopting some changes, I have also noticed others, which, as I proceeded, and as the matter accu- mulated, might possibly have been omitted'. If subsequent reflection or information appeared to warrant a modification of opinion, such modification will be found in the notes appended to the volume. I can only expect that each sug- gested alteration should be judged upon its own merits ; and though I can, in no respect, be answerable for more than submitting them to critical decision, I have thought myself called upon, where they appeared to deserve support or elucidation, to offer the facts, arguments, or observations that occurred to me in their favour. In the history of the volume to which I have been thus indebted, I can offer little that may serve to give it authen- ticity*. It is very certain that the manuscript notes in ' The old corrector of the folio, 1632, has himself allowed some appa- rent mistakes to escape him : thus, in " All's Well that Ends Well," Act III. Scene I., we might have expected that he would alter "the younger of our nature" into " the younger of our nation." Again, in " Henry IV. Part II.," Act IV. Scene II., it may seem that " success of mischief" ought to be "successive mischief;" but neither of these varia- tions from the old text is absolutely necessary. * I am by no means convinced that this copy of the folio, 1632, is an entire novelty in the book-world ; but it is quite certain that its curiosity and importance were never till now understood, nor estimated. Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bart., of Middle Hill (the discoverer of the marriage- bond of Shakespeare, who has most readily aided me in my inquiries), recollects to have seen, many years ago, an annotated copy of the folio, 1632, which he has always regretted that he did not purchase; and since the general contents of my volume became known, several gentlemen appear to be in possession of folios with manuscript emendations. I more than suspect, however, that one of these is the edition of 1685, vi INTRODUCTION. its margins were made before it was subjected to all the ill- usage it experienced. When it first came into my hands, and indeed for some time afterwards, I imagined that the binding was the original rough calf in which many books of about the same date were clothed ; but more recent examina- tion has convinced me, that this was at least the second coat it had worn. It is, nevertheless, in a very shabby condition, quite consistent with the state of the interior, where, besides the loss of some leaves, as already mentioned, and the loosening of others, many stains of wine, beer, and other liquids are observable : here and there, holes have been burned in the paper, either by the falling of the lighted snuff of a candle, or by the ashes of tobacco. In several places it is torn and disfigured by blots and dirt, and every margin bears evidence to frequent and careless perusal. In short, to a choice collector, no book could well present a more for- bidding appearance. I was tempted only by its cheapness to buy it, under the following circumstances : — In the spring of 1849 I happened to be in the shop of the late Mr. Rodd, of Great Newport- street, at the time when a package of books arrived from the country : my impression is that it came from Bedford- shire, but I am not at all certain upon a point which I looked upon as a matter of no importance. He opened the parcel in my presence, as he had often done before in the course of my thirty or forty years' acquaintance with him, and looking at the backs and title-pages of several volumes, I saw that they were chiefly works of little interest to me. Two folios, however, attracted my attention, one of them gilt on the sides, and the other in rough calf : the first was an excellent copy of Florio's " New "World of Words," 1611, with the name of Henry Osborn (whom I mistook at the moment formerly the property of the poet Southerne, with his autograph upon the title-page : of the notes it contains I was able, by the kindness of the then proprietor, to avail myself, when formerly editing the Shakespeare to which the present work is a Supplement. INTRODUCTION. Vll for his celebrated namesake, Francis) upon the first leaf ; and the other a copy of the second folio of Shakespeare's Plays, much cropped, the covers old and greasy, and, as I saw at a glance on opening them, imperfect at the beginning and end. Concluding hastily that the latter would complete another poor copy of the second folio, which I had bought of the same bookseller, and which I had had for some years in my possession, and wanting the former for my use, I bought them both, the Florio for twelve, and the Shakespeare for thirty shillings ^ As it turned out, I at first repented my bargain as regarded the Shakespeare, because, when I took it home, it appeared that two leaves which I wanted were unfit for my purpose, not merely by being too short, but damaged and defaced : thus disappointed, I threw it by, and did not see it again, until I made a selection of books I would take with me on quit- ting London. In the mean time, finding that I could not readily remedy the deficiencies in my other copy of the folio, 1632, I had parted with it ; and when I removed into the country, with my family, in the spring of 1850, in order that I. might not be without some copy of the second folio for the purpose of reference, I took with me that which is the foun- dation of the present work. It was while putting my books together for removal, that I first observed some marks in the margin of this folio ; but it was subsequently placed upon an upper shelf, and I did ' I paid the money for them at the time. Mr. Wilkinson, ofWellington- street, one of Mr. Rodd's executors, has several times obligingly afforded me the opportunity of inspecting Mr. Rodd's accountrbooks, in order, if possible, to trace from whence the package came, but without success. Mr. Rodd does not appear to have kept any stock-book, showing how and when volumes came into his hands, and the entries in hia day-book and ledger are not regular nor particular: his latest memorandum, on 19th April, only a short time before his sudden death, records the sale of " three books," without specifying their titles, or giving the name of the pur- chaser. His memory was very faithful, and to that, doubtless, he often trusted. I am confident that the parcel was from the country ; but any inquiries, regarding sales there, could hardly be expected to be satisfac- torily answered. Vlll INTRODUCTION. not take it down until I had occasion to consult it. It then struck me that Thomas Perkins, whose name, with the addi- tion of " his Booke," was upon the cover, might be the old actor who had performed in Marlowe's "Jew of Malta," on its revival shortly before 1633. At this time I fancied that the binding was of about that date, and that the volume might have been his ; but in the first place, I found that his name was Richard Perkins, and in the next I became satisfied that the rough calf was not the original binding. Still, Thomas Perkins might have been a descendant of Richard ; and this circumstance and others induced me to examine the volume more particularly : I then discovered, to my surprise, that there was hardly a page which did not present, in a hand- writing of the time, some emendations in the pointing or in the text, while on most of them they were frequent, and on many numerous. Of course I now submitted the folio to a most careful scru- tiny ; and as it occupied a considerable time to complete the inspection, how much more must it have consumed to make the alterations ? The ink was of various shades, differing sometimes on the same page, and I was once disposed to think that two distinct hands had been employed upon them : this notion I have since abandoned ; and I am now decidedly of opinion that the same writing prevails from be- ginning to end, but that the amendments must have been in- troduced from time to time, during, perhaps, the course of several years. The changes in punctuation alone, always made with nicety and patience, must have required a long period, considering their number ; the other alterations, sometimes most minute, extending even to turned letters and typographical trifles of that kind, from their very nature could not have been introduced with rapidity, while many of the errata must have severely tasked the industry of the old corrector". • It ought to be mentioned, in reference to the question of the authority of the emendations, that some of them are upon erasures, as if the cor- INTRODUCTION. IX Then comes the question, why any of them were made, and why such extraordinary pains were bestowed on this par- ticular copy of the folio, 1632 ? To this inquiry no com- plete reply, that I am aware of, can be given ; but some circumstances can be stated, which may tend to a partial solution of the difficulty. Corrections only have been hitherto spoken of ; but there are at least two other very peculiar features in the volume. Many passages, in nearly all the plays, are struck out with a pen, as if for the purpose of shortening the performance'; and we need not feel much hesitation in coming to the con- clusion, that these omissions had reference to the representa- tion of the plays by some conipany about the date of the folio, 1632. To this fact we may add, that hundreds of stage-directions have been inserted in manuscript, as if for the guidance and instruction of actors, in order that no mistake might be made in what is usually denominated stage-business ^ It is known that in this respect the old printed copies are very deficient' ; and sometimes the written additions of this kind seem even more frequent, and more rector had either altered his mind as to particular changes, or had ob- literated something that had been written before — possibly, by some person not so well informed as himself. ' "Antony and Cleopatra" is the only drama that is entirely exempt from this treatment : possibly, the old corrector never witnessed the per- formance of it. In all the other plays, more or less is " cut out," gene- rally, it should seem, in proportion to popularity. 8 In a few cases these manuscript stage-directions are of the highest importance in illustrating the wonderful judgment and skill of Shake- speare in conducting the business of his scenes. This matter cannot well be explained in the compass of a note ; but if the reader will turn to p. 5, it will be seen of what consequence the mere words. Put on robe again, are to understanding in what way the sudden somnolency of Miranda, which has always excited remark, had been produced, and was to be accounted for. It would be easy to point out other instances, but they will occur in the course of the volume. ' There is, I think, but one printed note of aside in the whole of the six-and-thirty plays ; but in manuscript the utmost care is taken so to mark all speeches intended to be heard by the audience, but not by the cha- racters engaged in the scene. X INTRODUCTION. explicit, than might be thought necessary. The erasures of passages and scenes are quite inconsistent with the notion that a new edition of the folio, 1632, was contemplated; and how are they, and the new stage-directions, and " asides," to be accounted for, excepting on the supposition that the volume once belonged to a person interested in, or connected with, one of our early theatres ? The continuation of the corrections and emendations, in spite of, and through the erasures, may show that they were done at a different time, and by a different person ; but who shall say which was done first, or whether both were not, in fact, the work of the same hand' ? Passing by these matters, upon which we can arrive at no certain result, we must briefly advert to another point upon which, however, we are quite as much in the dark : — we mean the authority upon which these changes, of greater or of less importance, were introduced. How are we war- ranted in giving credit to any of them ? The first and best answer seems to be that which one of the most acute of the commentators applied to an avowedly conjectural emendation — that it required no authority — ^that it carried conviction on the very face of if. Many of the most valuable corrections of Shakespeare's text are, in truth, self- evident ; and so apparent, when once suggested, that it seems wonderful how the plays could have passed through the hands of men of such learning and critical acumen, during the last century and a half (to say nothing of the period occupied by the publication of the four folios), without the detection of such indisputable blunders. Let us take an instance from " The Taming of the Shrew," Act I. Scene I., where Lucentio, arriving in Padua, to read ' Some expressions and lines of an irreligious or indelicate character are also struck out, evincing, perhaps, the advance of a better, or purer, taste about the period when the emendator went over the volume. '^ Monk Mason, in a note upon " Troilus and Cressida," Act III. Scene III. ; which, however, was there singularly inapt. INTRODUCTION. xi at the university, Tranio, his man, entreats his master not to apply himself too severely to study : — " Only, good master, while we do admire This virtue, and this moral discipline, Let's be no stoics, nor no stocks, I pray. Or so devote to Aristotle's checks. As Ovid be an outcast quite abjur'd." Such has been the invariable text from the first publication of the comedy, in 1623, until our own day ; yet it is un- questionably wrong, and wrong in the most important word in the quotation, as the old corrector shows, and as the reader will be sure to acknowledge the moment the emenda- tion is proposed : — " Let's be no stoics, nor no stocks, I pray, Or so devote to Aristotle's Ethics, As Ovid be an outcast quite abjur'd." In the manuscript, from which the old printer worked. Ethics was, no doubt, written with a small letter, and with ke near the end of the word, as was then the custom, and the care- less compositor mistook ethicJces for " checkes," and so printed it : " checkes" is converted into ethickes in the hand- writing of the emendator of the folio, 1682 ; and it is hardly too much to say that this misprint can never be repeated. Another proof of the same kind, but perhaps even stronger, may be taken from " Coriolanus," Act II. Scene III. It relates to a word which has puzzled all editors, and yet ought not to have delayed them for a moment, the corrup- tion, when pointed out by an emendation in the folio, 1632, being so glaring. The hero, disdainfully soliciting the " sweet voices" of the plebeians, asks himself, — " Why in this woolvish toge should I stand here, To beg of Hob and Dick 1" Johnson says that "woolvish" is rough, hirsute; and Malone, Steevens, Ritson, Douce, &c., have all notes regarding wolves (as if wild beasts had any thing to do with the matter), and Xli INTRODUCTION. all erroneous, but Johnson's the most unfortunate, because it has been previously stated that the"toge" (or gown) was not hirsute, but absolutely "napless." It seems astonishing, on this very account, that the right word was never guessed, as it is found in the margin of my volume : — " Why in this wooUess toge should I stand here. To heg of Hob and Dick ? " Can there be an instant's hesitation about it ? The printer, or the scribe who wrote the copy used by the printer, mis- took the termination of the word, and " woolvish" has been eternally reiterated as the real language of the poet. It seems impossible that " woolvish" should ever hereafter find a single supporter. Other verbal amendments are restorations of words that were becoming somewhat obsolete in the time of Shake- speare, such as hisson, blind, Head, fruit, &c; but there is one instance of the sort so remarkable, that I cannot refuse to notice it here. It regards the expression " a woollen bagpipe," in " The Merchant of Venice," Act IV. Scene I. ; and it must appear strange that " woolless " in one play, and " woollen " in another, should have formed such hard and insuperable stumbling-blocks to all the commentators. When Shylock observes, " As there is no firm reason to be render'd, Why he cannot abide a gaping pig. Why he a harmless necessary cat. Why he a woollen bagpipe," &c. ingenuity has been exhausted to explain, or to explain away, the epithet " woollen," as applied to a bagpipe. Some would have it wooden, others swollen, and a third party (myself among the number) were for adhering, in a case of such difiiculty, to the text of the old editions. What turns out to be the fact ? that every body was in error, and that our great dramatist employed an old word, which he had already used in his "Lucrece," 1594, and which means swollen, viz. INTRODUCTION. XIU hollen : it is the participle of the verh bolne, " to become puffed up or swollen," as Sir F. Madden states, in his ex- cellent "Glossary to the Wycliffite Versions of the Bible." Bollen is spelt in various ways by old and modern lexicogra- phers ; but we may be confident that we shall never again see " woollen bagpipe " in any edition of the text of Shake- speare, unless it be reproduced by some one, who, having no right to use the emendation of our folio, 1632, adheres of necessity to the antiquated blunder, and pertinaciously attempts to justify it. By the mention of the scribe, or copyist, who wrote the manuscript from which the printer composed, we are brought to the consideration of another class of errors, for which, pro- bably, the typographer was not responsible. If there be one point more clear than another, in connexion with the text of Shakespeare as it has come down to us, it is that the person, or persons, who prepared the transcripts of the plays for the printer, wrote by the ear, and not by the eye : they heard the dialogue, and wrote it down as it struck them. This posi- tion has been completely established by Malone'; and only in this way can we explain many of the whimsical mistakes in the quartos and folios. It is very well known that associations of actors, who bought dramas of their authors, were at all times extremely averse to the publication of them, partly under the persuasion that the number of readers would diminish the number of auditors*. The managers and sharers did their utmost to prevent the appearance of plays in print ; and it is the surreptitious manner in which pieces got out to the public that will account for the especial imperfectness, in respect to typography, of this department of our early litera- ture. About half the productions of Shakespeare remained in manuscript until seven years after his death : not a few of ' See Malone's Shakespeare, by Boswell, vii. p. 36 ; xi. p. 422 ; xii. pp. 268, 287, 313 ; xiv. p. 26 ; xix. p. 472, &c. * Another reason, of course, was the apprehension lest rival companies, then under very lax control, might act the piece. xiv INTRODUCTION. those which were printed in his life-time were shamefully disfigured, and not one can be pointed out to the publication of which he in any way contributed. When he finally re- tired to Stratford-upon-Avon, we cannot find that he took the slightest interest in works which had delighted living thou- sands, and were destined to be the admiration of unborn millions : he considered them the property of the theatre for which they had been written, and doubtless conceived that they were beyond his control. If, therefore, popular dramas did make their way to the press, it was generally accomplished either by the employ- ment of shorthand writers, who imperfectly took down the words as they indistinctly heard them, or by the conniv- ance and aid of inferior performers, who, being " hirelings " at weekly wages, had no direct interest in the receipts at the doors. They may have furnished the booksellers with such parts as they sustained, or could in any way procure from the theatre ; and it is not unlikely that, listening, as they must have daily done, to the repetitions of the principal actors, they would be able to recite, with more or less accuracy, whole speeches, and even scenes, which a little ingenuity could com- bine into a drama. We may readily imagine, that what these inferior performers had thus got by heart, they might dictate to some mechanical copyist, and thus many words, and even sentences, which sounded like something else, would be mis- represented in the printed editions, and nobody take the pains to correct the blunders. Of course, those who were sharers in theatres would be the last to remedy defects; and in this way oral representations on our early stages, by the chief actors, might easily be more correct than the published copies of performances. Upon this supposition we must account for not a few of the remarkable manuscript emendations in my folio, 1632: the annotator of that volume may have been connected with one of our old play-houses ; he may have been a manager, or a member of a company, and as an admirer of Shakespeare, as INTRODUCTION. XV well as for his own theatrical purposes, he may have taken the trouble, from time to time, to set right errors in the printed text by the more faithful delivery of their parts by the principal actors. This might have been accomplished by him as a mere spectator, and he may have employed the edition nearest his own day as the receptacle of his notes ; he may, however, have been aided by the prompt-books ; and the whole appearance of our volume seems to afford evidence that the work of correction was not done speedily, nor continu- ously, but as the misprints became apparent, and the means of correcting them occurred. Thus a long interval may have elapsed before this copy of the second folio was brought to the state in which it has reached us. An example or two will suffice to make what is meant in- telligible ; and here, as in former instances, I take them from many, almost at random, for the real difficulty is selection. When Henry VIII. (Act III. Scene II.) tells "Wolsey,— " You have scarce time To steal from spiritual leisure a brief span, To keep your earthly audit;" he cannot mean that the Cardinal has scarcely time to steal from "leisure," but from labour : the word was misheard by the Scribe ; and while " leisure" makes nonsense of the sentence, labour is exactly adapted to the place : — " You have scarce time To steal from spiritual labour a brief span." The substituted word is found in the margin of the folio, 1632. This instance seems indisputable ; but we meet with a more striking proof of the same kind in "King Lear" (Act IV. Scene VII.), where, after he has read Gonerirs letter of love to Edmund and hate to her husband, Edgar ex- claims, as the poet's language has been represented, " O, undistinguish'd space of woman's will ! A plot upon her virtuous husband's life." xvi INTRODUCTION. The commentators have striven hard to extract sense from the first line, but not one of them satisfied another, nor in- deed themselves. Edgar, in truth, is shocked at the profli- gate and uncontrollable licentiousness of Goneril:— " O umxtinguish'd blaze of woman's will ! " in other words, desire (i. e. "will" or lust) in the female sex bursts forth in a flame that cannot be subdued. The scribe did not understand what he put upon paper, misheard wnex- tinguish'd blaze, and wrote " undistinguish'd space." Such was, probably, the origin of the hitherto received nonsense. Another brief and laughable proof may be adduced from "Coriolanus:" it is where Menenius, in Act II. Scene I, is talking of himself to the Tribunes : — " I am known" (he says in all editions, ancient and modern) " to be a humorous patrician, and one that loves a cup of hot wine, with not a drop of allaying Tyber in it ; said to be something imperfect in favouring the first complaint." Nobody has ofiered a note explanatory of "the first complaint," and it has always passed current as the language of Shakespeare. Is it so ? Assuredly not ; for what has " a cup of hot wine" to do with "the first complaint?" The old corrector calls upon us to read " a cup of hot wine, with not a drop of allaying Tyber in it ; said to be something imperfect in favouring the thirst com- plaint," and the utterly lost humour of the passage is at once restored. 'The scribe misheard thirst, and wrote " first ;" and the blunder has already lasted between two and three centuries, and might have lasted two or three centuries longer, but for the discovery of this corrected folio. It is to be observed that these last emendations apply to plays which were printed for the first time in the folio, 1623. This fact tends to prove that the manuscript, put into the hands of the printer by Heminge and Condell, in spite of what they say, was not in a much better condition than the manuscript used by stationers for the separate plays which they had previously contrived to publish. The efiect of the ensuing pages must be considerably to lessen our confidence INTRODUCTION. XVH in the text fumislied by the player-editors, for the integrity of which I, among others, have always strenuously contended. Consequently, I ought to be among the last to admit the validity of objections to it ; and it was not until after long ex- amination of the proposed alterations, that I was compelled to allow their general accuracy and importance. There are some that I can yet by no means persuade myself to adopt ; others to which I can only give a qualified approbation ; but still a large remainder from which I am utterly unable to dissent". It was, as may be inferred, very little, if at all, the habit of dramatic authors, in the time of Shakespeare, to correct the proofs of their productions ; and as we know that, in respect to the plays which had been published in quarto before 1623, all that Heminge and Condell did, was to put the latest edition into the hands of their printer, so, possibly, in respect to the plays which for the first time appeared in the folio, 1623, all that they did might be to put the manuscript, such as it was, into the hands of their printer, and to leave to him the whole process of typography. It is not at all unlikely that they borrowed playhouse copies to aid them ; but these might con- sist, sometimes at least, of the separate parts allotted to the different actors, and, for the sake of speed in so long a work, scribes might be employed, to whom the manuscript was read ° Some of the most interesting, if not the most curious emendations, apply not only to the songs by Shakespeare, introduced into various plays, but to the scraps of ballads and popular rhymes put into the mouths of many of his characters. Nearly all these, especially the latter, are corrected, and in some places completed ; for it is not difficult to imagine that, even if originally accurately quoted, corruptions in the course of time, by the licence of comic performers and other causes, crept into them. These manuscript restorations are so frequent, that it is out of the question to enumerate them, but they apply to nearly every play ; and in addition it may be noticed, that whenever the poet borrows any thing, it is invariably underscored by the old corrector : thus several quotations, not hitherto suspected to be such, are clearly indicated ; and, as a singular specimen, we may point to the conclusion of " Troilus and Cressida," where Pandarus cites four lines, not hitherto suspected to have been written by any other author. XVIU INTRODUCTION. as they proceeded with their transcripts. This supposition, and the fraudulent manner in which plays in general found their way into print, may account for many of the blunders they unquestionably contain in the folios, and especially for the strange confusion of verse and prose which they sometimes exhibit. The not unfrequent errors in prefixes, by which words or lines are assigned to one character, which certainly belong to another, may thus also be explained : the reader, of the drama to the scribe did not at all times accurately dis- tinguish the persons engaged in the dialogue ; and if he had only the separate parts, and what are technically called the cues, to guide him, we need not be surprised at the circum- stance. The following is a single proof, the first that occurs to memory : it is from " Romeo and Juliet," Act III. Scene V., where the heroine declares to her mother that, if she must marry, her husband shall be Romeo : — " And when I do, I swear, It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate. Rather than Paris. — These are news indeed!" This is the universal regulation ; but, as we may very well believe, the closing words, "These are news, indeed!" do not belong to Juliet, but to Lady Capulet, who thus expresses her astonishment at her daughter's resolution : therefore, her speech ought to begin earlier than it appears in any extant copy. Juliet ends, — " And when I do, I swear, It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate, Rather than Paris. La. Cap. These are news, indeed ! Here comes your father ; tell him so yourself, And see how he will take it at your hands." There cannot surely be any dispute that this is the mode in which the poet distributed the lines, and in which the old corrector of the folio, 1632, had heard the dialogue divided on the stage in his time. It has been stated that he did not pass over minute INTRODUCTION. XIX changeSj sometimes of most trifling consequence ; but it is obvious that alterations, very insignificant in appearance, may be of the utmost importance in effect. A single letter, wrongly inserted, may strangely pervert or obscure the ■meaning ; and it may never have been suspected that the early editions were in fault. We meet with a remarkable instance of it in " Macbeth," Act I. Scene VII., where the Lady is reproaching h€r irresolute husband for not being ready to murder Duncan when time and opportunity offered, although he had previously vaunted his determination to do it : she asks him, — " What beast was't, then, That made you break this enterprise to me ? When you durst do it, then you were a man." Such is the text as it has always been recited on modern stages, and printed in every copy of the tragedy from the year 1623 to the year 1853 ; yet that there is a most sin- gidar misprint in it will be manifest, when the small, but most valuable, manuscript emendation of the folio, 1632, is mentioned. In truth. Lady Macbeth does not ask her hus- band the absurd question, " what beast" made him commu- nicate the enterprise to her ? but, what induced him to vaunt that he would kill Duncan, and then, like a coward, shrink from his own resolution ? — " What boast was't, then. That made you break this enterprise to me ? When you durst do it, then you were a man." She taunts him with the braggart spirit he had at first dis- played, and the cowardice he had afterwards evinced. It can- not be denied by the most scrupulous stickler for the purity Qf the text of the folio, 1623 (copied into the folio, 1632), that this mere substitution of the letter o for the letter e, as it were, magically conjures into palpable existence the long- buried meaning of the poet. In another place, and in another play, the accidental a 2 XX INTRODUCTION. omission of a single letter has occasioned much doubt and discussion. In Act III. Scene I. of "The Tempest/' Fer- dinand, while engaged in carrying logs, rejoices in his toil, because his burdens are lightened by thoughts of Miranda:— " This my mean task Would be as heavy to me, as odious ; but The mistress which I serve quickens what's dead. And makes my labours pleasures;" and he afterwards adds, as the passage is given in the folio, 1623:— "But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my labours, Most busy lest when I do it." The folio, 1632, altered the hemistich to "Most husj least when I do it," and Theobald read " Most busiless when I do it," not understanding how Ferdinand, at the same moment, could be most busy, and least busy. The corrector of the foho, 1632, however, removes the whole difficulty by showing that in the folio, 1623, a letter had dropped out in the press, the addition of which makes the sense clear and consistent, and concludes the speech by a most felicitous compression of the sentiment of the whole in seven words : — " But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my labours ; Most busy, — blest when I do it:" that is to say, he was most laboriously employed, but blest in that very toil by the sweet thoughts of his mistress. The old corrector converted "least," of the folio, 1632, into blest, by striking out a, and by inserting b with a caret. The constantly recurring question in all these cases is, from whence the information was derived, which enabled a person, so frequently and so effectually, to give us what, by implication, he asserts to be the real language of the greatest poet of mankind ? "Was he in a condition to resort to other and better manuscripts ? Had he the use of printed copies which do not now remain to us ? Was he instructed by more accurate recitation at a theatre ? Was he indebted to his INTRODUCTION. XXl own sagacity and ingenuity, and did he merely guess at arbitrary emendations 1 I am inclined to think that the last must have been the fact as regards some of his changes ; and, so far, his suggestions are only to be taken as those of an individual, who lived, we may suppose, not very long after the period when the dramas he elucidates were written, and who might have had intercourse with some of the actors of Shakespeare's day. As to this, and other sources of his knowledge, all we can do is to speculate °. There is a class of emendations, not yet adverted to, even more convincing, than the happiest alterations we have already noticed, that the old corrector must have had re- course to some not now extant authority. Malone contended that lines, in the old editions, were more frequently omitted than ordinary readers were disposed to believe ; and he might well so argue, seeing that in his own text, as we last receive it in the Variorum Edition of 1821', no fewer than three entire lines are left out in three separate plays ; while those who have been content to reprint that text have not discovered the deficiencies'. No wonder, then, if ^ We have not spoken of another circumstance which ought to be taken into account. About one-fifth of the plays in the folios are not divided into acts and scenes; but in this corrected folio, 1632, the omissions are supplied. In many instances the divisions there made do not accord with those in modern impressions : and in some the old printed divisions are struck out, and others substituted — perhaps, such as prevailed about the time when the second folio was published. This fact may tend farther to show, that the early possessor of the volume was in some way concerned in dramatic representations. ' As it comprises the notes of all editors and commentators, from Rowe to Malone, it may be as wfeU to state that it is the impression used hereafter, when speaking of their remarks and suggestions. If, in any instance, I have not stated that a proposed emendation has been pre- viously suggested, it has arisen from my ignorance of the fact, or from pure inadvertence. In many cases the older conjectures of Theobald, Warburton, Pope, Hanmer, &c., are remarkably confirmed. ' See Malone's Shakespeare, by Boswell, v. 479, xiii. 91, xxi. 272. The imperfections may be supplied by referring to the corresponding portions of the plays in the edition published by Messrs. Whittaker and Co. in 1844, 8 vols. 8vo. xxii INTRODUCTION. the old editors and printers, who made no professions of pe- culiar care and accuracy, were guilty of similar mistakes, and that several of them should have remained undetected to our own day. They are indicated in the folio, 1632, and are written in the margin for insertion in the proper places. To say nothing of words, sometimes two, three, and four together, which are wanting in the folios, and are supplied in manuscript, to the improvement both of meaning and measure, there are at least nine different places where lines appear to have been left out. From what source could these have been derived, if not from some more perfect copies, or from more faithful recitation? However we may be wiUing to depreciate other emendations, and to maintain that they were only the results of bold, but happy speculation — the feliciter audentia of conjecture — how can we account for the recovery of nine distinct lines, most exactly adapted to the situations where they are inserted, excepting upon the supposition that they proceeded from the pen of the poet, and have been preserved by the curious accuracy of an individual, almost a contemporary, who, in some way, possessed the means of supplying them' ? In certain cases the absence of a corresponding line, in a rhyming speech, affords evidence that words terminating with the required jingle have been lost. Are we prepared to Say that the old corrector, noting the want, has, of his own head, and out of his own head, forged and furnished it, making it also entirely consistent with what precedes and foUows ? When, in " Henry VI. Part II." Act II. Scene III., Queen Margaret calls upon Gloster to relinquish his staff of ' A few words, occurring in certain of the emendations, may be thought to be of rather a more modern stamp than the time of Shake- speare — such as " struggling," " wheedling," " generous," " exhibit," &c. It is not impossible, however, that they were in earlier use than our lexicographers represent; nor is it unlikely that in some cases the old corrector's merely conjectural emendations (supposing them to deserve that character) were coloured by the language of his own later day. Our tongue had then undergone some material changes. INTRODUCTION, XXlll office to her son, the Protector, addressing the young king, exclaims, — " My staff? here, noble Henry, is my staff: To think I fain would keep it makes me laugh; As willingly I do the same resign, As e'er thy father Henry made it mine." The line in Italic type is met with in no old copy, but when we find it in a hand-writing of about the time ; when we see that something has so evidently been lost, and that what [is offered is so nicely dovetailed into the place assigned to it, can we take upon ourselves to assert that it was foisted in without necessity or authority ? On the contrary, ought we not to welcome it with thankfulness, as a fortunate recovery, and a valuable restoration ? In several instances, it is easy, on other grounds, to un- derstand how the blunders were occasioned. In more than one of those places, where Malone was himself guilty of omissions of the sort, two consecutive lines ended with the same word, and the modern printer missed one of them, thinking that^he had already composed it. Such was, doubtless, the predica- ment of the ancient printer ; and we may quote a remark- able proof of the fact from " Coriolanus," that worst specimen of typography in the whole folio. In Act III. Scene II., Volumnia thus entreats her indignant and impetuous son to be patient : — " Pray be counsell'd. I have a heart as little apt as yours, But yet a brain, that leads my use of anger To better vantage." To what is Volumnia's heart as little apt as that of Corio- lanus ? She does not tell us, and the sense is undeniably incomplete ; but it is thus completed in the folio, 1632, by the addition of a lost line : — " Pray be counsell'd. I have a heart as little apt as yours XXIV INTRODUCTION. To brook control without the use of anger, But yet a brain, that leads my use of anger To better vantage." It seems impossible to doubt the genuineness of this inser- tion, unless we go the length of pronouncing it not only an invention, but an invention of the utmost ingenuity; for while it renders perfect the deficient sense, it shows at once what caused the error : the recurrence of the same words, " use of anger," at the end of two following lines, deceived the old compositor, and induced him to fancy that he had already printed a line, which he had excluded. Are we not entitled, then, to consider this copy of the folio, 1632, an addition to our scanty means of restoring and amending the text of Shakespeare, as important as it is un- expected? If it had contained no more than the compa- ratively few points to which we have adverted in this Intro- duction, would it not have rendered an almost inappreciable service to our literature, and to Shakespeare as the great example of every species of dramatic excellence ? It strikes me as an impossible supposition, that such as these were purely conjectural and arbitrary changes ; and it follows as a question, upon which I shall not now enlarge, how far such indisputahle emendations and apposite additions war- rant us in imputing to a higher authority, than we might otherwise he inclined to acknowledge, some of the more doubtful alterations recorded in the ensuing pages. In order to give the reader an exact notion of the hand- writing of the old corrector, and of his businesslike method of annotation, a facsimile has been prefixed, which faithfully represents the original. In this place the ink seems uniform, but our choice has been influenced, not so much by the worth of the play, or by the Value of the emendations, as by the circumstance that it includes, in the compass of an octavo page, examples of the manner in which corrections of nearly all kinds are made, from the insertion of a single INTRODUCTION. XXV letter to tlie addition of a line, omitted in all tlie folios, together with the striking out of a passage not considered necessary for the performance'. It will he remarked, from the title-page, that the present volume is supplemental to the edition of Shakespeare's Works I formerly superintended. It was there my leading principle to adhere to the old quartos and folios, wherever sense could be made out of the words they furnished : that they were wrong, in many more places than I suspected, will now be evident ; but I allowed myself no room for spe- culative emendation, even where it seemed most called for. Had the copy of the folio, 1632, the authority for nearly all that follows, devolved into my hands anterior to the com- mencement of that undertaking, the result would have been in many important respects different : as it is, those volumes will remain an authentic representation of the text of our great dramatist, as it is contained in the early editions ; and all who wish to ascertain the new readings proposed in the present work, will have the means of doing so without dis- turbing the ancient, and hitherto generally received, lan- guage of Shakespeare. It will, I hope, be clear from what precedes, that I have been anxious rather to underrate, than to overstate the claims of this annotated copy of the folio, 1632. I ought not, however, to hesitate in avowing my conviction, that we * It also explains the mode in which the corrector proceeded, when the division of a new scene had been improperly introduced in the old copy ; for the erasure of Actus Quintus, Scoena Prima, and the insertion of same in manuscript mean, that what follows is merely a continuation of a preceding scene. The word hriefely, lower down in the margin, exactly illustrates the way in which, by the non-crossing of the letter /, it was frequently mistaken for the long s: of course in this case no such blimder could be made. Those who were present on any of the four oc- casions, last year, when this volume was exhibited before the Shakespeare Society and the Society of Antiquaries, had an opportunity of observing all these peculiarities on other pages. It has been separately shown to many who wished to see the character of the alterations. XXVi INTRODUCTION. are bound to admit by far the greater body of the substitu- tions it contains, as the restored language of Shakespeare. As he was especially the poet of common life, so he was emphatically the poet of common sense ; and to the verdict of common sense I am willing to submit all the more mate- rial alterations recommended on the authority before me. If they will not bear that test, as distinguished from mere verbal accuracy in following old printed copies, I, for one, am content to relinquish them. Hitherto the quartos and folios have been our best and safest guides ; but it is notorious that in many instances they must be wrong ; and while, in vari- ous places, the old corrector does not attempt to set them right, probably from not possessing the means of doing so, the very fact, that he has here refrained from purely arbi- trary changes, ought to give us additional confidence in those emendations he felt authorized to introduce. I shall probably be told, in the usual terms, by some whose prejudices or interests may be affected by the ensuing volume, that the old corrector knew little about the spirit or language of Shakespeare ; and that, in the remarks I have ventured on his emendations, I prove myself to be in a similar predicament. The last accusation is probably true : I have read and studied our great dramatist for nearly half a century, and if I could read and study him for half a century more, I should yet be far from arriving at an accurate knowf ledge of his works, or an adequate appreciation of his worth. He is an author whom no man can read enough, nor study enough ; and as my ambition always has been to understand him properly, and to estimate him sufficiently, I shall accept, in whatever terms reproof may be conveyed, any just cor- rection thankfully. J. P. C. CONTENTS. % Notes and Emendations to page I* The Tempest 1 X The Two Gentlemen of Verona 17 (,(_ The Merry Wives of Windsor 29 X Measure for Measure . .41 ,->». The Comedy of Errors 50 ^ Much Ado about Nothing 66 Love's Labour's Lost 80 A Midsummer Night's Dream 98 ' The Merchant of Venice 112 > As You Like It 125 ^The Taming of the Shrew 141 fAU's Well that Ends Well 155 SitTwelfth Night 171 StfThe Winter's Tale 183 >fe-JKingJohn 199 ■>t. King Richard II 214 74. King H^nry IV. (Part I.) 228 ' (Part IL) 242 ^King Henry V. 253 KingHenry VI. (Parfcl.) 265 ■ (Part II.) 279 (Part III.) 290 ,„^King Richard III 300 ^^ King Henry VIII 317 Troilus And Cressida 329 Coriolanus 346 Titus Andronicus 3G6 tjle- Romeo and Juliet 374 Tiraon of Athens 387 ^ Julius Caesar 396 ^ Macbeth 405 ML Hamlet 418 l^'King. Lear 434 >lrOtheUo 448 JB Antony and Cleopatra 464 Cym^eline 485 Notes . ', ' 503 \ pHAwft- Enter (^haTUsjAlanpm/Burgwidifi^'Baftard, OfidTucell. Char. Hari Yorkc and Sotncrfet brought refcue in, We fhould havcfound a bloody day ofthis. Ba^. How the yong whelpe of 7^«X«^ Baji. Hew them to peeces, hacfc their bones aflbnder, Whoft life wasEnglands glory,Gallia's wonder t P>Ar. Oh no forbeare:For that which we have fled During the Iife,letusriot Wrong itdead. p ^^. Enter Lhcj. c^*S>-^»t»««1C*^ X*. Heraldjconduft me to the Dolphins Tent, To know who hath a b ialu'U t he gjory of the day. 1 ChMr. On what fubmiffive meflageart thou fent? I Lucj. SubmilTion DolphinPTis ameere French word: We Englifh' Warriours wot not what it meanes. I cometo know what Priibners thou haft tane. And to furvey the bodies of the deadi Char. For prifoners askft thouPHell our prifon is. But tell m^whom thou feek^ Lue. But Where's the great Alcidesof the field, Valiant Lord TaBot Earle of Shrewsbury? Created for his rarefuccelSe in Armes, ItOrATaioptoi GoodrigATiAVrch npeld, Lord StrMge of Blackmere, Lore Verdon oieAlton, Lord Cretimll oi H'ingejUld^Lau Furnivall of Shejfeild, Knight of the Noble Order of S . Geergej Worthy S. y?/*«&/»/^dtbe ^elden Fleece ^ Great Marfliall to our King Benrj the fixt. Of all his Warres within the Realme of France JJifeEkercU/^KSim':Ia£mii': THE TEMPEST. ACT I. SCENE I. P. 9. The introductory stage-direction in the old folios, especially with the manuscript addition in that of 1632 (which we have marked in Italics), is striking and picturesque : — " A tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning heard : Enter a Ship- master, and a Boatswain, as on shipboard, shaking off wet." In Malone's Shakespeare, by Boswell, (vol. xv. p. 19), it stands only, — " A storm with thunder and lightning. Enter a Ship-master and Boatswain ; " but, from the corrected folio, 1632, it appears that the two actors who began the play entered as if on deck, shaking the rain and spray from their garments as they spoke, and thus giving an additional ap- pearance of reality to the scene. "Enter Mariners, wet," occurs soon afterwards, and we are left to conclude that they showed the state of their dress in the same way, but we are not told so, either in print or in manuscript. Alonso, Sebastian, Antonio, Ferdinand, Gonzalo, and the rest, come up From the cabin, (a part of the direction also supplied in manuscript, in the folio, 1632,) meaning, no doubt, that they ascended from under the stage, and are consequently supposed not to be in the same dripping condition. P. 9. " Alon. Good boatswain, have care." It may be just worth remark, that the colloquial expression is, " Have a care ;" and a is inserted in the margin of the corrected folio, 1632, to indicate, probably, that the poet so wrote it, or, at all events, that the actor so delivered it. 2 THE TEMPEST. [aCT I. SCENE II. p. 12. The reading of all editions has heen this :— " The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch, But that the sea, mounting to the welkin's cheek. Dashes the fire out." The manuscript corrector of the folio, 1632, has substi- tuted heat for " cheek," which is not an unlikely corruption by a person writing only by the ear. The welkin's heat was occasioned by the flaming pitch, but the fire was dashed out by the fury of the waves. The firing of the " welkin's cheek " seems a forced image ; but, nevertheless, we meet elsewhere with " heaven's face," and even the " welkin's face." P. 12. Miranda exclaims : — "A hrave vessel, Who had, no douht, some noble creature in her, Dash'd all to pieces ! " Creatures, for " creature," was the reading of Theobald, and he was right, though it varies from all the old copies. The corrector of the folio, 1632, added the necessary letter in the margin. Miranda speaks also of " those she saw suffer," and calls them " poor souls." P. 13. The emendation in the subsequent lines, assigned to Prospero, is important. The reading, since the publication of the folio, 1 623 (with one exception to be noticed imme- diately), has invariably been as follows : — " The direful spectacle of the wreck, which touch 'd The very virtue of compassion in thee, I have with such provision in mine art So safely order'd, that there is no soul — No, not so much perdition as an hair Betid to any creature in the vessel." The only exception to the above text was a corruption wliich found its way into the folio, 1632, where "compassion" of the second line was repeated in the third : — " I have with such compassion in mine art," &c. the printer having caught the word from the preceding line. " I have with such provision in mine art," SC. II.] THE TEMPEST. 3 the word in the folio, 1623, has always been followed ; but that it was an error may be said to be proved by the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, who altered " com- passion " (as it stood there) not to " provision " (as it stood in the folio, 1623), but to prcevision, in reference to Pro- spero's power of foreseeing what would be the result of the tempest he had raised : — " I have with such prevision in mine art So safely order'd, that there is no soul," &c. " Provision" would answer the purpose of giving a mean- ing, because Prosper© might have provided that no soul should suffer ; but prevision supplies a higher and finer sense, showing that the great magician had by his art foreseen that there should not be "so much perdition as an hair" among the whole crew. The alteration of a single letter makes the whole difference. P. 14. There is certainly some misprint in the following conclusion of a speech by Prospero : — " And thy father Was Duke of Milan, and his only heir And princess no worse issued." The sense is intelligible, but the expression obscure. Malone and Steevens read, — " And his only heir A princess, no worse issued ; " but the corruption, according to the corrector of the folio, 1632, is in the preceding line ; for he alters the passage thus : — " And thy father Was Duke of Milan, thou his only heir And princess, no worse issued." which removes the difficulty. The compositor, perhaps, caught " and" from the line above. P. 15. A very trifling change, the transference of a prepo- sition from one word to another, clears up one of the most celebrated passages in this drama. Prospero, speaking of his false brother, Antonio, who, having been entrusted with un- limited power, had turned it against the rightful Duke, observes : — B 2 4 THE TEMPEST. [aCT I. " He being thus lorded, Not only with what my revenue yielded, But what my power might else exact, — like one Who having, unto truth, by telling of it, Made such a sinner of his memory To credit his own lie, — he did believe He was indeed the duke." Various modes of improving this unquestionably corrupt sentence have been suggested by Warburton (who changed into of the folios to " unto"), Monk Mason, Steevens, Malone, and Boswell ; but not one of them hit upon the right emen- dation, which is indicated by the corrector of the folio, 1632, in the shortest and simplest manner, by erasing the prepo- sition in one place, and by adding it to the word imme- diately adjoining : he also substitutes loaded for " lorded" in the first line, — perhaps, a questionable change. He puts the whole in this form : — " He being thus loaded, Not only with what my revenue yielded, But what my power might else exact, — like one Who having, to untruth, by telling of it. Made such a sinner of his memory To credit his own lie, — ^he did believe He was indeed the duke." There cannot be a doubt that this, as regards "untruth," is the true language of Shakespeare ; and, by an insignificant transposition, what has always been a stumbling-block to commentators is now satisfactorily removed. P. 16. The ordinary reading has been this : — " Whereon, A treacherous army levied, one midnight Fated to the purpose, did Antonio open The gates of Milan ; and i' the dead of darkness, The ministers for the purpose hurried thence Me, and thy crying self." Here we see the word "purpose" awkwardly and need- lessly repeated with only an intervening line. The manu- script-corrector of the folio, 1632, supplants "purpose," in the first instance, by practise : he was, most likely, supported by some good authority ; and Shakespeare constantly uses the word practise to denote contrivance, artifice, or conspiracy, and therefore, we may presume, wrote, — SC. II.] THE TEMPEST, 5 " One midnight Fated to the practise, did Antonio open The gates of Milan," &c. P. 17. In all the old copies the following reading has been preserved : — " Where they prepar'd A rotten carcass of a butt, not rigg'd, Nor tackle, sail, nor mast ; the very rats Instinctively have quit it." Rowe altered "hutt"to boat, and " have quit it," to had quit it : in both changes he is supported by the corrector of the folio, 1632. Modern editors, who were naturally- anxious to adhere to the folios, as the best existing autho- rity, finding that sense could be made out of the reading of the old copies, followed them, as above, in what appear to be two errors. P. 18. An important and curious point is settled by a manuscript stage-direction opposite the words used by Pros- pero in the commencement of his third speech on this page, — "Now I arise." What is written in the margin of the corrected folio, 1632, is, Put on robe again ; and the fuU force of this addition may not at first be obvious. It refers back to an earlier part of the same scene (p. 12), where Prospero says to Miranda, — " Lend thy hand, And pluck my magic garment from me. — So : Lie there my art." The words Lay it dovm are written against this passage, as Put on robe again are written against " Now I arise." The fact is that Prospero, having put ofi" his " magic garment," never put it on again, according to all existing copies of the drama; and it was this singular omission that the manu- script-corrector of the folio, 1632, supplied. The great pro priety of Prospero's removal of his robe of power, during his narration to his daughter, is evident : he did not then require its aid ; but just before he concluded, and just before he was to produce somnolency in Miranda by the exercise of preter- natural influence, he resumed it, a circumstance by which the judgment and skill of the poet are remarkably illustrated. Annotators have endeavoured to account for the sudden dis- 6 THE TEMPEST. [aCT I. position of Miranda to sleep, in spite of her interest in her father's story, in various ways, but the effect upon her, by the resumption of his " magic garment" by Prospero, has escaped observation, because every editor, from the first to the last, seems to have forgotten that Prospero, having laid aside his outer dress near the beginning of the scene, ought to put it on again, at all events, before the end of it. When, therefore, he says, " Now I arise," he does not mean, as Steevens absurdly supposed, "Now my story heightens," because the very reverse is the fact ; but that he rose from the seat he had taken, in order to invest himself again in his " magic gar- ment," having occasion to use it now in producing sudden drowsiness on Miranda, The manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, has previously pointed out what nobody else ever noted, viz., the precise moment when, of old, the actor of the part of Prospero took his seat, by writing Sit down opposite the following lines (p. 13) with which the magician com- mences his narrative : — " The hour 's now come, The very minute bids thee ope thine ear ; Obey, and be attentive." [^Sit down. Having here taken his seat, we may conclude that he continued to occupy it until he uttered "Now I arise." Miranda, who had stood eagerly listening by his side, then sat down in her turn : her father, clothed again in his " magic garment," enjoins her to " sit still ;" and not long afterwards we come to the manuscript stage direction. She sleeps, — an effect wrought upon her senses, not by any physical weariness, but by the agency of Prospero, empowered by that robe with which he had only recently re-invested himself for the purpose. Thus we see the value of apparently trifling stage directions in explaining so singular an incident as the sudden and deep slumber of Miranda, at the moment when Prospero had concluded his surprising and exciting story. P. 20. Ariel, giving Prospero an account of the fate of the rest of the dispersed fleet, tells him, — " They all have met again, And are upon the Mediterranean flote, Bound sadly home for Naples." In order to make the sentence grammatical, it has been necessary to consider "flote" a substantive, from the Fr. SC. II.] THE TEMPEST. 7 flot, a wave. The misprint of " are " for all near the begin- ning of the second line has led to this imaginary introduction of a foreign and affected word into our language, when it was never contemplated by Shakespeare. The reading, as given in manuscript in the corrected folio, 1632, is, " They all have met again, And all upon the Mediterranean float, Bound sadly back to Naples." " Float," in fact, is a verb, used by every body, and not a substantive, used by no other English writer. P. 23. In no printed copy of this drama is inserted any stage direction to show when Miranda awakes out of her slumber, although we are told when she goes to sleep. Ac- cording to the manuscript-corrected folio, 1632, she wakes with the excuse to her father, — "The strangeness of your story put Heaviness in me." [Waking. Johnson, not knowing that what Prospero calls "a good dullness " (because it was what he wished) in Miranda had been magically superinduced, maintains that " experience proves that any violent agitation of the mind easily subsides in slumber." This explanation is altogether needless, for the audience had seen Prospero resume his art with his magic garment, and was aware that Miranda's "heaviness" was the effect of preternatural influence. P. 25. The speech beginning, — "Abhorred slave. Which any print of goodness will not take,'' &c. was first assigned to Prospero, instead of Miranda (to whom it is given in all the folios), by Dryden and Davenant in their alteration of this drama. Theobald and others have followed this arrangement, and the fitness of it is confirmed by the corrected folio, 1632, where the prefix Mir. is changed to Pro. in the margin. P. 26. There is no dispute that in Ariel's song, " Come unto these yellow sands," a line is misprinted in all the old copies, where it appears exactly thus : — " Foot it featly here and there, and sweet sprites bear the hurthen." 8 THE TEMPEST. [aCT II. It ought to run thus : — " Foot it featly here and there, And sweet sprites the burthen bear." In this form it has been ordinarily printed, and so it stands in manuscript in the corrected folio, 1632. It seems manifest that the words, in a new line, " the burthen," — were meant as the indication of the commencement of that bur- then, and as 9, sort of heading or title to what immediately follows. P. 27. The manuscript stage direction in the corrected folio, 1632, Music above, in the middle of Ferdinand's speech, "The ditty does remember," &c. proves, we may infer, that when the play was formerly acted, the air was continued while the performer was speaking. P. 28. The stage-direction, Kneels, in manuscript, opposite the speech of Ferdinand, " Most sure a goddess," &c. shows that the performer of the part assumed a posture of wonder and adoration, which he kept till Miranda had finished her reply, when Rising is also inserted in the margin of the corrected folio, 1632. Aside is there noted when Prospero says, a few lines afterwards, — " The Duke of Milan," &c. It is the earliest direction of. the kind that occurs in the volume, and we need only mention that it is repeated several times afterwards in this scene. ACT II. SCENE I. P. 32. The portion of the scene from " He receives comfort like cold porridge," &c. down to " Aye and a subtle, as he most learnedly delivered," is crossed out with a pen in the corrected folio, 1632, probably with the object of shortening the performance. SC. I.] THE TEMPEST. 9 P. 35. Modern editors have concurred with Malone in the following reading: — " And the fair soul herself Weigh'd, between lothness and obedience, at Which end o' the beam she'd bow." It deviates from the old copies by converting should into " she'd," which is unnecessary (and to the detriment of the sense) if we correct, as is done in manuscript in the folio, 1632, a single literal error, and read, — "And the fair soul herself Weigh'd between lothness and obedience, as Which end o' the beam should bow." P. 36. From the speech of Sebastian, " Foul weather," down to the entrance of Ariel, p. 38, is struck through with a pen, but several literal errors are nevertheless corrected in the folio, 1632. The erased portion includes the celebrated passage, copied almost verbatim from Florio's translation of "Montaigne's Essays," fol. 1603, B. I. ch. 80. p. 102. P. 38. The old stage direction on the entrance of Ariel is, — Enter Ariel playing solemn music, to which the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, has added, above, invisible. The spirit was therefore supposed to be in the air, listening to what passed below. In all modern editions. Exit Ariel, as soon as Alonso falls asleep ; but from the words in the margin. Gome down, added in manuscript to the printed direction. Enter Ariel, with music and song, on p. 42, we may, probably, be warranted in inferring that the spirit hovered in the air unseen all the time Sebastian and Antonio were plotting against the life of Alonso, and then descended to sing in Gronzalo's ear, and give him warning of the danger. Ariel remains present, but invisible, to the end of the scene ; and that there was some contrivance for suspending per- formers in the air, we know from several authorities, and among them, from the last scene of Act III., where Prospero remains, as it is stated, on the top, invisible, until near its conclusion. P. 40. There is a comparatively trifling change in An- tonio's speech, — " She that is queen of Tunis,'' &c. 10 THE TEMPEST. [acT II. The old folios all read, in the fifth line of it, "she that from whom ;" but Rowe (who has been here followed by later editors) omitted "that," and printed, "she from whom." The true reading seems to be "she /or whom," or on account of whom ; and this correction is made in the margin of the folio, 1632. In the third line of the next speech by Antonio, " Measure us back to Naples," ought, on the same authority, to be, "Measure it back to Naples." Nevertheless, the former seems preferable. P. 42. When Alonso starts out of his sleep and finds Sebastian and Antonio with their swords drawn, about to slay him, he asks, according to all modem editions, — " Why are you drawn? Wherefore this ghastly looking?" " This" was misprinted for thus (a common error), and u for i was therefore inserted in the margin of the corrected folio, 1632,— " Wherefore thus ghastly looking?" The change is minute, and may be said to be not absolutely necessary. In the fifth line of Gonzalo's speech, on the next page (43), another literal error occurs, where the old courtier says, " That's verily," instead of " That's verity." The old corrector of the folio, 1632, did not allow the mistake to escape him. SCENE II. P. 45. Trinculo, sheltering himself under the gabardine of Caliban, says, — " I will here shroud, till the dregs of the storm be past ; " but a manuscript correction in the folio, 1632, informs us that " dregs" is a misprint for drench; and certainly Trinculo was much more likely to be anxious to avoid the drench, or extreme violence of the storm, than the mere " dregs,"' or conclusion of it. P. 49. Caliban's song has this line : — " Nor scrape trenchering, nor wash dish;" but the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, has obli- ACT lU.J THE TEMPEST. 11 terated the last syllable of " trenchering," so that the passage there stands more correctly, " Nor scrape trencher, nor wash dish." ACT III. SCENE I. P. 50. The hemistich, at the conclusion of Ferdinand's speech, has occasioned much doubt and controversy. It seems set at rest by the manuscript correction in the folio, 1632. The following is the usual reading of the whole passage : — " But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my lahours : Most busy, least when I do it." Such, in fact, are the words in the folio, 1632 ; but in the earlier folio, 1623, the last line stands thus: — " Most busy lest, when I do it." The editor of the folio, 1632, not understanding "lest," in that connexion, altered it to least. It appears (as was not an uncommon occurrence), that a letter had dropped out in the press, and that the real language of the poet was as beautiful as it was brief We are indebted for it to the manuscript of the corrector of the folio, 1632, who has merely inserted the missing letter. Earlier in his speech, Ferdinand, exclaiming against his laborious employment, adds that the thought of Miranda rendered delightful what would otherwise be in- tolerable : — " This my mean task Would he as heavy to me as odious ; but The mistress which I serve quickens what's dead, And makes my labours pleasures;" and, at the close of what he says, he repeats the same senti- ment, but in a shorter form : — " But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my labours : Most busy — hlest, when I do it." That is to say, he deems himself hlest even by heavy toils, when they are made light by the thoughts of Miranda ; he was "most busy," but still hlest, when so employed. The accidental dropping out of the letter h has been the cause of aU the doubt that, for nearly two centuries and a half, has 12 THE TEMPEST. [aCT IV. involved this passage. It is right to add that this emen- dation is, like a few others, upon an erasure, as if something had been written there before : perhaps the page had been blotted. ACT IV. SCENE I. P. 63. Prospero, commending his daughter to Ferdinand, remarks, — " For I Have given you a third of mine ovpn life." Such is the reading of all the folios, and there seems no especial reason why Prospero should divide his life into three, and call Miranda " a third" of it. The text has been much disputed, and for " third" of the old printed copy, the cor- rector of the folio, 1632, has written ihrid (i. e. thread) in the margin. This fact may possibly be decisive of the question. P. 66. In the subsequent passage, from the speech of Iris, two manuscript corrections are made in the folio, 1632. We first give the lines, as ordinarily printed: — " Thy banks with pioned and twilled brims, Which spongy April at thy best betrims, To make cold nymphs chaste crowns ; and thy broom groves Whose shadow the dismissed bachelor loves, Being lass-lorn." In the corrected folio, 1632, they stand thus : — " Thy banks with pioned and tilled brims, Which spongy April at thy best betrims, To make cold nymphs chaste crowns ; and thy brown groves Whose shadow the dismissed bachelor loves, Being lass-lorn." Tilled of course refers to cultivation by "pioning," or digging ; but brown groves, in allusion to their deep shade, is a more important emendation. There seems no reason why a " dismissed bachelor " should love the covert of " broom groves," especially recollecting that broom trees are seldom found in "groves." It may be added that the word SC. I.] THE TEMPEST. 13 is subjoined to tlie printed stage-direction, Juno descends, — to show, perhaps, that the goddess was gradually descending all the time Ceres and Iris delivered their speeches. P. 68. An important change is made in the song given to Juno (and not divided, in the corrected folio, 1632, between her and Ceres, as has been usual) in the couplet, — " Spring come to you, at the farthest, In the very end of harvest." The first line is altered to, — "Rain come to you, at the farthest," &c. It may be asked why Juno should wish spring to be so long deferred ? On the other hand, rain before " the very end of harvest," would be a misfortune, and the singer is deprecating such disasters. P. 68. The following would seem to be mistakenly printed as a couplet : — " So rare a wond'red father and a wise Makes this place Paradise." The unequal length of the lines, and the fact that the last is a hemistich, completed by the opening of Prospero's next speech, militates against this notion : Malone and others therefore printed wife for "wise," supposing that the com- positor had mistaken the long s for/. Under the circum- stances, perhaps, the decision of the corrector of the folio, 1632, may be held final, and he adopts wife: — " So rare a wond'red father, and a wife Makes this place Paradise." In the next speech of Iris, " windring" has been treated as a misprint for winding, and " sedg'd crowns," is altered in the margin to " sedge-crowns," regarding the fitness of which we can hardly doubt. P. 71. To the old stage-direction. Enter Ariel, loaden with glistering apparel, the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, has added the explanatory words. Hang it on the line ; but whether we are to understand a line tree (as has been suggested by Mr. Hunter, in his learned Essay on the Tempest, 8vo. 1839), or a mere rope, is not stated. 14 THK TEMPEST. [aCT V. When Stephano and Trinculo discover it, Seeing the_ apparel is written opposite the speech of the latter, beginning, " 0, king Stephano ! peer ! O, worthy Stephano ! look, what a wardrobe here is for thee ! " p. 72. ACT V. SCENE I. P. 75. Only one manuscript emendation is made in Pro- sperous great speech, abjuring his magic ; but it is worth attention. The passage has invariably run : — " You demy puppets, that By moonshine do the green-sour ringlets make, Whereof the ewe not bites." For "sour" the corrector substitutes sward — "ih.e green- sward ringlets," or ringlets on the green-sward, which sheep avoid, and to which the unusual compound epithet " green- sour" may properly be applied. Here we may not see the necessity of this alteration, though it may have been war- ranted by some manuscript to which the corrector of the folio, ] 632, was able to resort. P. 76. We meet with changes of the received text in two consecutive lines of the continuation of the speech of Pro- spero, after Alonso, Gonzalo, Sebastian, Antonio, &c., have become " spell-stopped" in the magic circle. The reading of all the editions has been, — " Holy Gonzalo, honourable man, Mine eyes, even sociable to the show of thine, Fall fellowly drops." The epithet " holy" is inapplicable to Gonzalo, while nolle (substituted by the corrector of the folio, 1632) is on all ac- counts appropriate. In the "Winter's Tale" (ActV. Scene I.) Leontes tells Florizel, " You have a holy father," where the word seems equally out of place, and where the corrector has, as in " the Tempest," erased it and written noble in its stead. In both these cases the copyist must have misheard ; but the second error in the same passage, " show" for flow, most pro- bably arose out of the common mistake between the long s and the / The manuscript-corrector gives the whole in these terms : — SC. I.] THE TEMPEST. 15 " Noble Gonzalo, honourable man, Mine eyes, even sociable to the flow of thine. Fall fellowly drops." The eyes of Gonzalo were flowing with tears, and those of Prospero wept in fellowship with them. P. 77. In the same speech Prospero again addresses Gon- zalo as — " O, good Gonzalo, My true preserver, and a loyal sir To him thou follow'st." This is an uncommon, though not unprecedented, use of the word " sir ;" and the fact is (according to the corrector of the folio, 1632), that it was a misprint for servant. In the manuscript used by the printer the word servant was probably abbreviated, and thus the error produced, the true reading being, — " My true preserver and a loyal servant To him thou follow'st." P. 78. Prospero, in the words of the manuscript stage- direction, being Attired as duke of Milan, presents himself before his astonished brother, after Gonzalo has prayed some heavenly power to guide them out of the " fearful country." Antonio, in the first instance, believes that the whole is a diabolical delusion, and, according to all editions, exclaims, " Whe'r thou beest he, or no. Or some enchanted trifle to abuse me, As late I have been, I not know." The word "trifle" seems a most strange one to be em- ployed in such a situation, and it reads like a misprint : the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, informs us that it undoubtedly is so, and that the line in which it occurs ought to run, " Or some enchanted devil to abuse me." Sebastian just afterwards declares of Prospero, that " the devil speaks in him." P. 80. To the printed stage-direction, Here Prospero dis- covers Ferdinand and Miranda playing at chess, the manu- script-corrector of the folio, 1632, adds a note, showing in what way, according to the simplicity of our early theatres, the lovers were disclosed to the audience: his words are, 16 THE TEMPEST. Draw curtain; so that Prospero drew a traverse at the back of the stage, and showed Ferdinand and Miranda at their game. P. 84<. Prospero describing Sycorax, in the presence of Caliban, tells Antonio, — " His mother Was a witch ; and one so strong, That could control the moon, make flows and ebbs, And deal in her command, without her power." The words "without her power" have naturally occasioned considerable discussion, in which Malone hinted that Sy- corax might act by a sort of " power of attorney" from the moon, while Steevens strangely supposed that " without her power'' meant "with less general power." All difficulty, however, is at an end, when we find the manuscript -corrector of the folio, 1632, marking "without" as a misprint, and telling us that it ought to have been with all ; — "That could control the moon, make flows and ebbs. And deal in her command with all her power :" that is, Sycorax could " make flows and ebbs" matters in the command of the moon, with all the power exercised over the tides by the moon. The error of the press here is, we think, transparent. THE TWO GENTLEMEN VERONA. ACT I. SCENE I. P. 92. The reading of the subsequent line has hitherto been, — " 'Tis true ; for you are over boots in love ;" but the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, has changed it to " 'Tis true ; but you are over boots in love ;" which seems more consistent with the course of the dia- logue ; for Proteus, remarking that Leander had been " more than over shoes in love" with Hero, Valentine answers, that Proteus was even more deeply in love than Leander : Proteus observes of the fable of Hero and Leander, — " That's a deep story of a deeper love, For he was more than over shoes in love," Valentine retorts : — " 'Tis true ; hut you are over boots in love." " For," instead of hut, was perhaps caught by the compositor from the preceding line. The following change, lower in the page, seems hardly necessary, but it is not the only instance in which the manu- script-corrector of the folio, 1632, has converted the active into the passive participle : he altered " Even so by love the young and tender wit Is turn'd to folly; blasting in the bud," C 18 THE TWO GENTLEMEN [aCT II. to "blasted in the bud;" for the bud does not blast, but is itself blasted: the "young and tender wit" is a "bud" blasted by love. P. 96. Steevens and Malone differed about Speed's ob- servation to Proteus, as it stands in the folio, 1623 : — "And being so hard to me that brought your mind, I fear she'll prove as hard to you in telling your mind." Steevens adopted the words from the folio, 1632 — "And being so hard to me that brought your mind, I fear she'll prove as hard to you in telling her mind." Probably neither old reading is quite right, and the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, has made it intelligible by his emendation, — " And being so hard to me that brought to her your mind, I fear she'll prove as hard to you in telling you her mind." The words to her and you are added in the margin. The fact is, that the whole speech was intended for irregular fami- liar verse, and the manuscript-corrector has added the word better at the end of the first line, which had apparently dropped out : the whole will therefore run as follows : — " Sir, I could perceive nothing at all from her better, No, not so much as a ducat for delivering your letter ; And being so hard to me that brought to her your mind, I fear she'll prove as hard to you in telling you her mind." As a slight confirmation of the opinion that rhyming verse was intended, it may be mentioned, that in the folios the lines begin with capital letters as they are above printed. Still the same circumstance belongs to other places, where it is clear that prose only was to be spoken. SCENE II. P. 97. Rhyme is also restored in the next scene between Julia and Lucetta, where they are discussing the merits and claims of various amorous gentlemen. An apparent misprint of another kind, "lovely" for loving, is also corrected in manuscript in the folio, 1632. Julia has asked her maid what she thinks of Proteus, and Lucetta's answer provokes the following, as we find it in all editions :— " Jul. How now ! what means this passion at his name ? Luc. Pardon, dear madam : 'tis a passing shame. SC. II.] OF VERONA. 19 That I, unworthy body as I am, Should censure thus on lovely gentlemen. Jul. Why not on Proteus, as of all the rest ? Luc. Then thus, — of many good I think him best." It seems clear that the two middle lines should rhyme as well as all the others ; and the manuscript-corrector not only- cures this defect, but gives Lucetta's answer a particular ap- plication to the very person of whom both she and her mis- tress are speaking. The emendation is this : — "That I, unworthy body, as I can, Should censure thus a loving gentleman." Lucetta, knowing that Proteus is a " loving gentleman" to her mistress, wishes to be excused from giving her opinion, as well " as she can" form one, upon him, until Julia compels her to do so. The above is by no means the only part of the scene that is in rhyme, and in two subsequent places the cor- rector restores what we may presume to have been the ori- ginal jingle, thus (p. 100) : — " She makes it strange, but she would be pleas'd better To be so anger'd with another letter." Here for " pleas'd better," the ordinary reading has been " best pleas'd." Again (p. 101) : — " Ay, madam, you may see what sights you thinlc ; I see things too, although you judge I wink." Hitherto the first of these lines has been, " Ay, madam, you may say what sights you see." It is not improbable, that in this comedy, confessedly one of its author's earliest works, rhymes originally abounded more frequently than at the time it was printed in 1623, the fashion in the interval having so changed, that they were considered not only unnecessary, but possibly had become distasteful to audiences. When " The Two Gentlemen of Verona" was, according to our best conjectures, first pro- duced, blank verse had only recently been adopted on the stage. "We shall see this point more fully illustrated here- after, when we come to speak of "Titus Andronicus," in which several passages have been restored by the corrector of the folio, 1632, apparently to the form in which they were recited when the tragedy was acted quite in the beginning of Shakespeare's career. c2 20 THE TWO GENTLEMEN [aCT H. ACT II. SCENE I. P. 106. There can be no doubt that the small word we have printed below in italics, and which was inserted by the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, is necessary in the following ridicule by Speed of his master, for having been changed by his love for Silvia : — " You were wont, when you laughed, to crow like a cock ; when you walked, to walk like one of the lions ; when you fasted, it was presently after dinner ; when you looked sadly, it was for want of money ; and now you are so metamorphosed with a mistress, that, when I look on you, I can hardly think you my master. Nevertheless, so has been always omitted. SCENE IV. P. 116. The following passage, as it stands in all impres- sions, is unquestionably a piece of tautology. The Duke~ asks Valentine if he knows Don Antonio ? " Fal. Ay, my good lord; I know the gentleman To be of worth, and worthy estimation, And not without desert so well reputed." The manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, substitutes a word in the second line, easily misprinted, and which being restored, is certainly an improvement : — " To he oi wealth and worthy estimation." Wealth would be an additional recommendation to the Duke, and it entirely avoids the objectionable repetition : if An- tonio were of "worth" and " worthy estimation," he could not well be so reputed " without desert." P. 119. The line " Disdain to root the summer-swelling flower," has been disputed, the epithet " summer-smelling" having been preferred by some critics ; but the old copies having " summer-swelling," that reading has generally prevailed. The corrector of the folio, 1632, has however altered the compound, probably on good authority, with which we are not now acquainted, to " summer-smeMm^r." SC. VII.J OF VERONA. 21 SCENE VI. p. 124. Johnson tells us, that " O sweet suggesting love ! if thou hast sinn'd, Teach me, thy tempted subject, to excuse it,'' means, " Oh, tempting love ! if thou hast influenced me to sin ;" but, when Proteus is lamenting the breach of his vows to Julia, it seems much more natural for him to say, "if / have sinn'd," and so it is given by the corrector of the folio, 1632. Further on, in the same soliloquy, he reads, "precious to itself" for" precious in itself," which is quite consistent with the context, — " I to myself am dearer than a friend, For love is still most precious to itself." SCENE VII. P. 126. The epithet wide substituted by the corrector of the folio, 1632, seems more appropriate in the following lines, but it has been uniformly printed " wild :" Julia is speaking of a current that "with gentle murmur glides" be- tween its banks, — " And so by many winding nooks he strays With willing sport to the wide ocean." This is, of course, one of the cases in which either reading may be right : if we prefer wide, it is mainly because the old corrector had some ground for adopting it. P. 128. There is a misprint in the following line, as pointed out by the corrector of the folio, 1632 ; — " To furnish me upon my longing journey." Julia is about to travel in male attire in search of the object of her devoted regard, Proteus, and desires her maid to pro- vide her with all the apparel necessary, and to come with her to her chamber — " To take a note of what I stand in need of To furnish me upon my loving ^oxaney." " Loving journey," in reference to the purpose of it, seems to recommend itself. 22 THE TWO GENTLEMEN [ACT III. ACT III. SCENE I. p. 131. There are several oversights as to the place of action in this comedy. For instance, in Act II. Scene V. (p. 122), Speed welcomes Launce to Padua instead of Milan ; and here we find the Duke telling Valentine " There is a lady in Verona here," when it ought also to be Milan. Again, in Act V. Scene IV. (p. 168), Valentine is made to speak of Verona, when he means Milan. In the two last places three syllables are necessary for the verse ; and Pope and Theobald resorted to difi^erent contrivances to obviate the difficulty: in one case Pope interpolated " Sir," and in the other Theobald read behold for " hold." The manuscript-corrector of the folio, 16-32, has shown how both these changes may be avoided, by only supposing that Shakespeare, instead of speaking of Milan, as it is called in our language, inserted Milano, the Italian name of the city. Milano suits the mea- sure just as well as Verona, and it is more likely that the printer or copyist were in fault, than the poet. SCENE II. P. 141. On the same authority, "some" ought to be printed sure in the following line, where the Duke is about to employ Proteus most confidentially : — " For thou hast shown some sign of good desert." Sure is written in the margin, and " some" struck out, because Proteus had already given undoubted proofs of fidelity to the Duke, and of treachery to Valentine. In the next page, " weed," as it stands in the folios, and in subsequent editions, reads like an error of the press, and doubtless it was so, since " weed" was displaced by the cor- rector of the folio, 1632, and wean, a word much better adapted to the situation, inserted : — " But say, this wean her love from Valentine, It follows not that she will love Sir Thurio." A third mistake of the same kind is pointed out on p. 146, ACT IV.] OF VEEONA. 23 in the first scene between Valentine and the Outlaws, where the whole body having chosen him captain, the third Outlaw exclaims, — " Come, go with us : we'll bring thee to our crews, And show thee all the treasure we have got," For "crews" we ought to read cave, in which the treasure was deposited : cave is therefore written in the margin, and crews erased : the " crews" (so to call them) were present on the stage, and Valentine needed not to be brought to them. ACT IV. SCENE II. P. ] 48. In the song, " Who is Silvia ?" &c., there is a re- petition of " she" in the third line, as the rhyme to " she" in the first line ; and although such a licence was by no means unprecedented, still it was usual for writers not to avail themselves of it. If the corrector of the folio, 1632, give the song as it was written by Shakespeare, the inelegance to which we refer was avoided by the adoption of an epithet which our great dramatist has elsewhere employed with re- ference to female simplicity and innocence (" Twelfth Night," Act II. Scene IV.). The first stanza of the song, as corrected in the folio, 1632, is this: — " Who is Silvia ? what is she, That all our swains commend her ? Holy, fair, and wise as free ; The heaven such grace did lend her, That she might admired be." SCENE III. P. 153. We have here a very important emendation, sup- plying a whole line, evidently deficient, and yet never missed by any of the commentators. It is in one of the speeches of Sir Eglamour, wherein he consents to aid Silvia in her escape. Until now, it has run : — " Madam, I pity much your grievances ; Which since I know they virtuously are plac'd, I give consent to go along with you." 24 THE TWO GENTLEMEN [aCT IV. Here there is no connexion between the first and the second lines, because Sir Eglamour could not mean that the "grievances," but that the affections of Silvia were "vir- tuously placed." Shakespeare must, therefore, have written what we find in an adjoining blank space of the folio, 1632, which makes the sense complete : — "Madam, I pity much your grievances, And the most true affections that you hear ; Which since I know they virtuously are plac'd, I give consent to go along with you." We shall hereafter see that other passages, more or less valuable, are supplied by the corrector of the folio, 1632. These were, probably, obtained from some better manuscript than that used by the old printer. SCENE IV. P. 155. Proteus having sent a little dog as a present to Silvia, meets Launce, and learns that the latter, having lost the little dog, had offered to the lady his own huge cur. Proteus asks him, — " What ! didst thou offer her this cur from me ?" The word cur being derived from the manuscript of the corrector, and necessary to the completion of the line. Besides this novelty, there is an emendation of Launce's reply, which explains a point never yet properly understood. The folio, 1623, reads:— " Ay, sir : the other squirrel was stolen from me by the hangman's boys in the market-place," &c. The folio, 1632, gives the hangman only one boy, — "by the hangman's boy in the market-place;" but the true reading seems to be that of the corrected folio, 1632, where " a hangman boy" is used just in the same way that Shake- speare elsewhere speaks of a gallows boy, — "Ay, sir: the other squirrel was stolen from me by a hangman boy in the market-place ;" — that is, by a rascally boy. P. 157. We give the following to show how Shakespeare's verse has probably been corrupted. Julia, presenting Silvia with a paper, says, — "Madam, please you peruse this letter :" ACT v.] OF VERONA. 25 a line which requires two additional syllables, naturally, and most likely truly, furnished by the corrector of the folio, 1632:— " Madam, so please you to peruse this letter." Two little words, not absolutely necessary to the sense, but absolutely necessary to the measure, were omitted by the copyist, or by the old printer. P. 159. It is worth notice that Julia, descanting on Silvia's picture, says, in the first folio, that " her eyes are grey as glass," which may be right ; but which the second folio alters to "her eyes are grey as grass," which must be wrong. The manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, converts "grey" into green — " her eyes are green as grass ;" and such we have good reason to suppose was the true reading. ACT v.— SCENE II. P. 162. The sudden entrance of the Duke is not marked in the old copies, and is supplied in manuscript in the folio, 1632, Enter Duke, angerly ; and his first speech is there thus corrected : — " How now, Sir Proteus ! How now, Thurio ! Which of you saw Sir Eglamour of late ? " The folio, 1623, gives the last line,— " Which of you saw Eglamour of late ? " And the folio, 1632, before it was corrected in manuscript, — " Which of you, say, saw Sir Eglamour of late 1 " There is no note when the Duke goes out, but Hsoit in haste, is written in the margin. The additional stage- directions in the corrected folio, 1632, are very numerous throughout this play; but they are, in general, merely explanatory of what may be gathered from the text, so that it is seldom necessary to remark upon them. They must have been intended to make what is technically termed the stage-business quite intelligible. P. 164. Two passages in the speech of Valentine, as they 26 THE TWO GENTLEMEN [aCT V. appear in all the printed copies, and as they stand in the manuscript of the corrector of the folio, 1632, require notice, on account of valuable emendations. The usual opening is in these lines : — " How use doth breed a habit in a man ! This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods, I better brook than flourishing peopled towns." The manuscript-corrector renders the second line, — "These shadowy, desert, unfrequented woods,'' &c. Lower down we are informed, in an unprinted stage-direc- tion, that shouts are heard, and then foUow these lines : — " These my rude mates, that make their wills their law, Have some unhappy passenger in chace ;" which is certainly better than the common mode of printing the passage, which leaves the verb " have" without any ante- cedent : — " These are my mates, that make their wills their law. Have some unhappy passenger in chace." The first speech of Proteus to Silvia, on entering, is also altered by reading " have" having, and by making the sen- tence continuous, as in the old copies, and not, as in modem editions, terminating it by a period at the end of the fourth line. The corrector of the folio, 1632, puts it in this amended form : — " Madam, this service having done for you, (Though you respect not aught your servant doth) To hazard life, and rescue you from him, That would have forc'd your honour and your love. Vouchsafe me, for my meed, but one fair look." &c. SCENE IV. P. 166. It is admitted by the commentators that the mea- sure in the^ following extract is defective : they have tried to amend it in various ways, but they have not been so fortunate as to hit upon the right changes. We first quote the passage as Malone regulates it, and follow it by the alteration recommended by the corrector of the folio, 1632. Valentine says : — "The private wound is deepest: O time most accurst! 'Mongst all foes, that a friend should be the worst! Prot. My shame and guilt confounds me ! " SC. IV.] OF VERONA. 27 Malone, in justification, observes that Shakespeare sometimes employs lines of twelve syllables ; but here, in three lines, we have three varieties : the first line is of twelve syllables, the second of ten, and the third of only seven. We are far from wishing to reduce the language of Shakespeare to a finger- counting standard, but the subsequent emendation shows, at all events, that at an early date the passage was deemed cor- rupt, and that it ought to run as follows : — " The private wound is deep'st. O time accurst, 'Moiigst all my foes, a friend should be the worst! Prot. My shame and desperate guilt at once confound me ! " It seems more than likely that we have here recovered the language of Shakespeare ; and it is to be remarked that the lines of the poet are regular, both before and after the pre- ceding quotation. P. 170. The following manuscript emendation in the cor- rected folio, 1632, tends to establish that conclude was the right word, and that " include," adopted by editors from the folios, was a misprint : — " Come ; let us go : we will conclude all jars With triumphs, mirth, and rare solemnity." The epithet "rare," in the folio, 1623, is all in the folio, 1632; but restored to "rare" by the manuscript-corrector, perhaps from the prior edition, or possibly on some other authority. In all impressions the word stripling, in the next line but two, is omitted in the following speech by Valentine, introducing Julia to the Duke, — " What think you of this stripling page, my lord ?" Stripling la written in the margin of the corrected folio, 1632, as well as Valentine at the end of the next line but one, where it must have been accidentally left out : — " What mean you by that saying, Valentine?" The two lines which close the play are in rhyme, ac- cording to the same authority. In the folio, 1623, they do not rhyme, and there stand, — " That done, our day of marriage shall be yours ; One feast, one house, one mutual happiness." 28 THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. The manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, tells us that the lines ought to run as follows : — " Our day of marriage shall be yours no less, — One feast, one house, one mutual happiness." We have no douht that this is an accurate representation of the fact: no fewer than twenty-nine of the thirty-six plays in the folio terminate with couplets ; and considering, as already ohserved, that " The Two Gentlemen of Verona" was written at so early a date, when rhyme was popular, it would be strange if it, of all others, had been an exception. THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. ACT I. SCENE I. P. 177. All the characters who take part at any time during the scene are mentioned at the commencement of the scenes in this play, but the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, has struck out all the names but those of Justice Shal- low, Slender, and Sir Hugh Evans, who, in fact, begin the comedy. The entrances of the others are afterwards noted in the margin, precisely at the places where they come upon the stage. Thus, when Evans, on p. 179, knocks at Page's door, the master of the house does not enter at first, but looks out at a window (above, as the manuscript-corrector states) and asks, "Who's there?" but does not join the rest outside his house, until the end of Evans's answer, when Unter Page is marked. This old mode of commencing the comedy may seem to give the scene additional vivacity and reality. Falstafi", Bardolph, Nym, and Pistol, of course, enter, when Page says, " Here comes Sir John," &c., p. 180. P. 184. Opposite Slender's ejaculation, " heaven ! this is Mistress Anne Page!" the corrector of the folio, 1632, has written this stage-direction. Following her; from which we may gather that Slender, struck by Anne's appearance, follows her a few steps towards the door of the house, when she quits the stage. Such, probably, was the practice of some old comedian who had the part of Slender, and it is a curious relic of stage-business. 30 THE MERRY WIVES [aCT I. P. 185. It was not meant that Sir Hugh Evans should, like Slender, grossly misapply words : therefore, in the fol- lowing observation, the corrector of the folio, 1632, has properly altered "command" to demand. "But can you affection the 'oman ? Let us command to know that of your mouth, or of your lips ; " &e. P. 186. According to the manuscript-correction of the folio, 1632, the commentators have been right in altering the old reading of the sentence, " I hope, upon familiarity will grow more content," into " I hope, upon familiarity will grow more contempt ;" for Slender could hardly misquote a proverb he found in his copy-book. Besides, the humour of the passage depends upon the use of the word " contempt." P. 187. When Slender asks Anne Page, " Why do your dogs bark so ? — Be there bears i' the town ?" the insertion of a manuscript stage-direction in the folio, 1632, Dogs bark, affords evidence that there was formerly an imitation of the barking of dogs out of sight of the audience, in order to give greater verisimilitude. SCENE III. P. 189. A rigid adherence to the old copies has here misled editors, who have given Nym's speech as, " The good humour is to steal at a minute's rest," instead of "a minim's rest," which the sense seems to require, in allusion to what has just been said of "an unskilful singer" not keeping time. The manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, has converted " minute's" into minim's. P. 190. A misprint in the old editions of " carves" for craves, has occasioned some difficulty in the passage where Falstaff, speaking of the expected result of his enterprise against Mrs. Ford, observes, as the words have been in- variably given, " I spy entertainment in her ; she discourses, she carves, she gives the leer of invitation." A note in the margin of the corrected folio, 1632, shows that we ought to read " she craves, she gives the leer of invitation." There seems no sufficient reason for supposing that " carves" ought to be taken in the figurative sense oi wooes; and although ladies SC. IV.] OF WINDSOR. 31 might now and then " carve" to guests, in the literal meaning of the word (as in the passage quoted by Boswell from Web- ster's " Vittoria Corombona," Shakesp. by Malone, VIII. 38), yet carving was undoubtedly an accomplishment peculiarly belonging to men. Falstaff evidently, from the context, in- tends to say that Mrs. Ford has a craving for him, and there- fore gave " the leer of invitation." The misprint was a very- easy one, occasioned merely by the transposition of a letter, and any forced construction is needless. P. 190. The word " legend," in the sentence, " He hath a legend of angels," is altered to legion in the corrected folio, 1632 ; but still the passage does not conform to the old 4t0j 1602, where it is said "she hath legions oi angels." That, however, is evidently an edition of no accuracy. P. 191. The reading of all the printed authorities, speaking of Mrs. Page, is, " She is a region in Guiana, — aU gold and bounty," which might be accepted, had we no warrant for improving the text to, " She is a region in Guiana, — all gold and beauty," such being the manuscript emendation in the folio, 1632. Guiana was famous for its beauty, as well as for its gold, and thus the parallel between it and Mrs. Page was more exact. The 4to, 1602, lays particular emphasis on her beauty ; and " bounty" and beauty were easily mistaken. P. 191. The corrector of the folio, 1632, like modern editors and the 4to, 1602, reads: — "Falstaff will learn the humour of this age," and not " honour of this age," as in aU the folios. P. 192. Pistol's exclamation, "By welkin, and her star!" is, "By welkin, and her stors .'" in the corrected folio, 1632, and as far as we can judge, rightly, since the welkin has not one, but innumerable stars. SCENE IV. P. 197. Mrs. Quickly's speech, at the bottom of this page, begins, in the corrected folio, 1632, " Will I ? I'faith, that / will!" and not "that we will," as in the printed copies. 32 THE MERRY WIVES [aCT II. ACT II. SCENE I. p. 198. Dr. Farmer conjectured that "Though love use reason for his precisian" ought to be, "Though love use reason for his physician." The word " precisian" is so altered in the margin of the manuscript-corrected folio, 1632 ; and of the fitness of it there can now be no doubt. P. 202. Dr. Johnson's conjecture that the words " Believe it, Page ; he speaks sense," belong to Nym, and are not a continuation of Pistol's speech, is fully confirmed by a cor- rection in the folio, 1632, where Nym is written as the prefix in the margin opposite. P. 204. In all editions, where the entrance is marked at all, the Host and Shallow are made to come upon the stage together ; but it is clear that they did not, for when the Host, having entered, calls out, " Cavaliero-justice, I say ! " Shallow, coming after him, answers, " I follow, mine host, I follow." Their entrances are separately noted in the corrected folio, 1632, and this fact shows that the emendator paid great attention to these little points. P. 205. It is necessary here to quote the whole of the Host's short speech, as it is ordinarily printed, for the sake of observations arising out of two parts of it : — "Host. My hand, bully: thou shalt have egress and regress; said I well? and thy name shall be Brook. It is a merry knight. — Will you go, An-heires ?" With regard, first, to the name assumed by Ford : in the 4to, 1602, it is Brooke, and in all the folios, 1623, 1632, 1664, and 1685, it is Broome ; but from the pun upon the name made by Falstafi", in a subsequent scene (p. 211), "Such Brooks are welcome to me, that o'erflow such liquor," it has always been considered a misprint in the folios. That the name was misprinted there we cannot doubt, but we may doubt whether Broome was a misprint for " Brooke," or for Bourne (the latter being decidedly the more probable), and whether, in fact, the name was not originally Bourne, which the manufacturer of the surreptitious 4to, 1602 (for there never was an authentic impression of " The Merry "Wives" SC. ].] OF WINDSOR, 33 until the folio, 1623), altered to "Brooke," not understanding, perhaps, how the joke about " o'erflowing such liquor" could, at all events, so well apply to Bourne. The truth is, that as Brooke and Bourne mean the same thing, viz., a small stream, the joke would apply to the one as to the other ; and the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, invariably strikes out Broome, and substitutes Bourne. Hence we may not un- reasonably infer, that the true alias of Ford was not Brooke (which originated in the 4to, 1602), but Bourne ; and that when the comedy was acted, in the time of the corrector, he always heard it pronounced Bourne, and not " Brooke." In the manuscript used for the folio, 1623 (followed in all the other editions in that form), we have little hesitation in believing, that the name was written Bourne, which the com- positor misprinted Broome. There is certainly another error of the press, which we may allow the corrector of the folio, 1632, to set right upon his better knowledge of the true reading. We allude to the last clause, "Will you go, An-heires?" out of which no sense can be made. Warburton suggested " heris, the old Scotch word for master ;" Steevens, hearts ; Malone, hear us ; Boaden, cavaliers, &c. The manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, merely changes one letter, and omits two, and leaves the passage, "Will you go on, here?" The Host urging them forward, as he does again just afterwards, nearly in the same words, differently placed, " Here, boys, here, here! — shall we wag?" He is anxious that no time shoidd be lost. How so ordinary an expression as " Will you go on, here?" came to be misprinted, "Will you go, An- heires l" we are at a loss to imagine : perhaps the writing before the printer was very illegible, and he could not believe that any thing so simple and intelligible could be intended. It is singular that nobody seems ever to have conjectured that on here might be concealed under " An-heires." P. 205. Page observes, of the duellists, " I had rather hear them scold than fight." This may have been an elliptical sentence, but it is more likely that two words were acci- dentally omitted, and that the true reading is that furnished by the corrector of the folio, 1632, " I had rather hear them scold, than see them fight." 34 THE MERRY WIVES [aCT I. SCENE II. P. 206. In Falstaff's reply to Pistol, tlie compound epithet, according to the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, ia not, "Coach-fellow, Nym," hut "Couch-fellow, Nym," as, indeed, it was printed hy some of the earlier editors, as equivalent to "bed-fellow." Nevertheless, "coach-fellow" may be, and has been, reconciled to sense. P. 208. It seems improbable that Mrs. Quickly should have had " twenty angels" given to her " this morning" hy a person who wished to be in the good graces of Mrs. Ford ; and in the folio, 1632, the sentence is thus altered in manu- script, "I had myself twenty angels given of a morning." P. 21 2. Ford, pressing his " bag of money" upon Falstaff, says, " If you will help to bear it, take all, or half, for easing me of the carriage." It seems more likely that Ford would say, " take half, or alL" Falstaff would draw back at first, and Ford would then endeavour to induce him to take all, if half did not make the impression he expected. The manuscript-corrector has changed the places of "all" and " half," — " Take half, or all, for ea^Sig me of the carriage." The difference is not material either way. Throughout the whole of this scene Ford is called Bourne, and the old corrector has, therefore, erased Broome, in favour of the other name, in ten separate instances. P. 213. The propriety of the following emendation can hardly be questioned. Ford, adverting to the hopelessness of proceeding in his intended suit to Mrs. Ford, as the passage has always hitherto been given, speaks thus to Falstaff : — " She dwells so securely on the excellency of her honour, that the folly of my soul dares not present itself." The manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, reads suit for " soul" — " that the folly of my suit dares not present itself" SCENE III. P. 216. In the beginning of the scene between Caius and Jack Rugby, the former wishes to practise his fencing on his ACT III.] OF WINDSOR. 35 man, and, oiFering to lunge at him with his rapier, Jack Rugby exclaims, " Alas, sir ! I cannot fence/' The corrector of the folio, 1632, has added, as a descriptive marginal direc- tion, the words, ^/ea?-d, runs back ; which amusingly shows the manner in which the old actor of Jack Rugby received, or rather shunned, the advances of his master. P. 218. We meet here with a singular blunder by the printer, which has occasioned much puzzle and conjecture, but which is at once set right by the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632. It occurs at the end of one of the Host's speeches to Dr. Caius : — " I will bring thee where Mistress Anne Page is, at a farm-house a feast- ing, and thou shalt woo her. Cried game, said I well?" The difficulty has been how to make any sense out of " Cried game ;" and various suggestions, such as tried game, cry aim, &c., have been made ; but the truth seems to be, that the Host, having said that Anne Page was feasting at a farm-house, in order still more to incite Dr. Caius to go there, mentioned the most ordinary objects of feasting at farm-houses at that time, viz. curds and cream : " curds and cream" in the hands of the old compositor became strangely metamorphosed into cried game — at least this is the mar- ginal explanation in the corrected folio, 1632. The Host, therefore, ends his speech about Anne Page's feasting at the farm-house by the exclamation, " Curds and cream ! said I well ?" ACT III. SCENE I. P. 219. The passage is not one of any great importance, but for " the pitty-ward, the park-ward, every way ; Old Windsor way, and every way but the town way," the cor- rected folio, 1632, has, certainly with the advantage of intel- ligibility, " the pit- way, the park-way. Old Windsor way, and every way but the town way," the words or letters not wanted, and probably not understood, have been struck through with a pen. P. 222. The folios are evidently deficient in that part of d2 36 THE MERRY WIVES [aCT III. the Host's speech, where he is endeavouring to make recon- cilement between Evans and Caius. The folio, 1623, reads, " Give me thy hand (celestial), so. Boys of art, I have de- ceived you both." Malone's text has been, " Give me thy hand, terrestrial ; so : — Give me thy hand, celestial ; so. — Boys of art, I have deceived you both." The reading of the corrected folio, 1632, has " and terrestrial" added in manu- script, giving the following as the language of the poet, and still preserving the antithesis in about half the number of words : — " Give me thy hands, celestial and terrestrial : so. Boys of art, I have deceived you both." SCENE II. P. 223. The pronoun your seems clearly necessary in the following answer by Ford to Mrs. Page, who asks, whether his wife is at home ? — " Ay, and as idle as she may hang together for want of your company. I think, if your hus- bands were dead, you two would marry." The word is in the margin of the corrected folio, 1632. P. 224. Where for "there" is doubtless the true mode of printing Ford's observation — " The clock gives me my cue, and my assurance bids me search; there I shall find Falstaff" — " and my assurance bids me search where I shall find Fal- staff " is the corrected and more natural reading of the folio, 1 632. The stage-direction. Clock strikes ten, is written in the margin : and Falstaff had already told Ford that he was to visit Mrs. Ford " between ten and eleven." SCENE III. P. 230. We have a glimpse of the comic business of the scene in the manuscript stage-direction (there is no printed one in the folios), when Falstaff, in great alarm, hides him- self among the foul linen in the buck-basket. The words are. Gets in the basket and falls over; meaning, probably, that in the eagerness of his haste he "fell over" on the other side of the basket, and occasioned still greater ludicrous con- fusion. ACT IV.] OF WINDSOR. 37 ACT IV. SCENE I. P. 243. The change of a letter makes an improvement in the speech of Evans : " No ; Master Slender is let the boys leave to play." For "let" the corrector of the folio writes " get ;" that is to say, " Master Slender is get (or has ob- tained) the boys leave to play." " To let the boys leave to play" is not a phrase that even the Welsh parson would have used. On the next page the corrected reading is, " Hast thou no understandings for thy cases, and the numbers, and the gen- ders," instead of "of the genders," but the difference is trifling. SCENE II. P. 249. There is no stage-direction in the old copies when Ford meets the servants with the buck-basket in the second instance, and, in the words of modern editions, Pulls the clothes out of the basket. The old manuscript stage-direction in the folio, 1632, affords a much more striking picture of Ford's anger and its consequences, when it informs us that he Throws about the clothes all over the stage, and adds, lower down, that they are All thrown out. Such is consistent with the modern practice, and Ford's suspicions would hardly let him leave a rag unexamined. SCENE IV. P. 253. In the doubted passage, "I rather will suspect the sun with gold," whether the last word should not be cold, the corrected folio, 1632, shows that Rowe was jus- tified in adopting the latter: the g in "gold" is struck through, and doubtless, if the margin had not there been torn away, we should have seen c inserted in its stead. On the next page Evans is made by the old corrector to remark, "You see, he has been thrown into the rivers," instead of "You say," &c. The fact is, that the other persons engaged in the scene had said nothing of the kind, and Evans re- ferred merely to the known sufferings of Falstaff, as a reason why he would not again be entrapped. 38 THE MEERY WIVES [aCT IV. SCENE V. P. 258. Modern editors have needlessly changed the pre- fixes of the folios in this part of the scene : the corrector of that of 1632 has altered two small words, and made the dia- logue run quite consistently. Simple tells FalstafF and the Host that he had other things to have spoken on hehalf of his master to " the wise woman of Brentford :" " Fal. What are they ? let us know. Host. Ay, come; quick. Fal. You may not conceal them, sir. Host. Conceal them, and thou diest." The common method has heen to put " I may not conceal them, sir," into the mouth of Simple, followed hy a mark of interrogation ; and the Host's next speech has been in- variably printed " Conceal them, or thou diest." The Host was desirous that Simple should reveal, and would not, therefore, threaten death if he disclosed them. Dr. Farmer wished reveal to be substituted for " conceal," but the only alteration here required is and for "or," — " Conceal them and thou diest." Such is the emendatiou of the corrector of the folio, 1632. P. 258. Bardolph, rushing in, complains of cozenage, and the Host inquires what has become of his horses ? Bar- dolph, in all editions, replies, — " Run away with the cozeners;" as if the horses had run away with the cozeners against their will. The manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, inserts hy in the margin, — " Run away with hy the cozeners," and the rest of Bardolph's speech confirms this interpreta- tion : as soon as they had thrown him ofi" into the mire, the cozeners " set spurs and away" with the Host's horses. ACT V.J OF WINDSOR. 39 ACT V. SCENE III. P. 265. The text of the folios, " Where is Nan now, and her troop of fairies ? and the Welsh devil. Heme," is certainly wrong. Theobald altered " Heme" to Hugh, and he was, of course, right as to the person intended ; hut the manuscript- corrector of the folio, 1632, erases "Heme," and inserts Evans, as the proper reading. Had "Hugh" been the word, it seems probable that Mrs. Ford might have paid him the re- spect of calling him Sir Hugh. SCENE V. P. 267. We have the evidence of the corrected folio, 1632, in favour of " 6n6e-buck," instead of "brib'd-buck" of the early printed copies. This was Theobald's emendation. P. 267. In several preceding scenes we are informed that Anne Page was to represent the Fairy Queen in the attack upon Falstaff in Windsor Park. Nevertheless, Malone and others assigned all her speeches to Mrs. Quickly, the only excuse being that the first of the prefixes is "Qui." The ma- nuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, changed it to Que, and made it Que. (for Queen) in all other places ; and after the printed stage -direction, " Enter Fairies," he added, with the Queen, Anne. It does not, indeed, appear that Mrs. Quickly took any part at all in the scene, although she most likely in some way lent her assistance, in order that she might be on the stage at the conclusion of the performance. P. 268. The whole of what is delivered by the Queen and the rest of the Fairies is in verse, with the exception of two lines, which have constantly been misprinted thus : — " Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap : Where fires thou find'st unrak'd, and hearths unswept,'' &c. There is no doubt that this was originally a couplet, until a corruption crept in, which no editor felt himself compe- tent to set right. Tyrwhitt, indeed, does not seem to have been aware of the defect ; but it struck the corrector of the folio, 1632, who, by manuscript changes in the margin, in- 40 THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. forms us that the lines ought to run as follows, by -which the rhyme is preserved : — " Cricket, to Windsor chimneys when thou'st leap'f, Where fires thou find'st unrak'd, and hearths unswept, There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry," &c. This must have been the way in which the passage originally stood. Lower down in the same page, for " Raise up the organs of her fantasy," the same authority reads, " Rouse up the organs,"' &c. He removes the vulgarism, in the next line but one, by reading, " But those that sleep," &c., instead of " But those as sleep," &c., which, however, was sometimes in the language of the day. P. 274. Fenton, vindicating his conduct in marrying Anne Page against the will of both her parents, says, in all impres- sions of the play, — " And this deceit loses the name of craft, Of disobedience, or xmduteous title," &c. " Title" sounds like a misprint, and so it appears to be ; the true word, which entirely corresponds with the preceding line, having perhaps been misheard by the copyist. The cor- rector of the folio, 1632, inserts what he tells us is the proper reading in the margin : — " Of disobedience or unduteous guile." MEASURE FOR MEASURE. ACT I. SCENE I. Vol. II. p. 7. The Duke, in all editions of this play, ob- serves to Escalus, after calling him to his side, — " Of government the properties to unfold, Woxild seem in me t' affect speech and discourse ; Since I am put to know, that your own science Exceeds, in that, the lists of all advice My strength can give you : then, no more remains, But that, to your suiBciency, as your worth is able. And let them work." This reading has been derived from the four folios ; but, according to the corrected folio, 1632, it is erroneous in three particulars : the first is not of any great consequence, inas- much as " Since I am put to know" is as intelligible and forcible as " Since I am apt to know ;" but the great improve- ment is in the sixth line quoted above, in which "that" is a misprint for add, and into which the conjunction as, and the two words at the end have, accidentally perhaps, been foisted. The correct reading, with the aid of the manuscript in the margin of the folio, 1632, is as follows : — " Since I am apt to know, that your own science Exceeds, in that, the lists of all advice My strength can give you : then, no more remains. But add to your sufficiency your worth. And let them work." These small changes remove what has always been a diffi- culty on the very threshold of this play. 42 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. [acT I, P. 9. It has been made a question between Johnson, Stee- vens, and Tyrwhitt, whether, when the Duke says, — " Hold, therefore, Angelo," he offered to his intended deputy the commission which had been prepared for him. Now, the manuscript stage-directions in the folio, 1632, make it certain that at the words " Hold, therefore, Angelo," the Duke Tendered the commission to Angelo, but did not actually place it in his hands until he finished his speech with " Take thy commission." The point would scarcely be worth notice, if it had not been dwelt upon by the commentators. SCENE II. P. 12. Near the end of Mrs. Overdone's speech, " is" is re- quired before the words "to be chopped off" — "and within three days his head is to be chopped off." It is deficient in all printed copies, and is inserted in manuscript in the mar- gin of the corrected folio, 1 632. In the same way, the word " bawdy" is omitted in the Clown's speech (p. 13) : " All bawdy houses in the suburbs of Vienna must be plucked down." The proclamation was against " bawdy houses in the suburbs," and not against other houses there. The word wanting is supplied in manuscript, which accords with Tyr- whitt's suggestion. SCENE III. P. 14 The division Scena tertia is struck through, and properly, because there is clearly no change of place, the Provost, Claudio, and Officers walking in, as the Clown, Bawd, &c. make their eadt. Juliet is mentioned as one of the characters entering, but her name is erased by the cor- rector of the folio, 1632, for it does not appear that she took any part in the scene, and in fact is spoken of by Claudio as absent. Nevertheless, in all editions the scene is erroneously marked as a new one, and Juliet is stated to have come on the stage with Claudio, and to have listened patiently to the description of her offence. It was, therefore, not the practice of our stage, when the folio of 1632 was corrected, to place SC. IV.] • MEASURE FOR MEASURE. 43 her in a situation so painful and indelicate, and Shakespeare could hardly have intended it. P. 15. Two rather important words are altered in the cor- rected folio, 1632, in Claudio's speech. The usual reading is,— " She is fast my wife, Save that we do the denunciation lack Of outward order : this we came not to, Only for propagation of a dower." " Denunciation " is changed to pronunciation, and " propaga- tion " to procuration, meaning, of course, the procuring of the dower. SCENE IV. P. 18. In the following line, as it stands in all the folios, — " The needful bits and curbs to headstrong weeds," Theohald rightly altered "weeds" to steeds, as it stands corrected in manuscript in the folio, 1632. Lower down, in the same speech. Pope added the word "becomes" in the passage, — " In time the rod Becomes more mock'd, than fear'd; so our decrees," &c. But the true language of the poet, as far as the evidence of the corrected folio, 1632, enables us to judge of it, was this: — " In time the rod's More mock'd than fear'd ; so our most just decrees, Dead to infliction," &c. It is evident that two syllables were deficient in the second line ; and it seems likely that the Duke would dwell em- phatically upon the justice of the decrees neglected to be en- forced, rather than use so tame an expression as " Becomes more mock'd than fear'd." P. 19. It was proposed by Pope, Hanmer, Johnson, Stee- vens, &c., to alter the following passage in the folio, 1623, in various ways, — " And yet my nature never in the fight. To do in slander." 44 MEASURE FOR MEASURE." [aCT II. Without adverting to the discordant proposals of the com- mentators, we may quote the satisfactory words, and their context, as they are exhibited in the manuscript correction of the folio, 1632:— '■ I have on Angelo impos'd the office, Wlio may, in th' ambush of my name, strike home, And yet my nature never in the sight To draw on slander." That is to say, " I have imposed the duty upon Angelo of punishing severely, while I draw no slander on myself, being out of sight." The use of the long s will easily explain how the error of " fight " for sight arose ; but it is not so easy to understand how drawe, as it is spelt in the manuscript note, came to be misprinted "doe," as it is spelt in the folio, 1632. SCENE V. P. 20. Malone took a great liberty with the text, when he printed " Sir, make me not your storie " of the first folio, " Sir, mock me not— your story." The fact is that Sir "W. Davenant gave the true word in his alteration of " Measure for Measure," — " Sir, make me not your scorn." The manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, has also scorn for " storie," as might be expected. ACT II. SCENE I. P. 27. In Froth's sentence, " I have so; because it is an open room, and good for winter," some difiiculty has arisen, because it could not well be understood how " an open room " could be "good for winter." Froth, in truth, did not speak of " wmter " at all, but rather of summer, since reading windows for "winter," as is done by the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, the matter is set right and an error of the press removed — " I have so ; because it is an open room, and good for windows"— ihsA, is, good on account of the windows. SC. II.] MEASURE FOR BIEASURE. 45 P. 30. The Clown, adverting to the ruin that would be brought on Vienna by enforcing the law against bawdy- houses, is made to employ a word which is not easily under- stood in the place where it is found : he says, " If this law hold in Vienna ten year, I'll rent the fairest house in it after three pence a bay." The commentators have explained it by reference to "bays of building," "bay windows," "bays of barns," &c. It is a mere error of the press — " bay " for day ; " after three pence a day " is the word in the corrected folio, 1632. Three pence a day would be only U. lis. 3d a year for the " fairest house in Vienna." SCENE II. P. 35. "We meet with a bold and striking emendation in one of Isabella's noble appeals to Angelo. The common text has been, — " How would you be. If he, which is the top of judgment, should But judge you as you are?" The amended folio, 1632, has it, — " How would you be, If he, which is the Ood of judgment, should But judge you as you are ? " This is not to be considered at all in the light of a profane use of the name of the Creator, as in oaths and exclamations ; and while top may easily have been misheard by the scribe for " God," the latter word, though the meaning is of course the same, adds to the power and grandeur of the passage. P. 35. Sir Thomas Hanmer's proposal to read " But ere they live to end" is fully supported by the corrected folio, 1632. The first folio has " But here they live to end," which Malone, with remarkable infelicity, altered to "But where they live to end." P. 37. Angelo starting at the offer of Isabella to bribe him, she interposes, in the words of all modern editions, that she will do it, " Not with fond shekels of the tested gold," &c. It is spelt sickles in the old copies, but the true word may be 46 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. [aCT II. circles ; and the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, has altered " sickles " to sirkles, paying no other attention to the spelling of the word. Nevertheless " shekels " may be right, and it is used, exactly with the same spelling, by Lodge in his "Catharos," 1591, sign. C, where we read, "Here in Athens the father hath suffred his sonne to bee hanged for forty sickles, and hee worth four hundred talents." SCENE III. P. 40. The manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, makes an important change in a line of the Duke's speech which has been doubted, while he passes over some preceding lines, regarding which needless disputes have arisen. The amended line is, — " Showing, we would not serve heaven, as we love it." The common reading is " spare heaven," which some editors would print " seek heaven ;" but " serve heaven," which seems unquestionably right, did not occur to any of them. The whole passage will therefore stand thus : — " 'Tis meet so, daughter : but least you do repent. As that the sin hath brought you to this shame ; Which sorrow is always toward ourselves, not heaven. Showing, we would not serve heaven, as we love it. But as we stand in fear." The old corrupt reading of " spare heaven" seems little better than nonsense — the emendation indisputable. SCENE IV. P. 44. Tyrwhitt is authorized by the corrected Mo", 1632, in reading in-sheU'd, for " enshield " of the old copies, in the following passage : — " As these black masks Proclaim an enshield beauty ten times louder Than beauty could displayed." Lower down on the same page Angelo says, — " As I subscribe not that, nor any other. But in the loss of question ;" which occasioned discussion between Johnson, Steevens, and Malone as to the meaning of the phrase " in the loss of ques- ACT III.] MEASURE FOR MEASURE. 47 tion." The corrector of the folio, 1632, writes, in the mar- gin, " but in the force of question " — that is to say in the compulsion of question, or for the sake of question, a sense the -word will very well bear, the copyist having misheard force " loss." Four lines lower we have in manuscript " the mana- cles of the sS\.-hinding law," instead of " all-building law," which was the mistaken epithet in the old copies. Dr. John- son first substituted s^-hinding. ACT III. SCENE I. P. 49. The sentence in the Duke's homily on death, end- ing,— " For all thy blessed youth Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms Of palsied eld :" is altered in manuscript in the corrected folio, 1632, to " For all thy hoasted youth,'' &c. which, looking at the context, appears to be a decided im- provement upon the old text. P. 51. We are glad to obtain an authority, which we may consider to a certain extent decisive, upon a much doubted portion qf the scene between Isabella and her brother. She tells him of Angelo's design upon her virtue, and he exclaims in astonishment, according to the first folio, — " The prenzie Angelo V The second folio, not being able to find any sense in prenzie, gives it "princely:" — " The princely Angelo?" and the editors of Shakespeare have not at all known what to make of the epithet, which is repeated in Isabella's reply. Warburton proposed priestly, and that now appears to be the word of the poet, but another corruption found its way into the text, which nobody pointed out, and which is thus set right in manuscript in the corrected folio, 1632 : — Claud. " The priestly Angelo 1 Jsab. O, 'tis the cunning livery of hell. The damned'st body to invest and cover In priesth/ garb." 48 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. [aCT III. For " priestly garb " the first folio has " prenzie guards/' and the second " princely guards ;" but priestly garb is un- questionably the true language of Shakespeare, which has reference to the sanctimonious appearance and carriage of Angelo. Warburton is to have the credit of "priestly," but all the commentators have been under a mistake as to " guards/' P. 54. After Claudio has withdrawn, the Duke tells Isabella, " The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good ;" and then follows what, in the ordinary text, is not easily understood — "the goodness that is cheap in beauty makes beauty brief in goodness." The manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1 632, proposes to read, " the goodness that is chief in beauty makes beauty brief in goodness ;" from which we may deduce this meaning — that when goodness consists chiefly in beauty, beauty is rendered brief in the possession of that goodness. SCENE II. P. 57. A play upon the double meaning of the word usances has been hitherto lost by printing it "usuries," where the Clown, in allusion to the suppression of bawdy houses, and to the allowed interest of money observes, in the received text, " 'Twas never merry world, since, of two usuries, the merriest was put down, and the worser allowed by order of law," &c. The word usances is substituted for usuries in the margin of the corrected folio, 1632, usance being to be taken as usage or custom, as well as interest of money. P. 58. In the line of the Duke's speech, " I drink, I eat, array myself, and live," the old copies misprint " array " away ; but the true word is restored by a correction in the folio, 1632. Theobald saw that the change was necessary. P. 59. The pronoun it was omitted in the old editions before " clutched " in Lucio's speech, but is inserted in the margin in the corrected folio, 1632. Near the end of the same speech occurs the question, — " Wliat say'st thou, Trot ?" and several notes have been written upon " Trot," which turns out on the same authority to be a misprint for troth, SC. II.J MEASURE FOR MEASURE. 49 one of the most common expletives — "What say'st thou, troth V P. 65. Three small, but not unimportant, words — "the due of" — appear to have dropped out in the press, or to have been left out in the manuscript used by the compositor in the beginning of the speech of Escalus, which, according to the corrected folio, 1 632, ought to run, " You have paid the hea- vens the due of your function, and the prisoner the very debt of your calling." The invariable reading has been, "You have paid the heavens your function," &c. P. QQ. Two portions of the Duke's twenty-two short verses, concluding this Act, are amended in manuscript in the cor- rected folio, 1632. The first is,— " Grace to stand, virtue to go," instead of " Grace to stand and virtue go :" which exactly accords with Coleridge's suggested emendation in his Lit. Rem. ii. 124. The other change marked in the folio, 1632, applies to those difficult lines, — " How may likeness, made in crimes, Making practice on the times, To draw with idle spiders' strings Most pond'rous and substantial things!" The proposed alteration does not clear away the whole diffi- culty, but, notwithstanding, it is valuable, — " How may likeness, made in crimes. Masking practice on the times. Draw with idle spiders' strings Most ponderous and substantial things !" Warburton boldly asserts " Shakespeare wrote it thus," and then gives his own notion ; while Steevens recommended another method, and Malone that generally received, viz. " Mocking, practise on the times." By " masking practice on the times" is to be understood concealing methods of decep- tion, and then the whole passage may mean — " How many per- sons, alike in criminality, conceal their deceptions so success- fully as to draw ponderous and substantial advantages, even with spiders' webs !" 50 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. [aCT IV. ACT IV. SCENE I. P. 69. In the Duke's soliloquy on " place and greatness," this passage occurs, — " Volumes of report Run with these false and most contrarious quests Upon thy doings." But " these" can hardly he right, since no "false and contra- rious quests" have heen previously mentioned. The reading of the line appears from the corrected folio, 1632, to be, — "Run -with base, false, and most contrarious quests." In the next line, " dream" is converted into dreams, which seems fit, since "fancies," in the next line, is also in the plural. SCENE II. P. 73. The line in the old folios,— " Wounds th' unsisting postern with these strokes," has produced discussion, Blackstone contending that "un- sisting" was to be taken as never resting ; but the corrector of the folio, 1632, marks " unsisting" as an error of the press, and very naturally substitutes resisting : the postern resisted the entrance of the messenger, who, therefore, wounded it with strokes. When he enters, the Duke observes, " It is his lordship's man," and not " his lord's man," as it stands printed in the folios. SCENE III. P. 80. After the Duke's interview with Bamardine, he is made to exclaim, in all editions, and nobody has found fault with the expression, — " Unfit to live or die. O, gravel heart !" The words " gravel heart" having been considered equivalent to stony heart ; but the fact seems to be, that it is a mis- print. And that the Duke's real exclamation is much more appropriate, — " Unfit to live or die. O, grovelling beast!" the character of Bamardine having been reduced by idleness SC. IV.] MEASURE FOR MEASURE. 51 and intoxication to that of a mere prone brute. Sucli is the manuscript correction in the folio, 1632. P. 81. For the disputed epithet of the folios, Hanmer, Heath, and Monk Mason recommend weZ^balanced in the line, — " By cold gradation and weal-balanced form ;" and that they were judicious in this opinion, the corrector of the folio, 1632, furnishes evidence in his margin. P. 82. The manuscript stage-direction in the folio, 1632, Catches her, shows that the performer of the part of Isabella fell into the Duke's arms at the unexpected tidings that Angelo, in spite of his promise, had taken the life of her brother. In her exclamation just afterwards, — " Injurious world ! Most damned Angelo !" the epithet "injurious" reads tamely and out of place; and the word substituted by the corrector of the folio, 1632, is cer- tainly more adapted to the occasion, though but rarely used, — " Perjurious world ! Most damned Angelo !" Two syllables are wanting in the third line of the Duke's speech, lower down, — " Mark what I say, which you shall find," &c. The omission was, doubtless, accidental, and the required words are found in the margin of the folio, 1632, — " Mark what I say to you, which you shall find," &c. In the Duke's next speech, the usual text of the eighth line has been, — " I am combined by a sacred vow ;" but "combined" ior confined vra^s an easy misprint, and the latter a more natural word, which has been supplied by the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632. SCENE IV. P. 85. A passage, the subject of comment, is found in An- gelo's soliloquy, which is not entirely explained, but still is rendered more comprehensible by a slight alteration of the received reading, proposed by the corrector of the folio, 1632. e2 52 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. [aCT V. We will quote the whole, with his amended punctuation also : — " But that her tender shame Will not proclaim against her maiden loss, How? might she tongue me ! yet reason dares her ; no ; For my authority bears such a credent bulk, That no particular scandal once can touch, But it confounds the breather." The folios have " of a credent bulk," and Steevens suspected "of" to be a blunder, as it appears in fact to have been. Malone read " off a credent bulk," which hardly affords sense, whereas " bears such a credent bulk" is, at least, intelligible. Still, though the poet's meaning may be collected from his language, it is obscure. SCENE VI. P. 87. Theobald's happy emendation of the last line of Isabella's first speech is borne out by the corrector of the folio, 1632. Before correction it stood thus : — " I am advis'd to do it, He says, to vail full purpose ;" that is, as Theobald suggests, " t'availful purpose," which Malone objected to, and, at the recommendation of Johnson, read, " to veil full purpose." In the folio, 1 632, as amended in manuscript, it stands precisely in this form : — " He says, to 'vail-fuU purpose;" that is, to a purpose that is availful or beneficial, and seems the true reading ; for in the next line, Isabella, disliking du- plicity, says the same thing by a figure, — " 'tis a physic That's bitter to sweet end." ACT V. SCENE I. P. 89. To show how easily words, even of importance, some- times drop out in the press, we may mention that in the line of the first folio, — SC. I.J MEASURE FOR MEASURE. 53 " And she will speak most bitterly and strange," the second folio has it imperfectly, — " And she will speak most hitterly." The manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, therefore added and strangely at the end of the line, and he slightly altered the next line, which commences the retort of Isabella, thus: — " Most strangely, yet most truly will I speak." It is a decided improvement, and was most probably the form in which Shakespeare left the line, the old and less elegant reading being, — " Most strange, but yet most truly will I speak." P. 90. "We have here a misprint that can only have arisen from the carelessness of the copyist or the printer. The inva- riable text of Isabella's passionate appeal has been, — " O, gracious duke ! Harp not on that ; nor do not banish reason For inequality ; but let your reason serve To make the truth appear." " Inequality " could not be right : and what does the manu- script-corrector of the folio tell us is the real word that ought to be put in its place ? — " O, gracious duke ! Harp not on that ; nor do not banish reason For incredulity ;" i.e. do not refuse to give your reason fair play, on account of the incredulity with which you listen to my complaint. P. 93. Another word is more than plausibly substituted in the speech of the Friar, where he is giving a character of the Duke, who, he pretends, was a brother of his order. The way in which the passage is usually printed is this, and it does not seem liable to much objection ; but nevertheless we may feel confident that there has been an error of the press in it:— " And, on my trust, a man that never yet Did, as he vouches, misreport your grace." Now, " on my trust," that is to say, on my belief or credit, is 5t MEASURE FOR MEASURE. [aCT V. infinitely less forcible than what is placed in the margin as the poet's word, — " And, on my truth, a man that never yet," &c. The Friar was of course anxious in the most emphatic way to bear testimony to the good conduct of the disguised Duke. P. 98. This is an instance of a similar kind ; but not so strong as the preceding, because the word, which the manu- script-corrector of the folio, 1632, would induce us to throw out of the text, is not very ill adapted to the place, though not so well adapted as that which he has written in the mar- gin. The Duke, returning to the scene in his friar's disguise, declares that the suppliants, Isabella and Mariana, have been unfairly treated by the Duke, when he referred the decision on their case to the party who was himself accused : — " The Duke's unjust, Thus to retort your manifest appeal, And put your trial in the villain's mouth, Which here you come to accuse." The manuscript-corrector informs us that "retort,'' in the second line, is a misprint for reject, a mistake not unlikely to be made. Isabella had appealed to the Duke, and he had re- jected that appeal, and left the trial to Angelo: therefore, the reading ought to be, — " The Duke's unjust, Thus to reject your manifest appeal," &c. P. 100. The manuscript stage-directions in this scene are minute and numerous, the more so as the printed ones are few and unsatisfactory — by no means sufficient to regulate the acting and business of the play. Thus, whenever Isabella or Mariana are to kneel, or rise, or unveil, it is duly noted in the margin ; and, when the Duke is to be discovered, Lucio is told to seize on him and to pull off his disguise, at which, it is added in another place, all start and stand, gazing upon the Duke. It is remarkable that there is no Exeunt at the end of the play, but the words " Curtain drawn " are appended in manu- script, perhaps the first time they were ever applied in that way. They may be taken as proving that, in this instance, at least, the characters did not go out, but that a "curtain" was "drawn" before them, in order to separate them from the audience, in the same way that in more modern times a cur- SC. I.J MEASURE FOR MEASURE, 55 tain (formerly of green baize) is let down from the top of the proscenium at the conclusion of the performance. It is possible that this mode of denoting that the drama was at an end was not Yery uncommon at the period when the folio, 1632, was corrected ; but we are not aware of the existence of any other distinct proof of the prevalence of it on our stage anterior to the Restoration, THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. ACT I. SCENE I. P. ] 1 4 The life of iEgeon being forfeit to the laws of Ephesus, by his accidental arrival there in search of his son, he relates his story to the Duke (who has just passed sen- tence upon him), observing, as the passage has hitherto stood, — " Yet that the world may witness, that my end Was wrought hy nature, not by vile offence, I'll utter what my sorrow gives me leave." The manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, states that "na- ture," in the second line, ought to hefortwne, since .^geon was not about to lose his life in the course of " nature," but by having been so unlucky as to arrive in a town by the laws of which it was sacrificed : his end, therefore, — " Was wrought \>y fortune, not by vile offence." Possibly, by " nature" we might understand the natural course of events. P. 115. iEgeon, overtaken, by a storm at sea, which threatened death to himself, his wife, and two children, " Which though myself would gladly have embrac'd, Yet the incessant weeping of my wife," &c. There seems no reason why iEgeon should " gladly have em- braced" death, if he could have escaped it; and a marginal correction in the folio, 1 632, shows that the word gently (i. e. patiently and submissively) was Shakespeare's word, — " Which though myself would gently have embrac'd." ACT I.J THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. 57 Six lines lower, in the same speech, " And this it was" is altered to "And thus it was," not necessarily, but cer- tainly judiciously. P. 117. The expression "of all love," indicating strength of impulse, is not unusual in Shakespeare and in other writers of his time. jEgeon consents that the twin-son and twin-servant, preserved with him, should go in search of their brothers ; and in the following lines, as they appear in all copies of the play, there are on the authority of the manu- script-corrector of the folio, 1 632, two errors : — " Whom whilst I labour'd of a love to see, I hazarded the loss of whom 1 lov'd." They ought to run, — " Whom whilst he labour'd of all love to see, I hazarded the loss of whom I lov'd." It was the son who was to undertake the task of seeking his brother, although the father, having in this way " hazarded the loss of whom he loved," afterwards went in quest of his " youngest boy." P. 118. The line, near the end of the Duke's last speech, as it appears in the folios, — "To seek thy help by beneficial help," has produced several conjectures for its emendation, and among them one by the editor of the present volume, who suggested that the true reading might be, — " To seek thy hope by beneficial help ;" and such is precisely the change proposed by the corrector of the folio, 1632 : ^geon was to seek what he hoped to obtain (viz. money to purchase his life), by the "beneficial help" of some persons in Ephesus. Four lines lower, the verse is de- ficient of a syllable ; and, to supply it, oiow is inserted in manuscript in the margin : — " Jailor, now take him to thy custody." P. 121. Pope's emendation of " clock" for cooh is supported by the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, in the fol- lowing passage : — " Methinks, your maw, like mine, should be your clock; And strike you home without a messenger :" 58 THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. [aCT II, nevertheless, obvious as the error seems, cook was, we believe, printed in all editions until Pope's time, and has even been restored in our own. ACT II. SCENE I. P. 124. By the misprint of " doubtfully" for dovhly in two places, as pointed out by the corrector of the folio, 1632, the humour of one of Dromio's replies has been entirely lost. He has been beaten by a person he took for his master, when sent to bring him home to dinner. Luciana asks, according to the usual text, " Spake he so doubtfully, thou couldst not feel his meaning ?" Here "doubtfully" ought to be dovhly, as well as in Dromio's reply, " Nay, he struck so plainly, I could too well feel his blows ; and withal so doubtfully, that I could scarce understand them." We ought here also to read, " and withal so doubly that I could scarce understand them ;" i. e. the blows were so doubly powerful that Dromio could hardly stand under them. P. 126. It is worth while to mention that the line, — " I see, the jewel best enameled," and the two next lines (the folio, 1632, omits two others in the folio, 1623) are struck out, perhaps, as unintelligible to the manuscript- corrector, he having no means of setting the corrupt passage right. SCENE II. P. 130. It has been thought rather a happy conjectural emendation by Pope, when he converted " trying" of the old copies into tiring in the following sentence, yet he was cer- tainly mistaken : — " The one to save the money that he spends in 'tiring ; the other that at dinner they should not drop in his porridge." Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse are talking of hair, and on the advantages of baldness, and the word trimming was quite technical in reference to cutting and dressing the hair : it is misprinted trying in the old copies, SC. II.] THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. 59 and it is clear that the letter m had dropped out, tryming, or trimming, heing the word intended — " to save the money that he spends in trimming," not in " 'tiring" or attiring, which has relation not to the hair merely, but to the whole apparel, whereas the hair only was under discussion. The manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, has done no more than place the missing letter in the margin. P. 131. A doubt is removed by the corrector of the folio, 1632, regarding the last line of Adriana's speech, — " I live disstain'd, thou undishonoured." The use of the word " disstained" in this way has no example, and Theobald recommended unstain'd, but did not insert it in his text. It is found in manuscript, and we cannot doubt that it was the word of the poet. P. ] 33. Antipholus of Syracuse, wonder-struck at the ad- vances of Adriana, who invites him home, exclaims, according to the usual text, — " To me she speaks ; she moves me for her theme !" " Moves " here is a misprint for means, and so it is marked by the corrector of the folio, 1632 : "She means me for her theme." Three lines lower we have another mistake of the same kind, where Antipholus asks, — " What error drives our eyes and ears amiss?" "Drives" ought incontestably to be draws, as we learn on the same authority ; and we may perhaps accept the old corrector's emendation of the next line but one with as little hesitation, — " I'll entertain the proffered fallacy," for " I'll entertain the free' d fallacy" of the old copies. The last has generally been printed "theoffer'd fallacy," without much objection. For " elvish sprites," four lines below (the folio, 1623, has no word corresponding with " elvish"), the corrector reads " elves and sprites," and he makes no change in " owls," for which Theobald needlessly, though not without plausibi- lity, substituted owphes. 60 THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. [aCT Iir. ACT III. SCENE I. P. 135. Two words, omitted in a line in a speech by Dromio of Ephesus, were supplied by the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632 : a word is also changed for the better in the pre- ceding line. We give the couplet as it stands with the mar- ginal emendation : — " If my skin were parchment, and the blows you gave were ink, Your own hand-writing would tell you for certain what I think." P. 136. Another change for the better, both as regards the rhyme and the sense, is made in a speech by the same cha- racter, farther on in the scene. The common reading is, — " If thou hadst been Droinio to-day in my place, Thou wouldst have chang'd thy face for a name, or thy name for an ass." " Or thy name for a face " are the words inserted by the cor- rector of the folio, 1632, which seem more accurately to pre- serve the antithesis and the rhyme. SCENE II. P. 140. The first four lines of this scene are thus given in the folios: — " And may it be that you have quite forgot A husband's office? shall, Antipholus, Even in the spring of love thy love-springs rot? Shall love in buildings grow so ruinate?" Malone, for the rhyme's sake, changed " ruinate " to ruin- ous ; but it appears by the manuscript-correction in the folio, 1632, that the lines ought to run as follows, and that Malone altered the wrong word : — " And may it be, that you have quite forgot A husband's office ? Shall unkind debate. Even in the spring of love, thy love-spring rot? Shall love in building grow so ruinate?" P. 142. The line,— " Far more, far more to you do I decline," may be reconciled to sense ; but the reading of the corrector ACT IV. j THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. 61 of the folio, 1632, wliich makes a very trifling change, seems preferable : — " Far more, far more to you do I mcline." P. 144. All that intervenes between the question of Anti- pholus, "What complexion is she of?" and Dromio's obser- vation, on the next page, " ! sir, I did not look so low," is struck out in the corrected folio, 1632. ACT IV. SCENE I. P. 148. " Among my wife and their confederates " of the folio, 1632 (as well as that of 1623), is altered by the manu- script-corrector to " Among my wife and these confederates." The common reading is " her confederates," which may be right. In the next speech of Antlpholus the corrector of the folio has added me in the second line, " I promis'd me your presence, and the chain." In the second line of Angelo's reply raccat of the folio, 1632 ("charect, " folio, 1623), is properly corrected to " carrat." P. 149. The change of " send hy me some token " for " send me by some token " seems scarcely required ; but it was necessary to insert more in Angelo's speech lower down, " You wrong me more, sir, in denying it," the word having been omitted in the folio, 1632. P. ISO. Angelo demanding his money for the chain of Antipholus of Ephesus, is answered in the folio, 1623, "Con- sent to pay thee that I never had?" Thee having been omitted in the folio, 1632, the corrector caused the line to run thus : — " Consent to pay /or that I never had ? " which is certainly more to the purpose. SCENE II. P. 152. Dromio arrives in great haste to obtain from his mistress and her sister the purse to pay his master's supposed 62 THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. [acT IV. debt, and when lie enters, out of breath, he exclaims, as the passage has always been printed, — " Here, go : the desk ! the purse ! sweet, now make haste." But he would hardly address the ladies so familiarly as to call them sweet; and the corrector of the folio, 1632, tells us that he did not, " sweet " having been misprinted for smfi .- Dromio wishes them to use the utmost dispatch — " swift now, make haste." P. 153. A line is evidently wanting in Dromio's speech, which, but for that omission, and a small word which has dropped out, is entirely in rhyme : the line ending with steel has no corresponding verse ; but the deficiency, though apparent, has never been remarked upon. In all editions the passage has stood thus : — " No, he's in Tartar limbo, worse than hell : A devil in an everlasting garment hath him. One whose hard heart is button'd up with steel, A fiend, a fairy, pitiless and rough ; A wolf, nay, worse, a fellow all in buff." It is thus given by the manuscript-corrector of the foho, 1632:— " No, he's in Tartar limbo, worse than hell : A devil in an everlasting garment hath him, fell; One whose hard heart is button'd up with steel. Who has no touch of mercy, cannot feel; A fiend, a. fury, pitiless, and rough ; A wolfe, nay worse, a fellow all in buff," &c. Theobald suggested fury for " fairy ;" but he entertained no notion that a whole line had been lost, to say nothing of the word fell as the triplet-rhyme in the second line. It is not likely that any objection will be felt on account of iiTegularity in the measure, coming as it does from Dromio, a sort of ad libitum versifier. SCENE III. P. 157. Antipholus of Syracuse fancies himself surrounded by witches and sorcerers, and when the Courtezan asks him to go home with her, he exclaims, "Avoid then, fiend!" The manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, has it, "Avoid, ACT v.] THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. 63 thou fiend ! " wliich is probably accurate, but the change is trifling. P. 161. Two small variations are made, both in speeches by Dromio, one where, alluding to the beating he had re- ceived, he says his " bones bear witness," — " That since have felt the vigour of his rage." The manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, here reads rigour for " vigour ;" and lower down he makes Dromio exclaim, — " God and the rope-maker nom bear me witness," instead of merely " bear me witness," which is not in the regular measure which Dromio just here employs. ACT V. SCENE I. P. 167. For the line,— " In company I often glanced it," the manuscript-corrector reads, with apparent fitness, — " In company I often glanc'd at it." In the speech of the Abbess the epithet " moody" is applied to " melancholy" in the folio, 1623, which is altered to muddy in the folio, 1632. The manuscript-corrector most properly restored " moody." P. 168. The line in the Merchant's speech, as it is given in the folios, — "The place of depth and sorry execution," is amended in manuscript in the folio, 1632, to " The place of death and solemn execution ; " both words, as we may suppose, having been misheard by the copyist. P. 169. Adriana, speaking of her husband, who had been seized as a madman, says, — " Anon, I wot not by what strong escape, He broke from those that had the guard of him." "Strong" the corrector of the folio, 1632, converts into " strange," perhaps because all were astonished at the escape. 64 THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. [aCT V, P. 172. Antipliolus of Ephesus, describing tlie manner in which he had been seized, bound, and confined, observes, — " They fell upon rae, bound me, bore me thence, And in a dark and dankish vault at home There left me," &o. The corrector of the folio, 1 632, alters it to " They left me," which is clearly right. P. 174. ^geon, astonished at not being recognized by Antipholus of Ephesus, exclaims, in the reading of the first and other folios, — " O, time's extremity ! Hast thou so crack'd and splitted my poor tongue ?" &c. but we learn from the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632 that the last line ought to be, as seems natural, — " Hast thou so crack'd my voice, split my poor tongue ?" P. 177. All copies agree in what appears to be a decided though a small error in reading,— " And thereupon these errors are arose." " These errors all arose " has been suggested as the poet's words ; and we find all in the margin of the corrected folio, 1 632, while " are " is erased in the text. P. 178. The following lines, as they are printed in the folio, 1623, have been the source of considerable cavil : " Thirty-three years have I but gone in travail Of you, my sons, and till this present hour My heavy burden are delivered." That the above is corrupt there can be no question ; and in the folio, 1632, the printer attempted thus to amend the passage : — " Thirty-three years have I been gone in travail Of you, my sons, and till this present hour My heavy burdens are delivered." Malone gave it thus : — " Twenty-five years have I but gone in travail Of you, my sons ; until this present hour My heavy burden not delivered." The manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, makes the SC. I.] THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. C5 slightest possible change in the second line, and at once removes the whole difficulty : he puts it, — " Thirty-three years have I been gone in travail Of you, my sons, and at this present hour My heavy burdens are delivered." The Abbess means, of course, that she was, as it were, deli- vered of the double burden of her twin sons at the hour of this discovery of them. With such an easy and clear solution of what has produced many conjectural emendations, it is needless to notice the various proposals of Theobald and others, which are all nearly equally wide of the mark. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. ACT I. SCENE I. P. 188. lu the stage-direction at the opening of the scene the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, has expunged the words Innogen, his wife, as if the practice had not then been for her to appear before the audience in this or in any other portion of the comedy ; and it is certain that no word ever escapes from her in the dialogue. It has been supposed by some that, though merely a mute, she was seen by the spectators, but in what way she was to be known to them to be the mother of Hero and the wife of Leonato is not stated. Another change in the same stage-direction merits notice: it is that the word "Messenger" is converted into Gentle- man, and the manner in which he joins in the conversation shows, that he must have been a person superior in rank to what we now understand by a messenger. Consistently with this notion all the prefixes to what he says are altered from Mes. to Gent. In other dramas Shakespeare gives im- portant parts to persons whom he only calls Messengers; and it requires no proof that in the reign of Elizabeth the Messengers who conveyed news to the Court from abroad were frequently officers whose services were in part rewarded by this distinction. It was in this capacity that Raleigh seems first to have attracted the favour of the Queen. P. 195. For "he that hits me," the corrector of the folio, 1632, gives "he that first hits me," which supports the notion that the successful marksman was to "be called Adam, as the first man. The allusion can hardly be to Adam Bell, because it is William of Cloudesley who, in the ballad, is ACT II.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 67 the principal archer, and who cleaves the apple on his son's head. P. 197. There is certainly a misprint in the second line of Don Pedro's speech, where he is adverting to Claudio's reason for loving Hero : — " What need the bridge much broader than the flood ? The fairest grant is the necessity." Here "grant" has little or no meaning, for Hero has not yet been even sounded upon the point, and the line ought to run in the manner in which the corrector of the folio, 1632, has left it, " The fairest ground is the necessity." The fairest ground for Claudio's love was the necessity of the case, which rendered needless any " treatise." SCENE III. P. 199. John the Bastard, telling Conrade of his melan- choly, says "There is no measure in the occasion that breeds," the pronoun it being wanting after the verb, which is found in the margin of the corrected folio, 1632. Lower, on the same page, Conrade remarks " You have of late stood out against your brother ;" but they had been reconciled, and the expression ought to be, as we find it in the same authority, "You have iill of late stood out against your brother." ACT II. SCENE I. P. 202. The speech of Beatrice requires /ai^er in the first clause as well as in the second, but all the folios are without it : it is thus added in manuscript in the folio, 1632, "Yes faith ; it is my cousin's duty to make courtesy, and say. Father, as it please you," &c. P. 203. The drollery of Beatrice's description of the differ- ence between "wooing, wedding, and repenting'' is much injured by the omission of a pun just at the conclusion — F 2 68 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [aOT II. " The first suit (she says) is hot and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical ; the wedding, mannerly, modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry ; and then comes repent- ance, and with his bad legs falls into the cinque-pace faster and faster, 'till he sink a pace into his grave." The words in Italics are left out in the printed copy, but are added in manuscript in the margin of the folio, 1632. P. 204. It is just worth observation that the corrector of the folio, 1632, altered love of the folios to "Jove" of the quarto. P. 206. The last line of Claudio's soliloquy is redundant in measure, by the use of " therefore " instead of then : the corrected folio, 1632, has the line " Which I mistrusted not. Farewell, then, Hero." P. 207. In the folio, 1 632, there are two decided errors of the press in Benedick's soliloquy, where " fowl " is misprinted soul, and " yea " you : both are remedied in manuscript. They do not exist in the folio, 1623. P. 208. It was proposed by Johnson, in Benedick's long speech to the Prince against Beatrice, to read importable, for " impossible " (of all the printed editions) in the sense of unbearable, insupportable; and "impossible" is converted into importable by the corrector of the folio, 1632. Three lines lower her is properly inserted before "terminations;" but the change made in the next sentence of lent for "left" is of more consequence and quite as evidently right:— "I would not marry her (he exclaims) though she were endowed with all that Adam had lent him before he transgressed." Adam was endowed with every thing "before he trans- gressed " and Benedick is referring to his state of perfection. The folio, 1623, has also the blunder of " left " for lent. P. 209. The folios give the latter part of the speech of Beatrice thus — " But civil, Count, civil as an orange, and something of a jealous complexion." The 4to, 1600, has " of that jealous complexion ;" but the corrector of the folio, 1632, reads "something of as jealous a complexion," which aifords exactly the same point, and seems to prove that he was not guided by the old 4to. so. III.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 69 SCENE II. p. 218. In Borachio's statement of the mode in which he would proceed in tainting the character of Hero, he tells John the Bastard, that if he will bring the Prince and Claudio at night, they shall hear Margaret, disguised as Hero, " term me Claudio,^' which must be an error, as Claudio was to be one of the spectators. For " Claudio " Theobald wished to substitute Borachio, in order to remove the difB- culty, and the abridgment of the name of Borachio is in- serted in the margin of the corrected folio, 1632, proving that Theobald was not mistaken. P. 214. The word "truths" of the folios ought to be proofs, where Borachio says, " There shall appear such seem- ing truths of Hero's disloyalty." The corrector of the folio, 1632, has it, "There shall appear such seeming proofs of Hero's disloyalty," which is uncjuestionably what is meant. SCENE III. P. 215. Por "orthography" of the folios, modern editors have " orthographer/' and in this change they are supported by the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632. Stage-directions in this scene, so necessary to the intelligi- bility of it, are omitted in the old printed copies. When Benedick enters, we are told in manuscript in the folio, 1682, that he has his Boy following ; and when at the end of his speech, with the words " I will hide me in the arbour," he withdraws, as Malone expresses it, the corrector of the folio, 1682, has added Retires behind the trees. The name of " Jack Wilson " (who did not sing the song when the folio, 1682, was corrected) is struck out, and Balthazar's entrance is marked in the proper place. When Benedick afterwards comes from his ambush, nothing is said in the printed folios to indicate the fact ; but Forward, meaning that he advanced to the front of the stage, is written in the margin of the folio, 1632. Against his speeches to himself, while he is concealed, is written Behind; so that we here see exactly the mode in which the rather complicated business of the scene was anciently conducted. 70 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [aCT II. P. 21 7. The second verse of Balthazar's song is thus altered in manuscript in the folio, 1 632. " Sing no more ditties, sing no mo, Or dumps so dull and heavy ; The frauds of men were ever so Since summer first was leafy." It seems right thus to distinguish between ditties and dumps, apparently two distinct species of composition ; and the third line is evidently improved by putting " frauds," like the verb it governs, in the plural : the usual mode of printing it has been, " The fraud of men was ever so." P. 219. The difference is not very material, but the mean- ing is heightened by the addition of the word/wM at the close of the speech of Leonato, " there will she set in her smock, till she have writ a sheet of paper full." The sentence ends at "paper," excepting in the manuscript of the corrector of the folio, 1 632. Lower down Claudio has been made to say, " Then, down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses ; — sweet Benedick ! God give me patience." For " curses" the corrector of the folio, 1632, substitutes cries; and we are hardly to suppose that Beatrice utters "curses" at all, but especially at the verymo- ment when she exclaims, " 0, sweet Benedick I" and when she "prays" that God would "give her patience." For " It were an alms to hang him," put into the mouth of Don Pedro, the corrected folio has, "It were an alms deed to hang him," such being the usual expression. P. 222. The force of Beatrice's speech is considerably in- creased by the insertion of a negative. Benedick asks Bea- trice whether she takes pleasure in the message to him ? and she answers, as the passage has always been printed, "Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knife's point, and choke a daw withal." The corrected folio, 1632, tells us that the pleasure to which Beatrice acknowledged was so little that it might be taken on a knife's point " and not choke a daw withal : " it was not enough even to choke a daw. ACT III.J MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 71 ACT III. SCENE I. P. 223. "Enter Beatrice stealing in behind" is tlie expres- sive stage-direction in the corrected folio, 1632, and the scene is conducted much in the same way as the preceding, in which the same trick is played upon Benedick. When Hero and Ursula are to talk loud in praise of Benedick, in order that Beatrice may overhear them, that word is inserted in the margin. P. 225. Ursula asks Hero, when she is to be married, and the unintelligible answer is, "Why, every day ; — to-morrow :" the correction of the folio, 1 632, has made it quite clear by setting right a misprint : there Hero replies, " Why, in a day, —to-morrow." P. 226. There is a curious misrepresentation of the poet's language in Beatrice's soliloquy, on coming forward after lying concealed in the " woodbine coverture." It begins, "What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true? Stand I condemn'd for pride and scorn so much ? Contempt, farewell ! and, maiden pride, adieu ! No glory lives behind the back of such." Nobody has explained what is meant by the words " behind the back of such," nor need we inquire into it, since they are merely one of the perversions arising out of the mishear- ing of the scribe of the copy of the play used by the printer : the real words of the fourth line appear to be " No glory lives hut in the lack of such;" that is to say, no maiden can expect to triumph or glory in any love enterprise, who is afflicted with pride, scorn, and con- tempt : let her want, or lack them, and she may attain the object of her wishes. The sound of "behind the back," and of "but in the lack" is not so dissimilar, that we cannot account for the blunder, on the supposition that the copyist wrote from what was read, or possibly recited to him. F 4 72 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [aCT IV. ACT IV. SCENE I. p. 243. Pope altered Claudio's exclamation as it stands • in tlie old copies, " Out on thee seeming ! " to " Out on thy seeming!" The corrector of the folio, 1632, supports the change by converting "thee" into thy. For "That rage in savage sensuality,'' he substitutes, " That range in savage sensuality; " which does not seem a necessary emendation, any more than his change of wild into "wide" in the next line. P. 246. Two important mistakes are made in Leonato's speech on the supposed detection of Hero : the father wishes her to die, rather than survive the imputation cast upon her, and tells her, according to the folio, 1623, " For did I think thou would'st not quickly die, Thought I thy spirits were stronger than thy shames, Myself would on the reward of reproaches Strike at thy life. Griev'd I, I had but one ? Chid I for that at frugal nature's frame?" The folio, 1632, has rearward for " reward," and makes no other change ; but what appears to be the true reading ? We have it among the manuscript-corrections of the second folio, " Myself would, on the hazard of reproaches. Strike at thy life;" or at the risk of the reproaches that would follow such a deed : and afterwards " Griev'd I, I had but one? Chid I for that at frugal naXare' sfrovm ?" that is to say, Did I complain of the frown of frugal nature, which forbade my having more than one daughter ? " Chid I for that a frugal nature's frame," puzzled the commentators, and they endeavour to reconcile us to the word "frame" in various ways; but they never SC. I.J MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 73 seem to have supposed", as now appears to be the case, that "frame" had been misprinted ioifrowne. There is a still more injurious representation of Shake- speare's language in the last line of the same speech : — " O ! she is fallen Into a pit of ink, that the wide sea Hath drops too few to wash her clean again, And salt too little, which may season give To her foul tainted flesh !" This has been the universal reading, upon ■which Steevens remarks that "the same metaphor from the kitchen" occurs in "Twelfth Night." This "metaphor from the kitchen" has entirely arisen out of the ordinary error of mistaking the /and the long s ; for the correction in the margin of the folio, 1632, shows that Shakespeare had no notion of the kind, and instead of using such commonplace epithets as " foul " and " tainted," that he employed one of his noblest compounds, — soul-tainted, — " And salt too little, which may season give To her soul-tainted flesh." Hero's flesh was tainted to the soul by the accusation just made against her, P. 247. The old printer was peculiarly unfortunate in this great scene : in the third line of the Friar's speech "And given way unto this course of fortune," ought to be, in allusion to the unexpected charge against Hero, which had altered Claudio's purpose, "And given way unto this cross of fortune." But the last line is still worse, where the Friar, after main- taining from circumstances that Hero had been unjustly accused, says, "Trust not my age, My reverence, calling, nor divinity, , If this sweet lady lie not guiltless here Under some biting error." The corrector of the folio, 1632, informs us that this passage shoiild certainly run thus : — " Trust not my age, My reverend calling, nor divinity, If this sweet lady lie not guiltless here Under some blighting error." 74 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [aCT IV. To show in what a brief, but still intelligible, way the corrector of the folio, 1632, made his alterations, we may notice that, blighting being mis-printed " biting" in the old copies, he did nothing more than add the letter I after the letter b, leaving the rest of the letters to be understood. P. 248. Further on we meet with two other blunders of the same kind, though perhaps not of so much importance — one of them in a line which has been quoted by Steevens to jus- tiiy the use of "frame" in a former passage : — " Whose spirits toil in frame of villainies." The manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1732, changes "frame of" to fraud and — " Whose spirits toil in fraud and villainies," which seems a much more easy and natural expression than " frame of villainies ;" but in this way the commentators have sometimes vindicated one corruption by another. At the same time, it must be admitted that "in frame of villainies," may mean in the fabrication of villainies. . More doubt may be entertained as to the next, real or sup- posed, error of the press : it is in Leonato's indignant speech, where this couplet occurs : " But they shall find, awak'd in such a kind, Both strength of limb and policy of mind." Now, independently of the consideration, which perhaps deserves little weight, that a grieved and infuriated father would not be disposed to rhyme under such circumstances, it will be observed that "find," also rhyming to "kind" and "mind," is met with in the first of the two lines: — neither is " kind " very well fitted to the place where it occurs. On the whole, we may feel willing to adopt the emendation of the corrector of the folio, 1632, when he reads, " But they shall find, awak'd in such a cause, Both strength of limb and policy of mind." The "cause" in which his strength, and policy, were to be awaked, was, of course, that of his daughter, should it turn out that she had been traduced. The taste of the corrector may here have come in aid of such a change. SC. II.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 75 P. 249. To show the minuteness of the criticism of the manuscript-corrector we may advert to a mere transposition (but still triflingly affecting the sense), which he makes in the Friar's speech, where he remarks, " That what we have we prize not to the worth Whiles we enjoy it, hut being lack'd and lost. Why, then we rack the value." Now, as a thing would probably not be "lacked" till after it had been " lost," the corrector changed the position of the words and read " lost and lack'd," which might be the order in which the words came from Shakespeare's pen. SCENE II. P. 252. In this comic scene, in the old copies, great con- fusion prevails in the prefixes of the various speeches. The names of the actors, such as Kemp, Cowley, and Andrew, are put instead of those of the characters they sustained, and the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, perhaps did not think it necessary to set them right. Dispute has arisen as to the mode of dividing a part of the dialogue, obviously misprinted in other respects : in the folios it stands as follows : — " Const. Come, let them be opinioned. Sex. Let them be in the hands of Coxscomb. Kem. Gods my life, where's the Sexton?" &c. This has been distributed in different ways, into which it is not necessary to enter, but we will subjoin the manner in which it is corrected in manuscript in the folio, 1632 : — " Const. Come, let them be opinioned. Sexton. Let them be bound. Borachio. Hands off, coxcomb." P. 255. When Dogberry, to show his importance, says that he is " a rich fellow enough, go to ; and a fellow that hath had losses," it has naturally puzzled some persons to see how his losses could tend to establish that he was rich. Here, in truth, we have another misprint : leases was often spelt of old — leasses, and this is the origin of the blunder ; for, according to the corrector of the folio, 1632, we ought to read, "a rich fellow enough, go to ; and a fellow that hath had leases." To have been the owner of leases might very well prove that Dogberry was " a rich fellow enough." 76 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [aCT V. ACT V. SCENE I. p. 256. The defective line, " And bid him speak of patience," Ritson, who had no very good ear, but who was nevertheless right in this instance, recommends should be thus printed :— " And bid him speak to me of patience.'' The addition is obvious enough, and it is made by the cor- rector of the folio, 1632. Few passages have produced more contention and doubt than this line, as it is given in the first and other folios, " And sorrow, wag ! cry hem, when he should groan.'' Leonato is telling his brother, that his grief is beyond all ex- ample, and that he can never be comforted, until he shall meet with a man, suffering under equal calamities, who can defy his misfortunes, " If such a one will smile, and stroke his beard ; And sorrow, wag ! cry hem, when he should groan," &c. The corrector of the folio, 1632, shows that, "And sorrow wag," was a misprint for " Call sorrow joy," so that he reads, — " If such a one will smile, and stroke his beard ; Call soYrovi joy ; cry hem, when he should groan ; Patch grief with proverbs ; make misfortune drunk With candle-wasters; bring him you to me. And I of him will gather patience." This seems to be as good a solution as we are likely to obtain : the diiEculty is to account for the misprint. P. 261. Boiled calf's head and capers was formerly not an unusual dish ; and when Claudio tells Don Pedro, that Be- nedick hath " bid him to a calf's head and a capon," the cor- rector of the folio, 1632, marks it as an error of the press, and alters it to " calf's head and capers." Claudio means to joke upon the challenge that he had received. P. 262. For the scriptural allusion, in the words " God saw him, when he was hid in the garden," the corrector puts it as SC. III. J MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 77 a question, "Who saw him, when he was hid in the garden ?" It seems likely that the speech was so amended, in conse- quence of the increased prevalence of puritanism soon after the date when the folio, 1632, was published. We shall have to notice other changes of the same kind and, perhaps, for the same reason hereafter. P. 265. According to the folio, 1623, Leonato says to Claudio, — " I cannot bid you bid my daughter live." The folio, 1632, in its uncorrected state, gives it, — " I cannot bid you daughter live ; " and the manuscript- corrector of that impression tells us that the line should be, — ■ " I cannot bid you cause my daughter live." It is impossible now to know from what source this eupho- nious emendation was derived. SCENE III. P. 271. The following is the "Song" as it is found cor- rected in the folio, 1632 : — " Pardon, goddess of the night. Those that slew thy virgin bright, For the which, with songs of woe, Round about her tomb vie go. Midnight, assist our moan ; help us to sigh and groan Heavily, heavily, Graves yawn and yield your dead Till death be uttered, Heavily, heavily." Thus we see virgin bright for " virgin knight ;" we go for ' 'they go ;" and Heavily, heavily, in the last instance, for " Heavenly, heavenly." There was a well-known tune of " Heavily, heavily," and probably the above was sung to it. (See British Bibliographer, ii. 560.) It will be remarked that the rest of this scene is in rhyme, with the exception of these two lines : — " Thanks to you all, and leave us : fare you well. Good morrow, masters : each his several way." Probably this couplet also rhymed as the play was originally 78 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [aCT V. written, and the corrector of the folio, 1632, shows how slight a change was necessary to restore the jingle, — " Good morrow, masters : each his way can tell." SCENE IV. P. 272. Leonato desires his daughter, his niece, and Ur- sula to withdraw, and to return to the scene "masked." Such was, no doubt, the course when this comedy was ori- ginally produced, about the year 1699 ; but it should seem that in the time of the corrector of the folio, 1632, it was the practice for the ladies to enter veiled, when Claudio was expecting to be married to the niece, and not to the daughter of Leonato. Therefore, when Antonio enters with the ladies (p. 274), we are told, in a manuscript stage-direction, that they are veiled ; and when Hero, and subsequently Beatrice, discover themselves, unveil is in both instances written in the margin. In the interval between the first acting of " Much Ado about Nothing," and the reprinting of it in the folio, 1632, the fashion of wearing masks had perhaps de- clined among ladies, and for that reason veils may have been substituted for masks in the performance. P. 274. When Hero unveils, Claudio can hardly believe his eyes, but the lady re-assures him by saying, according to the folios, — " One Hero died, but I do live ;" which is a defective verse, and the quarto, 1600, has the line thus : — " One Hero died deJiVd, but I do live." Now, it is most unlikely that Hero should herself tell Claudio that she had been " defiled," and the word supplied by the corrector of the folio, 1632, seems on all accounts much pre- ferable : — " One hero died belied, but I do live.'' Here we see the lady naturally denying her guilt, and at- tributing her death to the slander thrown upon her. Shakes- peare's word must have been belied, and the mishearing of it may have led to the insertion of " defiled" in the 4to, 1600. The editor of the folio, 1623, perhaps purposely omitted defiled on account of its unfitness. so. IV.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 79 P. 275. Sir Thomas Hanmer conjecturally added for in the subsequent line to the improvement of the metre, — " Have been deceived; for they swore you did." The corrector of the folio, 1632, takes precisely the same course, and in the few succeeding lines makes changes clearly recommended by the greater accuracy of the verse and language. We transcribe them as they stand in manu- script, but it is not necessary to accompany them by the text as ordinarily represented, and we have printed the added or altered words in italics : — "Bene. Why then your uncle, and the prince, and Claudio Have been deceived ; for they swore you did. Beat. Do not you love me ? Bene. Troth, no more than reason. Beat. Why then, my cousin Margaret and Ursula Are much deceived, for they swore you did. Bene. They swore that you were almost sick for me. Beat. They swore that you were well-nigh dead for me. Bene. It is no matter. — Then, you do not love me. Beat. No truly, but in friendly recompence." Here the halting measure of the lines, as contained in all the folios is set right, and the effect of the retorts much in- creased by the adoption by each party of precisely the same forms of expression. P. 276. The old editions assign " Peace ! I will stop your mouth" to Leonato ; but most modern editors, following the example of Theobald, have transferred it to Benedick. So does the corrector of the folio, 1632. After the word " Dance," at^ the very conclusion of the play, the manuscript-corrector has added of all the actors, to show that every person on the stage joined in it. Perhaps it might have been guessed from what is said, without this information. LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. ACT I. SCENE I. P. 285. Theobald judiciously proposed to alter the line, — " When I to fast expressly am forbid," as follows : — "When I to feast expressly am forbid." The same change was made in manuscript by the corrector of the folio, 1632. Lower down, that edition has, — "Light, seeking light, doth light beguile;'" evidently defective in sense and measure, and the corrector, by inserting "of light" in the margin, makes the passage run as in the folio, 1623, — " Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile ; " which of course is the true reading. P. 287. The folio, 1623, presents us with this passage: — " So you to study now it is too late, That were to climb o'er the house to \mloek the gate." This text the folio, 1632, adopted, excepting that it has t'unlock tor "to unlock." The quarto, 1598, had previously printed the couplet thus : — " So you to study now it is too late. Climb o'er the house to unlock the little gate." Finally, we present it as it appears in the folio, 1632, cor- rected in manuscript, which seems preferable to the other authorities : — ACT I.] love's labour's LOST. 81 " So you, by study now it is too late, Climb o'er the house-it, being before his beloved mistress ? Bos. Marry, that should you, if I were your mistress, or I should think my honesty ranker than my wit." The blunder pointed out by the corrector of the folio, 1 632, is in the last speech ; and when the genuine text is given it will be seen in an instant how the errors, for there are more than one, occun-ed. Rosalind ought to say, in answer to Orlando's question, "Who could be out, being before his beloved mistress ?" " Marry, that should you, if I were your mistress, or 1 should thank my honesty rather than my wit." This is a singular restoration of Shakespeare's text, which could scarcely have arisen from any ingenious guess at the author's meaning. P. 74. The folio, 1632, is very ill-printed in this scene, and it makes Orlando say, / do, instead of " I die," and lower down converts Coroners into Chroniclers. These mistakes are corrected in the margin. P. 76. Sir Thomas Hanmer made a tolerable guess, when he altered " occasion," in the following sentence, to accusa- tion, — "0, that woman that cannot make her fault her husband's occasion, let her never nurse her child herself, for she will breed it like a fool." It is accusing in the corrected folio, 1632 ; no doubt, Shakespeare's word. P. 77. The manuscript-corrector adds a small word to the sentence with which Rosalind parts with Orlando in this scene, " Well, time is the old justice that examines all such offenders, and let time try you." The sentence is incom- plete without you, which is found in the margin. 136 AS YOU LIKE IT. [aCT IV. ACT IV. SCENE II. p. 78. This short scene is erased, perhaps on account of the song ; but if nothing of the kind were given on the stage it would bring the two interviews of Rosalind and Orlando in juxta-position, and allow no interval Although the song is struck out with the rest, that which is only a prose direc- tion, but is printed as part of the song, " Then sing him home : the rest shall bear this burden," is underlined by the corrector to indicate the mistake. SCENE III. P. 78. It has struck nobody that what Celia says in the commencement of this scene must be a quotation, and it is underscored as such by the corrector of the folio, 1632. Rosalind, impatient at Orlando's apparent want of punc- tuality, observes, — " How say you now ? Is it not past two o'clock? And here much Orlando !" To which Celia answers jestingly by two lines taken, we may suppose, from some now unknown production, — " I waiTant you, with pure love and troubled brain, He hath ta'en his bow and arrows, and gone forth — To sleep." We hear nothing before, nor afterwards, about bows and arrows, and Celia terminates her quotation by two words of her own, jeering Rosalind upon the inattention of her lover. The two lines before " To sleep," read like a quotation ; and if they were not, there seems no reason why the corrector should have drawn his pen under them : he erases the redundant word is, " and is gone forth," as injurious to the measure, and most likely not in the original from which Shakespeare took the lines. P. 83. Malone believed that a line had been lost after " As, how I came into that desert place ; " but if there be any such deficiency, which we do not suspect. ACT v.] AS YOU LIKE IT. 137 it must apply to what precedes, and not to what follows the above. The corrector of the folio, 1632, does not give the slightest hint that any thing is missing, which he has done in other places, and, if properly read, the sense is carried on, in spite of erroneous punctuation, through the whole passage. When Rosalind just afterwards swoons, and is raised hy Oliver, the circumstance is noted in the margin, in the absence of printed stage-directions. ACT V. SCENE II. P. 89. Silvius, describing love, says, among other things, that it is to be made of " All adoration, duty, and observance ; All humbleness, all patience, and impatience ; All purity, all trial, all observance." Malone suggested that "observance" in the second instance ought to be obedience; but the fact is that the misprint is in the first "observance," for the corrector of the folio, 1632, makes the line, — "All adoration, duty, and obedience," obedience more properly following "duty" than "trial." SCENE III. P. 91. Considering the difference among the commentators upon the point, it may be fit to mention that in the burden of the song, " It was a lover and his lass," the line runs, in the corrected folio, — " In the spring time, the only pretty ring time," and not "rang time," as in the old copies, nor "rank time," as Johnson recommended. Steevens was for "ring time," and Pope for a repetition of " spring time." Figures against the separate stanzas show that the order in which they are printed is wrong, and that the song ought to be as represented 138 AS YOU LIKE IT. [aCT V. in tlie manuscript in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh. Pro- bably the company for which this comedy was prepared could manage this three-part song, and therefore it was not erased, like others for only one voice. The word, in Touch- stone's comment upon the singing, is not " untuneable," as in the folios, but untimeable, as corrected in that of 1632. This has been a disputed point. SCENE IV. P. 92. A misprinted line in Orlando's first speech has pro- duced much doubt, and many proposals for emendation. It stands as follows in all the old copies : — " As those that fear they hope, arid know they fear." It seems strange that nobody should yet have suggested the right change ; for the mere substitution of to for " they," in the first instance, gives a very intelligible and consistent meaning. The Duke asks if Orlando believes Rosalind can do what she has promised, and Orlando replies : — " I sometimes do believe, and sometimes do not, As those that fear to hope, and know they fear." He was afraid to hope that she could be as good as her word, and knew that he was afraid. In the next line but one Rosalind observes, — " Patience once more, whiles our compact is urg'd." " Urg'd" seems a word not well adapted to the place, and the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, informs us that it is another error of the press, and that we ought to read, — " Patience once more, whiles our compact is heard;" and then she proceeds, orderly and audibly, to recapitulate to the party the several articles of the compact. P. 93. Rosalind makes her exit with an imperfect hne, as it stands printed in all editions : she addresses Silvius, — " Keep your word, Silvius, that you'll marry her. If she refuse me : — and from hence 1 go. To make these doubts all even. \_Exeunt Rosalind and Celia." SC. IV.] AS YOU LIKE IT. 139 It appears that the dropping out of two small words after " To make these doubts all even," rendered the line defective, and spoiled the intended rhyme, which gives point to the termination of the speech. According to the manuscript- corrector of the folio, 1632, the couplet ran thus in its complete state : — " If she refuse me : — and from hence I go, To make these doubts all even — even so." The words thus recovered are of little value, in themselves, but we can hardly doubt that they came from Shakespeare's pen. P. 96. A stage-direction (wanting in the old printed copies) informs us that when Rosalind returns, ushered by Hymen, she is apparelled as a woman ; and from this part of the scene to the end of the play the old corrector has been very particular, by writing in the initials and otherwise, to " bar confusion" as to the various persons addressed, and to make every thing so clear that the actors could commit no mistake. P. 97. Hymen's address ends thus, as always printed : — " That reason wonder may diminish, How thus we met, and these things finish." But it is put much more tersely in the manuscript of the corrector of the folio, 1632 : — " That reason wonder may diminish, How thus we met, and thus we finish." We can readily believe that such was the authentic con- clusion of the speech. P. 98. The line in Hymen's song, — " To Hymen, god of every town," is slightly altered by the old corrector, and with apparent fitness, — "To Hymen, god in every town." 140 AS YOU LIKE IT. [aCT V. He also introduces an emendation into the last line hut two of the Second Brother's speech : — " His crown bequeathing to his banish'd brother, And all their lands restor'd to them again That were with him exil'd." The old text is " him" for them, which may hy ingenuity he reconciled to propriety ; hut them makes the passage more easily understood, which here, at least, in the winding up of the plot, must have been a main object with the poet. THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. INDUCTION. SCENE I. P. 107. The stage-direction at the commencement of this comedy in the old folios is confused and redundant : Enter Beggar and Hostess, Ghristophero Sly; but the "Beggar" and Ghristophero Sly are the same person : therefore, the corrector of the folio, 1 632, has made the stage-direction run merely as follows : Enter Hostess and Ghristophero Sly. The prefixes to what Sly says are always printed Beg., for " Beggar," but they are in every instance changed in manu- script to Sly. Sly's exclamation from " The Spanish Tragedy," " Go by S. Jeronimy," has given commentators some trouble, in con- sequence of the capital S. before " Joronimy." It seems to be merely a printer's blunder (who might fancy that St. Jerome was alluded to), and so the old corrector treated it, by unceremoniously putting his pen through it. P. 110. The folios have this line in tlie Lord's speech of instructions to his servants : — " And when he says he is, say that he dreams : " later editors have printed it thus : — • " And when he says he is—, say, that he dreams : " leaving it to be supposed that the Lord left his sentence in- complete. Such does not appear to be the fact, for the 142 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. [iNDUC. manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, makes the line run naturally enough, — " When lie says what he is, say that he dreams." In modern editions, by the separate printing of insig- nificant words, such as is it for " is't" and an it for " an't" of the old copies, syllahles have been multiplied in pre- ceding lines, so as to conceal an evident defect in one near the bottom of the page, — " That offer service to your lordship." Here two syllables are wanting, and the corrector of the second folio credibly informs us that we should complete the measure thus : — "That offer humhle service to your lordship." Adopting this word, it will be necessary to put the Lord's question in this very usual form : — " How now ! who is't ? Serv. An't please your honoui-, Players, That offer humble service to your lordship." The Players then enter, and after the words, Enter Players, " 5 or 6 " are added in parentheses, to show that there ought not to be fewer in the company offering their services. SCENE II. P. 113. The Lord (dressed like a servant), wishing to persuade Sly that he has been insane, begins his speech, as commonly printed, with this line : — " Heaven cease this idle humour in your honour ! " and the manuscript-corrector strikes out " idle," and inserts evil, which is probably right, as is proved by the context, where the Lord adds that Sly had been possessed by a " foul spirit." " Idle humour" was, therefore, by no means so proper as " evil humour," and was most likely an error of the press. P. 114. Shakespeare has mentioned his native county in a place where hitherto it has not been at all suspected. Sly, according to all editions, says, — SC. II.] THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. 143 " Ask Marian Hacket, the fat alewife of Wincot, if she know me not : if she say I am not fourteen pence on the score for sheer ale, score me up for the lyingest knave in Christendom." Malone did not know what to make of " sheer ale," but supposed that it meant shearing or reaping ale, for so reaping is called in Warwickshire. What does it mean ? It is spelt sheere in the old copies, and that word begins one line, Warwick having undoubtedly dropped out at the end of the preceding line. The corrector of the folio, 1632, inserted the missing word in manuscript, and m^de the last part of the sentence run, — " If she say I am not fourteen pence on the score for Warwickshire ale, score me up for the lyingest knave in Christendom." Wincot, where Marian Hacket lived, is some miles from Stratford-upon-Avon. It was formerly not at all unusual to spell "shire" sheere; and Sly's "sheer ale" thus turns out to have been Warwickshire ale, which Shakespeare cele- brated, and of which he had doubtless often partaken, at Mrs. Hacket's. We almost wonder that, in his local par- ticularity, he did not mention the sign of her house. This emendation, like many others, must have been obtained from some better manuscript than that in the hands of the old printer. P. 117. Sly thus addresses his supposed wife : — " Madam wife, they say that I have dream 'd. And slept above some fifteen year, and more." The sense tells us that we ought to read, — " And slept about some fifteen year, or more ; " and "above" is altered to about by the corrector of the folio, 1632. P. 118. A misprint of a different kind, and an awkward transposition, destroyed the rhyming couplet with which the Induction ought to end. It has been always printed as follows : Sly is speaking of the play about to be exhibited before him : — " Well, we'll see't. Come, madam wife, sit by my side. And let the world slip : we shall ne'er be younger." We are to bear in mind that Sly's expression, used in the very opening, is "Let the world slide." How, then, does 144 THK TAMING OF THE SHREW. [acT I. the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, state that the above lines should run ? — " Well, we'll see't. Come, madam wife, sit by my side ■ We shall ne'er be younger, and let the world slide." The comedy then begins ; and, according to the ancient ar- rangements of our theatres, the supposed spectators, viz. Sly, his Lady, the Lord, &c., occupy the balcony at the back of the stage, and facing the real audience: the manuscript stage-direction, therefore, in this place is. They sit above, and look on below ; that \s, look on at what is acted on the stage below them. ACT L SCENE I. P. 119. Recollecting how many learned hands our great dramatist's works have passed through, it is wonderful that such a blunder as that we are enabled now to point out, should not have been detected and mentioned in print at least a century ago. Lucentio, attended by Tranio, haying arrived at Padua to study in the university there, the servant thus addresses his master, and our quotation is the same in all impressions, ancient and modern: — " Let's be no stoics nor no stocks, I pray ; Or so devote to Aristotle's checks, As Ovid be an outcast quite abjur'd." What are "Aristotle's checks?" Undoubtedly a misprint for Aristotle's Ethics, formerly spelt ethicks, and hence the absurd blunder. " Or so devote to Aristotle's ethics" is the line as it stands authoritatively corrected in the margin ofthe folio, 1632. In the last line of this page, Lucentio is represented as apostrophising his absent boy, Biondello, — " If, Biondello, thou wert come ashore," &c. The real words being merely in the form of an observation, — " If Biondello now were come ashore," &c. so. II. J THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. 145 This is one of the mistakes that must have arisen from mis- hearing on the part of the copyist of the play. The manu- script-corrector of the folio, 1632, sets the matter right. P. 120. Two errors, one of omission and the other of com- mission, occur in a question by Katherine and an answer by Hortensio. The first is leaving out the word gracious, which is wanting for the completeness of the line, and the other the misprint of " mould" for mood ; both are thus corrected in the margin of the folio, 1632 : — " Kath. I pray you, sir, is it your gracious will To make a stale of me among these mates ? Hort. Mates, maid ! how mean you that ? no mates for you, Unless you were of gentler, milder mood." P. 123. Lucentio breaks out into a speech in rhyme in ad- miration of Bianca's beauty, but it is injured by the mis- printing of so poor a word as " had" for race : — " O, yes, I saw sweet beauty in her face, Such as the daughter of Agenor's race, That made great Jove to humble him to her hand, When with his knees he kiss'd the Cretan strand." The above is the greatly improved reading of the corrector of the folio, 1632. P. 125. The old copies present us with this corrupt and imperfect line, where Tranio is urging his master to speed in exchanging clothes with him : — " In brief, sir, sith it your pleasure is," which is thus altered by the old corrector : — " Be brief then, sir, sith it your pleasure is." Malone, without any authority, had guessed at the insertion of then, but allowed "In brief" to remain. Lower down, for "wounded eye" the correction is " wond'ring eye," which may or may not be right, but the presumption is much in its favour. SCENE II. P. 134. Gremio, referring to Petruchio's enterprise against Katherine, tells Hortensio, — 146 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. [aCT II. " This gentleman is happily arriv'd, My mind presumes, for his own good, and yours ; " but it was for Gremio's good, as well as for that of Hor- tensio, both being suitors to Bianca ; and there is little doubt that the corrector of the folio, 1632, was justified in changing "yours" to ours. ACT II. SCENE I. P. 137. In the line of Bianca's speech, — " That I disdain ; but for these other goods," Theobald read gauds for "goods," but the manuscript-cor- rector tells us that gards or guards, in the sense of orna- ments, was our great poet's word. It may be so. P. 139. Petruchio says, when ironically praising Katherine to her father, — "That, hearing of her heauty, and her wit, Her affability, and bashful modesty, Her wondrous qualities, and mild behaviour," he had come to woo her. The word "wondrous" seems out of place, and in the corrected folio the line in which it occurs thus stands, with evident improvement, — " Her woman's qualities, and mild behaviour ; " for the hero was dwelling upon the heroine's female re- commendations and attributes. P. 144 The point of Katherine's retort to Petruchio has been lost by an error either of the copyist or of the printer. Petruchio tells her, — " Women are made to bear, and so are you ; '' to which she replies, as the line has been given since the publication of the second folio, — "No such jade, sir, as you, if me you mean;" thus calling Petruchio a jade ; but the point of her reply is, ACT III.] THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. 147 that altliougli a woman and made to bear, she was not such a jade as to bear Petruchio : — " No such jade to bear you, if me you mean." The folio, 1623, gives the line even less perfectly than that of 1632, and it is evident that the corrector of the second folio has supplied words which had in some way escaped from the text. The coarse joke about the wasp's sting, near the bottom of the page, is struck out by him. P. 147. Petruchio, giving Baptista an account of his inter- view with Katherine, remarks, — " She is not froward, but modest as the dove ; She is not hot, but temperate as the morn ; " to which ordinary text no objection would perhaps present itself, did not the corrector inform us, by a marginal note, that the last line ought to be, — " She is not hot, but temperate as the moon;" which, in reference to the chaste coldness of the moon, was doubtless the true word. P. 1.51. Steevens thought a couplet was intended at the close of this Act, and proposed to read doing for " cunning." He wished to alter the wrong word, for the manuscript- corrector makes it appear that, for the purpose of the rhyme, "wooing" ought to be winning : — " but in this case of winning, A child shall get a sire, if I fail not of my cunning." ACT III. SCENE I. P. 161. Lucentio and Hortensio, disguised as a language- master and a musician, quarrel as to precedence in the instruction of Bianca. All editions represent Hortensio's speech as beginning thus defectively : — " But, wrangling pedant, this is The patroness of heavenly harmony." L 2 148 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. [aCT III. The corrector of the folio, 1632, gives "But" as a misprint for the interjection Tut ! (of frequent occurrence in this and other plays) and furnishes two missing words in the fol- lowing manner : — " Tut ! wrangling pedant, I avouch this is The patroness of heavenly harmony," &c. which is somewhat better than the insignificant mode adopted hy Ritson, who only wanted to fill up the line, " But, wrangling pedant, know this lady is," &c. There must have existed some original for I avouch. SCENE II. P. 156. Biondello's exclamation, as it is given with obvious defectiveness in the early impressions, " Master, master ! news, and such news as you never heard of," has been amended in various ways ; but the manuscript correction in the folio, 1632, difiers from all others, and is doubtless what the poet intended, viz. " Master, master ! news, and such old news as you never heard of." That old is wanted appears from Baptista's question, " Is it old and new too 1" which imme- diately follows. Old is often used as a superlative. P. 1.57. If the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, be accurate in one of his emendations, it appears to throw a new and singular light upon an incident in Shakespeare's life, — a difference with Michael Drayton, and why the latter, having praised our greatest dramatist and his " Lucrece " in " Ma- tilda," first published in 1594, withdrew the stanza in 1596, and never afterwards reprinted it. It is not easy to account for this change on any other ground than that some offence had been taken by Drayton at Shakespeare, and the point is adverted to in Vol. viii., p. 411. We have, perhaps, a clue to the origin of the difierence in one of the manuscript changes made in the play under consideration, which would show that it arose out of a particular allusion by Shake- speare to one of Drayton's poems, and not out of any com- petition between them as dramatic authors. Biondello, bringing an account of the arrival of Petruchio and his man Grumio, and of their strange caparisons and appearance, says of the latter, that he wore " an old hat, and the humour SC. II.J THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. 149 of forty fancies prick'd in't for a feather." This is precisely as the passage is given in all editions of all periods ; and Warburton and Steevens speculated that "the humour of forty fancies" was a collection of short popular poems, which Grumio had stuck in his hat by way of ornament. The notion that such was the case is strengthened by the cor- rector of the folio, 1632 ; but he gives us more than a hint what was the publication in question, by altering the text as follows : — " An old hat, and the Amours, or Forty Fancies, prick'd in't for a feather." The commentators could find no work at all corresponding in title to " the humour of forty fancies ;" but here it is stated by the old corrector, that the title was erroneously quoted, or in other words that the compositor had printed "Humour" for Amours, and "of" for or. Now, there is a small production, by Drayton, consisting of love poems, the title of which, though not identical, approaches suiHciently nearly to what is found in the amended text, to warrant a suspicion that it might be the work alluded to by our great dramatist, and that Drayton had been so annoyed by the reference that he expunged from the later editions of his "Matilda," the praise he had given to Shakespeare in the first impression in 1594. This notion may be a little supported by the fact, that the ridicule, if intended, was effectual, for Drayton never afterwards reprinted the poetical tract in question, although he inserted some of the sonnets it con- tains in others of his republications. The tract came out in 1594, under the subsequent brief title : — " Ideas Mirrour. Amours in Quatorzains." The word " Amours " is in such large type, compared with " Ideas Mirrour," that, popularly, it might be called Drayton's " Amours," and although not in " forty," it is in fifty " fancies," or short love poems ; but " forty fancies," with the introduc- tory word " Amours," was probably enough for Shakespeare's purpose, and he might not wish to be more exact. It is, of course, merely conjecture that he meant to produce a harm- less laugh against his contemporary by an allusion to this collection of his small poems ; and, if well-founded, it would carry back the composition and first representation of " The Taming of the Shrew" to about the period assigned by 150 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. [aCT III. Malone, viz. 1595 or 1596. It is to be observed that Shake- speare's "Lucrece," Drayton's "Amours," and "Matilda," and the old " Taming of a Shrew," were all published with the date of 1694. Upon the last, Shakespeare, as is well known, founded his comedy, and his attention might be directed to the subject by the appearance of " The Taming of a Shrew," in 1594. We give the whole of this merely as a speculation ; and it is nearly twenty years since we saw the sole existing copy of Drayton's " Amours in Quatorzains." P. ] 58. If any confirmation were needed that the scrap of a ballad repeated by Biondello, and printed as prose in all previous editions, was in verse, and a quotation, it is afforded by the corrector of the folio, 1632, who as usual underscores it on that account. When Petruchio and Grumio enter, instantly afterwards, a manuscript stage-direction is inserted to tell us that they are strangely clad, and something else seems to have been added, which was erased, and is there- fore not legible. The first line spoken by Petruchio, alluding to his apparel, is deficient of a syllable, — " Were it better, I should rush in thus." The word wanting is supplied by the corrector, — " Were it much better, I should rush in thus.'' P. 159. Having inquired after Katherine, and talked for some time, Petruchio suddenly reproves himself, — " But what a fool am I to chat with you. When I should wish good-morrow to my bride. And seal the title with a lovely kiss ? " " Lovely " is here misprinted, as in various other places, for loving, and that word is found, therefore, in the margin of the folio, 1632. Five lines lower in the folio, 1632, — " But, sir, love coneerneth us to add," is amended in manuscript to " But to our love coneerneth us to add," which while it preserves the verse, makes the meaning appa- rent. Theobald has "our" for to our, and Tyrwhitt recom- mended, " But, sir, to her," which, however, renders the mea- sure redundant. ACT IV.] THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. 151 ACT IV. SCENE I. P. 168. The manuscript stage-directions in this part of the play are descriptive and particular: thus we are informed that when Petruchio and his wife enter, all the servants, frightened, run away — that he sings the two fragments of ballads — that the meat is served in — that both sit down to it, and that he throws it all about. Modern editions have only some of these instructions for the due performance of the piece, and the old folios none of them. SCENE II. P. 172. The evident misprint at the end of Hortensio's speech " them " for her, which the second folio caught from the first, is duly set right by the manuscript-corrector. Tranio, immediately afterwards, says, — " And here I take the like unfeigned oath Never to marry with her, though she would entreat." The words "with" and "would" are both redundant, and are struck through by the old corrector, leaving the line, thus perfect ; — " Never to marry her, though she entreat.'' In the first line of Hortensio's reply the necessary pronoun her is omitted ; — " Would all the world, hut he, had quite forsworn }ier." It is written in the margin, and had probably dropped out at the end of the line. P. 173. The word "Angel" in the following line,— " An ancient Angel coming down the hill," has produced various conjectural emendations, the one usually adopted being that of Theobald, who proposed to read "ancient engle ;" but we are to recollect that the person spoken of was on foot, and we have no doubt that the word wanting is ambler, which we meet with in the margin of the corrected folio, 1682. As to engle or ingle, which means a person of weak understanding, how was Biondello 152 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. [aCT IV. to know that " the Pedant " was so, by merely seeing him walk down the hill ? he could see at once that he was an ambler. How arnhler came to be misprinted " angel " is a difficulty of perpetual recurrence. SCENE IV. P. 183. Baptista, conferring with the false Vincentio, con- sents to the marriage of Bianca on the passing of a sufficient dower : if so, he adds, — "The matcli is made, and all is done." This is clearly a defective line, out of which the word happily has escaped, as we learn from the corrector of the folio, 1632,— " The match is made and all is happily done." In the next line but one, we have " know " misprinted for hold, " Where, then, do you know best," instead of " Where, then, do you hold best." P. 185. Lucentio, receiving from Biondello instructions how he should proceed, the latter says in the folio, 1623, which has been commonly followed by modern editors, " The old priest at St. Luke's Church is at your command at all hours :" " Luc. And what of all this ? Bion. I cannot tell ; expect ; they are busied about a counterfeit as- surance, take you assurance of her," &c. The folio, 1632, properly prints except for "expect," but does not go quite far enough in the emendation, which is thus finished by the old corrector, — " Bion. I cannot tell ; except, while they are busied about a counterfeit assurance, take you assurance of her," &c. This addition of while cannot be wrong, for Lucentio was to make off with Bianca to St. Luke's during the time that the old folks were " busied " about the pretended deed for the lady's dower. P. 186. When Petruchio cannot make his wife say that the sun is the moon, he resolves, as a punishment to her, not to proceed on his journey to Baptista's, and tells one of his ACT V.j THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. 153 servants to fetch the horses back that he had sent forward : the invariable text has been, — " Go on, and fetch our horses back again." But one was of old often spelt " on," and such was the case here, for a marginal note informs us that we ought to read, — " Go one, and fetch our horses hack again." It is a mere trifle ; and lower down, in the same page, Kathe- rine admitting that the sun is the moon, says, — " And so it shall he so for Katherine." The manuscript-corrector very properly makes the last " so '' still : — " And so it shall he still for Katherine." ACT V. SCENE I. P. 192. The real father of Lucentio, having been roughly treated by the pretended father and Tranio, exclaims in old and modern editions, — " Thus strangers may be haled and ahus'd," ■which is hardly verse, but the addition of two omitted letters makes it indisputably so, — "Thus strangers may be handled and ahus'd." Handled, which was misprinted " haled," is supplied in manu- script in the corrected folio, 1632. SCENE II. P. 194. Petruchio remarks, in all the folios, — " And time it is, when raging war is come. To smile at 'scapes and perils overblown." Rowe altered " come " to " done," some emendation of the kind being necessary ; but, according to the correction in the folio, 1632, the proper word was not " done " but gone, as conjectured in note 2, at the foot of this page. 154 THE TAMING OV THE SHREW. [aCT V. P. 196. The corrector of the folio, 1632, informs us, as we may readily believe, that the word several has strangely escaped from the subsequent line by Petruchio : " Let's each one send unto his wife," instead of " Let's each one send unto his several -wife," which makes the sense and measure complete. Words would scarcely have been inserted in this way without some ade- quate warrant in the possession of the corrector. P. 198. Lucentio's wife, Bianca, not obeying his directions to come to him, he tells her that her refusal, — "Hath cost me five hundred crowns since supper time." We need have no scruple in amending a line so manifestly corrupt both in substance and form, for the wager was not five hundred, but "one hundred crowns," and the verse is also redundant, though easily reduced to its proper length without any loss, excepting of a useless word that, in some unexplained manner, found its way into it. In the corrected folio, 1632, the passage appears thus: — " The wisdom of your duty, fair Bianca, Cost me one hundred cro-wns since supper time." Pope was the first to set right the numerical blunder in print ; but until now, when we have this new authority before us, no editor has thought himself at liberty to reject the needless auxiliary. ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. ACT I. SCENE I. P. 208. The Countess, speaking of Gerard de Narbon, says, as the passage has heen invariably printed, "Whose skill was almost as great as his honesty ; had it stretched so far, would have made nature immortal," &c. The auxiliary verb "was" is struck out in the corrected folio, 1632, and the sentence is made to run less elliptically, " Whose skill, almost as great as his honesty, had it stretched so far, would have made nature immortal," &c. P. 210. In the passage of Helena's speech, — " My imagination Carries no favour in't but Bertram's," the last line is clearly defective, the word only having been accidentally omitted : " Carries no favour in't but mily Bertram's,'' is doubtless the true reading from the corrected folio, 1632. P. 212. In the dissertation on virginity by ParoUes, " ten " is altered to two, which has not been the usual mode of printing the sentence, " Within two years it will make itself two, which is a goodly increase." This was Steevens' mode of curing the misprint, and, on the whole, it seems preferable to Sir Thomas Hanmer's change of " two," in the second instance, to ten, " Within ten years it will make itself ten," ParoUes would hardly look forward to so distant a period. This speech, and indeed all the rest of the scene 156 all's well that ENDS WELL. [acT I. until the entrance of the Page, is crossed out in the folio, 1632. Nevertheless several emendations are made in the margin : thus Parolles at the end of his harangue asks Helena, "Will you do any thing with it," which connects her reply, " Not with my virginity yet," and the question : do and mth are both added by the old corrector of the folio, 1632. The whole of this part of the scene is a very blundering specimen of typography. P. 214. A difficulty which has arisen respecting the couplet, — " The mightiest space in fortune nature brings To join like likes, and kiss like native things,'' is in a great degree, if not entirely, removed by the trans- position of the words " fortune " and " nature :" the manu- script-corrector instructs us to read thus : — " The mightiest space in nature fortune brings To join like likes, and kiss like native things.'' The meaning is then evident, viz., that fortune occasions things that are like each other to join, notwithstanding the mightiest space in nature may intervene between them. SCENE in. P. 220. It has been stated that it was the practice of the corrector of the folio, 1632, to mark under every passage quoted, whether from a ballad or a book ; and by amending the Clown's repetition of an old song he has supplied a deficiency, which Warburton perceived and would have set right, but not in the right way. We may feel satisfied that it ran thus, and the necessary words, Good sooth it was, are written in an adjoining blank space : — " Was this fair face, quoth she, the cause Why Grecians sacked Troy ? Fond done, done fond, good sooth it was ; Was this King Priam's joy ? " The rest is the same as in the old folios. The Countess complains that the Clown "corrupts the song," which he denies ; and his answer contains another addition to the text of some importance, besides the correction of a printer's error, which has always been amended in a way to injure, instead of improving, the sense. The Clown says, in sc. iii.J all's well that ends well. 157 reply to the charge that he " corrupts the song " by allowing only one good woman in ten, — " One good woman in ten, madam, which is a purifying o' the song and mending o' the sex. Would God would serve the world so all the year ! we'd find no fault with the tithe-woman, if I were the parson. One in ten, quotha ! An we might have a good woman born — but one — every blazing star, or at an earthquake, 'twould mend the lottery well." Thus, besides the restoration to the original text of the words " and mending o' the sex," the meaning is strength- ened by " but one" instead of " but ere," or " but ore " as it stands in the old impressions. Steevens left it out because he did not know what to make of it, and Malone suggested " but or." The emendation of " ore " to one adds point to the satire intended by the Clown. P. 221. The Clown's ridicule of the puritans and the Steward's remark about the "queen of virgins" are both erased — the last, probably, because it was unintelligible to the corrector. P. 222. The Countess has received information from her Steward of Helena's secret love for Bertram, and in a soliloquy (for according to the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, the heroine enters too early in all editions) makes excuses for the young lady's passion, ending with this couplet, as it has always been printed : — " By our remembrances of days foregone. Such were our faults ; or then we thought them none." Here there is a misprint, arising no doubt out of the mis- hearing of the scribe, the correction of which is of im- portance, because it makes the meaning of the Countess quite evident, whereas, in the ordinary state of the text, it is obscure. The lines ought to run, as we learn from the old corrector's manuscript, — " By our remembrances of days foregone Search we out faults— /or then we thought them none." i. e. let us measure faults in others by the recollection of our own, when we thought them none. Helena enters at the moment, and the suspicions of the Countess are confirmed by her appearance, " Her eye is sick on't," &c. 158 all's well that ENDS WELL. [aCT II. P. 225. In Helena's speech, describing her father's pre- scriptions, she says, in all copies of the play, that they are " such as his reading And manifest experience had collected." For " manifest," the corrector of the folio, 1 632, places mani- fold in the margin, in allusion to the old physician's great practice. We may safely admit the emendation. ACT II. SCENE I. P. 229. The corrector of the folio, 1632, not being able to make any thing out of the words, "there do muster true gate," has struck them out, and left the sentence to run thus : " For they wear themselves in the cap of the time, eat, speak, and move under the influence of the most re- ceived star." For move, the second folio has the misprint of more. P. 230. Some of the commentators fancied that a line had been lost at the close of Lafeu's speech, in praise of the won- derful prescription he had seen, which was able to do much more than cure the King, for it could raise Pepin from his grave, and enable Charlemaine to write a love letter to the owner of the medicine. The passage has hitherto been given as follows : — " whose simple touch Is powerful to araise King Pepin, nay, To give great Charlemaine a pen in's hand And write to her a love-line." Of the word " araise," we have no other example, and the old corrector writes it upraise, for which it was most likely misprinted — while to alter " and" to " to," at the beginning of the next line but one, makes the whole meaning clear, without supposing any thing to have been lost : — " whose simple touch Is powerful to upraise King Pepin, nay, To give great Charlemaine a pen in's hand To write to her a love-line." P. 233. The manuscript-corrector reads, "despair most SC. III.] all's well that ends well. 159 fits," for " shifts" in the last line of Helena's speech ; and, supported as the change is by other authorities, there can be no dispute that it is the right word, in preference to " despair most sits" of Pope. P. 234. In the King's speech, accepting the services of Helena, occurs a line of only eight syllables, to which War- burton added the word "virtue" to complete the measure. It has been supposed by some that it might have been left by the author purposely defective ; but, on the other hand, we now find that the corrector of the folio, 1632, introduced an emendation of it, and we cannot but conclude that he had some warrant for doing so, especially as the change he re- commends is free from the objection to which the suggestion of Warburton was liable : he also proposes a slight change in the next line, which appears to be a decided improve- ment. The couplet stands thus in all the folios : — " Youth, beauty, wisdom, courage, all That happiness and prime can happy call." As amended by the old corrector, it runs, — " Youth, beauty, wisdom, courage, honour, all That happiness in prime can happy call." " Happiness in prime" is of course happiness in youth, the spring of life, as Johnson explains the word " prime." SCENE III. P. 240. The King, after his cure, calls forth the young lords under his wardship, that Helena may make her choice from them, telling her that " they stand at his be- stowing : " — " O'er whom both sovereign power and father's voice I have to use." The manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, puts "sovereign" as well as " father" in the genitive : — " O'er whom both sovereign's power and father's voice I am to use." The King was to use his power as a sovereign, as well as his voice as a father, with his youthful nobility. In Lafeu's 160 all's well that ends well. [act II. speech, just below, " And writ as little beard" is changed to "And with as little beard," with obvious fitness in this place, although elsewhere Shakespeare may use "writ" and " write" with some peculiarity. P. 242. When Helena makes her choice of Bertram with the words, " This is the man," a stage-direction is added in manuscript, He draws back, to show in what way the hero on the instant indicated his astonishment and reluctance. The notifications of the kind throughout this play are compa- ratively few and of little moment. P. 243. Regarding the sentence, — " My honour's at the stake, which to defeat I must produce my power," the commentators difi'er, some being for defend and others for preserving " defeat." There can be no doubt that defend is the word naturally required by the sense, and we find "defeat" altered to defend in the margin of the corrected folio, 1632. It seems a mere error of the press. P. 247. Another misprint occurs in Lafeu's attack upon Parolles, where he says, according to all old copies of the play, " You are more saucy with lords and honourable per- sonages, than the commission of your birth and virtue gives you heraldry." Malone altered the places of " commission " and " heraldry" without any improvement, and without being aware that " commission " was merely a blunder for condi- tion: "than the condition of your birth and virtue gives you heraldry," is the true reading, supplied by the corrector of the folio, 1632. P. 248. Rowe was the first in print to change " detected " to detested in the following passage, — " War is no strife To the dark house, and the detested wife." It is "detected" in the old editions; but in the folio, 1632, it is corrected in manuscript to detested — thus setting right an indisputable error. ACT III.] all's well that ENDS WELL. 161 SCENE IV. P. 250. In modern editions (in some without notice) two speeches by the Clown are made only one ; and in the old folios he is represented as speaking twice running. The fact is (as conjectured in note 6), that an answer by Parolles to the Clown's first speech has been accidentally omitted in the printed copies, but is supplied in manuscript in the folio, 1632. The dialogue, therefore, ought to run, — " Par. Go to, thou art a witty fool : I have found thee. Clo. Did you find me in yourself, sir, or were you tauglit to find me ? Par. Go to, I say : I have found thee : no more ; I have found thee, a witty fool. Clo. The search, sir, was profitable," &c. What we have printed in Italics is written in the lower margin of the folio, 1632, with a line drawn to the place in the page where it ought to come in. The omission was not of great value in itself ; but we are, of course, glad to pre- serve any lost words (if such they be) of our great dramatist. SCENE V. P. 252. As might be expected, the mistake, in Bertram's speech, of, " And ere I do begin," for " End ere I do begin," did not escape the corrector of the folio, 1632, who marked the emendation in the margin. Another instance of mis- printing "end" and, occurs in " Henry the Fifth." ACT III. SCENE II. P. 258. The commencement of the speech of the Countess to Helena, on the return of the latter to Rousillon, has always been given as follows : — " I pr'ythee, lady, have a better cheer ; If thou engrossest all the griefs are thine, Thou robb'st me of a moiety." The old corrector tells us, and we may readily believe him, that there is a small, but important, error in the second line, — M 102 all's well that ends well. [act III. " If thou engrossest all the griefs as thine, Thou jrohb'st me of a moiety." P. 259. A decided corruption is pointed out in one of the French Envoy's remarks upon ParoUes : the words, as com- monly printed, are, — " Indeed, good lady, The fellow has a deal of that too much. Which holds him much to have." If two errors in the last line had not been committed, the commentators would have been spared much useless con- jecture ; for the passage ought, as we learn from a manuscript note in the folio, 1632, to stand as follows : — " Indeed, good lady, The fellow has a deal of that too much Which 'hoves him much to leave." What was unintelligible, without the exercise of peculiar and misplaced ingenuity, is thus rendered clear and pal- pable. P. 260. In the same way, and upon the same evidence, we are able to set right a quotation which has given infinite trouble and occasioned many notes. It occurs in Helena's speech, where she is reflecting on the danger to which Bertram will be exposed in the wars : she says, according to the folio, 1623, " O ! you leaden messengers, That ride upon the violent speed of fire. Fly with false aim ; move the still-peering air. That sings with piercing, do not touch my lord ! " &o. The folio, 1 632, has " still-piercing air " and " that stings with piercing." Malone printed "still-piecing air," and so far was right ; but the old corrector substitutes volant for " violent " and wound for " move," and gives the whole passage thus distinctly : — " O ! you leaden messengers, That ride upon the volant speed of fire. Fly with false aim ; wound the still-piecing air, That sings with piercing, do not touch my loi'd ! " &c. The mistake of " violent " for volant was almost to be ex- pected ; and the copyist, having misheard the word, wrote " move " instead of wound. This is an emendation that might possibly have been made without the assistance of a better ACT IV. J all's well THAT ENDS WELL. 163 manuscript than that used for the folio in which the error first appeared. Malone truly states that in the line, — " I met the ravin lion when he roar'd," "ravin" means ravening: the old corrector states that " ravin "" was a misprint for ravening. SCENE IV. P. 263. In the passage, " Which of them hoth Is dearest to me, I have no skill in sense To make distinction," " skill or sense " seems preferable, and " in " is altered to or by the corrector of the folio, 1632. SCENE VI. P. 269. For "let him fetch his drum," the correction in the folio, 1632, is " let him fetch off his drum," which is the very phrase used in the next speech. Theobald speculated that " lump of ours," of the old copies, should be " lump of ore," but "lump of ores" is proposed in the margin of the folio, 1632. ACT IV. SCENE II. P. 278. We here meet with an easy misprint and a happy emendation of the text. Bertram, endeavouring to melt and mould the virtuous Plana to his wishes, tells her, — " If the quick fire oS youth light not your mind, You are no maiden, but a monument : When you are dead, you should be such a one As you are now, for you are cold and stern." Steevens seems to have had a notion that " stern " was not the right word, but he did not know what to put instead of it. Bertram complains that Diana is not a " maiden, but a monument," and the old corrector explains how she was a monument, — " For you are cold and stone." M 2 164 all's well that ENDS WELL. [aCT IV. P. 279. The seven lines in Diana's speech, which begin " What is not holy," and end " That I will work against him," are erased in the corrected folio, perhaps as difficult to be understood, and Johnson and others have admitted ■^hemselves to be "at a loss" for the meaning. P. 280. The following passage, as it is printed in all the old editions, has caused much vexation : Diana is speaking to Bertram, who is doing his utmost to make his suit acceptable to her, — " I see, that men make ropes in such a scarre. That we'll forsake ourselves." The reading of Rowe, the earliest editor after the appearance of the last of the four folios in 1685, was, — , " I see that men make hopes in such affairs. That we'll forsake ourselves." Other emendations have been proposed ; but it may be suffi- cient to state that Malone adopted hopes from Rowe, and substituted " in such a scene," for " in such a scarre." The corrector of the folio, 1632, appears to have detected the real misprint, and the correction of it makes it evident that Diana intends to say, that when men endeavour to seduce women from virtue, they indulge hopes that the weaker sex, thus assailed, will abandon themselves " in such a suit," and submit to importunity: — " I see, that men make hopes in such a suit, That we'll forsake ourselves." Thus we find that hopes (as Rowe supposed), had been mis- printed " ropes," and that suit (often spelt suite of old), had been misprinted " scarre." With these two errors set right the meaning of the poet seems ascertained. P. 281. Diana, having assented to Helena's wish that she should be her substitute, exclaims, just before Berti'am makes his exit, — " You have won A wife of me, although my hope be done." The manuscript-corrector erases " done," and inserts none : she had gained a wife for Bertram, although her hope in the transaction was nothing. We may take it for granted, per- haps, that the original word was none ; but here, as in some former cases, it may be thought, on any other account, a matter almost of indifference. sc. IV.] all's well that ends well. 165 SCENE III. p. 282. Those wlio have desired to adhere closely to the folio, 1623, have sometimes heen induced to refuse to correct even decided errors of the press ; as in the following instance, where the French Gentleman is made to ask, "Is it not meant damnable in us, to be trumpeters of our unlawful in- tents ?" " Is it not most damnable," &;c., is required by the sense, as well as warranted by the corrector of the folio, 1632. In the next speech of the same character we ought, on the same warranty, to change " company " into companion, al- though sense may certainly be made out of " company " of the old impressions. P. 283. There are three mistakes of the same description in another short speech by the French Gentleman on this page : we first quote it as printed in the folio, 1632 : — " The stronger part of it by her own letters ; which make her story true, even to the point of her death : her death is self, which could not be her office to say, is come, was faithfully confirmed by the rector of the place." The corrector of the folio, 1682, and common sense, tell us for " stronger," to read stranger; for " is self," to read itself (as has of course been done by all modern editors) ; and for " was," to read and. P.- 286. After ParoUes has offered to take the sacrament, in order to testify the truth of what he says, the following words, " All's one to him," are absurdly made part of his own speech in the old copies. It has been usual, with Malone and others, to assign them to Bertram, but Ritson contended that they rather belonged to Dumain. A manuscript-correction shows that it was an observation made aside by the person who pretended to act as Interpreter, the prefix Int. having been inserted in the margin of the folio, 1632. SCENE IV. P. 293. The passage in Helena's speech, beginning, " But 0, strange men," and ending, " But more of this hereafter," 166 all's well that ends well. [act IV. is struck through with a pen. "We may here mention that such is the case with a part of the next scene, from Lafeu's question, "Whether dost thou profess thyself," &c., down to the Clown's speech ending with the words, "the great fire." The reason for the last omission we can readily under- stand. P. 294. When Helena is in haste to take her departure from Florence, with Diana and the Widow, she is represented in the folios as saying to them, — " We must away ; Our waggon is prepar'd, and time revives us.'' Nearly all the commentators agree that " revives" must be a misprint, and Johnson suggests invites as the proper word ; but the corrector of the folio, 1632, informs us that " revives" is an error for reviles : the time found fault with Helena and her companions for delay. In the earlier part of the same speech he converts " word" into world : — " But with the world the time will hring on summer." Helena wishes Diana to wait with patience the issue of events, which would produce as happy a result, as in the natural world, where the beauty of summer followed the dreariness of winter. This trifling change seems to render unnecessary any specu- lation. SCENE V. P. 295. For "salad-herbs" (which Rowe inserted,, the word being only "herbs" in the folios), we ought, according to the old corrector, to read ^o^-herbs, the printer, or scribe, as in some other cases already pointed out, having blundered, because two words came together with nearly the same letters and sound : — " They are not ^o^herbs, you knave ; they are nose-herbs." Lower down, we have properly name for " maine" of the old impressions. P. 296. The Countess, describing the Clown, says that "he has no pace, but rans where he will." A letter has merely been omitted, as we learn from a manuscript-correc- tion, and we ought to read place for " pace," the Countess meaning that the Clown had no fixed duties, although al- lowed the run of the house. This slight change, which ACT V.j all's WKLL THAT ENDS WELL. 'l67 accords with Tyrwhitt's notion, renders it needless to suppose, with Johnson, that the Countess makes a far-fetched allusion to the pace of a horse. ACT V. SCENE I. P. 298. Steevens originally fancied that " Astringer" was an error of the press for a stranger; but he afterwards in- troduced a long note to show that " a gentle Astringer'' of the folio, 1623, was "a gentleman falconer." In the folio, 1632, the word is printed A stranger, and the manuscript- corrector has altered the stage-direction to this form, Enter a gent, a stranger ; that is. Enter a gentleman, a stranger, — a person not known to Helena and her companions. We may feel confident that it was a mistake, first made in the folio, 1623, and that this gentleman, a stranger, had no necessary connexion with falconry. In confirmation it may he added, that when he afterwards appears again before the King at Rousillon, he is only called in the old copies a gentleman, without any hint that he is what Steevens terms "an astringer;" and the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, has altered the stage-direction in that place to Enter the gen- tleman stranger, in order to identify him with the Oent. a stranger, in the former scene. SCENE II. P. 299. To the words, "Enter Clown and ParoUes," the old corrector has subjoined iU-favoured, to show that the apparel of ParoUes was very different, in this scene, to the gay attire he had worn before his exposure and dismissal. SCENE III. P. 302. The alteration oihlame for "blade" in the line,— "Natural rebellion, done in the blade of youth," of the old copies, is confirmed by a manuscript marginal 168' all's well that ENDS WELL. [aCT V. note in tlie folio, 1632. Theobald was the first judiciously to substitute bla^e. P. 304. In the King's speech, beginning " Well excus'd," the epithet " sour," before " offence," is altered to sore with apparent fitness, while the two strange lines, — " Our own love, waking, cries to see what's done, While shameful hate sleeps out the afternoon," are erased, giving some countenance to Johnson's "hope" that they were " an interpolation of a player," though we believe it to be an inexplicable corruption. It has been the practice of all modern editors to assign the couplet, — " Which better than the first, O, dear heaven bless! Or, ere they meet, in me, O nature, cease," to the Countess instead of the King, to whom they are cer- tainly wrongly given in all the folios. The manuscript- corrector of the folio, 1632, places the prefix oi Lafeu before them, making his speech begin there, and not at " Come on, my son," &c. No material objection to this arrangement seems to present itself The conclusion of the speech, as it stands in the old impressions, — " Such a ring as this. The last that ere I took her leave at court, I saw upon her finger," runs much more intelligibly as follows : — " Such a ring as this, The last time ere she took her leave at court, I saw upon her finger." Rowe proposed she; but the alteration of "that" to time seems equally necessary, and it is justified in the hand- writing of the old corrector. P. 307. A good deal of contrariety of opinion has prevailed respecting Lafeu's speech, rejecting Bertram. In the folio, 1 623, it is this, with the observance of the old punctuation, which is here material : — " I will buy me a son in law in a fair, and toll for this. I'll none of him." The folio, 1632, furnishes the text thus varied : — " I will buy me a son in law in a fear and toll him for this. I'll none of him." sc. III. J all's well that ends well. 1C9 The old corrector of that edition merely alters the stops (setting right the mis-spelling of the word "fair"), and renders the sentence quite perspicuous : — " I will buy me a son in law in a fair, and toll him : for this, I'll none of him." i e. pay toll, as usual in fairs, on the transaction, but have nothing more to do with Bertram. P. 308. An improvement in the versification is produced by the addition of a single letter in one of the King's speeches, where he says, — " Come hithei', count. Do you know these women?" The manuscript-correction is, — " Come hither, county. Do you know these women ?" County, for " count," is of constant occurrence. P. 309. The line in Bertram's explanation how Diana ob- tained the ring from him, — " Her insuit coming with her modern grace," has been supposed to refer to her solicitation for the ring ; but the words, " insuite comming," as they are spelt in the folio, 1623 (the folio, 1632, omits the final e), are merely misprinted ; and on the evidence of the manuscript-corrector, as well as common sense, we must print the passage here- after, — " Her infinite cunning, with her modem grace. Subdued me to her rate." This appears to be one of the instances in which a gross blunder was occasioned, in part by the mishearing of the old scribe, and in part by the carelessness of the old printer. The sagacity of the late Mr. Walker hit upon this excellent emendation. See Athenaeum, 17 April, 1862. P. 310. The word "have" is struck out in the following line ; and as it is injurious to the measure, as well as needless to the meaning, we may feel assured that it accidentally found its way into the text of the folios : — " You that have turn'd off a first so noble wife." It must have originally stood, — " You that turn'd off a first so noble wife." 170 all's well that ends well. [act v. Malone felt the objection to "have" so strongly that he omitted it, but inexcusably without notice. P. 313. When Bertram, just after the entrance of Helena, exclaims, " Both, both ! 0, pardon ! " he flung himself upon his knees, when this play was anciently acted, and Kneels is therefore inserted as a marginal stage-direction. We might gather from the first words of the " Epilogue" (not so called in the old copies, the six lines having no heading), that it was spoken by the King ; but it is so stated in manuscript by the corrector of the folio, 1632, Epilogue hy the King. TWELFTH NIGHT; OR, WHAT YOU WILL. ACT I. SCENE I. P. 325. From tlie manuscript stage-direction in the cor- rected folio, 1632, inserted before the Duke s^peaks,^— Music behind — we may infer that the comedy opened by the per- formance of some instrumental strains at the back of the stage. When the Duke exclaims " Enough ! no more," Oease is written in the margin ; so that, perhaps, the musicians continued to play, in a subdued manner, while the Duke was delivering his first seven lines. An authority has been long wanted for the word south (in preference to " sound " of all editions until Pope's time), in the passage, — " O ! it came o'er my ear like the sweet south, That breathes upon a bank of violets." The corrector of the folio, 1632, supplies that authority, and has struck out the two last letters of " sound," and replaced them by th, in his ordinary brief and business-like manner. We may thus, perhaps, consider " sound," which has had but few advocates in modem times, as in future exploded from the text of Shakespeare. SCENE III. P. 332. The old copies, when Maria is going, make Sir Toby say, " An thou let part so, sir Andrew," omitting a 172 TWELFTH NIGHT; OR, [aCT I. pronoun which seems necessary, and which is supplied by the manuscript-corrector, " An thou let her part so, sir Andrew." Farther on in the same dialogue the folio, 1632, left out me in the sentence by sir Andrew, " Never in your life, I think ; unless you see Canary put me down." A note in the margin makes the passage correspond in this particular with the folio, 1623. P. 333. Theobald detected a singular printer's error, when, in all early editions. Sir Toby teUs sir Andrew that his hair " win not cool my nature," instead of " will not curl by nature." The old corrector of the folio, 1632, alters "cool" to curl, and " my " to by, as might be expected. P. 335. Pope was wrong in his change respecting " flame- colour'd stock :" the old editions have it " dam'd colour'd stock," which the manuscript-corrector informs us ought to be " cZw7i-colour'd stock." When sir Andrew, referring just before to his dancing, tells Sir Toby, that he has " the back- trick simply as strong as any man in Illyria," a stage -direc- tion is inserted in the margin. Dances fardasticaUy, to show that the knight exhibited his proficiency to the audience. At the close of the scene, when Sir Toby observes to Sir Andrew, " Let me see thee caper," the stage-direction is Dances again, we may presume as ridiculously as before. These notes, for the direction of the performer of the part, are not in any edition ancient or modern, and were very pos- sibly derived in part from the practice of the old actor of the character of Sir Andrew. SCENE IV. P. 337. The Duke having directed Viola to make love on his behalf to Olivia, the latter replies, — " I'll do my best To woo your lady," and then adds, aside, — " Yet, a barful strife ; Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife." The force of the last passage is much augmented by making the first hemistich an exclamation, — "Yet, O barful strife ! " which is the judicious reading afforded by the corrector of the folio, 1632. ACT II. J WHAT YOU WILL. 173 SCENE V. P. 342. It is clear that the following ought to be in the alternative ; Malvolio speaks : " He says, he'll stand at your door like a sheriff's post, and be the supporter of a bench, but he'll speak to you." Viola could not suppose herself " a sheriff's post," and " the supporter of a bench " at the same time ; therefore the manuscript-correction is " or be the sup- porter of a bench." Such emendations are minute, but they are generally important, as far as the sense of the poet is concerned ; and, at all events, they show the attention the corrector paid even to what might be considered trifles, did they relate to any other author than Shakespeare. P. 345. The expression, " Such a one I was this present," has excited much comment, editors not exactly knowing what to make of it. The manuscript-corrector says that we ought to read, " Such a one I am at this present," which, bearing in mind that Olivia unveils at the instant, is reasonable ; but, nevertheless, the old reading might stand. ACT II. SCENE I. P. 349. It is not easy to determine with whom the re- sponsibility rests of the strange, but decided, blunder here pointed out by the corrector of the folio, 1632. Sebastian is speaking of his reputed lijceness to his sister : — " A lady, sir, though it was said she much resemhled me, was yet of many accounted beautiful : but, though I could not with such estimable wonder overfar believe that, yet thus far I will boldly publish her," &c. It is not surprising that the commentators should have been at strife regarding the meaning of this passage ; and Warburton was so gravelled by it, that he felt obliged to omit the words, " with such estimable wonder," as " a player's interpolation." This is a very ready way of over- coming any obstacle. It certainly is difficult to account for the gross misprints in the above short sentence ; but they are most distinctly pointed out by the corrector of the folio, 1632, in his own clear and accurate manner ; and when we read the words he has substituted for those of the re- ceived text, we see at once that he could not be mistaken. 1 74 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, [aCI II. Sebastian modestly denies that he much resembled his beau- tiful lost sister, observing, — " A lady, sir, though it was said she much resembled me, was yet of many accounted beautiful ; but, though I could not with self-estimation wander so far to believe that, yet thus far I will boldly publish her," &c. May we conclude, that this new and self-evident improve- ment of the absurd old reading was derived from some original source, perhaps from some better manuscript than that employed by the old printer of the folio, 1623, which was exactly followed in the folio, 1632? Such an emen- dation could hardly be the result of mere guess-work. P. 351. The ambiguity, to say the least of it, belonging to Viola's words, " She took the ring of me," is entirely avoided by reading, "She took no ring of me ;" and this, no doubt, was the language of the poet. The corrector of the folio, 1632, strikes out "the" in the body of the text, and places no in the margin. This alteration renders what the heroine afterwards says quite consistent, " I left no ring with her," and " Why, he sent her none." SCENE III. P. 353. We meet here with a welcome addition to the text where it cannot be doubted that something is wanting. One of the speeches of Sir Andrew has hitherto only ter- minated with a hyphen, showing that even the conclusion of a word has been carelessly omitted in the old copies: in modern editions the hyphen has been elongated, as if the knight had been interrupted by the Clown, and not allowed to finish his sentence. In the first and other folios, this part of the dialogue stands exactly as follows : — " Sir To. Come on : there is sixpence for you; let's have a song. Sir An. There's a testril of me, too : if one knight give a- Clo. Would you have a love-song, or a song of good life 1 " The elongation of the hyphen in modern editions, has made Sir Andrew's speech of course appear thus, but it is a mis- representation of the originals : — " Sir And. There's a testril of me too : if one knight give a " SC. III. J WHAT YOU WILL. 175 Now, what ought to be the text, according to the addition made to it by interlineation in -the corrected copy of the folio, 1632? It will be seen that the continuation of the sentence, thus cut short by a hyphen in the early impres- sions, completes the word, of which the two syllables had been separated: we give the speech, to the minutest par- ticular, in the form in which it appears, partly in print, and partly in the hand-writing of the old corrector, marking the latter by Italic type : — " Sir An. There's a testrill of me too : if one knight give a- way sixe pence so will 1 give an other : go to, a song." The first line ends with a-, and the next begins with way : unless, therefore, the corrector of the folio, 1682, invented this termination of an unfinished sentence,»he must have obtained it from some accurate and authentic source. In this instance, we apprehend that the manuscript used by the old printer was not defective, but that a line, consisting of what is above inserted in Italics, was accidentally left out by the compo- sitor of the folio, 1623, and the defect never discovered. In all the copies of the folios, 1623 and 1632, which we have had an opportunity of examining, the same deficiency is to be noted. P. 354 An alteration is made in the Clown's song, which gives a difierent, if not an improved, meaning to the second line of it : — " O, mistress mine ! where are you roaming? O ! stay, for here your true love's coming," &c. The ordinary words are " ! stay and hear," &c. The stage-directions regarding the singing of the scraps of ballads, catches, &c., in this scene, are numerous and pre- cise : but there is one manuscript note opposite the line of the ballad, — " O ! the twelfth day of December," which is not easily understood : it merely consists of "17 Nov." Why the 12th December was especially mentioned in the ballad quoted, we know not ; but the 17th November was the day on which Queen Elizabeth ascended the throne, and it was usual to compose and publish loyal songs to celebrate it. When this comedy was first produced, it seems probable that Elizabeth was still reigning, and a song on the 17th 176 TWELFTH NIGHT; OR, [aCT II. November may possibly have been originally introduced in her honour, which might be altered to some other, be- ginning, " ! the twelfth day of December," after her demise. This curious fact may have been within the know- ledge of the corrector of the folio, 1632, and he may have thus briefly recorded it. SCENE IV. P. 363. Just before the exit of the Clown the Duke is made to say, in the old copies as well as in modern editions, " Give me now leave to leave thee," which can hardly be right, seeing that it is the Clown who is going to leave the Duke, not the Duke the Clown : the old corrector therefore makes these necessary changes : "I give thee leave to leave me." Thee and me got transposed, and I was omitted. SCENE V. P. 367. In Malvolio's speech beginning, " And then to have the humour of state," we meet with the common mis- print of "humour" for honour. There can be little doubt that the corrector of the folio, 1632, has furnished the true word, although the false one has been argued upon by various commentators, "And then to have the honour of state." Malvolio is fancying himself married to the Countess, and assuming dignity in consequence among his menials. The suggestion in note 10, that "cars" has been misprinted, gives a hint at the explanation of a speech by Fabian, which we find in the hand-writing of the corrector. Fabian is enforcing silence in order that Malvolio, while they are watching him, may not discover them, and says in the folio, 1623, " Though our silence be drawn from us with cars, yet peace!" The folio, 1632, prints "cars" cares, and many proposals have been made to alter " cars " to cables, carts, &c. ; but " with cars " turns out to be an error of the press for by th' ears, or by the ears, and the meaning is perfectly clear when we read, " Though our silence be drawn from us by th' ears, yet peace ! " This scene is very carelessly printed in the old copies, and subsequently we have " stallion " for stannyel (the corrector of the folio, 1632, gives the word /afcon, which means nearly the same thing), "become" for horn, &c. The folio, 1632, ACT III.] WHAT YOU WILL. 177 renders the matter worse by additional errors, besides those in the earlier impression of 1623 ; but they are all set right in manuscript. ACT III. SCENE I. P. 374. Viola, disserting upon the qualifications of a pro- fessed jester, remarks : — " He must-observe their mood on whom he jests, The quality of persons, and the time. And, like the haggard, check at every feather That comes before his eye." The haggard was a wild hawk that flew at all birds ; and what Viola is therefore made to say is the contrary of what she must mean. The old corrector renders her speech con- sistent by reading, — " Not, like the haggard, check at every feather a That comes before his eye." P. 377. Olivia, in her apology to Viola for sending the ring after her, says, in all printed copies of this comedy, — " Under your hard construction must I sit. To force that on you, in a shameful cunning," &c. The manuscript-corrector tells us to substitute shame-fac'd for " shameful," as the poet's original language. The fitness of this emendation seems disputable. SCENE III. P. 382. The folio, 1632, omits two lines, contained in the folio, 1623, from which it was printed; and they are written in the margin by the corrector of the later of these im- pressions, but not in the defective terms in which they are found in the earlier : in 1623 they were thus given : — " And thanks : and ever oft good turns Are shuffled off with such incurrent pay." Two syllables are clearly wanting in the first line, and N 178 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OR, [aCT III. editors have resorted to various expedients for supplying them ; but certainly none so good as the following, — " And thanks, still thanks ; and very oft good turns Are shuffled oflf with such incurrent pay," which the old corrector inserts as the passage in his time. "We have no doubt that he was right ; but it is to be re- marked that " still thanks " is interlined, in the same hand- writing, but in different ink. SCENE IV. P. 384. The manuscript stage-directions in this scene are remarkable for the minute manner in which they describe the conduct of Viola and Sir Andrew, when Sir Toby and Fabian are inciting them to a desperate encounter. When Sir Andrew enters we are told that he hangs hack ; and of Viola it is said that she is unwilling ; while they afterwards, at the instance of Sir Toby and Fabian, both draw, but in- stead of advancing, go hack. It would not be easy to act such a scene without these or other similar instructions, which are not in the old printed copies. P. 396. The moment the following misprint is pointed out it will probably be admitted. Antonio, seized by the officers, appeals to Viola, thinking her Sebastian, and to his grief and disappointment is repelled as a stranger. He then re- proaches the supposed Sebastian with the services he had rendered to him, and with the affection he had borne him, adding these lines, — " And to his image, which, methought, did promise Most venerable worth, did I devotion." The corrector of the folio, 1632, places the letters in the margin, which convert " venerable " (an epithet hardly appli- cable to persons like Viola or Sebastian) to veritable. He found the worth not veritable, because he fancied himself deceived in his friend when most he needed his aid. At the same time it must be allowed that " venerable," in a certain sense, answers the author's purpose, though his own word must have been veritable. ACT rV. V.J WHAT YOU WILL. 1 79 ACT IV. SCENE I. P. 398. For the Clown's declaration, " I am afraid this great lutber, the world, will prove a cockney," the manuscript- corrector has " lubberly world." SCENE II. P. 405. An alteration in the margin of the corrected folio, 1632, proves that Farmer and Steevens were right in sup- posing that for " Adieu, goodman devil," in the last line of the Clown's introduced ballad, the reading ought to be, — " Adieu, goodman drivel." In a preceding line, — " Like to the old Vice," — the corrector erases "to;" and has "with a, trice" for "in a trice," the former being the older expression, and probably the true word of the ancient ballad cited. ACT V. SCENE I. P. 408. For " The triplex, sir, is a good tripping measure," said by the Clown when he wishes the Duke to give him a third piece of money, the manuscript-corrector gives "the triplet," the allusion apparently being to the triplet, or triple mode of rhyming in poetry. P. 412. Olivia commands the Priest, on his elitrance, to relate what had passed between herself and Sebastian, when he married them : he replies, — " A contract of eternal bond of love," instead of " A contract and eternal bond of love," which is most likely right, the printer having by mistake inserted "of" for and. The change is marked in the margin of the folio, 1632. Lower down, the second folio has "i/ow little faith," for " Hold little faith," of the first folio ; and the right word is restored by the same authority, thus making the second folio accord with the first. N 2 180 TWELFTH NIGHT; OR, [aCT. V. P. 414. On the entrance of Sebastian, the corrector of the folio, 1632, has added, as a stage-direction. All start, to in- dicate, no doubt, the surprise which ought to be expressed by the performers at the evident and remarkable similarity between him and Viola. P. 415. The resemblance in sound between true and "drew" may have misled the copyist of this play in the second of the following lines : — " So comes it, lady, you have been mistook ; But nature to her bias drew in that." The old corrector converts "drew" into true, by merely striking out d, and inserting t in the margin : nature was true to her bias, although Olivia had been mistaken in sup- posing herself contracted to Viola. P. 416. The Duke, sending for Malvolio, checks himself, — "And yet, alas, now I remember me, They say, poor gentleman, he is distract. A most extracting frenzy of my own From my remembrance clearly banish'd his.'-' The printer of the folio, 1632, converted " extracting," of the folio, 1 623, which could hardly be right, into exacting, which is more wrong ; for the corrector of that edition informs us that exacting ought to be distracting, inasmuch as the Duke is representing himself as in the same condition with Malvolio. Malone persuaded himself that "extracting" was Shake- speare's word, but here we have strong evidence to the contrary. P. 417. Olivia, speaking of the joint celebration of her own and of the Duke's nuptials, says, — " One day shall crown the alliance on't, so please you, Here at my house, and at my proper cost." The corrector of the folio, 1632, puts it thus : — " One day shall crown the alliance, and, so please you, Here at my house," &c. P. 418. When Malvolio is brought upon the scene by Fabian, we meet with a very particular stage- direction, obe- dience to which must have been intended to produce a SC. I.] WHAT YOU WILL. 181 ludicrous effect upon the audience : Enter Malvolio, as from prison, with straw about him ; in order to show the nature of the confinement to which the poor conceited victim had been subjected. P. 418. In the speech of the Countess there appear to be two errors of the press in these lines, as they are contained in all editions : — " It was she First told me thou wast mad ; then cam'st in smiling, And in such forms which here wei-e presuppos'd Upon thee in the letter." According to corrections in the margin of the folio, 1632, the passage should be printed thus : — " It was she First told me thou wast mad : thou cam'st in smiling, And in such forms, which here were preimpos'd Upon thee in the letter.'^ Both emendations seem required : thou was easily mis- printed "then," and "presuppos'd upon thee" is little better than nonsense. P. 419. Olivia adds insult to injury when she thus laments Malvolio's ill-treatment : — " Alas, poor fool, how have they baffled thee ! " What Shakespeare made her say was merely compassionate, if we may believe the old corrector : — " Alas, poor soul, how have they baffled thee ! " Soul being written with a long s was very likely to be con- founded witli " fool." Lower in the page, the Clown is made to repeat Maria's letter correctly, "Some have greatness thrust upon them," not " thrown upon them," as it er- roneously stands in all the folios. P. 420. The Clown sings his song at the end to pipe and tahor, the usual musical instruments of such personages ; and in the first scene of Act III. he enters, playing on his pipe and tahor, two stage-directions only found in the manuscript additions to the folio, 1632. There can be no doubt that he was furnished on both occasions with these accessories. The fourth stanza of his " song" is thus altered by the manu- script-corrector :— 182 TWELFTH NIGHT ^ OR, WHAT YOU WILL. [aCT V. " But when I came unto my bed, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, With toss-pots still / had drunken head. For the rain it raineth every day." Modern editors have rightly put "hed" and " head" in the singular, instead of the plural as in the old impressions ; but the insertion of the pronoun in the third line is new, and necessary, unless we can suppose it to be understood. We may presume, perhaps, that it was not understood in the original manuscript. THE WINTER'S TALE. ACT I. SCENE I. P. 430. The word so seems to have heen accidentally omitted where Camillo is speaking of the friendly inter- course kept up between Leontes and Polixenes, while at a distance in their separate dominions : he says : " Their en- counters, though not personal, have been so royally attor- ney'd, with interchange of gifts, letters, loving embassies, that they have seemed to be together, though absent," &c. The manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, adds so in the margin, and puts gifts in the plural, which is in the singular in that edition. SCENE II. P. 431. The subsequent passage in the speech of Polixenes has given trouble to the commentators : — " That may blow No sneaping winds at home, to make us say, ' This is put forth too truly.' " The allusion seems unquestionably to be to the putting forth of buds or blooms in spring, when they may be cut off by "sneaping," or nipping winds ; and the alteration of "truly" to early, as we find it in the corrected folio, 1632, seems to remove great part of the difficulty ; there is also an emenda- tion at the commencement, which renders the whole intel- ligible ; we there read as follows : — 181 THE winter's TALE. [aCT I. " May there blow No sneaping winds at home, to make us say, 'This is put forth too early.' " At all events, the above is not " nonsense," wiich Warburton calls the original, as first printed in the folio, 1623. P. 432. We learn from a manuscript stage-direction, that Leontes walked apart, as if not paying particular attention, while Hermione was using arguments to prevail upon Po- lixenes to stay. P. 433. There is no doubt that we ought to amend the words of the old copies, " What lady she her lord," to " What lady should her lord," not merely because it so stands cor- rected in the folio in Lord Ellesmere's library, but because precisely the same alteration is made in the margin of the folio, 1632, in our hands. Two concurrent and independent authorities must be decisive. P. 435. The line given to Hermione, — " With spur we heat an acre. But to the goal," is to be read, as in no edition it has been yet given ; the context, as always printed, is, — " You may ride's With one soft kiss a thousand furlongs, ere With spur we heat an acre. But to the goal : — My last good deed was to entreat his stay : What was my first?" The Queen first speaks of the facility with which women may be won by kindness to do any thing ; and from thence she proceeds to advert to the two " good deeds" which Leontes admitted she had done. The changes recommended by the corrector of the folio, 1632, are singularly to the pur- pose : — " With spur we clear an acre. But to the good: " that is, women may be made to go a thousand furlongs for a kiss, while by spurring they can hardly be made to clear an acre. In the first part of the line, clear was misprinted "heat ;" and in the last, good was misprinted "goal." Her- mione is reverting to the gaod her husband had admitted she SC. II.J THE winter's TALE. 185 had twice done, and calls upon him to name her first good deed as well as her last. " But to the good," is as much as to say, " But come to the good deeds which you admit I have done." P. 436. Malone was well warranted by the old corrector in supposing that in the following line we ought to substitute " bounty's fertile bosom" for " From heartiness, from bounty, fertile bosom ; " from which, however, sense may be extracted. P. 437. An expression used by Leontes, usually printed, " As o'er-dyed blacks," is shown on the same aiithority to be an error of the press : it occurs where the King is speaking of the falsehood of women, which he likens to the false show of mourning often put on at funerals, and then technically called "blacks :"— " But they were false As o'er-dyed blacks, as wind, as waters." The commentators fancied that the allusion was to the want of permanence in over-dyed blacks, or blacks that were dyed too miich ; some of them properly took " blacks" to mean funeral mourning, but they stumbled at " o'er-dyed." The corrector, by a slight change, shows the precise meaning of the poet : — " But they are false As our dead blacks, as winds, as waters." " Our dead blacks," were blacks worn at the deaths of persons whose loss was not at all lamented. This emenda- tion may have been derived from a better manuscript, or, perhaps, from a better recitation ; but, nevertheless, the ob- scure conclusion of this speech, from " Affection ? thy inten- tion," &c., is crossed out in the folio, 1632. P. 438. A stage-direction, Holding his forehead, proves that Hermione's observation, — " You look. As if you held a brow of much distraction," is to be taken literally. P. 444. The dispute whether to read "her medal" or "his medal," is set at rest by the assurance of the old corrector 186 THE winter's TALE. [ACT II. that neither is right, but that "a medal" was the poet's language. P. 448. It may be enough to mention that the punc- tuation of the passage, beginning, " As you are certainly a gentleman," &c., is exactly that introduced by the corrector of the folio, 1632, and is opposed to the regulation of the passage in this respect adopted by Malone (Shaksp., by Boswell, xiv. p. 269). Lower down, the corrector represents Camillo as saying, " I am appointed him to murder you," which agrees with the reading of the folio, 1 623. P. 450. Much discussion has been produced by a passage near the end of this scene where Polixenes says, — " Good expedition be my friend, and comfort The gracious queen, part of his theme, but nothing Of his ill-ta'en suspicion." Warburton reasonably asks, how could "good expedition" comfort the queen ? and Johnson, Steevens, and Malone have each disserted upon the question at large. If we may confide in the manuscript-correction we meet with in the folio, 1632, there are two errors of the press, the removal of which, at the same time removes all doubt : for one of them, " and" for heaven, we are not well able to account ; the other, " theme" for dream, has clearly arisen from mishearing : — " Good expedition be my friend : heaven comfort The gracious queen, part of his dream, but nothing Of his ill-ta'en suspicion." While Polixenes was befriended by expedition, he prayed heaven to comfort Hermione, part of the jealous dream of Leontes, but no part of his unfounded suspicion. ACT II. SCENE I. P. 452. In the following, there appears to be a decided misprint : — " There may be in the cup A spider steep'd, and one may drink, depart, And yet partake no venom." SC. II.] THE winter's TALE. 187 The emendation in the folio, 1632, is, — " and one may drink apart. And yet partake no venom ; '' %. e. drink a part of the contents of the cup, and yet take no portion of the venom supposed to be communicated by the spider. P. 456. The conjecture in note 7 respecting the word "stables," in the ensuing observation by Antigonus, is in some degree confirmed by the manuscript-corrector : — " If it prove She's otherwise, I'll keep my stables where I lodge my wife." We ought to read "stables" in the singular, and to sub- stitute me for " my ;" and the meaning then is, that Anti- gonus would keep himself stable where he lodged his wife, lest she should offend in the same way as Hermione : — " If it prove She's otherwise, I'll keep me stable where I lodge my wife." He would never allow her to be out of his sight : he would keep his stahulum, or abode, always near her. In the next note, more than a doubt is expressed that " land-damn," of the old copies, was not a misprint for lawhack, a word of not unfrequent occurrence ; but the corrector of the folio, 1632, erases " land-damn" in the text, and places lamback in the margin. At all events, this fact will put an end to the con- jectures respecting lant, by Sir T. Hanmer, and laudanwm, by Steevens. Johnson was well founded in thinking the word, for which " land-damn " wa- intended, " one of those which caprice brought into fashion." SCENE II. P. 460. When Paulina, in the subsequent exclamation, speaks of the " dangerous unsafe lunes i' the king," it is mere tautology, for what is " dangerous," is evidently " un- safe." By "lunes," Shakespeare means fits of distraction, and when the old corrector directs us to read, instead of " unsafe," unsane, — 188 THE winter's TALE. [aCT III. "These dangerous unsane lunes i' the King, bestrew them," — we must at once admit the value of the emendation. SCENE III. P. 462. The manuscript stage-directions in this scene, clearly required for the government of the actors, are fre- quent and explanatory. Paulina first enters at the hack of the stage, with the babe, and after a struggle with the at- tendants, lays it down before Leontes. When she is pushed out, she leaves the child behind her : when the Lords kneel, we are told so ; and information is similarly given when the King draws his sword to swear Antigonus upon it, who takes up the infant, and departs with it. None of these needful instructions are found in the old printed copies, and they show the precise manner in which the business was con- ducted when, we may suppose, the corrector of the folio, 1632, saw the drama performed at one of our early theatres. ACT III. SCENE I. P. 470. This whole scene is crossed out with a pen, as ca- pable of being dispensed with ; but it seems to have been in- serted by the author for the purpose of giving more time for the preparation of the trial-scene of Hermione. If it were not acted, the interval between the second and third acts must have been proportionally extended. SCENE II. P. 471. To the old brief stage-direction. Silence. Enter, is added, in manuscript, Hermione attended to her trial, just before the indictment against her is read. P. 473. Few passages in this play have occasioned more notes than this, in Hermione's address : — " Since he came, With what encounter so uncurrent I Have strain'd, t' appear thus ; " &c. SC. 11.] THE winter's TALE. 189 She is alluding to the visit of Polixenes, out of which, by- some "uncurrent encounter," or unjustifiable meeting, the present accusation had grown. The difficulty has chiefly arisen out of the word "strain'd," for which the corrector writes stray' d ; and it seems to clear away much of the difficulty. Hermione was charged with having strayed from her duty by an " uncurrent encounter" with Polixenes, and she inquires where and how it had happened, in order to jus- tify her appearance before the court : — " Since he came. With what encounter so uncurrent I Have stray' d t' appear thus : " &c. Perhaps the meaning would be still clearer, had the whole been put interrogatively, " Have I stray'd," &c. P. 479. When Paulina brings word of the sudden death of the Queen, we are told, in manuscript, that Leontes falls hack in his seat, and Paulina begins to repent the cruel re- capitulation she has previously made of the consequences of the King's conduct to his dead wife, son, &c. As this part of the scene has always been printed, she thus expresses her regret : — " What's gone, and what's past help, Should be past grief: do not receive affliction At my petition, I beseech you ; rather. Let me be punish'd, that have minded you Of what you should forget." Now, what can here be the meaning of the words, " at my petition ? " It is merely an error of the press, or of the copyist. Paulina has repeated in most bitter terms all the evils that have been occasioned by the jealousy and ob- stinacy of Leontes ; and the corrector of the folio, 1632, striking out " my," and inserting re before " petition," makes the sentence stand thus : — " Do not receive affliction At repetition, I beseech you," — in other words, " Do not allow my repetition of the fatal results of your jealousy to afflict you." Nothing can surely be plainer, or more pertinent. 190 THE WINTB:r's TALE. [aCT IV. SCENE III. P. 481. Antigonus, in the relation of his dream, in which he imagined he saw the weeping Hermione, says, — " I never saw a vessel of like sorrow, So fiU'd, and so becoming." " So becoming," can scarcely be right ; and we learn from the manuscript-corrector that there was a natural connexion between the words, " so fiU'd," and what follows them, which was entirely lost, as we must imagine, by the mishearing of the person who wrote the copy of the play used by the printer. The true reading appears to be : — " I never saw a vessel of like sorrow, So fill'd, and so o'er-running." The sorrow with which Hermione was so filled, was o'er- running at her eyes. Lower down on the same page an- other error occurs in the dream, where Hermione directs Antigonus to proceed with the babe to Bohemia, and adds, — " There weep, and leave it crying," instead of " There wend, and leave it crying." " There wend " is, of course, thither proceed ; and whether this blunder, constantly repeated by all editors, originated with the scribe, or was introduced by the printer, we are not in a condition to determine. That it was a blunder, appears almost indubitable. ACT IV. SCENE I. P. 487. In ancient and modern editions, Camillo informs Polixenes that he has "missingly noted" the absence of his son Florizel from court ; the corrector of the folio, 1632, marks " missingly," as an error, and inserts musingly instead of it — a somewhat questionable change. SCENE II. P. 488. The manuscript-corrector notes, with great par- ticularity, that the fragments of ballads, with which Auto- SC, III.] THE winter's TALE. 191 licus commences this scene, were sung by him to three several tunes, putting " 1 Tune," " 2 Tune," and " 3 Tune," against each of them. The three stanzas beginning, — " When daffodils begin to peer," were sung to the first tune, whatever it may have been ; the one stanza, commencing, — " But shsll I go mourn for that, ray dear? " was sung to the second tune ; and the last fragment, — " If tinkers may have leave to live," to the third tune. This information is followed by the words in the margin. And more if need be, by which we are pro- bably to understand, that it was left to the comic performer to decide whether he would not amuse the audience by other snatches, if he could furnish them. It may also be remarked that, for " pugging tooth," of the old copies, the emendator substitutes "prigging tooth ;" and " pugging" may have been a misprint for the more familiar cant term for stealing. P. 490. All the necessary (some, perhaps, more than are absolutely necessary) stage-directions are provided in the margin : for instance, we are told that Autolicus, pretending to have been robbed and beaten, rolls about on the ground, and that the Clown helps him on his legs, after which he has his purse cut by the party he had assisted. P. 492. According to the corrector of the folio, 1632, there has been a singular misconception in the last sentence given to Autolicus at the close of this scene. It is where, ac- cording to the invariable misrepresentation of Shakespeare's text, the Pedlar wishes that his name may "be unrolled," and "put in the book of virtue ;" the word should be en- rolled, as is clear from what follows : he wishes his name to be enrolled, and placed in the book of virtue. SCENE III. P. 493. Two mistakes are pointed out in Perdita's speech, one of them in the first line : for 192 THE winter's TALE. [aCT IV. " Sir, my gracious lord," &e., the manuscript-corrector has " Sure, my gracious lord, To chide at your extremes it not becomes me." The change is at least plausible, but the difference is not im- portant. The other error is near the close of the speech in which Perdita contrasts her own gay apparel with the " swain's wearing," in which the Prince was clad : she remarks : — " But that our feasts In every mess have folly, and the feeders Digest it with a custom, I should blush To see you so attir'd, sworn, I think. To show myself a glass." In what way was Florizel " sworn '' to show Perdita a glass ? Besides the line wants a syllable, which is supplied by the coiTection in the margin of the folio, 1632, while the sense is also improved : — " I should blush To see you so attir'd, so worn, I think. To show myself a glass." The meaning, therefore, is that Florizers plain attire was "so worn" to show Perdita, as in a glass, how simply she ought to have been dressed. P. 494 Ritson was right in recommending that, " Nor in a way so chaste," should be printed, "Nor any vr&j so chaste." Such is the emendation in the corrected folio. Lower down, the unusual expression of Florizel, " Be merry, gentle," is altered to " Be merry, girl," a mistake not very unlikely when the word was spelt, as of old, with a final e, girle. P. 498. Another error of the press is pointed out in the speech of Polixenes, where he is praising Perdita : — " Nothing she does, or seems. But smacks of something greater than herself" The proposed alteration is by no means necessary, but it makes the observation more natural : — " Nothing she does, or says," &c. Formerly says was often written saies, which may in some SC. III.] THE winter's TALE. 193 degree account for the misprint. Just afterwards, Camillo remarks to Polixenes, of Florizel, — " He tells her something That makes her blood look on't." This is the old text of the folios, but Theobald, for " on't," in spite of the apostrophe, printed out, and missed the cor- rection of the true error, viz. " makes," instead o? wakes : — " He tells her something That wahes her blood — look on't." Such is precisely the mode in which the passage stands cor- rected in the folio, 1632, " look on't" being addressed em- phatically to Polixenes, to direct his attention to the blush of Perdita, thus poetically described as waking her blood. P. 499. The old word jape, a jest (generally used in an in- delicate sense), according to the corrector of the folio, 1632, has been misprinted " gap" in the following part of the clown's speech regarding the licence of ballad-singers : " And where some stretch-mouthed rascal would, as it were, mean mis- chief, and break a foul gap into the matter, he makes the maid to answer, ' Whoop, do me no harm, good man.' " For " gap," we are to read jape. Some controversy has arisen respecting the words, " un- braided wares," where the Clown, just below, asks whether Autolicus has any such to sell. Johnson, Steevens, Toilet, Malone, Monk Mason, and Boswell, have each endeavoured to explain what turns out to be a mere misprint for " em- braided wares," as embroidered commodities were then fre- quently spelt. This point has, therefore, been set at rest by the corrected folio. P. 601. For " whistle off those secrets," the folio, 1632, as corrected, has, perhaps needlessly, " whisper off those secrets." In the same speech and on the same authority, " Clamour your tongues," ought indisputably to be " Charm your tongues," as Grey originally suggested, and as Gifford (Ben Jonson, iv. 405) maintained. In fact, the expression, " Charm your tongue," occurs in " The London Prodigal." See Ma- lone's Supplement, ii. 466, though he never thought of illustrating by it "clamour your tongues" in "The Winter's Tale." The editors of Shakespeare have not hitherto felt themselves warranted in altering his text on the mere 194 THE winter's TALE. [ACT IV. suspicion of a misprint, or "charm your tongues" would long ago have been adopted ; and note 2, on this page, affords evidence that the error has heen stated, though not always acknowledged, ever since the time of Grey. P. 506. Florizel, making his protestation of love before his disguised father and Camillo, exclaims, as all editions es- tablish, — " Were I the fairest youth That ever made eye swerve ; had force and knowledge, More than was ever man's," &c. For " force and knowledge," the corrector of the folio, 1632, writes " sense and knowledge ;" and the error of the press is again to be imputed to the compositor's confusion between the long s and / P. 507. We can hardly doubt that another misprint is pointed out, on the same authority, in a subsequent speech by Polixenes, where he is endeavouring (still disguised) to persuade the young prince to consult his father, and asks, whether he refrains because his father is imbecile ? — "Can he speak? hear? Know man from man ? dispute his own estate? Lies he not bed-rid ? " " Dispute his own estate," may be reconciled to sense, but " dispose his own estate" seems a much more likely expres- sion, and the manuscript-corrector informs us that it was employed in this place. P. 514. A very trifling omission in all the early folios, and in subsequent editions, has made Florizel leave off speaking with a broken sentence, when, in fact, the period is com- plete: he tells Camillo, who urges him to proceed as his father's ambassador to Leontes, — " How shall we do ? We are not furnish'd as Bohemia's son, Nor shall appear in Sicily" — Such is the mode in which the quotation has been hitherto given ; but the slightest possible change, urged by the cor- rector of the folio, 1632, is thus made with the best pos- sible effect : — ACT V.J THE V^'INTER's TALE. 195 " We are not furnish'd as Bohemia's son, Nor shall appear't in Sicily." i. e. nor shall appear as Bohemia's son in Sicily. There is an unquestionahle error in the answer of Camillo, which is of more importance : he assures Florizel that he will take care to furnish him like Bohemia's son, and adds, — " It shall be so my care To have you royally appointed, as if The scene you play were mine." To make the scene appear as if it were Oamillo's could be of no service to the young prince, and the old corrector supplies what we may conclude was the true word of the poet, although we may not be able well to account for the blunder thus ex- posed : — " It shall be so my care To have you royally appointed, as if The scene you play were true : " as if he were really the ambassador from his father, which he pretended to be, P. 522. After the departure of the old Shepherd and his son, Autolicus is left to soliloquize, and, among other reflec- tions, he observes, as the words have from the first been printed : — " I am courted now with a double occasion — gold and a means to do the prince my master good ; which, who knows how that may turn back to my advancement?" What can be the meaning here of turning " back to his advancement?" What is "to turn back to his advance- ment?" The corrector of the folio, 1632, maybe said to answer the question by pointing out its needlessness, if we only read what was actually written, — "which, who knows how that may turn luck to my advancement." Autolicus hopes that the " double occasion" by which he was "courted," would turn luck in his favour. ACT V. SCENE I. P. 626. The old stage-direction is, JEnter a Servant, but from what he says, and is said of him, we learn that he had 2 196 THE winter's TALE. [aCT V. written an elegy upon Hermione. Modem editors have, therefore, called him "a gentleman." He was evidently a retainer in the Court of Leontes, and the manuscript- corrector has added poet to his description of servant, Unter a Servant^oet, in order, probably, to distinguish him from the ordinary hirelings of the palace. We may notice here the peculiar fulness and explicitness of the stage-directions towards the close of this play, although it has not been thought necessary to particularize them. P. 529. Polixenes tells Florizel, — " You have a holy father, A graceful gentleman," &c. For " holy," which seems quite out of place, the corrector of the folio, 1632, writes noble in the margin, the right word having been misheard by the scribe. Precisely the same mistake was made in "The Tempest" (see p. 14), and from the same cause. , SCENE II. P. 531. Much of this scene is struck out for the purpose, as we may infer, of abridging the performance, because no part that is erased is absolutely necessary to the intel- ligibility of the plot. The corrections of the text are con- tinued notwithstanding with the same patience and per- spicuity. Thus, on p. 533, we have " weather-6eafeM con- duit," for " weather-bitten conduit." Again, immediately afterwards, the third Gentleman observes, " I never heard of such another encounter, which lames report to follow it, and undoes description to do it," instead of " undoes description to show it," which must surely be right. This part of the drama is even worse printed than the rest ; and on p. 534, the third Gentleman tells Autolicus and the rest, in reference to the death of Hermione, that Leontes "bravely confessed and lamented" it, instead of "heavily confessed and lamented" it. Minor errors, some of them merely typographical, it is not necessary to point out, as they are not transferred to modern editions, and do not materially affect the text. It may be stated, that when the Shepherd and Clown enter, towards the close of the scene, an addition is made to the stage- direction, to inform us that they are in new apparel. sc. in.] THE winter's tale. 197 SCENE III. p. 539. One of those highly-important completions of the old, and imperfect, text of Shakespeare, consisting of a whole line, where the sense is left unfinished without it, here occurs. "Warburton saw that something was wanting, but in note 3 it is suggested that Leontes in his ecstasy might have left his sentence unfinished : such does not appear to have been the case. The passage has hitherto been printed as follows : — " Let be, let be ! Would I were dead, but that, methinks, already— What was he that did make it?" &c. " Let be, let be ! " is addressed to Paulina, who offers to draw the curtain before the statue of Hermione, as we find from a manuscript stage-direction, and the writer of it, in a vacant space adjoining, thus supplies a missing line, which we have printed in Italic type : — '' " Let be, let be ! Would I were dead, but that, methinks, already / am hut dead, stone looking upon stone. What was he that did make it?" &c. But for this piece of evidence, that so important an omission had been made by the old printer, or by the copyist of the manuscript for the printer's use, it might have been urged, that, supposing our great dramatist to have written here no more elliptically than in many other places, his sense might be complete at "already:" "Would I were dead!" exclaims Leontes, "but that, methinks, I am already;" in other wordsj it was needless for him to wish himself dead, since, looking upon the image of his lost queen, he was, as it were, dead already. However, we see above, that a line was wanting, and we may be thankful that it has been furnished, since it adds much to the force and clearness of the speech of Leontes. P. 541. When Hermione descends from the pedestal, and advances towards her husband, a manuscript stage-direction informs us that she comes down slowly, and that hautboys and viols play. There is not a single printed instruction of the 198 THE winter's TALE. [aCT V. kind in any part of the scene, wliere they appear to be so re- quisite for the information of the performers ; but that de- ficiency is abundantly supplied by the old corrector of the folio, 1632, who has taken great pains that nothing should go wrong during the representation. "When Paulina first draivs the curtain from before the supposed statue of the Queen, the hautboys are told to play : she several times offers to draw the curtain again, in order to conceal the figure, when the King becomes too much moved ; and she stays him when he declares that he will kiss the statue : she had done the same, when Perdita had previously wished to kiss the hand of the supposed representation of her mother. We are also told, after Hermione has come down, that she and her husband embrace, and that the daughter kneels to receive her mother's blessing. Strictly speaking, these last were needless. P. 642. The last emendation, of any importance, is in the last speech of the play, where Leontes is choosing Camillo as a husband for Paulina. The prosaic line in which it occurs is this : — " And take her by the hand whose worth and honesty; " which is redundant by two syllables: these are erased by the corrector of the folio, 1632, without the slightest detri- ment to the sense, and with great improvement to the measure : — " Come, Camillo, And take her hand, whose worth and honesty Is richly noted and here justified." We may feel well assured that the expletives, " by the," ob- tained insertion without the participation of the pen of the author. KING JOHN. ACT I. SCENE I. Vol. iv. P. 8. We cannot but approve of a change made in an important epithet in the reply of King John, where he despatches Chatillon with all haste, and tells him that the English forces will be in France before the ambassador can even report their intention to come. The reading has always been : — " Be thou the trumpet of our wrath, And sullen presage of your own decay." In the first place, the sound of a trumpet could not, with any fitness, be called a " sullen presage ;" and, secondly, as Chatillon was instantly to proceed on his return, it is much more probable that Shakespeare wrote, — " Be thou the trumpet of our wrath, And sudden presage of your own decay." The old corrector says that sudden was the word of our great dramatist, and a scribe or a printer might easily mistake sudden and " sullen." P. 9. The folio, 1632, omits " Robert" before Faulconbridge, in the Bastard's first speech, but the corrector restored it in the margin. It is found in the folio, 1623, and must have accidentally dropped out of that of 1 632. P. 14. Besides a misprint, there appears to be an error in punctuation in this part of the Bastard's soliloquy, as given in modern editions : — 200 KING JOHN. [aCT II. " For new-made honour doth forget men's names : 'Tis too respective, and too sociable, For your conversion. Now your traveller, He and his tooth-pick at ray worship's mess," &c. The corrector of the folio, 1632, informs us that we should point and read as follows : — " For new-made honour doth forget men's names : 'Tis too respective, and too sociable. For your diversion, now, your traveller. He and his tooth-pick at my worship's mess," &c. It was common to entertain " picked men of countries," for the diversion of the company at the tables of the higher orders, and this is what the Bastard is referring to in the last two lines, while the sense of the first two is complete at " sociable." P. 16. In the first and second folios, these lines, thus printed, occur : — " Sir Robert could do well, marry to confess Could get me Sir Robert could not do it." This is clearly wrong, and the question is how the passage can be amended. Modern editors have introduced " he" and a mark of interrogation in the second line, — "Could he get me?" On the other hand, the corrector of the second folio merely inserts a negative ; and if, in the manuscript used by the printer, a mark of interrogation had been found in this place, it would hardly have been omitted : as amended, the couplet stands, — " Sir Robert could do well ; marry, to confess. Could not get me ; Sir Robert could not do it." ACT II. SCENE I. P. 18. A single letter makes an important improvement in the following, where young Arthur expresses his acknow- ledgments to Austria : — so. I.J KING JOHN. 201 " I give you welcome with a powerless hand, But with a heart full of unstained love." The love of such a, child would, of course, be " unstained : " what he meant to say, according to a correction in the folio, 1632, was, that he bade Austria welcome with a heart full of love, which, without effort, spontaneously flowed from it : — " But with a heart full of unstrained love." P. 19. We may presume that the change made in the sub- sequent passage conformed to some better manuscript than that used by the printer, or that the compositor committed an error : — " And then we shall repent each drop of hlood, That hot rash haste so indirectly shed." The manuscript-corrector says that we ought to read, — " That hot rash haste so indiscreetly shed." Nevertheless, our great poet sometimes uses "indirectly" in a peculiar manner. P. 20. The old corrector does not read, with modern editors, — " An Ate stirring him to hlood and strife ; " but instead of " An Ace," of all the folios, he has, — " With him along is come the mother-queen, As Ate, stirring him to hlood and strife." P. 23. In the following line there are, according to the or- dinary rules of dramatic blank-verse, two redundant syllables, and the punctuation is wrong, according to a correction in the folio, 1632:— " Of this oppressed hoy. This is thy eldest son's son," &c. The proposed alteration, with the context, stands thus : — " Thou and thine usurp The dominations, royalties, and rights Of this oppressed hoy, thy eld'st son's son, Infortunate in nothing but in thee." The above may well be as the poet wrote the passage, " this is" being detrimental, as well as unnecessary. P. 25. In his speech to the citizens of Anglers, John says, as all the old copies represent it, — 202 KING JOHN. [aCT II. " AU preparation for a bloody siege, And merciless proceeding by these French, Comfort your city's eyes." It has been urged by those who wished to adhere to the text of the folios, as long as it was unimpugned by any old au- thority, that " comfort" was here used ironically : Rowe did not think so, when he printed confront ; but the corrector of the folio, ] 632, with less violence, has, — " Come 'fore your city's eyes," &c. P. 33. We here meet with the converse of the misprint in " The Two Gentlemen of Verona" (Act IV. Scene I.), niece, for " neere." The Citizen, from the walls, recommends a marriage between the Dauphin and the lady Blanch, ob- serving, — " That daughter there of Spain, the lady Blanch, Is near to England." Such has been the universal reading, "near" being spelt neere in the folios ; but she was niece to King John, as indeed she is afterwards called, and the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, tells us, naturally enough, to read, — " That daughter there of Spain, the lady Blanch, Is niece to England." This is unquestionably right, and the mistake was readily made : we only wonder that it was not till now corrected, because, as Steevens states, Blanch was daughter to Alphonso IX., and niece to King John, by his sister Eleanor. Three lines lower, the folio, 1632, omits " should," in — " If zealous love should go in search of virtue ; " but the old corrector inserts it, thus making the line tally with the folio, 1623. P. 38. Monck Mason desired us to read aim for " aid," iu this line, as given in the folios, — " Hath drawn him from his own determin'd aid." He was right, as appears by a correction in the folio, 1632, but the necessity for the change is not very evident. Lower down, " Not that I have the power to clutch my hand," ACT III.] KING JOHN. 203 is amended to, comes very near foot of the page. is amended to, "Not that I have no power," &c., which comes very near one of the suggestions in note 3, at the ACT III. SCENE I. P. 40. Constance says, that she could be content with her grievous disappointment, if Arthur had been " Full of unpleasing blots, and sightless stains." For " and sightless," the manuscript-corrector substitutes un- sightly, which was most likely the author's word, the scribe having misheard what was read or recited to him. P. 42. The same circumstance has produced the next blunder pointed out by the old corrector. All impressions have this line, " Is cold in amity, and painted peace." Why should the epithet "painted" be applied to peace? What propriety is there in it, unless we can suppose it used to indicate hoUowness and falsehood ? The correction in the margin of the folio, 1632, shows that the ear of the scribe misled him : Constance is referring to the friendship just established between Prance and England, to the ruin of her hopes, and remarks : — " The grappling vigour, and rough frown of war. Is cold in amity, and /ami in peace, And our oppression hath made up this league." P. 44. The word "heaven" is repeated with great ad- ditional force in the subsequent passage, which we copy as it is given in the corrected folio, 1632. King John speaks : — " But as we under heaven are supreme head, So, under heaven, that great supremacy, Where we do reign, we will alone uphold." For heaven, the invariable reading has been " him." Never- theless, satisfactory as this emendation may appear, it is possible that the original reading (before the passing of the 204 KING JOHN. [aCT III. statute of James I., against the use of the name of the Creator on the stage) was God, for " heaven," in the first instance, and then "him," in the second instance, might he proper enough. When "heaven" was substituted for God, the repetition of " heaven," in the next line, became necessary. P. 48. The error of " cased," for caged, in the following, — " A cased lion by the mortal paw," is so evident, as pointed out by the old corrector, that it is surprising the emendation was never conjecturally adopted ; especially when Malone's quotation from Rowley's " When you see me you know me," regarding " a lion in his cage," so inevitably led to it. SCENE II. P. 51. Precisely the same remark grows out of a passage cited by Percy, in reference to the subsequent speech by the Bastard, when he rushes in with Austria's head, as it has been uniformly printed : — " Now, by my life, this day grows wondrous hot ; Some airy devil hovers in the sky. And pours down mischief." The word is spelt ayery in the folio, 1632, and the corrector of that edition has changed the word to fyery, which, we may feel confident, was that of the poet, and which is so con- sistent with the context : — " Now, by my life, this day grows wondrous hot ; Some fiery devil hovers in the sky And pours down mischief." Percy quotes Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy," where, among other things, it is said, "Fiery spirits or devils are such as commonly work by blazing stars," &c. SCENE III. P. 62. In the subsequent passage their, which seems re- quired both by meaning and metre, is inserted in the hand- writing of the corrector of the folio, 1632 : — SC. IV.] KING JOHN. 205 " See thou shake the bags Of hoarding abbots ; their imprison'd angels Set at liberty." Malone, as is stated in note 9, transposed "imprisoned angels ;" and Hanmer read, " Set thou at liberty," both -with- out the slightest authority, and merely as matters of taste. P. 53. The old corrector supports Pope (if support were here needed), in "some better time," instead of "some better tune," as it had been commonly misprinted. In the last line but one of this page, the folio, 1632, as amended, has, — " Sound on into the drowsy ear of night," instead of " race of night," as it stands in the folios : when "ear" was spelt eare, as was most frequently the case, the mistake was easy, and we may now be pretty sure that " race" was a mistake. P. 54. Instead of representing the blood as running " tickling up and down the veins," the manuscript-corrector tells us to read tingling ; and a few lines lower, for, — " Then in despite of broaded watchful day," he has " the broad watchful day," as if Pope's broad-eyed were merely fanciful. We own a preference for broad-eyed. SCENE IV. P. 55. The same editor was nearly right when he proposed " collected sail " for " convicted sail " in what follows : — " A whole armado of convicted sail Is scattered, and disjoin'd from fellowship." The true word, given in the margin of the folio, 1632, has the same meaning as collected, but is nearer in form and letters to the misprint in the ordinary text, vis; : — " A whole armado of convented sail," &c. i. e., a fleet that had been convened at some port to bring aid to the Dauphin. There is no need, -therefore, to strain after a meaning for " convicted," if, as we are assured, it was not the word of the poet. P. 56. Upon the passage in the speech of Constance, where she is speaking of death, 20fi KING JOHN. [aCT IV. " Which cannot hear a lady's feeble voice, Which scorns a modern invocation," Johnson remarks that "it is hard to say what Shakespeare means by modern." Now, we know that our great dramatist often uses " modern," for common, or ordinary ; but " modem," as used above, is one of the strange errors of the press which found their way into the text ; and a marginal note in the corrected folio, 1632, proves that we ought to substitute for it a word exactly applicable to the condition of Con- stance : — " Which cannot hear a lady's feeble voice, Wliich scorns a widow's invocation." When we bear in mind that m and w were often mistaken by the old compositors in this volume, the misprint will not be thought so extraordinary. Such an emendation could hardly have had its source in the fancy, or even in the inge- nuity, of the old corrector. Four lines above, he reads, — " Then with what passion I would shake the world;" an obvious, though comparatively trifling, improvement of the old text, " Then with a passion," &c. He gives the be- ginning of the next speech of Constance, "Thou are not holy," a change made in the fourth folio, and never disputed. This part of the scene was badly printed- in 1623, and not made better in 1632. ACT IV. SCENE I. P. 61. The manuscript stage -directions in this play are not so frequent as in some others, but they seem to have been added in all situations where they were necessary. The asides are also marked, particularly in this scene, where Hubert speaks not to be heard by Arthur. The eocit and re-entrance of the Executioners are omitted in the printed copy, but are duly supplied by the old corrector, and when the heated iron is to be brought to Hubert the proper place is noted in the margin. SCENE II. P. 68. John has been assigning some reasons to Salisbury, Pembroke, &c., for the repetition of his coronation, princi- SC. 11.] KING JOHN. 207 pally founded upon apprehensions arising out of his de- fective title: at length he tells them, as the folio, 1623, represents his language : — « " Some reasons for this double coronation I have possessed you with, and think them strong. And more, more strong, then lesser is my fear I shall indue you with." A good deal of controversy has been excited by the hemis- tich, "then lesser is my fear," which the folio, 1632, prints, " then less is my fear." Theobald dropped a letter, and read, in parentheses (" the lesser is my fear ") ; and Steevens and Malone (" when lesser is my fear "), but they omitted to show why John should defer the statement of his stronger reasons till his fear was less, or why he should fancy that his fear would be less at any time than just after his second corona- tion, which was to confirm hiin on the throne. The manu- script-corrector of the folio, 1632, makes it clear that the King referred to his strong reasons as having diminished his own apprehensions, which reasons he was ready hereafter to communicate to his peers : he puts it thus : — " And more, more strong, thus lessening my fear, I shall indue you with." The strength of his reasons had lessened his own fear, and he imagined that, when stated, they would produce a good effect upon others. The misprint was, " then lesser is," for thus lessening, not a very violent change, and rendering the meaning apparent. Lower in the same page, the words " then " and " should " seem injuriously to have changed places : the old text is, — instead of ' Why then your fears, which, as they say, attend The steps of wrong, should move you to mew up Your tender kinsman ?" ' Why should your fears, which, as they say, attend The steps of wrong, then move you to mew up Your tender kinsman ? " P. 74. It may be sufficient to mention that the words " deeds ill," in John's reproach of Hubert, are transposed by the corrector of the folio, 1632, so as to make the passage read more naturally, " Makes ill deeds done." 208 KING JOHN. [aCT IV. P. 75. In John's next speech of the same kind, he says, as the text has always stood, — " But thou didst understand me by my signs, And didst in signs again parley with sin." The last word is spelt sinne in the old copies, and ought un- douhtedly, as we are instructed in manuscript, to he sign, formerly spelt signe : " But thou didst understand me by my signs, And didst in signs again parley with sign." SCENE III. P. 76. We here meet with an error of the press, which shows how the letters m and w were again mistaken by the old printer. Pembroke asks, — "Who brought that letter from the cardinal?" and Salisbury's answer relates to a private communication he had received at the same time. The words of the folios have here always been taken as the true text, viz. : — " The count Melun, a noble lord of France, Whose piivate with me of the Dauphin's love, Is much more general than these lines import." The notes upon this passage have all referred to the word " private," when the blunder lies in " with me : " " Whose private missive of the Dauphin's love," is the way in which the corrector of the folio, 1632, says that line should have been printed : the Count Melun had, at the same time that he conveyed the Cardinal's letter, brought to Salisbury a " private missive," or communication, containing assurances of the Dauphin's regard. This correction seems to imply resort to some original, such as that which the printer of the folio, 1623, had misread. Just afterwards, on the next page, the old corrector points out an egregious error, which ought not to have escaped de- tection, even without such aid: it occurs in Salisbury's reply to the Bastard : — " The King hath dispossess'd himself of us : We will not line his thin bestained cloak." The folios place a hyphen between " thin " and " bestained," ACT v.] KING JOHN'. 200 as if to lead us to the discovery of the error, which is thus set right .in manuscript, and at once challenges admission into the genuine text of our author : — " We will not line his sin-hestained cloak : " a fine compound, the use of which is amply justified by the crimes of which the revolted lords consider John guilty. P. 78. Nobody suspected the above misprint, but the next we are to notice was more than hinted at by Farmer, viz. head for " hand" in the first of the ensuing lines, where Salis- bury vows never to be " conversant with ease and idleness," until he has revenged the death of Arthur, — " Till I have set a glory to this hand By giving it the worship of revenge." A manuscript-correction in the folio, 1632, shows, as Farmer supposed, and as Malone opposed, that the true language of Shakespeare was, — ■ " Till I have set a glory to this head," meaning the head of Arthur, whose dead body had just been discovered on the ground. ACT V. SCENE I. P. 83. The preceding emendations may be thought to jus- tify two others on this page, which occur close together, and which, though improvements of the usual reading, are not forced upon our adoption by any thing like necessity. The Bastard is endeavouring to cheer the spirits of the dis- heartened King ; and we here give the passage as it has been handed down to us corrected : — " Let not the world see fear, and blank distrust, Govern the motion of a kingly eye : Be stirring as the time ; meet fire with fire, Threaten the threatener," &c. For blank, old and modern editions tamely read " sad," and for meet, merely "be ;" both words were, perhaps, misheard. At the end of this speech we have, in all editions, — V 210 KING JOHN. [aCT V. " Forage, and run To meet displeasure further from the doors;" which ought, on the same credible authority, to he, " Cou- rage ! and run to meet displeasure," &c. There is, then, no necessity for hunting after what Johnson calls, " the original sense" of "forage." On the next page, for " Send fair-play order," we ought, probably, to read, " Send fair-play offers," the last word being written in the margin of the folio, 1632. This portion of the play is abundant in errors of the press of more or less importance. SCENE II. P. 85. Salisbury, in anguish at the compulsion he was under to draw his sword against his country, interposes this parenthesis : — " I must withdraw, and weep Upon the spot of this enforced cause." " Spot" reads like a misprint, and it appears to be so, although not hitherto suspected ; the corrector of the' folio, 1632, in- forms us that " spot" was misheard for a word sounding something like it : — " I must withdraw, and weep Upon the thought of this enforced cause." That is, the reflection upon the cause, which compelled him to bear arms against his country, drew tears. P. 89. The manuscript-corrector gives no countenance to Theobald's proposal to read unhair'd for " unheard ;" and that his attention was directed to the line, is evident from the fact that he makes an emendation, though not of much importance, in it ; he reads : — " This unheard sauciness of boyish troops ;" of instead of " and," referring to the unparalleled insolence of the youthful invaders from France. Lower down, in the same page and speech, the Bastard ridicules the cowardice of the French when assailed in their own territories ; and here we encounter a very remarkable mistake, either by the old compositor or copyist, most likely the latter, for which we cannot account on the ground of SC. IV.] KING JOHN. 211 mishearing. The passage is where Faulconbrldge is address- ing the French, and charging them with having been made " To thrill, and shake, Even at the crying of your nation's crow." What is the French nation's crow ? Malone strangely thought that the allusion was to the " caw of the French crow ;" but Douce's suspicion, that the crowing of the cock might be meant, is fully confirmed by the emendation which we find in manuscript in the folio, 1632, where the passage is thus given, — " To thrill, and shake, Even at the crowinff of your nation's coc/c, Thinking this voice an armed. Englishman." There can, we apprehend, be no dispute that this must be the true text. SCENE IV. P. 92. Discussion has arisen respecting a line in which the dying Melun advises Salisbury and Pembroke to return to their duty to their Sovereign, and to "Unthread the rude eye of rebellion," as the line stands in the ancient, and in most modern, editions. Tlieobald was not far wrong when he changed "Unthread" to untread, and "eye" to way ; but he missed the emendation of another word, which, with the others, is thus altered by the corrector of the folio, 1632 : — " Untread the road-way of rebellion," i. e. return by the road you took when you rebelled against King John. In confirmation, we may notice, that, very soon afterwards, Salisbury himself repeats nearly the same terms : — " We will untread the steps of damned flight." To misprint untread the road-way, "unthread the rude eye," seems an excess of carelessness, which we cannot in any way explain. The fault must, in this instance, lie with the com- positor. P. 93. Salisbury tells the expiring Melun, — " For I do see the cruel pangs of death Right in thine eye ;" p 2 212 KING JOHN. [aCT V. and some commentators, would for "rigM" read fright, or pight, and others fight : bright appears, from the old cor- rector's insertion of the necessary letter in the margin, to be the word, in reference to the remarkable brilliancy of the eyes of many persons just before death : — " For I do see the cruel pangs of death Bright in thine eye." Editors guessed at almost every word but the right one. SCENE V. P. 94. For the line, as it stands in the folios, — "And wound our tott'ring colours clearly up," the old corrector has, — " And wound our tott'red colours closely up." Tattered was then usually spelt " tottered," and he preferred the passive to the active participle, though we may doubt if Shakespeare exercised any such discretion. Neither are we prepared to say that we like closely better than " clearly," the latter, perhaps, indicating the winding up of the colours without obstruction from the enemy. SCENE VII. P. 97. Much contention has arisen upon a question, which the amended folio, 16.32, will set at rest, founded upon this passage, where Prince Henry refers to the King's fatal illness : — " Death, having prey'd upon the outward parts, Leaves them, invisible ; and his siege is now Against the mind." In the old copies, " mind " is misprinted wind ; and besides setting right this obvious blunder, the old corrector remedies another defect of greater importance. It has been suggested by different annotators that "invisible," ought to be in- sensible, invincible, &c. There is no doubt that "invisible" is wrong, and the corrector converts it into unvisited, which may, we think, be adopted without hesitation — death has abandoned the King's external form, and has laid siege to his understanding : — SC. VII.] KING JOHN. 213 " Death, having prey'd upon the outward parts, Leaves them unvisited ; and his siege is now Against the mind." P. 98. It appears that the practice of the theatre in the time of the corrector of the folio, 1632, was to bring the dying King in, sitting in a chair, and the manuscript stage- direction is in those terms, which are added to the printed stage-direction, " John brought in." We are not told, in any of the old copies, when he dies, but those words are written in the margin, just after the Bastard has concluded his statement of the loss of " the best part of his power " in the washes of Lincolnshire. This accords with the modern re- presentation of the fact. KING RICHARD II. ACT I. SCENE I. P. 112. At the very beginning of Bolingbroke's first speech, a word has dropped out, the absence of which spoils the metre : it is found in a manuscript-correction of the folio, 1632, and we have printed it in Italic type : — " Full many years of happy days befal My gracious sovereign," &c. P. 113. In Bolingbroke's next speech, an error of the press of some consequence is noticed : it is where he denies that he is actuated by any private malice against Mowbray : — " In the devotion of a subject's love, Tendering the precious safety of my prince, And free from other misbegotten hate, Come I appellant," &c. What " oiAer misbegotten hate" does he refer to? The cor- rector of the folio, 1632, tells us to read the third line, — "And free from wrath or misbegotten hate. Come 1 appellant," &c. Bolingbroke appeals his antagonist, not out of anger or hatred, but out of loyal affection to his King. We may ques- tion the necessity for this change. Lower down, " reins and spurs" are in the singular, but this is a matter of less moment. P. 116. Mowbray answers the pecuniary part of the charge* against him, by asserting that the King was in debt to him — ACT I.] KING RICHAED II. 215 " Upon remainder of a dear account. Since last I went to France." For " dear account," the old corrector has " clear account," ■which has a distinct meaning — the account was clear — while the epithet "dear" seems ill applied to "account," in any of the senses which that word bears in Shakespeare. SCENE II. P. 121. We may feel assured that the word "farewell" was repeated in the following line, and we find it in manu- script in the margin of the folio, 1632, though not in any extant printed copy of the play : — "Why then, I will. 7 axeyieW, farewell, old Gaunt." The repetition of the word led to the accidental omission of it by the old scribe or compositor. In the preceding line, the first and second folios have "the widow's champion to de- fence," instead of " and defence." P. 122. The repetition of the word " desolate," in the subsequent couplet, which ends the Duchess of Gloucester's speech, is unlike Shakespeare : — " Desolate, desolate, will I hence and die : The last leave of thee takes my weeping eye.'' The carelessness of the printer, or of the copyist, occasioned the blunder, for in the corrected folio, 1632, the first line stands thus : — " Desolate, desperate, will I hence and die." She was " desolate" because a helpless widow, and desperate because she could not move Gaunt to revenge the death of her husband. P. 125. It deserves remark that, whereas in the line, — " And furbish new the name of John of Gaunt," the folios have "/urmsA new;" the manuscript -corrector re- stores the older and better reading of the earlier quarto im- pressions. A few lines farther on, the second folio has captain for " captive," which did not pass unnoticed. 216 KING EICHARD IT. [aCT II. ACT II. SCENE I. p. 135. The simplicity of our early stage seldom allowing changes of scene, various contrivances were resorted to in order to render them needless, but at the same time to pre- serve sufficient verisimilitude. Gaunt was here to be repre- sented ill in bed, and the printed stage-direction is only, Enter Gaunt sick, with York, and modern editors have repre- sented Gaunt as on a couch; but a manuscript note in the folio, 1 632, shows precisely the way in which the matter was managed in the time of the old corrector, and no doubt earlier, the words being, Bed drawn forth, so that the dying Gaunt was pulled forward on the boards, in his bed. When it was necessary for him to make his exit (the only printed note in that place), the words, added in manuscript, are Drawn out in bed; and just afterwards, Northumberland arrives with the news of the death of the old Duke. P. 138. On the entrance of the King, Queen, &c., York says to Gaunt, as the passage has always stood : — " The King is come : deal mildly with his youth ; For young hot colts, being rag'd, do rage the more ; " ■which is nothing better than a truism, that young hot colts rage the more by being raged. This defect has arisen from a misprint, which seems very obvious as soon as it is pointed out by the corrector of the folio, 1632, who alters the second line as follows : — " For young hot colts, being urg'd, do rage the more." This is beyond controversy an improvement. P. 144. Another easily explained error of the press occurs on this page. Northumberland complains that the King is basely led — " By flatterers ; and what they will inform, Merely in hate, 'gainst any of us all, That will the King severely prosecute, 'Gainst us, our lives, our children, and our heirs." Here " 'Gainst us, our lives," is tautologous ; for, of course, what the King prosecuted against the "lives" of his nobility, SC. II. J KING EICHAED 11. 217 must be against them. The correction in the folio, 1632, makes the passage so far unobjectionable : — " 'Gainst us, our wives, our children, and our heirs." The copyist, in this case, misheard wives, " lives." P. 145. Northumberland, Ross, and Wllloughby are plot- ting against the King, and Northumberland tells the two others that he fears to let them know how near good tidings ■^are. Ross replies, in all editions : — " Be confident to speak, Northumberland : We three are but thyself; and, speaking so. Thy words are but as thoughts : therefore, be bold." There was evidently no reason why Northumberland should be bold, merely because " his words were but as thoughts ; " and a very slight change, proposed by the old corrector, brings out most clearly the meaning of the poet : — "We three are but thyself; and, speaking so, Thy words are but our thoughts : therefore, be bold." His words only conveyed the thoughts of the other two con- spirators, who were but himself; and he might, therefore, be bold to utter his tidings. SCENE II. P. 148. More than one passage in the scene between, the Queen, Bushy, and Bagot, in which she states that she feels that some unknown calamity is hanging over her, has occa- sioned difficulty. The first place in which the corrector of the folio, 1632, offers us any assistance, stands thus in the folios : — " So heavy sad, As though on thinking on no thought I think. Makes me with heavy nothing faint and shrink." Here perplexity has been produced by misprinting the word unthinking Sis two words, "on thinking:" the Queen was so sad, that it made her faint and shrink with nothing, although she was so unthinking, as not to think. Mai one 218 KING RICHARD II. [aCT II. and others have " in thinking," which seems just the oppo- site of what was intended. Bushy assures her that her sadness was merely " conceit," to which the Queen replies in five lines, which have still more puzzled commentators : — " 'Tis nothing less : conceit is still deriv'd From some forefather grief; mine is not so, For nothing hath begot my something grief, Or something hath the nothing that I grieve : 'Tis in reversion that I do possess," &c. The old corrector shows that the four last lines ought to be rhyming couplets, which the scribe seems to have written at random, and has thus made utterly unintelligible what, at the best, is diiEcult. In the corrected folio the lines are thus given, we may presume upon some authority : — " 'Tis nothing less : conceit is still deriv'd From some forefather grief; mine is not so, For nothing hath begot my something woe ; Or something hath the nothing that I guess : 'Tis in reversion that I do possess," &c. i. e. the nothing that the Queen guessed, had some woe in it, and she possessed it in reversion, before it actually came upon her. The scribe blundered from not at all under- standing what he was putting upon paper, and the com- positor made it worse by knowing nothing of the meaning of what he was putting in print. The proposed changes, woe for "grief," and guess for " grieve," besides receiving support from the rhyme, at all events, supply a meaning to words which some commentators gave up in despair. P. 151. The Duke of York enters in dismay at the troubles that surround him, and a manuscript stage -direction states that he was only part armed, in his haste and confu- sion : the versification of his speeches was, perhaps, purposely irregular, but such could hardly be intended where he speaks of Bolingbroke, and says that, he " Is my kinsman, whom the King hath wrong'd:" a line that is especially uncouth from the want of a syllable, which the corrector of the folio thus furnishes : — ACT III. J KING RICHARD II. 219 " Is my near kinsman, whom the King hath wrong'd." P. 156. The epithet used by the Duke of York, in his re- proof of Bolingbroke, when he asks him, — " But then, more why, why have they dav'd to march So many miles upon her peaceful bosom. Frighting her pale-fac'd villages with war, And ostentation of despised arms ? " " Despised arms" would not " fright" by their " ostentation ;" and Warburton recommended disposed, not a very happy sug- gestion ; and Sir T. Hanmer, despightful ; while Monck Mason fancied that York meant that the arms were " despised" by himself. A misprint misled them ; for, according to the corrector of the folio, 1632, we ought to read : — " With ostentation of despoiling arms :" villages might well be frighted by the "despoiling arms" of Bolingbroke. Three lines above, for the awkward phrase, " But then, more why," the change made is, " But more than that," exhibiting, if we may believe the old corrector, in four words, a transposition and a blunder, arising, probably, from the repetition of " why" immediately afterwards. P. ] 69. This short scene between Salisbury and the Welsh Captain, is struck out, perhaps, as needlessly protracting the performance. ACT III. SCENE II. P. 1 62. On arriving near Berkeley Castle, Richard asks if it be called so, and Aumerle answers by two lines, one with too few, and the other with too many syllables : — " Yea, my lord. How hrooks your grace the air, After yovir late tossing on the breaking seas 1 " The manuscript-corrector amends both : — " Yea, my good lord. How hrooks your grace the air. After late tossing on the breaking seas ?" We need hardly doubt that this is as the passage ought to be 220 KING RICHARD II. [aCT III, printed, on the supposition that our great dramatist meant the lines to be regular. P. 165. The scribe, who wrote the copy used by the printer, must have misheard an epithet of some importance in the following extract : — " White-beards have arm'd their thin and hairless scalps Against thy majesty; and boys, with women's voices, Strive to speak big, and clap their female joints In stiff unwieldy arms against thy crown." Besides the mistake in the epithet, there are two other errors of the press, to the injury of the passage, and the old cor- rector puts the four lines thus : — " White-beards have arm'd their thin and hairless scalps Against thy majesty ; and boys, with women's voices. Strive to speak big, and clasp their feeble joints In stiff unwieldy armour 'gainst thy crown." In the first place, the folios have "white-Sears" for "white- beards : " this blunder was not derived from the quartos ; but they have "clap" for clasp (which was Pope's conjectural emendation) ; and because the poet gave the boys " women's voices," the scribe seems to have thought that they should also have " female joints ;" and, lastly, we have " arms," in all the old copies, for armour : " arms" more properly sig- nifies weapons, than the " stiff unwieldy" casing, by which the bodies of soldiers were formerly protected. SCENE III. P. 172. The old corrector substitutes a very striking for a very poor word, in the fourth of the ensuing lines. York speaks of Richard : — " Yet looks he like a king : behold his eye, As bright as is the eagle's, lightens forth Controlling majesty. Alack, alack, for woe. That any harm should stain so fair a show ! " The flat word "harm" presents itself at once as an error, and storm is written in the margin instead of it : — " Alack, alack, for woe, That any storm should stain so fair a show ! " ACT IV.] KING EICHARD II. 221 In the next line but one, the same authority tells us that "fearful" ought to he faithful; and though "fearful" may seem to answer its purpose sufficiently well, the context per- suades us in favour of faithful ; for the King is complaining of Bolingbrote's breach of fidelity. P. 179. Malone and other modern editors have altered the following passage, as the words are given in the folio, 1623, without due attention there to the regulation of the metre: — "They are. And Bolingbroke hath seiz'd the wasteful king. Oh, what pity is it, that he had not so trimm'd And dress'd his land, as we this garden, at time of year, And wound the bark the skin of our fruit-trees," &c. Malone's regulation and changes are these : — " They are ; and Bolingbroke Hath seiz'd the wasteful king. Oh ! what pity is it Tliat he had not so trimm'd and dress'd his land As we this garden ! We at time of year Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit-trees," &c. The editor of the folio, 1632, seeing that the interjection in the second line overloaded the verse, omitted it, but made no other emendation. The old corrector of that impression shows that Malone inserted we in the wrong place, having omitted " and," and thrust in do at the commencement of the next line, to supply the defect of the measure : as amended in the folio, 1632, the passage appears as follows : — "They are; and Bolingbroke Hath seiz'd the wasteful king. What pity is it. That he had not so trimm'd, and dress'd his land As we this garden ! At the time of year We wound the bark, the skin of our fruit-trees," &c. This will, perhaps, be allowed to be the most easy and natural mode of giving a passage, which, by the admission of all editors, requires some alteration. ACT IV. SCENE I. P. 182. In every edition it is made to appear, at the com- mencement of this scene, that Bagot entered with the other 222 KING RICHARD II. [aCT IV. characters ; but the corrector of the folio, 1632, says that such was not the case, and that he did not come in, in cus- tody, until after Bolingbroke had issued the order, " Call forth Bagot." The manuscript stage-direction follows this order, Enter Bagot, prisoner. Of course, there would be some pause between the giving and the execution of the order ; and the formal introduction of the prisoner after- wards, would communicate additional effect to the opening of the Act. When the various " gages" are thrown down, as the scene proceeds, manuscript notice is duly inserted in the margin, but we are not told what Aumerle threw down after the line, — " Some honest Christian trust me with a gage," when he had no gage of his own left. No passages, here wanting in the folios, are introduced by the old corrector from the earlier quartos. P. 186. Nevertheless, two emendations are made in Boling- broke's speech, " Marry, God forbid," &c., which serve to show that the corrector of the folio, 1632, either had recourse to the quarto editions of this play, or to some authority which ac- corded with them. For instance, for " nobleness," in the line, — " Of nohle Richard : then, true nobleness would," &c., he adopts ndbless of the quarto, 1597, which was unques- tionably Shakespeare's word, since "nobleness" too much burdens the metre. Again, in the line in the folios, — " And he himself not present ? O, forbid it, God," he erases " himself," which is unnecessary to the sense, and injurious to the rhythm, and writes forfend instead of " for- bid." All the quartos have forfend ; but, on the other hand, they have " himself" On the preceding page, the corrector has, "As surely as I live," of the quarto, 1597, instead of, " As sure as I live," which is the reading of the folios and of some of the quartos. P. 188. The folio, 1632, misprints the following line,— " Give sorrow leave a while to tutor me," by absurdly putting return for " tutor." This blunder is set ACT v.] KING RICHARD II. 223 right by the old corrector ; but it seems as if he had pre- viously substituted some other word, and had erased it. Such may have been the case in several other places, where he himself blundered. P. 192. To supply the want of printed stage-directions, they are, as usual, added in manuscript in the folio, 1632 : thus, when Richard dashes the glass against the ground, we read in the margin. Throws down the glass ; and when the crown and sceptre are previously brought to him, the proper moment for placing them in the King's hands is noted in the margin. ACT V. SCENE I. P. 194. An emendation, giving additional force to an ex- clamation by the Queen, on hearing her husband's resolution to submit, and improving the defective metre, is met with in the corrected folio, 1632, in reference to these lines, as there copied from the folio, 1623 : — " What ! is my Richard both in shape and mind Transform'd and weaken'd ? Hath Bolingbroke Depos'd thine intellect? hath he been in thy heart?" Modern editors, to eke out the measure of the second line, have read "weaken'd," weakened; but the glaring redun- dancy of the third line they did not set right. The old cor- rector, however, instructs us in future to print thus: — " What! is my Richard both in shape and mind Transform'd and weaken'd ? Hath this Bolingbroke Depos'd thine intellect ? been in thy heart 1 " Much contempt is contained in the expression, " this Boling- broke," and the repetition of "hath he," in the next line, rather lessens, than increases, the effect of the Queen's de- spairing interrogatory. The old corrector again either adopted a word from tHfe quartos, or had recourse to some other authority, when, in the line, as we find it in the folios, — " Tell thou the lamentable fall of me," he erased "fall," and wrote tale in the margin. Malone 224 KING RICHAED 11. [aCT V. fancied that "fall" for tale, was one of Shakespeare's own emendations ; but it was much more probably a misprint in the folio, 3 623, which, in most respects, slavishly follows the text of the latest quarto before its time, viz. that of 1615: the word there is tale, as it had been in the earlier editions in the same form, of 1597, 1598, and 1608. It may be more than doubted, whether our great dramatist ever made a single emendation, with his own hand, in any play with a view to its publication. SCENE II. P. 200. The word " day," in what follows, may also have been derived from the quartos, for it is in no folio impres- sion ; but it is preceded by an improvement in the measure of a line, which has been given corruptly every where : — " 'TIs nothing but some bond that he has enter'd into For gay apparel against the triumph." The manuscript-corrector alters both lines thus : — " 'Tis nothing but some bond he's entered into For gay apparel 'gainst the triumph day." Modern editors, of course, insert day, but there can be little doubt that Shakespeare also wrote the previous line as it above appears. In the same way we may be sure that the small word, then, fell out of the press, or escaped by some other accident, in the Duke of York's speech, a few lines higher on this page :— " Yea, look'st thou pale? let me then see the writing." Then is not to be traced in any ancient or modern edition, but it is authorised by the corrector of the folio, 1632, and is necessary to the completeness of the measure. The word " by" shared the same fate as " then," in the subsequent line on the next page : — "Now by my honour, hy my life, my troth." The second "by" is not in any of the folios, but is in the earlier quartos, though not in that of 1615, from which the first folio was printed : the line is imperfect without hy, and the corrector of the second folio inserted it. The minute errors and variations in this part of the play are numerous. SC. v.] KING EICHARD 11. 225 SCENE III. P. 203. When Aumerle arrives in great haste, the quarto editions say that he is amazed, hut in the folios we have only, Enter Aumerle : the corrector of that of 1632, felt that something was wanted to indicate that the performer was to come upon the stage with an appearance of great pertur- bation, and he added to Enter Aumerle, the words rush in, to evince the eagerness and impetuosity he ought to display on the occasion. Other manuscript stage-directions apply to other characters. Aumerle locks the door, just before the Duke of York arrives and gives the alarm, and the King draws to defend himself Then, the door is opened to admit York, and shut again that the Duchess, when she reaches the spot and exclaims against her husband, may be on the outside until her son goes to the door and opens it. To this follows Aumerle's confession and repentance, and we are duly informed when the different parties kneel to the King. P. 208. The folio, 1632, has the following:— " Good uncle, help to order several powers To Oxford, or where'er these traitors are : They shall not live within this world, I swear, But I will have them, once know where. Uncle farewell, and cousin adieu." The corrector of that impression puts it thus : — " Good uncle, help to order several powers To Oxford, or where else the traitors be. They shall not live within this world, I swear, But I will have them, so I once know where. Uncle farewell, and, cousin mine, adieu." In various particulars, as marked in Italics, this differs from other cSpies, quarto or folio. Theobald printed "and, cousin too, adieu," but " and cousin mine, adieu," reads better, and the whole may lead to the conclusion that the corrector was guided by some authority not now known. SCENE V. P. 209. In the first line of the King's long speech, we meet with a correction consistent with the' earliest, but found Q 226 KING RICHARD II. [aCT V. in no other old edition of this play. All but the quarto, 1597, read defectively, — "I have been studying how to compare," instead of " I have been studying how I may compare," which is a perfect line, and which all modern editors have properly adopted. "We may feel confident that the allusion just afterwards to Holy Writ, was softened by substituting " faith" for word (as it stands in all the quartos), in conse- quence of the state of religious opinion at the time the folio, 1623, was printed : the manuscript-corrector has left the text, in this respect, as he found it, excepting that he has put his pen through the quotations from the New Testa- ment. On the next page, he struck out the whole of the passage in which the King resembles himself to a clock, which none of the commentators have been able to under- stand : the erasure begins at " For now hath time," and ends at " Jack o' the clock." It is to be regretted that the old corrector could throw no light upon this obscure question : it deserves remark, however, that he struck out the word "watches," as if it were certainly wrong ; but, as if he did not know what ought to be substituted for it, he has written no corresponding word in the margin. SCENE VI. P. 214. The emendations by the corrector of the folio, 1632, in the last scene of this tragedy, only relate to corrup- tions in the versification. These corruptions begin in the very first line, for whereas Bolingbroke ought to say, as in the folio, 1623,— "Kind uncle York, the latest news we hear," &c., the word kind is supplied in manuscript, because omitted by the printer of the folio, 1 632, only. The next is an error of the same sort, on the same page, and applies to all editions, ancient and modern, two small words having apparently dropped out at the end of a line : we have printed them in Italics : — " Welcome, my lord. What is the news with you?" SC. VI.j KING RICHARD II. 227 A third, and more noticeable instance occurs where Boling- broke, on p. 215, passes sentence on the Bishop of Car- lisle : — " Carlisle, this is your doom," is the whole of the line in all copies ; but the next line, which rhymes with it, proves that some words, perhaps un- important excepting as they complete the measure, had been lost. The old corrector informs us what they were : — " Bishop of Carlisle, this shall be your doom : — Choose out some secret place, some reverend room," &c. Several additional stage-directions are inserted, but they are of little consequence, saving for the regulation of the performance : thus, the King beats the Keeper, and kills one of his assailants, following it up by a blow which JciUs another. He dies as Exton pronounces his first line. Q 2 THE FIRST PART OF KING HENRY IV. ACT I. SCENE I. P. 225. The first line of this play presents an alteration, but a questionable improvement, by the corrector of the folio, 1632: for " So shaken as we are, so wan with care," he has " worn with care," which may be right, although, as far as the sense of the passage is concerned, it may not be necessary to do the violence of changing the received text. No new light is thrown upon the two lines which have pro- duced so many conjectures, — " No more the thirsty entrance of this soil Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood;" but that the corrector's attention must have been directed to them, we ascertain from the fact that, as "daub" is mis- printed damhe in the second folio, that blunder is set right. P. 227. The manuscript-corrector restores the word "for," of the earlier quartos, instead otfar, of the quarto, 1613, and the folios, in the following line : — "For more uneven and unwelcome news Came from the north." We shall see hereafter, that on other occasions he preferred the older text. ACT I.J KING HENRY IV. 229 P. 228. For the imperfect line,— " Of Murray, Angus, and Menteith," the old corrector writes, — " Of Murray, Angus, and the hold Menteith." How far, and in what manner, he was warr^ted in this ad- dition, may be a question ; but he was doubtless right in transferring (in a shortened form) the words, "In faith, it is," from the end of the King's speech, where they are not wanted, to the beginning of that of Westmoreland, where they are necessary to complete the measure, as well as an improvement to the sense : — " Faith, 'tis a conquest for a prince to boast of." Such also was Pope's judicious mode of giving the speech, SCENE 11. P. 229. If any doubt were entertained whether the words, "by Phoebus, — he, that wandering knight so fair," were a quotation, it would probably be set at rest by the circum- stance that they are underscored, as usual in such cases, by the old corrector. P. 231. Falstaff's remark, in answer to the Prince, " Yea, and so used it, that were it not here apparent, that thou art heir apparent," has generally been printed with a line after it, as an unfinished sentence ; but the corrector of the folio, 1632, represents it as finished by reading, " Yea, and so used it, that it is here apparent that thou art heir apparent." The negative is omitted in the folios, and was not restored by the corrector from the quartos. SCENE III. P. 237. The words, " My Lord," given to Northumberland, do not complete Worcester's hemistich, " Have holp to make so portly," a syllable being wanted : the corrector of the folio, 1632, therefore, represents Northumberland as saying, "My good lord ;" and we may feel pretty sure that he did 230 THE FIRST PART OF [aCT I. SO, not merely because it finishes the line, but because, when he resumes after the interruption, he uses the same expres- sion, " Yea, my good lord." P. 238. Here, again, the old corrector seems to have re- sorted to the quarto editions of this play, or to some au- thority that agreed with them, for he not only restores "name," omitted in the folios, — "Those prisoners in your highness' name demanded," but he sets right a remarkable blunder at the end of the same speech, not in the quartos, but which found its way into the folios : the latter have, — " Who either through envy or misprision Was guilty of this fault, and not my son ;" instead of the true text of the quartos : — " Either envy, therefore, or misprision Is guilty of this fault, and not my son." P. 240. All impressions, quarto and folio, ancient and modern, have, one after the other, repeated a flagrant error of the press in the earliest edition of this play in 1698 : the mistake has given vast annoyance to each succeeding editor, and the emendation is one of those that must strike the moment it is pointed out. Nobody has been able to explain satisfactorily the use of the word "fears" in the subsequent lines, where the King indignantly asks, — " Shall our coffers, then, Be emptied to redeem a traitor home ? Shall we huy treason, and indent with fears. When they have lost and forfeited themselves?" The corrector tells us to print " fears" foes ; and if we do so, nothing can be plainer than the meaning of the poet : — "Shall we buy treason, and indent v/ith foes, When they have lost and forfeited themselves?" To "indent," is, of course, to enter into a compact or in- denture. Johnson proposed peers for "fears:" Steevens contended that " fears" was to be taken as fearful people, &c. ; but the question of the King was merely whether it was fit to enter into a bargain with traitors and enemies. It seems strange that, in the course of two hundred and fifty ACT II.J KING IIENEY IV. 231 years, nobody should ever have even guessed at foes for " fears :" if it were merely a guess by the old corrector, it is a happy one ; and some may be disposed to entertain the opinion that he had an opportunity of resorting to a better original than any of the printed copies. P. 243. The same authority here points out another mis- print, not by any means of so much importance, but still, no doubt, an error, though the word usually received may be said to answer the purpose. It is in Hotspur's speech, where he is entering into the plot of his father and his uncle against Henry IV., when he breaks out thus : — " No ! yet time serves, wherein you may redeem Your banish'd honours, and restore yourselves Into the good thoughts of the world again." For " banish'd honours," we are very reasonably instructed to put " tarnish' d honours ;" for Hotspur would hardly say that the honours of his family were "banished," although their brightness might for a time be tarnished. P. 247. The old corrector either saw the quarto, 1 598, and corrected the following line by it, or he was indebted to his own sagacity. All ancient copies, but the earliest, read, — " I'll steal to Glendower, and to Mortimer," or " I'll steal to Glendower, and he Mortimer." The line in the quarto, 1598, is, — " I'll steal to Glendower and Lo : Mortimer ; " meaning Lord Mortimer, which abbreviation "Lo:" was subsequently strangely misunderstood. In the text of the folio, lb'32, loe is erased, and Lord is written in the margin. Tliere can be no dispute that this is the poet's word, and so, in fact, it stands in modern editions. ACT II. SCENE I. P. 250. Much speculation has been the result of the subse- quent speech by Gadshill, where ho is talking of the high' 232 THE FIRST PART OF [aCT II. rank of the parties with whom, as a highwayman, he was in league : — " I am joined with no foot land-rakers, no long-staiF, sixpenny strikers : none of these mad, mustachio purple-hued maltworms ; but with nobility and tranquillity : burgomasters, and great oneyers, such as can hold in ; such as will strike sooner than speak," &c. No question seems to have arisen regarding the word " tranquillity" — " nobility and tranquillity" — although it has no meaning in this place ; but ingenuity has been exhausted upon "great oneyers," which we have been desired to read moneyers, one-eers, mynheers, &c., when it is merely, as we learn from the corrector of the folio, 1632, a misprint, the word "tranquillity," which precedes it, being in the same predicament. He sets the whole matter right thus : " I am joined with no foot land-rakers, &c., but with nobility and sanguinity ; burgomasters, and great ones — yes, such as can hold in," &c. " Tranquillity" was misheard by the scribe for sanguinity, in reference ,to the high blood of the com- panions of Gadshill ; and " great oneyers" was a lapse for " great ones — yes,'' the affirmative particle having been added to give more force to the assertion, when, perhaps, the Cham- berlain, with whom Gadshill was speaking, intimated his in- credulity. The first error seems to have arisen from mis- hearing, and the last from misprinting. SCENE III. P. 259. In the line,— " What sayst thou, Kate ? what would'st thou have with me ?" the folio, 1632, omits the second " what," which the cor- rector supplies in manuscript. Five lines lower, he furnishes four words, wanting in all editions, where Hotspur asks his wife, — " Come ; wilt thou see me ride V The words here carelessly left out are quite consistent with what has passed before, when Hotspur ordered that his horse should be led " forth into the park : "— " Come to the park, Kate : wilt thou see me ride ?" They are in themselves of little import, excepting as they SC. IV.] KING HENRY IV. 233 serve to prove that our great dramatist did not leave the line needlessly imperfect. SCENE IV. P. 263. The folios, in the following line, omit the negative ; the old corrector inserts it, but whether from the quarto im- pressions where it is found, or from any independent au- thority, may be questioned : — " Away, you rogue ! Dost thou not heai* them call ?" P. 264. The words, " pitiful-hearted Titan that melted at the sweet tale of the sun," are struck out : probably, the old corrector did not understand the allusion. The words, in their corrupted form, appear to be no great loss. P. 274. Rowe seems to have been right (indeed the emendation hardly admits of doubt) in reading tristful for "trustful" in Falstaff's speech, as we learn from the alteration introduced in the folio, 1632 ; and the old corrector, not ap- proving of the use of the name of the Creator, has sub- stituted heaven for it in the line, — " For heaven's sake, lords, convey my tristful queen," &c. In the folio, 1632, a previous speech by FalstafF is erro- neously given to the Prince, but the corrector has remedied the defect ; and in Falstaff's long mock-address, he has in- serted own before " opinion," which is not in any folio. In the same character's next speech, he has changed the common reading to " him keep with thee, the rest banish : " this emendation, is, however, disputable, and perhaps scarcely requires notice. P. 276. The Prince calls Falstaff, according to the old cor- rector of the folio, 1632, not "that trunk of humours," but " that hulk of humours," against all known authorities, but it may very likely be right. P. 279. The folios, and the quartos of 1608 and afterwards, read, "I know his death will be a match of twelve score ;" but the older text of the quartos, 1598, 1599, and 1604, is 234 THE FIRST PART OF [ACT III. " a march of twelve score," which is evidently right ; and the manuscript-correction in the folio, 1632, is, therefore, from match to " march." On the next page, all early editions, with the exception of the quarto, 1598, omit "huge" in the line, — "The frame and huge foundation of the earth :" "huge" is written in the margin of the folio, 1632. This scene is very ill printed in that impression, but the minutest literal error was not neglected. ACT III. SCENE I. P. 284. The last line in Worcester's speech, adverting to the course of the Trent, — " And then he runs straight and even," must have been misprinted in this and in all other editions : the manuscript-corrector gives it thus un objectionably, — " And then he runs all straight and evenly." Hotspur has just before said of the same river, — " In a new channel, fair, and evenly." P. 285. For a similar reason the corrector of the folio, 1632, amends the subsequent lines, — " I'll haste the writer, and withal. Break with your wives of your departure hence j" by giving them thus : — " I'll haste the writer, and withal I'll break With your young wives of your depaiture hence." Young was, perhaps, omitted by the old printer or scribe, from the similarity of the word your just before it. In Act V. (p. 239 of this vol.), we shall see that " your" was left out before " younger." P. 286. We can readily believe that there must be a mis- print in the following : — " In faith, my lord, you are too wilful-blame," SC. II.] KING HENRY IV. 235 as it stands in the old copies, and has been repeated in all modern editions : the true reading may very well have been what the old corrector tells us it was, — "In faith, my wilful lord, you are to blame." The epithet " wilful" in some way became misplaced, and " too" for to, and vice versa, was a very common error. P. 289. The four last lines in this scene ought to rhyme, and, no doubt, did so originally, until a misprint prevented it ; the corrector of the folio, 1632, makes the passage run as follows : — " Glend. Come on, lord Mortimer ; you are as slow, As hot lord Percy is on fire to go. By this our book is drawn : we'll seal and. part To horse immediately. Mart, With all my heart." The text of the two last lines has hitherto been this : — " By this our book is drawn : we'll seal and then To horse immediately. Mort. With all my heart." SCENE II. P. 291. The old printer took more pains than usual with the great scene between Henry IV. and the Prince, but still, if we may rely upon the corrector of the folio, 1632, intro- duced several important blunders. One of them applies to the last words on this page, "carded his state," which Warburton, with great sagacity, proposed to read, " discarded state:" such is the emendation proposed in manuscript: next, the corrector struck out "do," unnecessarily thrust into a line on page 292 : — "As cloudy men use to do their adversaries." Thirdly, in the first line on p. 294, — " Tliou that art like enough, through vassal fear," the printer injuriously omitted " that," which is written in the margin of the folio, 1632. 236 THE FIRST PAET OF [aCT IV. P. 295. The line, as it stands in the quartos, — " The whicb, if he be pleas'd, I shall perform," is given in the folio, 1623, — " The which, if I 'perform, and do survive," and in the folio, 1632, — " The which if I promise, and do survive." The corrector of the last impression erases promise, and inserts " perform," making the passage correspond with the first folio, but not with the quarto editions. Lower down, Pope's emendation, "So is the business," &c., is supported both by the old corrector, and by the sense of Blunt's reply. SCENE III. P. 296. In FalstafF's retort upon Bardolph, he says : " Thou art our admiral, thou bearest the lantern in the poop,-^but 'tis in the nose of thee." The correction in the folio, 1632, seems hardly required : — " Thou bearest the lantern, not in the poop, but 'tis in the nose of thee.'" In the preceding line, the common blunder of thy for " my" is committed, and set right. ACT IV. SCENE I. P. 303. The corrector of the folio, 1632, restores the oath (if such it is to be considered), " Zounds," from the quartos, in Hotspur's exclamation, — " Zounds ! how has he the leisure to be sick? " The folios read, with ridiculous tameness, and most pro- saically, — ''How! has he the leisure to be sick now.'' The printing of this Act in the folios, 1623 and 1632, is full of strange blunders and exhibitions of carelessness, one of which occurs in the last line of this page, where the Mes- senger is made to say, — " His letters bear his mind, not I, his mind," SC. III.] ■ KING HENRY IV. 237 instead of " not I, my lord;" but this error originated, in fact, with the earlier quartos, where " my mind" was printed for my lord. Capel introduced the right word, as we ascertain from a manuscript note in the margin of the folio, 1632. Again, on the next page, we meet with this line, if we may so call it : — " We may boldly spend upon the hope ;" whereas, it ought to run, — " We now may boldly spend upon the hope," &c. P. 305. Worcester observes, in the folios, — " The quality and heire of our attempt Brooks no division." In the quartos of 1598 and 1599, "heire" was haire, the old mode of spelling hair ; and this, the old corrector assures us, was the true woi'd, the meaning of the speaker being (as suggested in note 1), that the power he, and the other re- volted lords could produce, was too small to allow of any division of it. P. 307. As might be expected, he restores from the quartos of 1598 and 1599,— " Harry to Harry shall, hot horse to horse ;" which the later quartos and folios misprinted, "not horse to horse." SCENE II. P. 309. For " old faced ancient," in Falstaff's description of his troops, the corrector of the folio, 1632, substitutes, "old pieced ancient," an ensign that, being old, had been patched in order to mend it. Lower down, for " there's not a shirt and a half in all my company," he more naturally reads, " there's hut a shirt and a half," &c. " Not" and hut were often confounded by the old printers. SCENE III. P. 311. There is a surplusage of two syllables, which cer- tainly weaken the effect of the passage, in a line of Sir 238 THE FIRST PART OF [aCT V. Richard Vernon's answer to Douglas, who had charged him with cowardice. The invariable reading has been, — " I hold as little counsel with weak fear, As you, my lord, or any Scot that this day lives.'' "This day" clearly overloads the line, and the manuscript- corrector credibly informs us that those words ought to be struck out as an interpolation : — " I hold as little counsel with weak fear. As you, my lord, or any Scot that lives." On th-e next page, we are told that the line, — " My father, and my uncle, and myself," ought to be " My father, with my uncle, and myself." The folios omit both " and " and with, but the quartos have " and." On the next page but one, the corrector of the folio, 1632, inserts a word, where a word is certainly wanting, but not the word in the earlier impressions : he gives the line, — " Who is, if every owner were due plac'd," instead of "well plac'd" of the quartos: the folios read de- fectively, " if every owner were plac'd." ACT V. SCENE I. P. 317. Wlien Worcester declares to the King that he had " not sought the day of this dislike," the King observes Avith surprise, — " You have not sought it ! how comes it, then ? " This line is unquestionably deficient of a syllable, and the old corrector supplies it thus : — " You have not sought it ! Say, how comes it, then ?" P. 319. The last line of the King's speech is thus given in the folios : — " Sworn to us in younger enterprise." SC. II. j KING HENRY IV. 239 It is altered by the corrector of the folio, 1632, to " Sworn to us in your younger enterprise," which accords with the early quartos. "Your" and "younger," following each other, perhaps caused the omission : see also p. 234 of this vol. SCENE II. P. 321. A question has arisen how the subsequent line, as it stands in all old editions, should be corrected: — " Supposition, all our lives, shall be stuck full of eyes." Pope altered " supposition," most properly, to suspicion, and the corrector of the folio, 1 632, did the same ; but he made no farther change : perhaps it was a line which was meant to be redundant, and, notwithstanding Farmer's proposal, we know not what words could be left out without diminishing its force. The obvious misprint of the folio, 1623, was re- peated in the folio, 1632, " Look how he can," for " Look how we can ;" but it is set right in the margin in manuscript. P. 324. The last four lines of Percy's address are these, as always hitherto printed : — " Sound all the lofty instruments of war, And by that music let us all embrace ; For, heaven to earth, some of us never shall A second time do such a courtesy." Warburton was of opinion that the poet meant that the odds were so great, that heaven might be wagered against earth, that many present would never embrace again. This is a mistake, according to the manuscript-corrector: Hotspur calls heaven and earth to witness to the improbability that some of those present would ever have an opportunity of re- greeting each other: — " 'Fore heaven and earth, some of us never shall A second time do such a courtesy." P. 326. Hotspur tells Douglas, who has slain Sir Walter Blunt, thinking him the King, because he wore the same armour and insignia, — " The King hath many marching in his coats." 240 THE FraST PART OF [aCT V. This is intelligible, and does not positively require change ; hut the old corrector substitutes a word for " marching" (the forces, at this time, were fighting, not marching), which seems much better adapted to the place : — " The King hath many mashing in his coats ;" i.e. there are many in the field who have disguised them- selves like the King, in order, like Sir "Walter Blunt, to deceive his enemies. P. 331. There could be no question as to the corruption here introduced into the text, first by the quarto, 1608, and afterwards into the quarto, lfil3, and all the folios, — " But that the earth and the cold hand of death." All the earlier quartos have it as follows, and the old cor- rector of the second folio restores the reading, — " But that the earthy and cold hand of death." It seems not unlikely that here, as in various other places, he resorted to the older impressions, but the sense might be a suflScient guide. Modern editors of course print earthy. P. 334. The old printed stage-direction, which has been repeated by all subsequent editors, informs us that Fal- staff takes Hotspur on his back, and it seems, by the same editors, that he kept the body in that position, till (after a considerable interval) he went out, bearing off the body. Judging from a manuscript stage -direction in the folio, 1632, this was not the custom of the stage in the time of the old corrector, if not earlier, for opposite the words, " There is Percy," he has written. Throw him down; and then the dialogue is continued imtil the close of Falstaff's soliloquy, ending, " and live cleanly as a nobleman should do." During this interval, the corpse of Percy must have been lying on the ground, and we can hardly suppose that Falstaff would have been able to sustain the weight, if he had had it on his back all the time he was conversing with the two princes. When the scene, therefore, was at an end, and the body must be removed, Falstaff did not take it up again, but dragged it out, and such is the written stage-direction in the margin of the folio, 1632. He first, with great difficulty, must have got the body on his back ; he then cast it down when he began to talk with the princes, and finally dragged SC. II. J KING HENRY IV. 241 it off the stage at the end of the scene. Such appears to have been the way in which the business of this part of the ■ play was formerly conducted. P. 335. We meet with a considerable improvement in the last line of Worcester's last speech ; it has always stood thus : — " What I have done my safety urg'd me to, And I embrace this fortune patiently, Since not to be avoided it falls on me." The alteration of the manuscript-corrector is trifling, but effectual, and its fitness can hardly be questioned : — " And I embrace this fortune patiently. Which not to be avoided falls on me." P. 336. The folios omit the following reply by John of Lancaster to Prince Henry, when the latter relinquishes to him the office of setting the Douglas "ransomless and free ;" that reply is found in the earlier, but not in the later quartos, in these terms : — " I thank your grace for this high courtesy, Which I will give away immediately." The corrector of the folio, 1632, inserts two corresponding lines, but the last differs materially from that quoted above, and may be thought, in some respects, to read better : — " I thank your grace for this high courtesy, Which I shall ^Mf in act without delay." This variation may induce the belief that the corrector had access to some authority independent of any of the printed copies of this play, whether in quarto or folio ; although not a few of his emendations, as we have seen, correspond with the earliest and some other quartos, which had been abandoned by the folios. THE SECOND PART OF KING HENRY IV. INDUCTION. P. 341. The folios all have,— " Stuffing the ears of them with false reports ; " a misprint, probably, from defective hearing, for the text un- questionably ought to be, as commonly given, — " Stuffing the ears of men with false reports." The corrector of the folio, 1632, altered "them" to mm. Lower down, he made " surmise," of the same edition, sur- mises, as required by sense and metre. The first only of these blunders is committed in the folio, 1623. P. 342. "We may doubt the fitness of changing "peasant- towns," as printed with a hyphen in the folios, to "pleasant towns ;" but it may be right, and it ought, therefore, to be mentioned. In the next line but one, " worm-eaten hole," of all the ancient impressions, is made " worm-eaten hold. Theobald was the first to substitute hold. ACT I. SCENE I. P. 343. The old stage-direction at the opening of the first scene, is, Enter Lord Bardolph and the Porter, as if they ACT I.j KING HENRY IV. 243 made their appearance before the audience at the same moment : the modern stage-direction has been, The Porter before the gate ; enter Lord Bardolph. It should appear from a stage-direction in manuscript, in the folio, 1 632, that the old practice was for Lord Bardolph to enter first, and as soon as he asked, " Who keeps the gate here ? ho ! " for the Warder (so called) to show himself ahove the castle-gate, and from thence to answer Lord Bardolph. The Warder made his exit as soon as Northumberland entered. P. 345. There can be no question that the printer of the folio, 1623, in the first line of this page, mistakenly repeated " able," as applied to heels, because he had placed the same epithet before "horse," in the preceding line. In the last instance, the word ought to be armed instead of " able" : — " With ttiat he gave his able horse the head. And bending forward, struck his armed heels Against the panting sides," &c. It is '^ armed heels" in the quarto, 1600 ; and if the corrector of the folio, 1632, did not obtain that word from thence, he might have heard the passage accurately recited on the stage in his day, or possibly he used some independent, but concurrent authority. P. 348. Theobald's em^dation of " ragged'st hour," of the old copies, to " rugged' st hour," which several more recent editors have not admitted, in the line, — " The ragged'st hour that time and spite dare bring," is warranted by the old corrector, who merely converts a into u in the margin. SCENE II. P. 857. The following manuscript-correction accords with no copy of this play that has come down to us : it is part of Palstaff's speech to the Chief Justice, " Virtue is of so little regard in these costermonger days, that true valour is turned bear-herd." It is " costermonger times" in the quarto, 1600, while in the folios the necessary word is altogether omitted. Lower down, the old corrector has added, with an asterisk at the proper place, the words, about three of the afternoon, a 2 244 THE SECOND PART OF [act I. ■which do not precisely agree with the quarto, which reads, "about three o'clock in the afternoon:" the folios have no trace of them. On the next page, he leaves out the whole of Falstaff's speech after " well, I cannot last ever," which he makes " last /or* ever." It is only found in the quarto, 1600. P. S59. Few things can be more evident than the ne- cessity of an emendation in the following passage : " A man can no more separate age and covetousness, than he can part young limbs and lechery ; but the gout galls the one, and the pox pinches the other, and so both the degrees prevent my curses." What here are " the degrees ?" The poet is referring to two diseases, not to two " degrees," and the copyist must have misheard diseases, and written " de- grees." "We must read with the old corrector, " and so both the diseases prevent my curses," i. e. anticipate my curses. SCENE III. P. 361. The first twenty lines of Lord Bardolph's second speech, on this page, are only in the folio impressions, and the corrector of that of 1632 shows that they have been most corruptly printed, probably from defects in the manuscript in the hands of the compositor. Malone and others set right one error in the first line, by converting " if" to in, but the second line appears to be even more strangely blundered, for instead of " Indeed the instant action, a cause on foot," &c., we ought to read the whole passage thus : it is in answer to Northumberland's question, whether it could do harm to hope ? — " Yes, in this present quality of war : Indeed the instant act and cause on foot Lives so in hope, as in the early spring We see appearing huds," &c. Thus the measure is amended, and the sense cleared. But, farther on. Lord Bardolph draws a parallel between the building of a house and the carrying on a war, which is ob- scured by the omission of a whole line, fortunately inserted in the margin by the old corrector. Our first extract is as it stands in the folios, and we will follow it by the same quota- tion as amended. The speaker is supposing that a man ACT II.J KING HENRY IV. 245 purposes at first to construct a dwelling, which he afterwards finds beyond his means : — "What do we then, but draw anew the model In fewer offices ; or at least desist To build at all ? Much more in this great work, (Which is almost to pluck a kingdom down And set another up) should we survey The plot of situation, and the model, Consent upon a sure foundation, Question surveyors, know our own estate How able such a work to undergo, To weigh against his opposite ; or else We fortify in paper and in figures," &e. As amended by the old corrector, the same passage runs as follows : — " What do we then, hut draw anew the model In fewer offices ; or at last desist To build at all ? Much more in this great work, (Whicli is almost to pluck a kingdom down And set another up) should we survey The plot, the situation, and the model. Consult upon a sure foundation. Question surveyors, know our own estate. How able such a work to undergo. A careful leader sums what force he brings To weigh against his opposite ; or else We fortify on paper, and in figures," &c. That the furnishing of this new connecting line (to say nothing of verbal emendations, the first of which Steevens speculated upon) between Lord Bardolph's simile and its ap- plication, is an important improvement, although the ques- tion still returns upon us, from whence was it derived ? ACT II. SCENE I. P. 365. In the speech of the Hostess we find, " A hundred mark is a long one for a poor lone woman to bear," altered to " A hundred mark is a long score for a poor lone woman to bear," with indisputable fitness, P. 373, The Page, describing Bardolph peeping through the " red lattice" of an ale-house, observes : " At last I spied 246 THE SECOND PART OF [acT II. his eyes ; and, methought he had made two holes in the ale- wives' new petticoat, and peeped through." The word red is inserted in manuscript before " petticoat," in order to make the resemblance more distinct, but it would scarcely be ne- cessary, if ale-wives usually wore red petticoats at the time. SCENE II. P. 374. The prefixes are so arranged by the corrector of the folio, 1632, that the Prince, and not Poins, is made to read Falstaff's letter aloud, which, according to a manuscript stage-direction, he shows to Poins. Several literal and trifling verbal corrections are inserted in this part of the scene : the only one it is necessary to notice is the remark of the Prince, " That's but to make him eat twenty of his words : " but is wanting in all the old copies. Warburton proposed plenty for " twenty," but without the slightest necessity, and the manuscript-corrector supports no such change. SCENE IV. P. 381. Falstaff enters singing, according to a manu- script stage-direction, and it might be gathered from the fragment of the ballad printed. On the same authority, he sings, " Your broaches, pearls, and owches," as the frag- ment of another ballad. In his preceding speech, he ad- dresses the words, " Grant that, my poor virtue, grant that," to Doll Tearsheet ; but the old corrector alters " poor" to pure, used ironically, which was doubtless the poet's word. The folios, after EalstaflF's speech ending, " to venture upon the charged chambers bravely," omit what DoU says, according to the quarto, " Hang yourself, you muddy conger, hang yourself ; " and, excepting the two last words, the manu- script-corrector has duly inserted them with the proper prefix. It is to be remarked, however, that when, on p. 384, Falstaff exclaims, " No more. Pistol," fee, as it stands only in the quarto, that speech is not added by the corrector to the folio, 1632. In this respect his practice was by no means consistent ; and, possibly, whatever authority he may have had was inconsistent also. ACT IV.] KING HENRY IV, 247 ACT III. SCENE I. P. 394. Two corrections, the second adopted by some com- mentators, the first not thought of by them, are introduced in the folio, 1632, in the King's soliloquy upon sleep. The first is in the line, — "Under the canopies of costly state;" which we are told to read, — " Under high canopies of costly state." When "high" was spelt Aie, as was not unfrequent of old, the misprint might easily have been made, and Jdgh adds considerably to the force of the line. The second correction occurs lower down, where " clouds " is erased with a pen, and shrowds written at the side. It has been a much de- bated point among editors, which was the authentic word, " clouds" or shrowds, and this emendation may serve to settle the question. P. 395. The corrector of the folio, 1632, did not add, from the quarto, the four lines, within brackets, in the middle of King Henry's speech. A leaf, paged respectively 87 and 88, is deficient in the corrected folio of 1632. ACT IV. SCENE I. P. 409, The folio, 1632, in the line,— " Here doth he wish his person, with such powers,'' &c., misprints "here" how; but the error (not committed in the folio, 1623) is set right by the old corrector. Lower down, at the end of Mowbray's speech, he points out a curious blunder, arising, in all likelihood, from mishearing on the part of the scribe, which has been the occasion of several notes. In old and modern impressions, the line has thus been printed : — " Let us sway on, and face them in the field." Johnson truly says that he had never seen "sway" used in this 2-18 THE SECOND PART OF [aCT IV, sense, and Steevens takes the trouble to insert several quota- tions in wliich " sway" is found, but always in its ordinary meaning, so that .they prove nothing. The plain truth is that the copyist ought to have written different words, that have exactly the same sound, viz. : — "Let's away on, and face them in the field." We need have no hesitation in at once admitting this change of the received text. P. 410. This part of the play is extremely ill printed in every old copy, blunders having been continued from one to the other, some of which have never been detected, ex- cepting by the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632. West- moreland says to Scroop : — " If that rebellion Came like itself in base and abject routs, Led on by bloody youth, guarded with rage. And countenanc'd by boys and beggary," &c. For " guarded with rage," we must read " guarded (i. e. orna- mented, used ironically) with rags," which is quite con- sistent with the rest of the passage. Again, nearer the end of the same speech, glaves or glaives is misprinted " graves ;" and the last line of what Westmoreland says, is thus given in the folio, 1623 : — " To a loud trumpet and a point of war." Here " point of war" can have no meaning ; but the close of the passage, in which the noble envoy from the King re- proaches the Archbishop for abandoning his profession and raising the standard of rebellion, ought to be thus printed in future : — " Turning your books to glaives, your ink to blood. Your pens to lances, and your tongue divine. To a loud trumpet and report of war." The folio, 1632, makes the matter worse by putting fowfor " loud" of the folio, 1623. In "Richard HI.," Act IV. Scene IV., we have the expression, "the clamorous report of war." P. 412. It may be fit to state that the corrector of the folio, 1632, does not notice the lines from the quarto, which are marked as omitted, nor does he clear up the difficulty regarding the Archbishop's speech, in reply to Westmore- SC. III.] KING HENRY IV. 249 land's question, why he in particular had joined the re- bellion. P. 415. There is an undeniable error in the subsequent lines, at the end of Scroop's speech : — " So that this land, like an offensive wife That hath enrag'd him on to offer strokes, As he is striking, holds his infant up. And hangs resolv'd correction in the arm That was uprear'd to execution." To whom does " him " refer ? Indisputably to the husband ; and the line in which it occurs ought to run as follows, as we' learn from the manuscript-corrector : — "That hath enrag'd her man to offer strokes," &c. Her man, in some way, either by mishearing or- misprint, became " him on." SCENE II. P. 417. The conclusion of Prince John's reproof to the Archbishop has generally stood thus : — " You have taken up Under the counterfeited zeal of heaven The subjects of heaven's substitute," &c. The quarto, published before the act of James I., has Ood for " heaven," but the error lies in " zeal" for seal : — "Under the counterfeited seal of heaven" must be the true reading, and "zeal" is converted into seal by the corrector of the folio, 1632. The "seal divine," which Scroop was charged with misapplying, has been before mentioned by Westmoreland on p. 41 1. SCENE III. P. 421. Falstaff's joke, such as it is, upon Sir John Cole- vile of the Dale, has been lost by a strange misprint of " place" for dale, twice in the ensuing quotation : " Colevile shall be your name, a traitor your degree, and the dungeon your place — a place deep enough ; so shall you be still Colevile of the Dale." " Place," in both instances, ought to have been dale, " and the dungeon your dale — a dale deep 250 THE SECOND PART OF [aCT IV. enough," &c. The manuscript-corrector has substituted dak for both " places." SCENE IV. P. 429. The manuscript stage-direction after the line " O me ! come near me, now I am much il]," is not swoons, as in modern editions, but falls back, we may suppose, into the arms of the Dukes of Gloucester and Clarence : the old printed copies are without any note of the kind ; and, just before, ■when Westmoreland and Harcourt bring news, and deliver written accounts of it to the King, it is left to be inferred that they did so ; but, lest any mis- take should be made by the performers, the old corrector, in both cases, writes in the margin. Gives a paper. Afterwards, when the King desires his nobles to bear him into some other chamber, the audience was left to imagine a change of apartment, for the simple stage-direction is. Put the King a-bed; and soon afterwards Prince Henry comes in, and takes away the crown. P. 431. In note 8 it is conjectured that "rigol" might be a misprint for ringol, both here and in "Lucrece," where Shakespeare also uses it. However this may be, it is certain that the corrector of the folio, 1632, here converts "rigol" into ringol, by putting n in the margin, and such was, perhaps, the original mode of spelling the word. Steevens was not aware " that it was used by any other author than Shakes- peare," but Middleton, his contemporary, applies the com- pound "rigol-eyed" to the round eyes of young women, in his " Black Book," 1604, which has been strangely misunder- stood wriggle-eyed, a word that has no meaning. P. 436. For " win," in the subsequent line, — " That thou might'st win the more thy father's love," the folios have joyne, for which misprint it is easy to ac- count, when we recollect that " win" was of old often spelt Wynne. The old corrector strikes out joyne in favour of " win," or, as he writes it, winne. P. 437. The expression, "for what in me was purchas'd," ACT v.] KING HENRY IV. 251 the manuscript-corrector changes to "for what in me was purchase," i. e. booty, a meaning constantly given to the word by our poet and his contemporaries ; the verb, to pur- chase, was, we believe, never used in this sense. Lower down, doubts have arisen whether, in the following line, the first " thy" ought not to be my : — "And all thy friends, which thou must make thy friends," because afterwards the King observes, — " Which to avoid I cut them off." The old corrector tells us to read, " And all my friends," and "I cut some off;" which seems right, inasmuch as Henry adds, that it had been his intention, if his health had per- mitted, to lead others to the Holy Land, " Lest rest and lying still might make them look Too near unto my state." ACT V. SCENE L P. 441. The folios all have, "and he shall laugh with in- tervallums," instead of " without inter Valiums," which is the text of the quarto, and to which the passage is restored by a manuscript-correction. SCENE III. P. 452. It was probably intended that Pistol, in his joy at the accession of Henry V., should end this scene with a couplet, but it closes as follows : — " ' Where is the life that late I led,' say they ; Why here it is : welcome these pleasant days." The change required is only, " welcome this pleasant day," to which the old corrector alters the line : he also underscores it as a quotation, and we may feel assured that it was part of the same popular ballad mentioned by Petruchio in " The Taming of the Shrew," Act IV. Scene I. vol. iii. p. 168. 252 KING HENRY IV. [aCT V. P. 458. In the second paragraph of the "Epilogue" by one that can dance (as we are informed in a manuscript pa- renthesis), the word " forgiven," of the folio, 1 623, is for- gotten in that of 1632, but corrected in manuscript ; and after the speaker had knelt down " to pray for the Queen," it is clear that he rose again in order to treat the audience with a dance, for the old corrector adds these words, quite at the close and in a new line, End with a dance. The con- jecture, therefore, hazarded in note 2, is, so far, not sup- ported. KING HENRY V. p. 465. In the folios, the thirty-four introductory lines are headed, "Enter Prologue," but the corrector of the folio, 1632, has altered the title thus, "Enter Chorus as Prologue." In the body of the play, the speaker of the interlocutory de- scriptions is called "Chorus;" and the same at the end, where we have " Chorus " above what was clearly meant as the Epilogue : the corrector, has, therefore, thus amended the heading in the last instance, "Enter Chorus as Epilogue." In the eighteenth line, "imaginary" has the last syllable altered, but a water-stain in the margin of the folio, 1632, prevents our being able to distinguish what was intended : imaginative could hardly be Shakespeare's word. ACT I. SCENE II. P. 471. In the long speech of the Archbishop, in defence of Henry's title to France, those parts which relate espe- cially to the succession of the Kings of France, in connexion with the salique law, and which were almost verbatim de- rived from Holinshed, are struck out with a pen, as if they would not have been well relished by a popular audience, and might be (and perhaps were) dispensed with in the per- formance of the play. Nevertheless, the corrections are carried throughout, and near the bottom of p. 472, — " To find his title with some shows of truth," is not altered to " to fine his title," as in Malone, &c., but to " to found his title," which, on some accounts, may be con- sidered the better reading of the three. 254 KING HENRY V. [acT I. P. 475. The King, speaking of Scotland, says, — " Who hath been still a giddy neighbour to us." The old corrector inserts greedy for " giddy : " either word will suit the place, whether we suppose Henry to mean that Scotland has been an unsteady neighbour, or a rapacious one, anxious to seize all opportunities of pillaging England. Greedy seems rather better adapted to the context, but the printed copies are uniformly in favour of " giddy." Lower down, we need have less doubt regarding the altera- tion of an important word : — "The King of Scots, whom she did send to France To fill King Edward's fame with prisoner kings." The manuscript-correction here is train for " fame." P. 476. In the subsequent passage, — " Playing the mouse in absence of the cat. To tear and havoc more than she can eat," the folios have tame, and the quartos spoil, for "tear." " Tear," which was conjecturally placed in the text, is sup- ported by an emendation in the folio, 1632, where teare for " tame'' is written in the margin. In the next line but one, the old corrector seems to have taken "crush'd" in the sense of compelled; while for "but," of the old copies, he has substituted not, a misprint of the most frequent occurrence : — " Yet that is not a crush'd necessity," &c. In the last line but one of this page, for " sorts," the plausible alteration is state : — " They have a king and ofiBcers oi state." P. 477. The line, as it has always been printed, — " Come to one mark ; as many ways meet in one town," is obviously overloaded, and the corrector of the folio, 1632, gives it, with the context, thus : — "As many arrows, loosed several ways. Come to one mark ; as many ways unite ; As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea," &c. Thus the repetition of the word " meet," in two succeeding lines, is avoided; but it may still be a question, whether SC. II.] KING HENRY V. 255 Shakespeare might not wish here to vary the regularity of his lines by interposing one of twelve syllables. Two lines lower, "And in one purpose," is amended to "End in one purpose," precisely the same literal error that was committed in " All's Well that Ends Well," vol. ii. p. 252. See also Vol. p. 161. P. 479. From two stage-directions it appears that the tun of tennis balls, sent by the Dauphin, was exhibited and opened by Exeter on the stage^ in sight of the audience : Show it, and Open it, are written in the margin of the folio, 1632. A striking change is made in some lines where Henry refers to his intended visit to his kingdom of France, which he affects to prefer to that of England : — " I will keep my state, Be like a king, and show my sail of greatness. When I do rouse me in my throne of France." The word " sail" here has little meaning, and will certainly seem to have less when we mention the word proposed in the place of it : — " I will keep my state. Be like a king, and show my soul of greatness, When I do rouse me in my throne of France." We cannot believe that this emendation will be disputed : it is that of the corrector of the folio, 1632. P. 480. In the following, as in many other instances, the substitution of a single letter, makes a great improvement. The King is urging the utmost expedition of preparation for the invasion of France, and, as the passage has invariably been printed, he says, — " Therefore, let our proportions for these wars Be soon collected, and all things thought upon That may with reasonable swiftness add More feathers to our wings." Now "reasonable swiftness" was not at all what he wished, but instant dispatch ; and we ought indubitably to read, — " That may with seasonable swiftness add More feathers to our wings." The greater the speed, the more seasonable for the purpose of the speaker. 256 KING HENRY V. [acT II, ACT II. p. 480. In the third line of the Choras, we are told to read, not " Now thrive the armourers," &c., but " Now strive the armourers," &c., in reference to the vast exertions they were making in preparations for the army about to embark at Southampton. This, we feel convinced, was the poet's word, who was not at all contemplating the profit the ar- mourers would reap from the expedition : — " Now strive the armourers, and honour's thought Reigns solely in the breast of every man." P. 481 . Pope completed a defective line in the Chorus as follows : — "Th' abuse of distance, while we force a play." " Wliile we" is in no ancient copy ; and the old corrector of the folio, 1632, informs us that the words wanting were not those, for he puts it, — " Th' abuse of distance, and so force a play." SCENE I. P. 482. In Nym's speech, the words, "there shall be smiles," are altered to, " there shall be smites," i. e. blows, which exactly accords with Farmer's suggestion, and smites, he adds, is used in this way in the midland counties of England. In Nym's next speech, at the top of the next page, the old corrector has " tired jade," instead of " tired name" of the folios. The quartos read " tired mare," which is unques- tionably to be preferred to name, and, probably, to jade. SCENE II. P. 488. By too earnest an anxiety to follow the old copies, an evident misprint, which could nevertheless be reconciled to fitness by ingenuity, has been preserved. It is in one of the King's speeches at Southampton, ordering the enlarge- ment of a drunkard who had railed on him, and the passage has always been thus printed : — SC. IV.] KING HENRY V. 257 " It was excess of wine that set him on, And on his more advice, we pardon him." Our is substituted for "his," in the folio, 1632; it was on the King's " more advice," and not on that of the prisoner, that he was to be set at liberty. On the same page, the King inquires, as it has always stood, — " Who are the late commissioners?" which has been strained by Monk Mason to mean, who are the "lately appointed commissioners?" but the old corrector shows that "late commissioners" was a misprint, or a mis- hearing, for " state commissioners" — the commissioners who were to be in charge of the state during the absence of the King in France. SCENE III. P. 493. We are sorry to be obliged to part with Theobald's fanciful emendation in Mrs. Quickly's description of the death of Falstaff, "for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and a' babbled of green fields," founded upon the following words in the old copies, never understood, and containing two mis- prints, which we shall point out presently on the autho- rity of the corrector of the folio, 1632 — "for his nose was as sharp as a pen and a table of green fields." The mention of "a pen" and "a table," might have led to the detection of the error: writing-tables were no doubt at that period often covered with green cloth ; and it is to the sharpness of a pen, as seen in strong relief on a table so covered, that Mrs. Quickly likens the nose of the dying wit and philoso- pher — " for his nose was as sharp as a pen on a table of green frieze." The emendation is merely on for " and," and frieze for "fields ;" and it is found in the margin of the folio, 1632. Pope's ridiculous suggestion respecting " a table of Green- fields," whom he supposed (there is no extraneous syllable to countenance the notion) to have been the property man of the theatre, has long been exploded ; and such, we appre- hend, must now be the fate of other proposals in connexion with this obviously corrupt passage. SCENE IV. P. 497. We cannot hesitate to believe that the Hne, — g 258 KING HENRY V. [aCT III. "Whiles that his mountain sire, on mountain standing," is corrupt ; and a manuscript-correction in the folio, 1632, skows that it ought to be read, in accordance with a previous line, descriptive of the same persons and scene, on p. 474, — " Whiles that his mighty sire, on mountain standing," &c. The copyist or the printer blundered, and put " mountain" twice over in the same line. ACT ni. p. 500. In the Chorus, describing the embarkation and sailing of Henry V. from Southampton, we read, — " Behold the threaden sails, Borne with th' invisible and creeping wind. Draw the huge bottoms through the furrow'd sea." It is true that, in a certain sense, the sails of a ship may be said to be " borne" by the wind ; but the old corrector sup- plies us with a word which, as it is more picturesque, as well as appropriate, we may confidently attribute to the poet: — " Behold the threaden sails, Blown with th' invisible and creeping wind, Draw the huge bottoms through the furrow'd sea." SCENE II. P. 503. It is evident, from mere perusal, that the frag- ments of ballads quoted by Pistol and the Boy, in the be- ginning of this scene, are imperfectly given. Without thinking it necessary here to quote the ordinary text, we will subjoin the manner in which the dialogue, containing the extracts, ought to be conducted, according to the old corrector of the folio, 1632 : — "Pistol. The plain song is most just, for humours do abound: Knocks go and come To all and some, God's vassals /ee^ the same, And sword and shield In bloody field Do win immortal fame. SC. VI.] KING HENRY V. 259 Boy. Would I were in an alehouse in London ! I would give all my fame for a pot of ale and safety. , Putol And I If wishes would prevail with me, My purpose should not fail with me, But thither would I now. Boy. And as duly. But not as truly. As bird doth sing on bough." It will be easy to compare the above with the words as usually printed, and there can be little doubt that the old cor- rector had access to some means of information which we do not now possess. We give the words he supplies in Italics, but the whole appears as prose in the folios, and there is no trace of it in the quarto editions. SCENE III. P. 507. The second folio absurdly has, — " Array'd in games like to the prince of friends," instead of "array'd in flames" of the first folio ; but the' old corrector makes them agree. On the next page he corrects "Desire the locks," as it stands in both folios, to "Defile the locks," which was Pope's manifest improvement. SCENE IV. P. 509. This entire French scene, between Katharine and her female attendant, is struck out by the corrector of the folio, 1632, who did^ not venture to offer any changes in the many misprints. SCENE VI. P. 516. Gower is speaking of counterfeit and begging soldiers, who pretend to have seen great service, and observes of them, that they study perfectly military phrases, " which they trick up with new-tuned oaths." ' For " new-tuned oaths," the old corrector assures us, with every appearance of truth, that we should read " new-corned oaths." s 2 ^60 KING HENRY V. [acT IV. SCENE VII. P. 519. The Dauphin, vehement in praise of his horse exclaims, " He bounds from the earth as if his entrails were hairs," which Warburton explains by an allusion to tennis- balls, which were stuffed with hair ; but the misprint in the folios was occasioned by the wrong use of the aspirate, for a marginal note in the folio, 1632, most plausibly substitutes air for " hairs," and therefore reads, " He bounds from the earth, as if his entrails were air." ACT IV. SCENE I. ^ P. 528. A question has arisen whether Fluellen's injunc- tion to Gower ought to be to " speak fewer," as it stands in the old copies, or to "speak lower," according to the or- dinary phrase. The manuscript-corrector alters " fewer" to lower. P. 533. A line in the King's soliloquy, — " What is thy soul of adoration ?" has hitherto presented insurmountable difficulties to the commentators. Henry is descanting upon the vanity of regal accompaniments, maintaining that ceremony is all that distinguishes a monarch from a subject, and, apostrophising ceremony, he asks, — "What are thy rents? what are thy comings in? O ceremony ! show me but thy worth ! What is thy soul of adoration ? " The old corrector points out this last line as having been misprinted ; and reading it as follows, the whole dispute between Johnson, Steevens, and Malone, seems at an end : — " O ceremony ! show me but thy worth ; What is thy soul but adulation ?" which is strongly supported by the whole context, and es- pecially by two lines that follow almost immediately : — " Think'st thou the flery fever will go out With titles blown from adulation ?" SC. in.] - KING HENRY V. 261 Therefore, the answer, when Henry asks what is the worth of ceremony, is what he himself supplies, that the soul of cere- mony is nothing but adulation. P. 634. "We may probably accept the next emendation in the same soliloquy. The King is comparing the happiness and sound slumbers of a slave with the restless nights of a king ; the former, according to the universally received text, — 'J Gets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful bread ;" but if the bread he ate were " distressful," if it were earned with misery and suffering, the simile would not hold ; so that we may infer that "distressful" was not Shakespeare's word. According to a manuscript -correction in the folio, 16'32, the epithet was misprinted, and we ought to read, — " Gets him to rest, cramm'd with distasteful bread ;" that is to say, bread which was abundant, and well relished by the humble, but which, from its coarseness, would be dis- tasteful to kings and princes. SCENE III. P. 542. A passage in which the King supposes that the dead bodies of the English, left in France, will putrify and infect the air, and thus pursue their enmity to the in- habitants, has never been properly understood, because never properly worded ; it has been thus given in ancient as well as modern editions : — " Mark, then, abounding valour in our English ; That, being dead, like to the bullet's grazing, Break out into a second course of mischief, Killing in relapse of mortality." The simile of the bullet's grazing from one object, which it destroys, to another, which it also wounds, shows that we ought not to read " abounding," but " rebounding valour'' of the English ; and that, instead of " relapse," which ill suits the rhythm of the line, we ought to read reflex, in allusion to the power of the bullet to injure, when reflected backward from the object first struck. The four lines, therefore, ought to be printed in this manner : — 262 KING HENRY V. [aCT IV. " Mark, then, rebounding valour in our English, That, being dead, like to the bullet's grazing, Break out into a second course of mischief. Killing in reflex of mortality." Theobald printed " a bounding valour/' and saw the meaning of the poet, as far as that word is concerned, though he did not give the right emendation ; but Malone poorly imagined that "abounding" was only to be taken as abundant; and neither of them had any notion that " relapse" was a mis- print for reflex. Both these changes are made by the cor- rector of the folio, 1632. SCENE VI. P. 548. Exeter giving a description of the deaths of York and Suffolk, speaking of the former, says, as the text has been always repeated, — " In which array, brave soldier, doth he lie, Larding the plain." Steevens illustrates the word "larding" by a passage in Henry IV. Part I. Act II. Scene 2, where it is humorously said of Falstaff that he "lards the lean earth as he walks along." No quotation could well be less apposite : Falstaff larded the lean earth by the perspiration which fell from his huge carcase ; but it is no where said that the Duke of York was obese, nor have we any reason to suppose that it might be appropriately said of him after death that he " larded the plain ;" the true word is thus given in manuscript : — " In which array, brave soldier, doth he lie Loading the plain." SCENE VII. P. 551. Montjoy, the herald, after the battle comes to ask leave on behalf of the French to select and bury their dead ; but hitherto the line has been given as if he asked leave to " book" the dead, and as if the French had been in a con- dition to take and note down a particular account of them. The fact is, that look, in the sense of search for, or select, has been misprinted " book : " — " I come to thee for chai-itable licence. That we may wander o'er this bloody field. To look our dead, and then to bury them." ACT v.] KING HENRY V. 263 The manusoript-corrector merely altered the first letter of "book ;" and the use oilook, as above, is frequent in all our old writers. It was an English herald who made out a state- ment of the killed, wounded, and prisoners on both sides, and afterwards presented it to the King. ACT V. P. 559. In the Chorus which opens this Act, the first words are altered from " Vouchsafe to those," to " Vouchsafe all those ;" and in the next line, instead of "and of such as have," we are told to read, "and /or such as have." A more material change was made when the celebrated lines, which relate to the return of the Earl of Essex from Ireland, were struck out. We may easily believe that they would be dis- tasteful at any time after that nobleman's execution, but we may presume that they were not recited in the time of the corrector of the folio, 1632, if only because they could then have no application. They form, however, one of the least disputable, as well as one of the most important notes of time, to be found in any of the plays of our great dramatist. SCENE II. P. 565. The Duke of Burgundy, in the course of his long harangue, asks why peace should not, as formerly, in France, — " put up her lovely visage ? " < An awkward phrase arising, no doubt, from the misprint of one short word for another, and the manuscript-corrector therefore has, — " Should not in this best garden of the world. Our fertile France, lift up her lovely visage?" This change may, nevertheless, have been proposed as a mere matter of taste. P. 667. A trifling error of the press has been committed in the last line of the speech of the French King, in reply to. Henry's request that he would answer, whether he re- 2C4 KING HENRY V. [acT V. fused or accepted the articles of peace proposed. As always printed, the passage has stood, — " We will suddenly Pass our accept, and peremptory answer." "Pass our accept" seems to have been taken for "pass our acceptance," hut what the French King intends to say is, that, after further consideration, he wiU either pass by articles to which he may object, or accept others which seem admissible : he says, — " Pleaseth your grace To appoint some of your council presently To sit witt us once more, with better heed To re-survey them, we will suddenly Pass, or accept, and peremptory answer." The blunder here was merely "our" for or, and this use of the word "pass" was common. A few lines lower, we may feel assured that the line, — " Shall see advantageable for our dignity," was written by the poet, — " Shall see advantage for our dignity ;" and, accordingly, able is erased by the corrector of the folio, 1632. P. 571 The corner of the leaf, containing the interview between Henry V. and Katharine, has been torn away, and there is here only one emendation that demands notice : it occurs not far from the end of the scene, where the King ob- serves, " I dare not swear thou lovest me ; yet my blood begins to flatter me thou dost, notwithstanding the poor and untem- pering effect of my visage." Warburton's note is " Certainly untempting ;" and he was right, for a marginal correction directs us to read untempting for " untempering." P. 573. All the folios have, "girdled with maiden walls, that war hath entered," a negative having been accidentally omitted ; modern editors have invariably inserted " never ;" but, although the difference is not material, the true word was probably not, " that war hath not entered," because the old corrector places it in the margin. THE FIRST PART OF KING HENRY VI. ACT I. SCENE I. Vol. V. p. 9. The subsequent imperfect couplet closes Bed- ford's speech just before the entrance of the Messenger : — "A far more glorious star thy soul will make. Than Julius Caesar on bright ." Johnson proposed to fill the blank with Berenice, which, in any point of view, could hardly be right. Malone was of opinion that the blank had been left, because the copyist could not read the name ; it is improbable that the copyist could not read the name, and still more improbable, that, even if he could not read it, he would have hesitated in putting down something, whether right or wrong. The cor- rector of the folio, 1632, wrote Cassiope in the margin, which, as far as regards the measure, answers the purpose ; but from whence he derived the information, it is impos- sible to conjecture : he therefore reads, — "Than Julius Csesar on bright Cassiope." P. 10. In the following line, the folio, 1632, omits an im- portant word, — " Reignier, duke of Anjou, doth take his part." The old corrector inserted " take," which, perhaps, he found in the folio, 1 623 ; at all events, it was not necessary for him to go to any other authority for it, if even to that. 266 THE FIRST PART OP [aCT I. P. 12. The line lias always created a difficulty, where it is said of Sir John Fastolfe, — " He being in the vaward, plac'd behind," &c., which is a contradiction in terms, unless we suppose, with Monk Mason, that the English army being attacked from behind, the rear became the van. A manuscript-correctioa makes it evident that " vaward" was a misprint for rear- ward : — " He being in the rearward, plac'd behind With purpose to relieve and follow them." P. 13. The ensuing emendation is one of those which may Lave been introduced as a mere matter of taste, although it seems more likely that cause should have been the poet's word, considering how ill " make" sounds in the place where it occurs : — " Ten thousand soldiers with me I will take, Whose bloody deeds shall make all Europe quake." The old corrector erases " make," and substitutes cause. It was Monk Mason's excellent proposal, that the Bishop of Winchester should say, at the end of this scene, — "The King from Eltham I intend to steal," And sit at chiefest stern of public weal." The old copies have invariably, — "The King from Eltham I intend to send;" but there is little doubt that a rhyme was meant, and that the copyist or compositor caught the termination of " send" from the preceding verb. The corrector of the second folio wiote steal in the margin, and struck out "send;" and we shall see hereafter that in several other places he restores rhymes, which had either been obscured by corruption, or, possibly, changed, because audiences in his time did not so weU relish the recurrence of same-sounding words. SCENE II. P. 14. When the Dauphin observes, in reference to the disastrous state of English affairs in France, — " At pleasure here we lie near Orleans, Otherwhiles, the famish'd English, like pale ghosts, Faintly besiege us one hour in a month ;" SC. 11.] KING HENRY VI. 267 we may be satisfied that the second line, for the sake of measure and meaning, ought to run, — " The whiles the famish'd English, like pale ghosts," &c. The correction in the folio, 1632, is precisely this ; and it is surprising that so small, so obvious, and so easy a corruption as "otherwhiles" should have remained till now in the text of this drama. Lower down in the page occurs another decided blunder, which has never been noticed, nor set right. The French generals have been ridiculing the forbearance of the English in not daring to press the siege, and at last the Dauphin declares his determination to attack the enemy, and compel them to raise it : — " Sound, sound alarum ! we will rush on them. Now for the honour of the forlorn French." Why should he call the French " forlorn" at the very moment of their triumph ? It is an indisputable error : — "Now for the honour of the forborne French, ' ' must be the true word, and it is furnished in manuscript. The French had been forborne by the English, because the latter were not in a condition to press the siege. The word is printed "forlorne" in the folios, and the old corrector had nothing more to do than to alter the letter I to h. In the last line he puts flee for " fly," making it rhyme with " me" in the preceding line. P. 16. There seems no ground for preserving an evident transposition in " Heaven and our Lady gracious hath it pleas'd," instead of " our gracious Lady,'' as it is marked by the cor- rector of the folio, 1632, unless "gracious" be to be taken as graciously. P. 1 7. The following seems to have been written originally as a rhyming couplet ; it occurs at the end of the speech where the Dauphin challenges Joan of Arc to the combat : — " And, if thou vanquishest, thy words are true, Otherwise I renounce all confidence." The last line is almost ridiculously prosaic, and the change 268 THE FIRST PART OP [aCT I. recommended by a note in the folio, 1632, is small, but a de- cided improvement : — " And, if thou vanquishest, thy words are true, Or I renounce all confidence in you." SCENE III. P. 19. At the beads of some of the scenes in this play, we are, rather unusually, informed of the place of action. The corrector of the folio, 1632, tells us that this angry inter- view between the Duke of Gloucester and Beaufort takes place at the Tower; but it would have been more correct to have said, near the Tower : London is also added, to show that the scene had been removed from France. The next scene is supposed to be in France again, and that word is therefore placed in the margin. The second scene of Act III. is at Rouen, or Roane, as it was spelt of old ; and at the head of the third scene we are told that the stage still repre- sents Roane. This circumstance may, perhaps, be taken as indicating that peculiar pains were bestowed upon this play, and the alterations of different kinds are sometimes even more minute than elsewhere. SCENE IV. P. 26. It has been most strangely made a question by Steevens, whether when " vile-esteem'd" is misprinted in the folios, "pil'd esteemed" ("vile" being frequently spelt vild in the time of Shakespeare), the poet did not mean that Talbot complained that he had been phiUstined. There is not the slightest ground for any such notion : Shakespeare, as Malone remarked, uses the very word " vile-esteemed" in his sonnets, and the manuscript -corrector of the folio, 1632, states that he also used it in the subsequent, which is the disputed line, — " Rather than I would be so vile-esteem'd." P. 26. The eight lines following — " In thirteen battles Salisbury o'ercame," are struck out, most likely for the purpose of shortening Talbot's harangue. A leaf is wanting in the corrected copy of the second folio, between p. 100 and p. 103. ACT II.] KING HENRY VI. 269 ACT II. SCENE III. p. 38. Talbot's imperfect line, — " That will I show you presently," is completed by the corrector by the insertion of the word lady, which, no doubt, in some way escaped from the text : — "That will I show you, lady, presently;" and then, winding his horn, his soldiers appear. SCENE IV. P. 41. It is enough to state that the misprint o{ fashion for "faction," which Warburton pertinaciously refused to correct, is set right in manuscript in the margin of the second folio. P. 42. The line, as constantly printed, — " He bears him on the place's privilege," referring to the Temple, also appears to contain an error of the press. Plantagenet is speaking of Somerset, and of the insults he had offered to Suffolk ; and, according to the cor- rected folio, 1632, we ought to read, — " He bravea him on the place's privilege.'' Consistently with this emendation, Plantagenet, on the next page, exclaims, — " How am I brav'd, and must perforce endure it ! " Lower down on the same page, instead of " A thousand souls to death and deadly night," the old corrector has " Ten thousand souls," &c. ; and " a thousand souls" seems a very insignificant number to be pro- phesied on such an occasion, as likely to fall in the Wars of the Roses. SCENE V. P. 47. Theobald made, and most modern editors have adopted, a needless change in the text of the old copies, at 270 THE FIRST PART OF [aCT III. the conclusion of Plantagenet's soliloquy after the death of old Mortimer : — " And therefore haste I to the Parliament, Either to be restored to my blood, Or make my will th' advantage of my good." The word Theobald altered was " will," which he converted to ill ; but the mistake is in a different word, " advantage," which the corrector states ought to be advancer ; he leaves " will" as it stands in all old copies, and gives the last line of the quotation thus : — " Or make my will th' advancer of my good :" i. e. if he be unable to procure from Parliament the reversal of the attainder of his blood, he resolves to make his own will the advancer of his own interests. The proposed emen- dation of ill for " will," hj Theobald, was merely arbitrary and fanciful. ACT III. SCENE I. P. 49. Whether such were the case with the ensuing emendation by the old corrector, we can only speculate from probabilities : there are two points in its favour, viz. that both the context and the measure of the line call for the alteration. It occurs in Winchester s answer to Gloucester's accusation of covetousness, ambition, and pride : — " If I were covetous, ambitious, proud, As he will have me, how am I so poor?" The common reading is, "or perverse," for proud; but, in the first place, Gloucester has not charged the prelate so much with perverseness, as with pride, — " As very infants prattle of thy pride ;" and, in the next place, proud exactly fits the measure, while " or perverse" overloads it by two syllables. We may, there- fore, perhaps conclude that the emendation in the folio, 1632, was in some way authorized. P. 51. The same may, we think, be said of the next SC. II.] KING HENRY VI. 271 emendation in the King's appeal to Winchester, which, as ordinarily printed, ends with these lines : — " Who should be pitiful, if you are not 1 Or who should study to prefer a peace, If holy churchmen take delight in broils ? " For "prefer a peace," the corrector of the folio, 1632, has "preserve a peace," peace having been broken by the af- fray between the adherents of Gloucester and Winchester. " Prefer" is spelt preferre in the old copies, and may easily have been mistaken for preserve, when written with the long s. At the same time, it must be allowed that "prefer a peace" is perfectly intelligible, and well warranted. When Gloucester, just afterwards, oiFers Winchester his hand, a manuscript stage -direction informs us that he scorns it at first, but subsequently takes it. P. 53. We need not doubt that the word so awkwardly re- curring in the two subsequent lines, was a misprint : it is in Plantagenet's speech, thanking the King for restoring him to his blood : — " Thy humble servant vows obedience And humble service, till the point of death." The corrector writes honour'd in the margin, instead of the first " humble : " and, bearing in mind that Plantagenet had just been raised again to honour by the act of grace of the King, we may willingly accept this representation of the text of our author, and read in future, — " Thy honour'd servant vows obedience And humble service, till the point of death." Exeter's soliloquy, at the end of the scene, is struck out, as if not wanted. SCENE II. P. 57. Talbot, enraged at Joan's success in capturing Rouen, caUs her, — " Foul fiend of France, and hag of all despite ! " " Hag of all despite," at least, sounds tamely, and a marginal note in the folio, 1632, warrants us in giving the line much increase of energy : — " Foul fiend of France, and hag of hell's despite ! " 272 THE FIRST PART OF [aCT IIF, P. 59. Burgundy thus addresses Talbot : — " Warlike and martial Talbot, Burgundy Enshrines thee in his heart." To say that Talbot is " warlike and martial," is mere tauto- logy, an offence of which Shakespeare is rarely guilty ; and, as the old corrector assures us that " martial" has been mis- printed, we may gladly welcome his striking improvement of the text : — " Warlike and matchless Talbot, Burgundy Enshrines thee in his heart." SCENE III. P. 62. "We give the ensuing lines as they are corrected in the folio, 1632; it is the opening of Joan's speech to seduce Burgundy : — " Look on thy country, look on fertile France, And see her cities and her towns defac'd By wasting ruin of the cruel foe. As looks the mother on her lovely babe. When death doth close his tender dying eyes. See, see, the pining malady of France." The common reading is "the" for Aer in both places, and "lowly" for lovely : the last was Warburton's reasonable pro- posal, which ought, we see, to have been adopted, though opposed by Johnson, who treated lowly as a needless inno- vation. SCENE IV. P. 64. The King, addressing Talbot, observes, — " 1 do remember how my father said,' A stouter champion never handled sword. Long since we were resolved of your truth," &c. It is clear, as the old corrector instructs us, that the last line ought to be, — " Long since we were resolved of that truth," not merely because Henry is referring to an assertion by his father, which must be universally admitted, but because he follows it up by a statement of the fidelity and merits of Talbot :— ACT IV.J KING HENRY VI. 273 " Long since we were resolved of your truth, Your faithful service and your toil in war." To have first applauded Talbot's " truth," and then his "faithful service," would have been repetition, very unlike Shakespeare. ACT IV. SCENE I. P. 67. After Talbot has torn the Garter (in the words of the manuscript stage-direction) from the leg of Fastolfe, he proceeds to add, that the order had been instituted to reward the deserts of courageous warriors : — " Not fearing death, nor shrinking from distress, But always resolute in most extremes." Such has been the invariable text ; but we must feel, when once it is pointed out, that there is an injurious error of the printer in the second line : — " But always resolute in worst extremes," is the word substituted in the margin of the second folio. Lower down, we should hardly hesitate, on the same autho- rity, to change "pretend" to portend, when Gloucester asks, — " Or doth this churlish superscription Pretend some alteration of good will?" " Pretend" answers the purpose ; but portend mOst likely was our great dramatist's word, which he often uses elsewhere. P. 68. The epithet "envious" in the following line,^— " This fellow, here, with envious carping tongue,'' is not in the folio, 1632, having, perhaps, accidentally dropped out : the old corrector inserts it ; but whether he obtained it from the folio, 1623, or from some other source, must remain a question. The same remark applies to a line on the next page, — " Quiet yourselves, I pray, and be at peace," excepting that the corrector of the folio, 1632, inserts "I pray" at the end, instead of in the middle, of the line : T 274 THE FIRST PART OF [aCT IV. perhaps it was so formed in the authority he may have consulted. For " Such factious emulations shall arise," two lines above, he has " still arise," which certainly accords better with the context. SCENE V. P. 78. Old Talbot and his son John are contending for the honour of keeping the field, one, by so doing, being certain of destruction, and each is persuading the other to fly. A mar- ginal note in the folio, 1632, instructs us to read fly for "bow" in the ensuing lines ; and we can hardly doubt that "bow" is a misprint, though we may not be able to account for it : John Talbot speaks : — " Flight cannot stain the honour you have won, But mine it will, that no exploit have done : You fled for vantage, every one will swear, But if I bow, they'll say it was for fear. There is no hope that ever I will stay, If the first hour I shrink, and run away." There seems no assignable reason why the poet should not have used the word fly ; and the old corrector informs us that he did use it. When old Talbot returns mortally wounded to the scene (p. 82), it is said, in all modem editions, that he is " supported by a servant ;" the addition to the stage-direction in the folio, 1632, has much greater pro- priety, for he there is described as entering, led by a soldier from the field of battle. P. 83. The folio, 1632, oinits a line in Joan's speech upon this page, viz. : — " So, rushing in the bowels of the French." It is supplied by the corrector, perhaps from the folio, 1623 ; but three lines lower he alters, — " Of the most bloody nurser of his harms," by erasing " most bloody," and writing still bleeding. For the evidently imperfect line on the next page, — " But tell me whom thou seek'st?" he gives the following : — ACT v.] KING HENRY VI. 275 " But tell me hriefly, whom thou seekest now ?" Just above, he erases " obtain'd," as surplusage, as regards the verse and sense ; but in both the last instances it is by no means clear that Shakespeare intended his verse to be regular. The list of Talbot's titles is struck out. Less- important variations are frequently noted in this part of the play ; and in one place we have a rhyme restored, which, perhaps, had been lost : it is where Sir W. Lucy de- mands the bodies of the Talbots, the usual reading being, — " Give me their bodies, that I may bear them hence, And give them burial, as beseems their worth." The couplet is thus amended : — " Give me their bodies, that I bear them forth, And give them burial, as beseems their worth.'' This change occurs near the close of the Act, where the rhymes are numerous. ACT V. SCENE L P. 86. For " our Christian blood," in Gloster's speech, the corrector of the folio, 1632, has "much Christian blood;" and, lower down, where the Protector recommends the mar- riage of Henry to the daughter of the Earl of Armagnac, it is said in all the old copies, that that nobleman is " near knit to Charles," instead of " near kin to Charles," as we find it in the margin, quite consistently with what Grloster says afterwards, that Armagnac is " near kinsman unto Charles." SCENE III. P. 90. The introduction to this scene is erroneous in the early impressions, for they represent Burgundy as fighting with La Pucelle, whereas York ought to contend with her. A correction in the folio, 1632, sets this matter right, and adds, what is wanting in modern, as well as ancient, editions, that York overcomes Joan. Capel was justified in transposing three lines near the bottom of this page, where Sufiblk lays his hands " gently on the tender side" of Margaret, and afterwards kisses her T 2 276 THE FIRST PART OF [aCT V. fingers. The old corrector always indicates an error of this hind by figures, and 1, 2, 3 in the margin instructs us to ' read Suffolk's speech thus : — " For I will touch thee but with reverent hands, And lay them gently on thy tender side. I kiss these fingers for eternal peace, &c. \]dssmg." P. 91. Much of Sufiblk's speech is in rhyme ; and when he exclaims, as Margaret is about to depart, — " O, stay ! — I have no power to let her pass ; My hand would free her, but ray heart says — no," we might be tolerably certain, even without the correction in the margin of the folio, 1632, that the lines ought to be thus printed : — " O, stay ! — I have no power to let her go ; My hand would free her, but my heart says — no." The two last lines of this speech have given trouble to the commentators, which would have been avoided had they been able to detect the blunder of the printer or of the copyist, which the corrector distinctly points out. The text in the old editions, is this : — " Aye ; beauty's princely majesty is such, Confounds the tongue and makes the senses rough." Sir Thomas Hanmer printed crouch for " rough ;" and Malone was obliged to pass over the passage by saying that the meaning of "rough" is not "very obvious." Read with the aid of the marginal notes in the folio, 1632, and the ob- scurity is at an end : — " Aye ; beauty's princely majesty is such, Confounds the tongue, and moc/cs the iense of touch." Here, again, who is to determine whether the preceding emendation were derived from some good authority, or whether it was only a lucky guess on the part of the in- dividual through whose hands this copy of the folio, 1632, passed ? Certain it is, that not one of the many editors of Shakespeare were ever so fortunate as to stumble on the meaning, which is thus rendered obvious, while, at the same time, the intended rhyme is preserved : the princely majesty of beauty confounded the power of speech, and mocked all who would attempt to touch it. The printer, not understanding the copy he was composing, seems to have SC. III.J KING HENRY VI. 277 put down words at random, and to have made nonsense of a beautiful and delicate expression. P. 92. By the same authority we are assured that another portion of this scene between Suffolk and Margaret is es- pecially corrupt. We will first give the text as represented in all editions, and follow it by the text as recommended in manuscript-corrections : — " Marg. Tush! women have been captivate ere now. Svff. Lady, wherefore talk you so ? Marg. I cry you mercy, 'tis but quid pro quo. Suff. Say, gentle princess, would you not suppose Your bondage happy, to be made a queen ? Marg. To be a queen in bondage is more vile Than is a slave in base servility. For princes should be free. Suff. And so shall you. If happy England's royal king be free." All this appears to have been mangled, both as regards meaning, metre, and rhyme. We now give this part of the dialogue as it stands in a corrected state in the folio, 1632, where the fitness of every thing seems restored : — " Marg. Tush ! women have been captivate ere now. Suff. Lady, pray tell me, wherefore talk you so ? Marg. I cry you mercy, 'tis but quid pro quo. Suff. Say, gentle princess, would you not then ween Your bondage happy, to be made a queen ? Marg. A queen in bondage is more vile to me Than is a slave in base servility. For princes should be free. Suff. And so shall you. If happy England's royal king be true." We have, as usual, marked by Italic type the words written in the margin, which we are willing to think were those of our great poet, his original language having been disfigured by performers, printers, and copyists. Other portions of the same scene are marked by the old corrector as more or less defective. P. 9.5. The suggestion thrown out in note 6, that " mad" is to be read mid in the following passage, — "Bethink thee on the virtues that surmount. Mad natural graces that extinguish art," is fully borne out by a correction in the folio, 1632, the 278 KING HENRY VI. [aCT V. meaning being, that tlie virtues of Margaret (with whom SuiFolk is secretly in love) are pre-eminent 'mid the natural graces by which she is adorned. SCENE IV. P. 100. The old corrector, by the insertion of r for o, changed "poison'd" to 'prison' d, in the following passage: — " Speak, Winchester ; for boiling choler chokes The hollow passage of my poison'd voice." Pope printed prison'd, and appears thus to have arrived at the author's meaning, though some more modem editors have adhered to " poison'd." P. 101. We have here another of the many emendations rendered necessary by the mistake of the person who wrote by his ear the manuscript used by the printer. It is the last of any consequence in this play, and it occurs at the very close of the scene between the English and French commanders, when a peace is negotiated. All parties are agreed upon a league of amity, and York, addressing the Dauphin, says, — " Hang up your ensigns, let your drums be still. For here we entertain a solemn peace," the corrector of the folio, 1 632, reads the last line thus : — " For here we interchange a solemn peace." The agreement for a peace being mutual : it cannot be said, however, that the change is imperatively called for, though recommended on strong presumptive evidence. THE SECOND PART OF KING HENRY VI. ACT I. SCENE I. P. 112. A question has arisen whether to read, — " And was his highness in his infancy Crowned in Paris, m despite of foes?" or as follows : — " And hath his highness in his infancy Been crown'd in Paris, in despite of foes?" Some editors have given the couplet in one way, and some in another ; but the old corrector of the folio, 1632, informs us that the last is the true reading, been having probably dropped out at the commencement of the second line. P. 116. York introduces a simile of pirates sharing pillage in the presence of the owner of it, — " While as the silly owner of the goods Weeps over them, and wrings his hapless hands." A correction in the folio, 1632, instructs us to erase "hap- less" in favour of helpless, which certainly seems the fitter epithet; but it is impossible to maintain that "hapless" does not fit the place, and might not be the poet's word. The allusion to Althea's brand, in four lines just below, is for some reason struck out. 280 THE SECOND PART OF [aCT I. SCENE III. P. 121. Jolmsoii, Steevens, Toilet, and Hawkins have all wasted time and space upon a mere error of the printer, or of the copyist. The first Petitioner says, as has been univer- sally represented, — " My masters, let's stand close : my lord protector will come this way by and by, and then we may deliver our supplications in the quill." The puzzle has been as to the meaning of " in the quill," and each of the commentators had a different notion upon the point. The several Petitioners were to deliver their suppli- cations to Suffolk in succession, one after another, and "the quill" ought, indisputably, to be sequel, used ignorantly for sequence, — ■ " My lord protector will come this way by and by, and then we may deliver our supplications in sequel." On the next page, the beginning of Peter's second speech is altered to " That my master was," instead oi mistress, as it stood, absurdly enough, till Tyrwhitt proposed the change, which is fully warranted by a note in the margin of the folio, 1632. P. 124. According to the old corrector, Suffolk's speech to the Queen, before the entrance of the King, &c., ought to end in a rhyme : — " So, one by one, we will weed all the realm, And you yourself shall steer the happy helm." This reads easily and naturally enough ; but the folios make the first line end with " at last," very lamely and tamely. P. 127. Pope was quite right in printing fast, for "far" of the old copies, in the following line, where Buckingham is speaking of Eleanor : — " She'll gallop far enough to her destruction." We find fast in the margin, and " far " struck out. The ad- herence to "far" was, of course, occasioned by the desire, in all possible cases, to abide by the early editions. It may be mentioned, that in the corrected folio, 1632, the Acts and Scenes are noted in manuscript (no such divi- sions being made in print), and as a new scene (4) is made ACT n.J KING HENRY VI. 281 to commence with the entrance of the King, York, So- merset, &c., on p. 124, another scene, numbered 5, contains the incantations, &c., of Margery Jourdain, Southwell, Bo- lingbroke, fee, before Eleanor. In all modern editions this is more properly represented as SCENE IV. P. 130. For " the silent of the night," the corrector has " the silence of the night," which is the very word used in the old drama from which this play was mainly taken. For " break up their graves," he reads, " break ope their graves," which was also, most likely, right. Among the manuscript stage-directions is one which shows that while Bolinghroke questipns the Spirit, raised by the Witch, Southwell writes the answers. When the former dismisses the Spirit, called up to ascertain and declare the truth, he exclaims, " False fiend, avoid," the impropriety of which is evident, and the manu- script-correction is, " Foul fiend, avoid." ACT II. SCENE I. ; P. 133. Grloster, addressing the Cardinal, says, — " Churchmen so hot? good uncle, hide such malice ; With such holiness can you do it." The second line, as it stands in all the early copies, is im- perfect and prosaic; the corrector of the folio, 1632, states that two small words have been omitted, and his emendation is better than either of those offered by Warburton and John- son : he gives the two lines thus : — " Churchmen so hot ? good uncle, hide such malice ; And with such holiness you well can do it." SCENE III. P. 144. The whole of what passes just before Gloster, who has been required to give up his staiF of office, quits the scene, is in rhyme ; but there is one line which has nothing 282 THE SECOND PAET OF [aCT III. to answer to it, and we meet with the corresponding line, as an important addition, in the margin. There are also two emendations deserving notice in the preceding speech hy Queen Margaret, and the whole of this part of the play runs as follows in the folio, 1632, the new portions being printed, as usual, in Italic type : — " Q. Mar. I see no reason why a king of years Should be protected, like a child, hy peers. God and King Henry govern England's helm, Give up yoxir staff. Sir, and the King his realm. Glo. My staff? — here, noble Henry, is my staff: To think I fain would keep it makes me laugh. As willingly I do the same resign. As e'er thy father Henry made it mine," &c. There appears no sufficient reason for disbelieving that these changes and additions might be made on some independent authority. Lower down, a striking misprint occurs, and is set right by the old corrector to the great improvement of the passage : the couplet has always thus been given : — " Thus droops this lofty pine, and hangs its sprays ; Thus Eleanor's pride dies in her youngest days." Now, as Monk Mason observes, " Eleanor was certainly not a young woman;" and in order to overcome the difficulty, he compelled "her" to refer to "pride," and not to Eleanor; but the printer was in fault for mistaking the poet's word : — " Thus Eleanor's pride dies in her proudest days," is a form of expression peculiarly like Shakespeare, and per- fectly consistent with the situation and character of the Duchess of Gloster. ACT III. SCENE I. P. 155. Malone, who was generally reluctant to vary from the ancient editions, could not refuse to adopt an emendation proposed by Steevens in the following passage, as it stands in the folios: — " My lord of Gloster, 'tis my special hope, That you will clear yourself from all suspense." SC. I.] KING HENRY VI. 283 Steevens printed suspects for " suspense/' and the corrector of the second folio writes suspect (not suspects) in the margin. Nevertheless, " suspense" may be strained to a meaning, cer- tainly not adverse to the poet's intention, though we may feel morally sure that suspect must have come from his pen. P. 162. Regarding the next emendation, recommended in manuscript in the folio, 1632, we need not doubt, seeing that both sense and metre call for the alteration. It occurs in York's soliloquy, where he congratulates himself that his enemies are playing his game by dispatching him to Ireland to conduct a large force against the rebels : he says, as the passage has been amended, — " Whiles I in Ireland march a mighty hand, I will stir up in England some black storm," &c. The ordinary reading has been, " nourish a mighty band," which we may conclude was an error of the press, — " nourish" for march. If the former could be accepted, as affording, to a certain extent, the meaning required, it must be rejected on the score that it mars the versification, unless we consent to hurry over "nourish" in the time of a monosyllable. P. 166. The whole of Margaret's speech, after "Be poi- sonous too, and kill thy forlorn queen," is crossed out ; but various emendations are made in it notwithstanding, besides the necessary correction of " Eleanor" to Margaret in three different places. The change in the line, where she is speaking of the violent winds which drove her back from England, must not be passed over, inasmuch as " gentle gusts," of the old copies, seems properly altered in manu- script to ungentle gusts : — " What did I then, but curs'd th' ungentle gusts, And he that loos'd them from their brazen caves." It was because they were ungentle that the winds had been confined in " brazen caves," and had been set at liberty in order to drive back the ship that conveyed Margaret to England. The whole context warrants the alteration. It ought to be added, that Theobald's substitution near the end, of witch for " watch," however plausible, is not authorised by the old corrector. P. 169. Malone observed upon the harsh expression, "to 284 THE SECOND PART OF [aCT IV. drain'' an "ocean of salt tears" on dead Humphrey's face, and Steevens advocated rain for " drain," The letter d is struck out in the folio, 1632, showing that Steevens was correct in his suspicion of a misprint. On the next page occurs another error of the press, which only applies to the second folio, where "But hoth of you were vow'd Duke Humphrey's death," should, of course, be " Duke Humphrey's foes:" death is erased, and "foes" placed in the margin. On p. 171, the same edition omits "send" in the sentence, " and send thy soul to hell," but it was inserted by the pen of the old corrector. P. 175. He points out a misprint here which we may accept, although, as the word always printed in the old copies may be said to serve the turn, we may, perhaps, pause before we admit the change into the text. It is where Suffolk is cursing his enemies, " Poison be their drink," &c. : — " Their chiefest prospect murdering basilisks, Tiieir softest toucli, as smart as lizards' stings." Here we are told to read sharp for smart," and, inde- pendently of greater propriety, it is unquestionable that a careless copyist might easily miswrite or mishear the word. At the close of the same character's speech to the Queen, on the next page, a trifling error has been committed, in- troducing a gross inelegance of expression, which Shakes- peare would most likely have avoided. The text has always been, — " Live thou to joy tliy life, Myself no joy in nought, but that thou liv'st;" but as amended it runs, — " Live thou to joy thy life, Myself