Full text of "Notes and emendations to the text of Shakespeare's plays from early manuscript corrections in a copy of the folio, 1632, in the possession of J. Payne Collier"

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Enter 



Char, fjad Yorkcand Somerfelbroughtrcfcucin, 
We fhould havefound a bloody day of this. 

Baf. How the yong whelpe-of-7^^ raging wood, 
Did flc/h hispuny-fword in Frenchtnens blood. 

PHC. Once I encountrcd him ,and thus 1 laid : 
Thou Maiden youth,be vamjuifht by a Maide. 
But with a provd Majeftkall high fcorne *3o 
Heanfwer'd thus : Y ong Talfat was not borne 
To be the pillage of aGiglot W.cn$h^~f t b*' 
He left me proudly, as unworthy Tight 

,5r.Doubtlejfe he would have made a noble Knight: 
See where he lyes inherced in the ar nies , 

Of the mottVioedy Nurtfer of his harmes . (Hit 6t^O* 
JSaf. Hew them to peeces, hack their bones aflundcr, 
Who/e life was Englands gloryjGallia's wonder i 

har. Ohnoforbeare:For that which we have fled 
During the life, let usnot Wrong it dead. /> ^^ 
Enter JMCJ. W^^-^T****^ 

me to the Dolphins Tent, 
To know who hath obuiik'd ihe glory ol the day. 
Char. On what fubmijTive mefl'ageart thoufent? 
LHCJ. Submi/IionDolphin?Tisamccre French word: 
We Englifh' Warriours wot not whatittneanes. 
I come to know whatPrifoners thou baft taaey 
And to furvey the bodies of the dead. 

Char. For prifoners askft thou? Hell our prifonis. 
But tell me A whom thou icek^ 

Luc- But Where's the great Alcideiof the field, 
Valiant Lord ?4/<W Earle of Shrewsbury? 
Created for his rarefucceflein Armes, 

tij/ui^ariU 



NOTES AND EMENDATIONS 




TO THE TEXT OF 



SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS 



EARLY MANUSCRIPT CORRECTIONS 



A COPY OF THE FOLIO, 1632 



IN THE POSSESSION OF 



J. PAYNE COLLIER, ESQ. F.S.A. 




REDFIELD 

110 AND 112 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK, 
1853. 



- .. 




THE LATE MR. JOHN PAYNE COLLIEB, 
SHAKSPEARIAN SCHOLAR. 



CONTENTS. 



NOTES AND EMENDATIONS TO PAGE 

The Tempest 21 

The Two Gentlemen of Verona 38 

The Merry Wives of Windsor 50 

Measure for Measure 62 

The Comedy of Errors 77 

Much Ado about Nothing 87 

Love's Labour's Lost 101 

A Midsummer Night's Dream 120 

The Merchant of Venice 134 

As You Like It 147 

The Taming of the Shrew 163 

All's Well that Ends Well 177 

Twelfth Night 193 

The Winter's Tale 205 

King John 220 

King Richard IL 236 

King Henry IV. (Part I.) 250 

(Part II.) ... i ... 264 

King Henry V 275 

King Henry VL (Part I.) 288 

-(Part II.) . . . . . . . .303 

(Part III.) 315 

King Richard III. 32.4 

King Henry VIII. 341 

Troilus and Cressida 353 

Coriolanus ........ .371 

Titus Andronicus 392 

Romoo and Juliet ........ 348 

Timon of Athens 413 

Julius Caesar 422 

Macbeth .431 

Hamlet 445 

King Lear 462 

Othello 477 

Antony and Cleopatra i .493 

Cymbcline 514 

Notes . 533 



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 Shakespeare'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, consisting of 
dedication, address, commendatory verses, &c., may be said to be 
wanting, in as much as it has been 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 pagination, 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 emendations, they 
do" not, in the whole, fall short of 20,000 : most of them have, of 

* 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. 

(3) 



4 INTRODUCTION. 

course, been introduced in modern editions, since the plain meaning 
of a passage often contradicts the old careless and absurd pointing ; 
but it will be seen hereafter, that in not 'a few instances the sense of 
the poet has thus been elucidated in a way that has not been anticipa 
ted.* With regard to changes of a different and more important 
character, where letters are added or expunged, where words are sup 
plied 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 difficult to form any correct estimate of their num 
ber. The volume in the hands of the reader includes considerably 
more than a thousand of such alterations ; but to have inserted all 
would have swelled its bulk to unreasonable dimensions^ and would 
have wearied the patience of most persons, not merely by the same 
ness of the information, but by the monotony of the language in 
which it was necessarily 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 some cases, concurrence must either be with 
held, or doubt expressed. Whenever I have seen ground for dissent 
ing from a proposed amendment, or for giving it only a qualified 
approbation, I have plainly stated my reasons, more particularly 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 ac 
cumulated, might possibly have been omitted.f If subsequent reflec 
tion 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 suggested 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 eluci 
dation, to offer the facts, arguments, or observations that occurred to 
me in their favor. 

* 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. 

f The old corrector of the folio, 1632, has himself allowed some apparent mistakes to 
escape him : thus, in "All's Well that Ends Well," Act III. Scene I., we might have ex 
pected that he wouM alter " the younger of our nature" into " the younger of our nation." 
Again, in "Henry IV. Part II.," Act IV. Scene n., it may seem that " success of mischief 
ought to be "successive mischief;" but neither of these variations from the old text is ab 
solutely necessary. 



INTBODUCTIOX. 5 

In the history of the volume to which I have been thus indebted, 
I can offer little that may serve to give it authenticity.* It is very 
certain that the manuscript notes in 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 examination has con 
vinced 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 fre 
quent and careless perusal. In short, to a choice collector, no book 
could well present a more forbidding 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 Bedfordshire, 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 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, 

* 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 Phillips, Bart., < f 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 emenda 
tions: I more than suspect, however, that one of these is the edition of 1685, 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. 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

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 for some years in my 
possession, and wanting the former for my use, I bought them both, 
the Morio 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 quitting 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 foundation of the present work. 

It was while putting my books together for removal, that I first ob 
served some marks in the margin of this folio ; but it was subsequently 
placed upon an upper shelf, and I did not take it down until I had 
occasion to consult it. It then struck me that Thomas Perkins, whose 
name, with the addition 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 scrutiny; and 
as it occupied a considerable time to complete the inspection, how 

* I paid the money for them at the time. Mr. Wilkinson, of Wellington street, one of Mr. 
Rodd's executors, has several times obligingly afforded me the opportunity of inspecting 
Mr. Rodd's account-books, in order, if possible, to trace from whence the package came, 
but without success. Mr. Rodd does not appear to have kept any stock-took, showing how 
and when volumes came into his hands, and the entries in his 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 sa!e of "three boo";s," without specifying their titles, or giving 
the name of the purchaser. His memory was very faithful, and to that, doubt-ess, he 
often trusted. I am confident that the parcel was from the country ; but any inquiries, re 
garding sales there, could hardly tie expected to be satisfactorily answered. 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

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 decid 
edly of opinion that the same writing prevails from beginning to end, 
but that the amendments must have been introduced from time to time, 
during, perhaps, the course of several years. The changes in punc 
tuation 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 typogra 
phical 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.* 

Then comes the question, why any of them were made, and why 
such extraordinary pains were bestowed on this particular copy of the 
folio, 1632? To this inquiry no complete 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 ;t and we need not feel much hesitation 
in coming to the conclusion, that these omissions had reference to the 
representation of the plays by some company 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.J It is known that in this respect the old 
printed copies are very deficient ; and sometimes the written additions 

* It ought to be mentioned, in reference to the question of the authority of the emenda 
tions, that some of them are upon erasures, as if the corrector had either altered his mind 
as to particular changes, or had obliterated something that had been written before possi 
bly, by some person not so well informed as himself. 

f " Antony and Cleopatra" is the only drama that is entirely exempt from this treat 
ment r possibly, the old corrector never witnessed the performance of it. In all the other 
plays, more or less is " cut out," generally, it should seem, in proportion to popularity. 

J In a few cases these manuscript stage-directions are of the highest importance in illus 
trating the wonderful judgment and skill of Shakespeare 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. 

f) 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 characters engaged in the scene. 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

of this kind seem even more frequent, and more 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 warranted 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 emenda 
tion that it required no authority that it carried conviction on the 
very face of it.f Many of the most valuable corrections of Shake 
speare's taxt 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 indis 
putable blunders. Let us take an instance from " The Taming of the 
Shrew," Act I. Scene I., where Lucentio, arriving in Padua, to read 
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 unquestionably wrong, 
and wrong in the most important word in the quotation, as the old 

* 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. 

f Monk Mason, in a note upon "Troilus and Cressida," Act m. Scene ffi. ; which, how 
ever, was there singularly inapt. 



INTEODUCTION. 9 

corrector shows, and as the reader will be sure to acknowledge the 
moment the emendation 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 Tee near the end of the 
word, as was then the custom, and the careless compositor mistook 
ethickes for " checkes," and so printed it : " checkes" is converted into 
ethickes in the hand-writing of the emendator of the folio, 1632 ; 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 corruption, 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 ?" 

Johnson says that " woolvish" is rough, hirsute ; and Malone, 
Steevens, Eitson, Douce, &c., have all notes regarding wolves (as if 
wild beasts had any thing to do with the matter), and 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 try volume : 

" Why in this woolless toge should I stand here, 
To beg 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, mistook the termina 
tion 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 be 
coming somewhat obsolete in the time of Shakespeare, such as bisson, 
blind, bkad, fruit, &c. ; but there is one instance of the sort so remark 
able, 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, 
1* 



10 INTRODUCTION". 

" 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 epi 
thet " 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 difficulty, 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.,bollen : it is the 
participle of the verb bolne, " to become puffed up or swollen," as Sir 
F. Madden states, in his excellent " Glossary to the Wycliffite Versions 
of the Bible." Bollen is spelt in various ways by old and modern lex 
icographers ; but we may be confident that we shall never again see 
" woollen bagpipe" in any edition of the text of Shakespeare, unless it 
be reproduced by some one, who, having no right to use the emenda 
tion 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, probably, the typographer was 
not responsible. If there be one point more clear than another, in 
connection 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 position has been 
completely established by Malone;* and only in this way can we ex 
plain many of the whimsical mistakes in the quartos and folios. It is 
very w r ell 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 sur 
reptitious manner in which pieces got out to the public that will ac 
count for the especial imperfectness, in respect to typography, of this 
department of our early literature. About half the productions of 
Shakespeare remained in manuscript until seven years after his death : 
not a few of those which were printed in his life-time were shamefully 

* See Malone's Shakespeare, by Boswell, vii. p. 36 ; xi. p. 422 ; xii. pp. 268, 287, 313 ; 
xiv. p. 26 ; xix. p. 472, &c. 

f Another reason, of course, was the apprehension lest rival companies, then under 
very lax control, might act the piece. 



INTRODUCTION. 11 

disfigured, and not one can be pointed out to the publication of which 
he in any way contributed. When he finally retired to Stratford-upon- 
Avon, we cannot find that he took the slightest interest in works 
which had delighted living thousands, 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 employment of shorthand writers, 
who perfectly took down the words as they distinctly heard them, or 
by the connivance and aid of inferior performers, who, being "hire 
lings" 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 rep 
etitions 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 combine into a drama. We may readily imagine, that 
what these inferior performers had thus got by heart, they might dic 
tate to some mechanical copyist, and thus many words, and even sen 
tences, which sounded like something else, would be misrepresented 
in the printed editions, and nobody take the pains to correct the blun 
ders. 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 remark 
able 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 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 continuously, 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. 



12 INTRODUCTION. 

An example or two will suffice to make what is meant intelligible ; 
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 " lei 
sure," but from labor : the word was misheard by the scribe ; and 
while "leisure" makes nonsense of the sentence, labor is exactly adapt 
ed to the place : 

" You have scare time 
To steal from spiritual labor 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 
lie has read Goneril's letter of love to Edmund and hate to her husbandj 
Edgar exclaims, as the poet's language has been represented, 

" 0, vmdistinguish'd space of woman's will 1 
A plot upon her virtuous husband's life." 

The commentators have striven hard to extract sense from the first 
line, but not one of them satisfied another, nor indeed themselves. 
Edgar, in truth, is shocked at the profligate and uncontrollable licen 
tiousness of Goneril : 

" unzx'.inguisWd blaze of woman's will I" 

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 unextinguisti d blaze, and wrote "un- 
distinguish'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 imper 
fect in favoring the first complaint." Nobody has offered a note ex 
planatory 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 



INTRODUCTION. 13 

i 

allaying Tyber in it ; said to be something imperfect in favoring the 

thirst complaint," and the utterly lost humor of the passage is at once 
restored. The scribe misheard thirst, and wrote " first;" and the blun 
der 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 Hem- 
inge 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 effect of the en 
suing pages must be considerably to lesson our confidence in the text 
furnished 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 examination 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 re 
mainder 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 pro 
ductions ; 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, possi 
bly, 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 consist, sometimes at 
least, of the separate parts allotted to the different actors, and, for the 

* 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, espe 
cially 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 
license of comic performers and other causes, crept into them. These manuscript restora 
tions 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 hith 
erto 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. 



14 INTRODUCTION. 

sake of speed in so long a work, scribes might be employed, to whom 
the manuscript was read 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 con 
fusion of verse and prose which they sometimes exhibit. The not un- 
frequent errors in prefixes, by which words or lines are assigned to one 
character, which certainly belong" to another, may thus also be explain 
ed : the reader of the drama to the scribe did not at all times accu 
rately distinguish 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 circumstance. The follow 
ing 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 daugh 
ter's resolution : therefore, her speech ought to begin earlier than it ap 
pears 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 I 

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 changes, some 
times 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 ob 
scure 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 
her 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. 



INTRODUCTION. 15 

"What beast was't then, 
That made you break this enterprise to me f 
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 singular 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 communicate 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 Itoast 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 displayed, and 
the cowardice he had afterwards evinced. It cannot be denied by the 
most scrupulous stickler for the purity of 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 omission of a 
single letter has occasioned much doubt and discussion. In Act III. 
Scene I. of " The Tempest," Ferdinand, 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 
Ihe mistress which I serve quickens what's dead, 
And makes my labors pleasures ; " 

and he afterwards adds, as the passage is given in the folio, 1623 : 

" But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my labors, 
Most busy lest when I do it." 

The folio. 1632, altered the hemistich to "Most busy least when I do 
it," and Theobald read "Most busilcss when I do it," not understanding 
how Ferdinand, at the same moment, could be most busy, and least 
busy. The corrector of the folio, 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 consist 
ent, and concludes the speech by a most felicitous compression of the 
sentiment of the whole in seven words : 



16 INTRODUCTION. 

"But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my labors, 
Most busy, West 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 con 
verted " least," of the folio, 1632, into Nest, 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 condi 
tion 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 own 
sagacity and ingenuity, and did he merely guess at arbitrary emenda 
tions ? 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 Shake 
speare'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 con 
vincing, than the happiest alterations we have already noticed, that 
the old corrector must have had recourse to some not now extant 
authority. Malone contended that lines, in the old editions, were 
more frequently omitted than ordinary readers were disposed to be 
lieve ; and he might well so argue, seeing that in his own text, as we 
last receive it in the Variorum Edition of 1821,f 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.! 

* 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. 

f- As it comprises the notes of all editors and commentators, from Rowe to Malone, it may 
be as well 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 previously suggested, it has arisen from my ignorance of the fact, or from pure inad 
vertence. In many cases, the older conjectures of Theobald, Warburton, Pope, Hanmer, 
&c., are remarkably confirmed. 

J 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 pub 
lished by Messrs. Whittaker and Co. in 1844, 8 vols. 8vo. 



INTRODUCTION. 17 

No wonder, then, if the old editors and printers, who made no profes 
sions of peculiar 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 willing 
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, except 
ing 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 beerrlost. 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 follows ? When, in " Henry VI., Part II," Act II. Scene III, 
Queen Margaret calls upon Grloster to relinquish his staff of 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, 

* A few words, occurring in certain of the emendations, may be thought to be of rather 
a more modern stamp than the lime of Shakespeare 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 colored 
by the language of his own later day. Our tongue had then undergone some material 
changes. 



18 INTRODUCTION. 

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 understand how 
the blunders were occasioned. In more than one of those places, 
where Malone was himself guilty of omissions of the sort, two conse 
cutive 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 predicament of the ancient printer ; and we may quote 
a remarkable 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 counseled. 
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 Coriolanus ? 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 
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 insertion, unless 
we go the length of pronouncing it not only an invention, but an in 
vention of the utmost ingenuity : for while it renders perfect the defi 
cient 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 unexpected ? If it had contained no 
more than the comparatively few points to which we have adverted in 
this Introduction, 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 en 
large, how far such indisputable emendations and apposite additions 
warrant us in imputing to a higher authority, than we might other- 



INTRODUCTION. 19 

wise be 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 
madej from the insertion of a single letter to the addition of a line, 
omitted in all the folios, together with the striking out of a passage 
not considered necessary for the performance.* 

It will be remarked, from the title-page, that the present volume is 
supplemental to the edition of Shakespeare's Works I formerly super 
intended. 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 
speculative 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 commencement of that under 
taking, 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 disturbing the ancient, 
and hitherto generally received, language 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 anno 
tated copy of the folio, 1632. I ought not, however, to hesitate in 
avowing my conviction, that we are bound to admit by far the greater 
body of the substitutions it contains, as the restored language of 
Shakespeare. As he was especially the poet of common life, so he was 

* It a'so 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, 
Secma Prima, and the insertion of same in manuscript mean, that what follows is merely 
a continuation of a preceding scene. The word briefely, lower down in the margin, ex 
actly 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 blunder could be made. Those 
who were present on any of the four occasions, last year, when this volume was exhibited 
before" the Shakespeare Society and the Society of Antiquaries, had an opportunity of ob 
serving all these peculiarities on other pages. It has been separately shown to many who 
wished to see the character of the alterations. 



20 INTRODUCTION. 

emphatically the poet of common sense ; and to the verdict of common 
sense I am willing to submit all the more material alterations recom 
mended 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 various 
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 arbitrary changes, ought to give us addi 
tional confidence in those emendations he felt authorized to intro 
duce. 

I shall probably be told, in the usual terms, by some whose preju 
dices 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 knowledge 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 
correction thankfully. 

J. P. C. 



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 Shipmas 
ter, and a Boatswain, as on shipboard, shaking off wet." 

In Mai one'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 appearance 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 manu 
script, 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 

(21) 



22 THE TEMPEST. [ACT I. 

folio, 1632, to indicate, probably, that the poet so wrote it, or, at 
all events, that the actor so delivered it. 

SCENE II. 

P. 12. The reading of all editions has been 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 substituted 
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 brave vessel, 

Who had, no doubt, some noble creature in her, 
Dash'd all to pieces I" 

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, 1623 (with one exception to be noticed immediately), 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 which 



SO. II.] THE TEMPEST. 23 

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," 

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-cor 
rector of the folio, 1632, who altered "compassion" (as it stood 
there) not to " provision" (as it stood in the folio, 1623), but to 
provision, in reference to Prospero'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 meaning, 
because Prospero 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 alter 
ation of a single letter makes the whole difference. 

P. 14. There is certainly some misprint in the following con 
clusion 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. 



24 THE TEMPEST. [ACT I. 

P. 15. A very trifling change, the transference of a preposition 
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 unlimited power, had 
turned it against the rightful Duke, observes : 

" 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 believs 
He was indeed the duke." 

Various modes of improving this unquestionably corrupt sen 
tence have been suggested by Warburton (who changed into of 
the folios to " unto"), Monk Mason^-Steevens, Malone, and Bos- 
well ; but not one of them hit upon the right emendation, which 
is indicated by the corrector of the folio, 1632, in the shortest and 
simplest manner, by erasing the preposition in one place, and by 
adding it to the word immediately 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 transposi 
tion, 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." 



SC. II.] THE TEMPEST. 25 

Here we see the word " purpose" awkwardly and needlessly 
repeated with only an intervening line. The manuscript-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 con 
trivance, artifice, or conspiracy, and therefore, we may presume, 
wrote, 

" 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 pre 
served : 

" 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 " butt" 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 authority, 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 manu 
script stage-direction opposite the words used by Prospero 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 full 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 down are written against this passage, as Put 
on robe again are written against " Now I arise." The fact is that 
Prospero, having put off his " magic garment," never put it on 
2 



26 THE TEMPEST. [ACT I. 

again, according to all existing copies of the drama ; and it was 
this singular omission that the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 
1632, supplied. The great propriety of Prospero's removal of 
his robe of power, during his narration to his daughter, is evi 
dent : he did not th&n require its aid ; but just before he con 
cluded, and just before he was to produce somnolency in Miranda 
by the exercise of preternatural influence, he resumed it, a cir 
cumstance by which the judgment and skill of the poet are re 
markably illustrated. Annotators have endeavored to account 
for the sudden disposition of Miranda to sleep, in spite of her in 
terest in her father's story, in various ways, but the effect upon 
her, by tH 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 garment," having occasion to use 
it now in producing sudden drowsiness on Miranda. The manu 
script-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 ma 
gician commences 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-in- 



SO. II.] THE TEMPEST. 27 

vested himself for the purpose. Thus we see the value of ap 
parently 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 neces 
sary to consider " flote" a substantive, from the Fr. flot, a wave. 
The misprint of " are" for all near the beginning 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 cor 
rected 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 sub 
stantive, 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, al 
though we are told when she goes to sleep. According 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 dull 
ness" (because it was what he wished) in Miranda had been mag 
ically superinduced, maintains that " experience proves that any 
violent .agitation of the mind easily subsides into slumber." This 
explanation is altogether needless, for the audience had seen Pros 
pero resume his art with his magic garment, and was aware that 
Miranda's " heaviness" was the effect of preternatural influence. 



28 THE TEMPEST. [ACT. IL 

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 arrange 
ment, 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 f catty here and there, and sweet sprites bear 
the burthen." 

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 indi 
cation of the commencement of that burthen, and as a 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 won 
der and adoration, which he kept till Miranda had finished her 
reply, when Rising is also inserted in the margin of the corrected 



SO. II.] THE TEMPEST. 29 

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 after 
wards in this scene. 



ACT H. 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. 

P. 35. Modern editors have concurred with Malone in the fol 
lowing 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 b' 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. 30, p. 102. 



SO THE TEMPEST. [ACT II. 

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, Come 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 Gonzalo'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 performers in the air, we know from several author 
ities, and among them, from the last scene of Act III., where Pros- 
pero remains, as it is stated, on the top, invisible, until near its 
conclusion. 

P. 40. There is a comparatively trifling change in Antonio's 
speech, 

" She that is queen of Tunis," &c. 

The old folios all read, in the fifth line of it, "she that from 
whom ;" but Howe (who has been here followed by later editors) 
omitted " that," and printed, " sho from whom." The true read 
ing seems to be " she for 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 modern editions, 

" Why are you drawn ? 
Wherefore this ghastly looking?" 

" This" was misprinted for thus (a common error), and u for * 
was therefore inserted in the margin of the corrected folio, 1632, 



SO. I.] THE TEMPEST. 31 

" Wherefore thus ghastly looking ?" 

The change is minute, and may be said to be not absolutely ne 
cessary. 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 H. 

P. 45. Trinculo, sheltering himself under the gabardine of Cali 
ban, 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 trenchcring, nor wash dish ;" 

but the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, has obliterated 
the last syllable of " trenchering," so that the passage there stands 
more correctly, 

" Nor scrape trencher, nor wash dish." 



ACT HI. 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 labors : 
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." 



32 THE TEMPEST. [ACT IV. 

The editor of the folio, 1632, not understanding " lest," in that 
connection, altered it to least. It appears (as was not an uncom 
mon 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 employ 
ment, adds that the thought of Miranda rendered delightful what 
would otherwise be intolerable : 

" 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 labors pleasures ;" 

and, at the close of what he says, he repeats the same sentiment, 
but in a shorter form : 

" But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my labors : 
Most busy blest, when I do it." 

That is to say, he deems himself blest even by heavy toils, when 
they are made light by the thoughts of Miranda ; he was " most 
busy," but still blest, when so employed. The accidental dropping 
out of the letter b has been the cause of all the doubt that, for 
nearly two centuries and a half, has involved this passage. It is 
right to add that this emendation 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, re 
marks, 

" For I 
Have given you a third of mine own 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 Mi 
randa " a third" of it. The text has been much disputed, and for 
"third" of the old printed copy, the corrector of the folio, 1632, 



SO. I.] THE TEMPEST. 33 

has written thrid (i. e. thread) in the margin. This fact may pos 
sibly bs 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 hest 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 impor 
tant 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 slowly is subjoined to the printed 
stage-direction, Juno descends, to show, perhaps, that the god 
dess was gradually descending all the time Ceres and Iris deliver 
ed 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 har 
vest," would be a misfortune, and the singer is deprecating such 
disasters. 
2* 



34 THE TEMPEST. [ACT V. 

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 hem 
istich, completed by the opening of Prospero's next speech, mili 
tates against this notion : Malone and others therefore printed 
wife fcr "wise," supposing that the compositor had mistaken the 
long s for f. Under the circumstances, 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 wilding, and " sedg'd crowns," is altered in the mar 
gin 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. When Stephano and Trinculo discover 
it, Seeing the apparel is written opposite the speech of the latter, 
beginning, " O, king Stephano ! O 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 Prospero's 
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." 



SC. I.] THE TEMPEST. 35 

For "sour "the corrector substitutes sward "the green-sward 
ringlets," or ringlets on the green-sward, which sheep avoid, and 
to which the unusual compound epithet "green-sour" may pro 
perly be applied. Here we may not see the necessity of this 
alteration, though it may have been warranted by some manu 
script to which the corrector of the folio, 1632, was able to resort. 

P. 76. We meet with changes of the received text in two con 
secutive lines of the continuation of the speech of Prospero, after 
Alonso, Gonzalo, Sebastian, Antonio, &c., have become " spell- 
stopped" in the magic circle. The reading of all the editions has 
been, 

" Holy Gonzalo, honorable man, 
Mine eyes, even sociable to the show of thine, 
Fall fellowly drops." 

The epithet "holy" is inapplicable to Gonzalo, while noble (sub 
stituted by the corrector of the folio, 1632) is on all accounts 
appropriate. In the " Winter's Tale" (Act V. 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^ow, most probably arose out of 
the common mistake between the long s and the/. The manu 
script-corrector gives the whole in these terms : 

" Noble Gonzalo, honorable man, 
Mine eyes, even sociable to thereto of thine, 
Fall fellowly drops." 

The eyes of Gonzalo were flowing with tears, and those of Pros 
pero wept in fellowship with them. 

P. 77. In the same speech Prospero again addresses Gonzalo 
as 

" 0, good Gonzalo, 
My true preserver, and a loyal sir 
To him thou follow'st." 

This is an uncommon, though not unprecedented, use of the 



36 THE TEMPEST. [ACT V. 

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 direc 
tion, 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, ac 
cording 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 employed in 
such a situation, and it reads like a misprint : the manuscript-cor 
rector 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 discovers 
Ferdinand and Miranda playing at chess, the manuscript-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, Draw curtain ; so that Prospero drew a 
traverse at the back of the stage, and showed Ferdinand and Mi 
randa at their game. 

P. 84. Prospero describing Sycorax, in the presence of Cali 
ban, 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." 



SO. I.] THE TEMPEST. 37 

The words " without her power" have naturally occasioned con 
siderable discussion, in which Malone hinted that Sycorax might 
act by a sort of " power of attorney" from the moon, while Stee- 
vens 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 "with 
out" 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 com 
mand of the moon, with all the power exercised over the tides by 
the moon. The error of the press here is, we think, transparent. 



OP 

VEKONA. 



ACT I. SCENE L 

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 dialogue ; 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 ; but you are over boots in love." 

" For," instead of but, was perhaps caught by the compositor 
from the preceding line. 

The following change, lower in the page, seems hardly neces 
sary, but it is not the only instance in which the manuscript-cor 
rector of the folio, 1632, has converted the active into the passive 
participle : he altered 

(38) 



SO. II.] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. 39 

" Even so by love the young and tender wit 
Is turned to folly ; blasting in the bud," 

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 observa 
tion 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 familiar verse, and the manu 
script-corrector has added the word bet:er 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 cir 
cumstance belongs to other places, where it is clear that prose 
only was to be spoken. 

SCENE n. 

P. 97. Rhyme is also restored in the next scene between Julia 
and Lucctta, 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, 



40 THE TWO GENTLEMEN 1 [ACT I. 

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, 
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 application to the 
very person of whom both she and her mistress 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 corrector restores 
what we may presume to have been the original 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 think ; 
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 fre 
quently 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. 



ACT II.] OF VEKONA. 41 

When " The Two Gentlemen of Verona" was, according to our 
best conjectures, first produced, blank verse had only recently 
been adopted on the stage. We shall see this point more fully 
illustrated hereafter, when we come to speak of " Titus Andron- 
icus," in which several passages have been restored by the correct 
or 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. 



ACT H. 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 rv. 

P. 116. The following passage, as it stands in all impressions, 
is unquestionably a piece of tautology. The Duke asks Valen 
tine if he knows Don Antonio ? 

" Val. 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 be of wealth and worthy estimation." 

Wealth would be an additional recommendation to the Duke, and 
it entirely avoids the objectionable repetition : if Antonio were of 



42 THE TWO GENTLEMEN" [ACT II. 

" worth " and " worthy estimation," he could not well be so re 
puted " 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 " sum- 
mer-smelling" 

SCENE VI. 
P. 124. Johnson tells us, that 

" 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" between 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. 



ACT I.] OF VERONA. 43 

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 provide 
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 journey." 

" Loving journey," in reference to the purpose of it, seems to 
recommend itself. 



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 Mi 
lan. In the two last places three syllables are necessary for the 
verse ; and Pope and Theobald resorted to different 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, 1632, 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 measure 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 Pro 
teus most confidentially : 



44 THE TWO GENTLEMEN [ACT IY. 

" 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 corrector 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, 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 cre\ve, 
And show thee all the treasure we have got" 

For " crews" we ought to read cave, in which the treasure was de 
posited : cave is therefore written in the margin, and crews erased : 
the " crews" (so to call them) were present on the stage, and Val 
entine needed not to be brought to them. 



ACT IV. SCENE II. 

P. 148. In the song, " Who is Silvia ?" &c., there is a repeti 
tion of " she" in the third line, as the rhyme to " she" in the first 
line; and although such a license 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 else 
where employed with reference to female simplicity and inno 
cence (" 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." 



SC. IV.] OF VERONA. 45 

SCENE III. 

P. 153. We have here a very important emendation, supplying 
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 ; 
"\Vbich since I know they virtuously are plac'd, 
I give consent to go along with you." 

Here there is no connection between the first and the second 
lines, because Sir Eglamour could not mean that the "griev 
ances," but that the affections of Silvia were " virtuously placed." 
Shakespeare must, therefore, have written what we find in an ad 
joining blank space of the folio, 1632, which makes the sense 
complete : 

" Madam, I pity much your grievances, 
And the most true affections that you bear ; 
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 valu 
able, 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, 



46 THE TWO GENTLEMEN [ACT. V. 

The folio, 1632, gives the hangman only one boy, u by the 
hangman's boy in the market-place ;" but the true reading seems 
to be that of the corrected folio, 1032, where " a hangman boy" 
is used just in the same way that Shakespeare 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 ras 
cally 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:" 

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 abso 
lutely 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 pic 
ture, says, in the first folio, that " her eyes are gray as glass," 
which may be right ; but which the second folio alters to "her eyes 
are gray as grass," which must be wrong. The manuscript-cor 
rector of the folio, 1632. converts " gray" into green " her eyes 
are green as grass .;" and such we have good reason to suppose was 
the true reading. 



ACT V. SCENE H. 

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 ?"_, 



SC. II.] OF VERONA. 47 

And the folio, 1632, before it was corrected in manuscript, 
" Which of you, say, saw Sir Eglamour of late ?" 

There is no note when the Duke goes out, but Exit in haste, is 
written in the margin. The additional stage-directions in the cor 
rected 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 ap 
pear 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- direction, 
that shouts are heard, and then follow 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 antecedent : 

" 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 sentence continuous, 
as in the old copies, and not, as in modern 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) 



48 THE TWO GENTLEMEN [ACT V. 

To hazard life, and rescue you from him, 

That would have forc'd your honor 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 measure 
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 : time most accurst ! 

'Mongst all foes, that a friend should be the worst ! 
Prof. My shame and guilt confounds me !" 

Malone, in justification, observes that Shakespeare sometimes em 
ploys 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 re 
duce the language of Shakespearse to a finger-counting standard, 
but the subsequent emendation shows, at all events, that at an 
early date the passage was deemed corrupt, and that it ought to 
run as follows : 

" The private wound is deep'st. time accurst, 

'Mongst all my foes, a friend should be the worst ! 
Prof. My shame and desperate guilt at once confound me !" 

It seems more than likely that we have here recovered the lan 
guage of Shakespeare ; and it is to be remarked that the lines of 
the poet are regular, both before and after the preceding quotation. 

P. 170. The following manuscript emendation in the corrected 
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 



SO. IV.] OF VERONA. 49 

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 is 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, according 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." 

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 doubt 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 observed, 
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 MEEEY WIVES 

OF 

WINDSOK. 



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 Shallow, 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 
Enter Page is marked. This old mode of commencing the 
comedy may seem to give the scene additional vivacity and re 
ality. Falstaff, Bardolph, Nym, and Pistol, of course, enter, 
when Page says, "Here comes Sir John," &c., p. 180. 

P. 184. Opposite Slender's ejaculation, " O heaven ! this is Mis 
tress 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 to 
wards 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 cui'ious relic of stage-business. 

P. 185. It was not meant that Sir Hugh Evans should, like 

(50) 



SC. III.] THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 51 

Slender, grossly misapply words : therefore, in the following ob 
servation, 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 ;" &c. 

P. 186. According to the manuscript-correction of the folio, 
1632, the commentators have been right in altering the old read 
ing of the sentence, " I hope, upon familiarity will grow more con 
tent," into " I hope, upon familiarity will grow more contempt ;" 
for Slender could hardly misquote a proverb he found in his 
copy-book. Besides, the humor 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 manu 
script 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 m. 

P. 189. A rigid adherence to the old copies has here misled 
editors, who have given Nym's speech as, " The good humor 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 Fal staff, speak- 
in"' of the expected result of his enterprise against Mrs. Ford, 
observes, as the words have been invariably given, " I spy enter 
tainment 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 in 
vitation." There seems no sufficient reason for supposing that 
" carves" ought to be taken in the figurative sense of wooes ; and 
although ladies might now and then " carve" to guests, in the lit 
eral meaning of the word (as in the passage quoted by Boswell 
from Webster's " Vittoria Corombona," Shakesp. by Malone, 



52 THE MERRY WIVES [SO. IV. 

VIII. 38), yet carving was undoubtedly an accomplishment pecu 
liarly belonging to men. Falstaff evidently, from the context, 
intends 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 lettter, 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 4to, 1602, where 
it is said " she hath legions of angels." That, however, is evi 
dently 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, all 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 paral 
lel 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 humor of this age," 
and not "honor of this age," as in all the folios. 

P. 192. Pistol's exclamation, " By welkin, and her star !" is, 
"By welkin, and her stars!" 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 f I'faith, that / will !" 
and not " that we will," as in the printed copies. 



ACT I.] OF WINDSOR. 53 

ACT H. 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.' 1 '' 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 continua 
tion of Pistol's speech, is fully confirmed by a correction hi 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, " Cavalier o-justice, I say!" Shallow, coming 
after him, answers, "I follow, mine host, I follow." Their en 
trances 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 observa 
tions 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 : hi 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 
Falstaff, in a subsequent scene (p. 211), "Such Brooks are wel 
come to me, that o'erflow such liquor," it has always been con 
sidered 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 decid 
edly the more probable), and whether, in fact, the name was not 



54 THE MEBEY WIVES [ACT. II. 

originally Bourne, which the manufacturer of the surreptitious 
4to, 1602 (for there never was an authentic impression of "The 
Merry Wives" 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 manu 
script 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 compositor misprinted Broome. 

There is certainly another error of the press, which we may al 
low 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 " herls, 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 should be lost. 
How so ordinary an expression as " Will you go on, here ?" came 
to be misprinted, " Will you go, An-heires ?" we are at a loss to 
imagine : perhaps the writing before the printer was very illegi 
ble, and he could not believe that any thing so simple and intelli 
gible 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 sen 
tence, but it is more likely that two words were accidentally 



SO. II.] OF WINDSOR. 55 

omitted, and that the true reading is that furnished by the correct 
or of the folio, 1632, " I had rather hear them scold, than see them 
fight." 

SCENE II. 

P. 206. In FalstafFs reply to Pistol, the compound epithet, 
according to the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, is not, 
" Coach-fellow, Nym," but " Couch-fellow, Nym," as, indeed, it 
was printed by some of the earlier editors, as equivalent to " bed 
fellow." Nevertheless, " coach-fellow" may be, and has been, rec 
onciled to sense. 

P. 208. It seems improbable that Mrs. Quickly should have 
had " twenty angels" given to her " this morning" by a person who 
wished to be in the good graces of Mrs. Ford ; and in the folio, 
1632, the sentence is thus altered in manuscript, "I had myself 
twenty angels given of a morning." 

P. 212. 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 endeavor 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 
easing 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 favor 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 hith 
erto been given, speaks thus to Falstaff: "She dwells so se 
curely on the excellency of her honor, that the folly of my soul 
dar.es not present itself." The manuscript-corrector of the folio, 
1632, reads suit for " soul" " that the folly of my suit dares not 
present itself." 



56 THE MERRY WIVES [ACT III. 

SCENE III. 

P. 216. In the beginning of the scene between Caius and Jack 
Kugby, the former wishes to practise his fencing on his man, and, 
offering 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 direction, the words, Afeard, 
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, hav 
ing said that Anne Page was feasting at a farm-house, in order 
still more to incite Dr. Caius to go there, mentioned the most or 
dinary objects of feasting at farm-houses at that time, viz. curds 
and cream : " curds and cream" in the hands of the old compos 
itor became strangely metamorphosed into cried game at least 
this is the marginal 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 very great importance, but 
for " the pitty-ward, the park- ward, every way ; Old Windsor 
way, and every way but the town way," the corrected folio, 
1632, has, certainly with the advantage of intelligibility, " 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. 



SO. III.] OF WINDSOR. 57 

P. 222. The folios are evidently deficient in tnat part of the 
Host's speech, where he is endeavouring to make reconcilement 
between Evans and Caius. The folio, 1623, reads, " Give me 
thy hand (celestial), so. Boys of art, I have deceived 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 manuscript, giving the following as the lan 
guage 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 fol 
lowing 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 husband 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 Falstaff" is the 
corrected and more natural reading of the folio, 1632. 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 himself among 
the foul linen in the buck-basket. The words are, Gets in the 
laslcet 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 confusion. 
3* 



58 THE MERRY WIVES [ACT IV. 

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 obtained) the boys lea veto 
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 genders," 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 in 
stance, and, in the words of modern editions, Pul's the dollies 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 cor 
rected folio, 1632, shows that Howe was justified 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 in 
serted 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 
referred merely to the known sufferings of Falstaff, as a reason 
why he would not again be entrapped. 

SCENE V. 

P. 258. Modern editors have needlessly changed the prefixes 
of the folios ha this part of the scene : the corrector of that of 



ACT V'.] OF WINDSOR. 59 

1632 has altered two small words, and made the dialogue run 
quite consistently. Simple tells Falstaff and the Host that he 
had other things to have spoken on behalf 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 been to put " I may not conceal them, 
sir," into the mouth of Simple, followed by a mark of interroga 
tion ; and the Host's next speech has been invariably printed 
"Conceal them, or thou diest." The Host was desirous that Sim 
ple should reveal, and would not, therefore, threaten death 
if he disclosed them. Dr. Farmer wished reveal to be sub 
stituted for " conceal," but the only alteration here required is 
and for " or," " Conceal them and thou diest." Such is the emen 
dation 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 ? Bardolph, 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 by in the 
margin, 

" Run away with by the cozeners," 

and the rest of Bardolph's speech confirms this interpretation: as 
soon as they had thrown him off into the mire, the cozeners" set 
spurs and away" with the Host's horses. 

ACT Y. SCENE HI. 

P. 265. The text of the folios, " Where is Nan now, and her 
troop of fairies'? and the Welsh devil, Herne," is certainly wrong. 
Theobald altered " Herne" to Hugh, and he was, of course, right 
as to the person intended ; but the manuscript-corrector of the 
folio, 1632, erases " Herne," and inserts Evans, as the proper 



60 THE MERRY WIVES [ACT V. 

reading. Had "Hugh" been the word, it seems probable that 
Mrs. Ford might have paid him the respect of calling him Sir 
Hugh. 

SCENE V. 

P. 267. We have the evidence of the corrected folio, 1632, in 
favour of " 6n'6e-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 Fal- 
staff hi 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 manuscript-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 per 
formance. 

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," &. 

There is no doubt that this was originally a couplet, until a cor 
ruption crept in, which no editor felt himself competent 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, informs us that the lines ought 
to run as follows, by which the rhyme is preserved : 

" Cricket, to Windsor chimneys when thou'st leap't, 
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 



SO. V.] OF WINDSOE. 



" Raise up the organs of her fantasy," 



61 



the same authority reads, " Rouse up the organs," &c. He re 
moves 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 impressions 
of the play, 

" And this deceit loses the name of craft, 
Of disobedience, or unduteous 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 corrector of the 
folio, 1632, inserts what he tells us is the proper reading in the 
margin : 

" Of disobedience or unduteous guile." 



MEASTJKE FOE MEASUKE. 



ACT I. SCENE I. 

Vol. II. p. 7. THE Duke, in all editions of this play, observes 
to Escalus, after calling him to his side, 

" Of government the properties to unfold, 
Would seem in me t' affect speech and discourse ; 
Since I am put to know, that your own science 
Exceeds, hi that, the lists of all advice 
My strength can give you : then, no more remains, 
But that, to your sufficiency, as your worth is able, 
And let them work." 

This reading has been - derived from the four folios ; but, ac 
cording to the corrected folio. 1632, it is erroneous in three par 
ticulars : the first is not of any great consequence, inasmuch as 
" Since I am put to know" is as intelligible and forcible as " Since 
I am apt to know ;" but the great improvement 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, ac 
cidentally 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 yonr 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 difficulty 
on the very threshold of this play. 

P. 9. It has been made a question between Johnson, Steevens, 
and Tyrwhitt, whether, when the Duke says, 

(62) 



SC. III.] MEASURE FOR MEASURE. 63 

" 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, 1C32, make it certain that at the words " Hold, there 
fore, 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 IL 

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 margin of the cor 
rected folio, 1632. 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 Tyrwhitt'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 
exit. Juliet is mentioned as one of the characters entering, but 
her name is erased by the corrector 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 pa 
tiently to the description of her offence. It was, therefore, not the 
practice of our stage, when the folio of 1632 was corrected, to 
place 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 corrected 
folio, 1632, in Claudio's speech. The usual reading is, 



64 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. [ACT I. 

" 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 "propagation" 
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," 

Theobald 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 feared ; 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 emphatically 
upon the justice of the decrees neglected to be enforced, rather 
than use so tame an expression as " Becomes more mock'd than 
fear'd." 

P. 19. It was proposed by Pope, Hanmer, Johnson, Steevens, 
&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." 

Without adverting to the discordant proposals of the commen 
tators, we may quote the satisfactory words, and their context, 
as they are exhibited in the manuscript correction of the folio, 
1632 : 



ACT II.] MEASURE FOR MEASURE. 65 

"I have on Angelo impos'd the office, 

Who 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 pun 
ishing 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 stone'* 

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 H. SCENE I. 

P. 27. In Froth's sentence, " I have so ; because it is an open 
room and good for winter," some difficulty 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 " winter" 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 ; be 
cause it is an open room, and good for windows" that is, good 
on account of the windows. 

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 understood in the place where 



66 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. [ACT II. 

it is found : he says, " If this law hold in Vienna ten year, I'll rest 
the fairest house in it after three pence a bay." The commenta 
tors 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 41. Us. 
3d. a year for the "fairest house in Vienna." 

SCENE H. 

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 God 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 re 
markable 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 skekels of the tested gold."&c, 

It is spelt sickles in the old copies, but the true word may be cir 
cles ; 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, 



SO. IV.] MEASURE FOR MEASURE. 67 

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 in. 

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 un 
questionably right, did not occur to any of them. The whole pas 
sage 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 litte better 
than nonsense the emendation indisputable. 

SCENE IV. 

P. 44. Tyrwhitt is authorized by the corrected folio, 1632, in 
reading in-sheWd, for " enshield " of the old copies, in the follow 
ing 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 Ma- 
lone as to the meaning of the phrase " in the loss of question." 
The corrector of the folio, 1632, writes in the margin, " but in the 



68 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. [ACT III. 

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 manacles of the all-binding law," instead 
of " all-building law," which was the mistaken epithet in the old 
copies. Dr. Johnson first substituted all-binding. 



ACT IE. SCENE I. 
P. 49. The sentence in the Duke's homily on death, ending, 

" For all thy blessed youth 
Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms 
Of palsied eld :" 

is altered hi manuscript in the corrected folio, 1632, to 
" For all thy boasted youth," c. 

which, looking at the context, appears to be a decided improve 
ment upon the old text. 

P. 51. We are glad to obtain an authority, which we may con 
sider to a certain extent decisive, upon a much doubted portion of 
the scene between Isabella and her brother. She tells him of An- 
gelo's design upon her virtue, and he exclaims in astonishment, 
according to the first folio, 

" The prenzie Angelo ?" 

The second folio, not being able to find any sense in premie, 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. War- 
burton 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 manu 
script in the corrected folio, 1632: 

Claud. " The priestly Angelo ? 

Isab. 0, 'tis^the cunning livery of hell, 



SC. II.] MEASUEE FOR MEASURE. 69 

The damned'st body to invest and cover 
In priestly garb." 

For " priestly garb" the first folio has " prenzie guards," and the 
second " princely guards ;" but priestly garb is unquestionably the 
true language of Shakespeare, which has reference to the sanctimo 
nious appearance and carriage of Angelo. Warburton is to have 
the credit of " priestly," but all the commentators have been un 
der 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, 1632, 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 H. 

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 re 
stored 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 



70 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. [ACT III. 

corrected folio, 1632. Near the end of the same speech occurs 
the question, " What 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, one of the most common expletives 
'' What say'st thou, troth ?" 

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, 
1632, ought to run, "You have paid the heavens 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. 66. Two portions of the Duke's twenty-two short verses, 
concluding this Act, are amended in manuscript in the corrected 
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 difficulty, 
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 



SO. III.J MEASURE FOR MEASURE. 71 

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 deception, and then the 
whole passage may mean " How many persons, alike in crimi 
nality, conceal their deceptions so successfully as to draw ponder 
ous and substantial advantages, even with spiders' webs !" 



ACT IV. SCENE I. 
P. 69. In the Duke's soliloquy on " place and greatness," this 



occurs 



" Volumes of report 

Run with these false and most contrarious quests 
Upon thy doings." 

But "these" can hardly be right, since no "false and contrarious 
quests" have been 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 "unsisting" 
was to be taken as never resting ; but the corrector of the folio, 
1632, marks "unsisting" as an error of the press, and very natu 
rally 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 m. 

P. 80. After the Duke's interview with Barnardine, he is made 
to exclaim, in all editions, and nobody has found fault with the 
expression, 



72 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. [ACT IV. 

" Unfit to live or die. 0, gravel heart !" 

The woitds " gravel heart " having been considered equivalent to 
stony heart ; but the fact seems to be, that it is a misprint. And 
that the Duke's real exclamation is much more appropriate, 

" Unfit to live or die. 0, grovelling beast /" 

the character of Barnardine having been reduced by idleness and 
intoxication to that of a mere prone brute. Such is the manu 
script correction in the folio, 1632. 

P. 81. For the disputed epithet of the folios, Haniner, Heath, 
and Monk Mason recommend weZZ-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 exclama 
tion 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 certainly 
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," 

In the Duke's next speech, the usual text of the eighth line has 
been, 

" I am combined by a sacred vow ;" 



SC. VI.] MEASURE FOR MEASURE. 73 

but " combined" for confined was 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 Angelo'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. 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 ob 
scure. 

SCENE VI. 

P. 87. Theobald's happy emendation of the last line of Isabel 
la'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 Ma- 
lone objected to, and, at the recommendation of Johnson, read, 
"to veil full purpose." In the folio, 1632, as amended in manu 
script, it stands precisely in this form: 

" He says, to 'vail-full purpose ;" 

that is, to a purpose that is availful or beneficial, and seems the 
true reading ; for in the next line, Isabella, disliking duplicity, 
says the same thing by a figure, 



74 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. [ACT V. 

" '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 msntion that in the line of 
the first folio, 

" And she will spaak most bitterly and strange," 
the second folio has it imperfectly, 

" And she will speak most bitterly." 

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 invariable text 
of Isabella's passionate appeal has been, 

" 0, 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 manuscript 
corrector of the folio tell us is the real word that ought to be put 
in its place ? 

" 0, 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. 



SC. I.] MEASURE FOR MEASURE. 75 

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 in 
finitely 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 manuscript-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 margin. 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. Isa 
bella had appealed to the Duke, and he had rejected 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 



76 MEASURE FOB MEASURE. [ACT V. 

unsatisfactory by no means sufficient to regulate the acting and 
business of the play. Thus, whenever Isabella or Mariana are to 
kneel, 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 manuscript, 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 " cur 
tain" was " drawn" before them, in order to separate them from 
the audience, in the same way that in more modern times a cur 
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 
very 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 EKKOKS. 



ACT L SCENE L 

P. 114. THE life of ^Egeon 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 sentence upon him), ob 
serving, as the passage has hitherto stod, 

" Yet that the world may witness, that my end 
"Was wrought by nature, not by vile offence, 
I'll utter what my sorrow gives me leave." 

The manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, states that "nature," 
in the second line, ought to be fortune, since ^Egeon 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 by fortune, not by vile offence." 

Possibly, by " nature" we might understand the natural course of 
events. 

P. 115. ^Egeon, overtaken by a storm at sea, which threatened 
death to himself, his wife, and two children, says, 

" Which though myself would gladly have embrac'd, 
Yet the incessant weeping of my wife," &c. 

There seems no reason why .^Egeon should "gladly have em 
braced" death, if he could have escaped it ; and a marginal cor 
rection in the folio, 1632, shows that the word gently (i. e. pa 
tiently and submissively) was Shakespeare's word, 

(77) 



78 THE COMEDY OF EREOES. [ACT I. 

" Which though myself would gently have embrac'd." 
Six lines lower, in the same speech, "And this it was" is altered 
to " And thus it was," not necessarily, but certainly judiciously. 

P. 11 7. 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, pre 
served 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 manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, 
two errors : 

" Whom whilst I labour'd of a love to see, 
I hazarded the loss of whom I 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 jn 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: jEgeon was to seek what he hoped to obtain (viz. 
money to purchase his life), by the "beneficial help" of some per 
sons in Ephesus. Tour lines lower, the verse is deficient of a 
syllable ; and, to supply it, now is inserted in manuscript in the 
margin : 

" Jailor, now take him to thy custody." 
P. 121. Pope's emendation of " clock" for cook is supported by 



ACT. II.] THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. 79 

the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, in the following pas 
sage: 

" Methinks your maw, like mine, should be your clock; 
And strike you home without a messenger : " 

nevertheless, obvious as the error seems, coi)Jc was, we believe, 
printed in all editions until Pope's time, and has even been re 
stored in our own. 



ACT II. SCENE I. . 

P. 124. By the misprint of "doubtfully" for doubly in two. 
places, as pointed out by the corrector of the folio, 1632, the hu 
mour 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 1" 
Here " doubtfully " ought to be doubly, as well as in Dromio's re 
ply, " 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 manu 
script-corrector, he having no means of setting the corrupt pas 
sage right. 

SCENE H. 

P. 130. It has been thought rather a happy conjectural emen 
dation by Pope, when he converted "trying" of the old copies 
into tiring in the following sentence, yet he was certainly mis 
taken: "The one to save the- money that he spends in 'tiring; the 
other that at dinner they should not drop in his porridge." Anti- 
pholus and Dromio of Syracuse are talking of hair, and on the 



80 THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. [ACT II. 

advantages of baldness, and the word trimming was quite techni 
cal in reference to cutting and dressing the hair ; it is misprinted 
trying in the old copies, and it is clear that the letter m had drop 
ped out, tryming, or trimming, being 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 unstaind, 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. 133. Antipholus of Syracuse, wonder-struck at the advances 
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 incontestibly 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 freed fallacy" of the old copies. The last 
has generally been printed " the offer'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 



ACT. III.] THE COMEDY OF ERKOES. 81 

Theobald needlessly, though not without plausibility, substituted 
ouphes. 



ACT m. 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 preceding 
line. We give the couplet as it stands with the marginal emen 
dation : 

" 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 character, 
farther on in the scene. The common reading is, 

" If thou had'st been Dromio 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 /ace" are the words inserted by the corrector 
of the folio, 1632, which seem more accurately to preserve 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 ruinous, 
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 ?" 
4* 



82 THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. [ACT IV. 

P. 142. The line, 

" Far more, far more to you do I decline," 

may be reconciled to sense ; but the reading of the corrector of 
the folio, 1632, which makes a very trifling change, seems pre 
ferable : 

" Far more, far more to you do I incline." 

P. 144. All that intervenes between the question of Antipholus, 
" What complexion is she of?" and Dromio's observation, on the 
next page, " O ! 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 manuscript- 
corrector to "Among my wife and these confederates." The 
common reading is " her confederates," which may be right. In 
the next speech of Antipholus 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 by 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. 150. Angelo demanding his money for the chain of Antipho 
lus of Ephesus, is answered in the folio, 1623, "Consent 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 for that I never had?" 
which is certainly more to the purpose. 



SC. II.] THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. 83 

SCENE H. 

P. 152. Dromio arrives in great haste to obtain from his mis 
tress and her sister the purse to pay his master's supposed debt, 
and when he 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 swift : 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 re 
marked 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 folio, 
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 no 
tion 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 irregularity in the meas 
ure, coming as it does from Dromio, a sort of ad libitum ver 
sifier. 



84: THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. [ACT V. 

SCENE IE. 

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 manu 
script-corrector of the folio, 1632, has it, "Avoid, thou fiend!" 
which 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 received, he 
says his " bones bear witness," 

" That since have felt the vigour of his rage," 

The manscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, here reads riff our for 
" vigour ;" and lower down he makes Dromio exclaim, 
" God and the rope-maker now 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. 



SO. I.] THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. 85 

P. 169. Adriana, speaking of her husband, who had been seized 
as a madman, says 

" Aiion, 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. 

P. 172. Antipholus of Ephesus, describing the manner in which 
he had been seized, bound, and confined, observes, 

" They fell upon me, bound me, bore me thence, 
And in a dark and dankish vault at home 
There left me," &c. 

The corrector of the folio, 1632, alters it to " They left me," 
which is clearly right. 

P. 174. ^Egeon, astonished at not being recognized by Anti 
pholus 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, 1632, 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." 



86 THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. [ACT. V. 

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 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, delivered 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 pro 
duced many conjectural emendations, it is needless to notice the va 
rious proposals of Theobald and others, which are all nearly 
equally wide of the mark. 



MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 



ACT I. SCENE L 

P. 188. In 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-direc 
tion merits notice : it is that the word " Messenger" is converted 
into Gentleman, and the manner in which he joins hi the conversa 
tion 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 important parts to per 
sons 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 the principal archer, and who 
cleaves the apple on his son's head. 

(87) 



88 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT II. 

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 
even been 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 HI. 

P. 199. John the Bastard, telling Conrade of his melancholy, 
says "There is no measure in the occasion that breeds," the pro 
noun it being wanting after the verb, which is found in the mar 
gin 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 till of late 
stood out against your brother." 



ACT H. SCENE L 

P. 202. The speech of Beatrice requires father 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 difference 
between " wooing, wedding, and repenting" is much injured by the 
omission of a pun just at the conclusion "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 an 
cientry ; and then comes repentance, and with his bad legs falls 
into the cinque pace faster and faster, 'till he sink a pace into his 



SO. II.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 89 

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 Glaudio'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, 1632, 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 " impossi 
ble" (of all the printed editions) in the sense of unbearable, in 
supportable ; and " impossible" is converted into importable by 
the corrector of the folio, 1632. Three lines lower her is prop 
erly 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 transgressed" and Benedick is referring to his state of perfec 
tion. 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 com 
plexion;" but the corrector of the folio, 1632, reads " something 
of as jealous a complexion," which affords exactly the same point, 
and seems to prove that he was not guided by the old 4to. 

SCENE II. 

P. 213. In Borachio's statement of the mode in which he would 
proceed in tainting the character of Hero, he tells John the Bas 
tard, that if he will bring the Prince and Claudio at night, they 



90 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT II. 

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 difficulty, and the abridgment of the name of 
Bomchio is inserted 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 seeming 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 unquestionably what is meant. 

SCENE III. 

P. 215. For "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 intelligibility 
of it, are omitted in the old printed copies. When Benedick en 
ters, we are told in manuscript in the folio, 1632, 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, 1632, has added Eelirrs behind the 
trees. The name of "Jack Wilson " (who did not sing the song 
when the folio, 1632, was corrected) is struck out, and Balthazar's 
entrance is marked in the proper place. When Benedick after 
wards 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. 

P. 217. The second verse of Balthazar's song is thus altered in 
manuscript, in the folio, 1632. 

" Sing no more ditties, sing no mo, 
Or dumps so dull and heavy ; 
The frauds of men were ever so 
Since summer flrst was leafy." 



ACT III.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 91 

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 meaning is 
heightened by the addition of the word full 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," ex 
cepting in the manuscript of the corrector of the folio, 1632. 
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 ; O 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 very moment when she exclaims, " O, sweet 
Benedick ! " 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 increased 
by the insertion of a negative. Benedick asks Beatrice whether 
she takes pleasure in the message to him 1 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 HI. SCENE I. 

P. 223. " Enter Beatrice st'.aling in behind" is the expressive 
stage-direction in the corrected folio, 1632, and the scene is con 
ducted 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 over 
hear them, that word is inserted in the margin. 



92 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT IV. 

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, 1632, 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 lan 
guage in Beatrice's soliloquy, on coming forward after lying con 
cealed 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 mishearing 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 but 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 contempt: 
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. 



ACT IV. SCENE I. 

P. 243. Pope altered Claudio's exclamation as it stands in the 
old copies, " Out on thee seeming ! " to " Out on thy seeming ! " 
The corrector of the folio, 1632, supports the change by convert 
ing " thee" into thy. For 

" That rage in savage sensuality," 
he substitutes, 

" That range in savage sensuality ;" 



SC. I.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 93 

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 nature's frown?" 

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 seem to 
have supposed, as now appears to be the case, that "frame" had 
been misprinted for frowne. 

There is a still more injurious representation of Shakespeare's 
language in the last line of the same speech : 

" ! 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 I" 



9i MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT IV. 

This has been the universal reading, upon which Steevens re 
marks 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 tne 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 maintaining 
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 
should certainly run thus : 

" Trust not my age, 
My reverend calling, nor divinity, 
If this sweet lady lie not guiltless here 
Under some blighting error." 

To show in what a brief, but still intelligible, way the corrector 
of the folio, 1632, made his alterations, we may notice that, blight 
ing being mis-printed "biting" in the old copies, he did nothing 
more than add the letter I after the letter 5, leaving the rest of 
the letters to be understood. 



SC. I.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 95 

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 justify the 
use of " frame" in a former passage : 

" Whose spirits toil in frame of villainies." 

The manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, 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 supposed, 
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 de 
serves little weight, that a grieved and infuriated father would not 
be disposed to rhyme under such circumstances, it will be observ 
ed 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 wil 
ling 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 awa 
kened, was, of course, that of his daughter, should it turn out that 
she had besn traduced. The taste of the corrector may here have 
come in aid of such a change. 

P. 240. To show the minuteness of the criticism of the manu 
script-corrector we may advert to a mere transposition (but still 



96 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT IV. 

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, but 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 H. 

P. 252. In this comic scene, in the old copies, great confusion 
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-cor 
rector 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. 
Kern. 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.' 1 '' To have been the owner of leases 
might very well prove that Dogberry was " a rich fellow enough." 



ACT. V.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 97 

ACT V. SCENE I. 
P. 256. The defective line, 

" And bid Mm 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 corrector 
of the folib, 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 exam 
ple, and that he can never be comforted, until he shall meet with 
a man, suffering under equal calamities, who can defy his mis 
fortunes, 

" 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 sorrow 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 difficulty is to account for the misprint. 

P. 261. Boiled calf's head and capers was formerly not an un 
usual dish ; and when Claudio tells Don Pedro, that Benedick 
hath " bid him to a calf's head and a capon," the corrector 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 chal 
lenge 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 
5 



98 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT V. 

a question, " Who saw him, when he was hid in the garden ?" It 
seems likely that the speech was so amended, in consequence 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 Clau- 
dio, 

" 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 euphonious 
emendation was derived. 

SCENE HI. 

P. 271. The following is the " Song" as it is found corrected 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 we 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.' 11 

Thus we see virgin bright for " virgin knight ;" we go for " the} 
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 Biblio 
grapher, ii. 560.) It will be remarked that the rest of this scene 
is in rhyme, with the exception of these two lines : 



SO. IV.] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 99 

" 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 
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 Ursula to 
withdraw, and to return to the scene " masked." Such was, no 
doubt, the course when this comedy was originally produced, 
about the year 1599 ; 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 An 
tonio enters with the ladies (p. 274), we are told, in a manuscript 
stage-direction, that they are veiled; and when Hero, and subse 
quently 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 declined 
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 defiled, 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 cor 
rector of the folio, 1632, seems on all accounts much preferable: 

" One hero died belied, but I do live." 



100 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. [ACT V. 

Here we see the lady naturally denying her guilt, and attributing 
her death to the slander thrown upon her. Shakespeare's word 
must have been belied, and the mishearing of it may have led to 
the insertion of " denied," in the 4to, 1600. The editor of the 
folio, 1623, perhaps purposely omitted defiled on account of its 
unfitness. 

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 recommend 
ed by the greater accuracy of the verse and language. We tran 
scribe them as they stand in manuscript, 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 increased by 
the adoption by each party of precisely the same forms of ex 
pression. 

P. 276. The old editions assign " Peace ! I will stop your 
mouth" to Leonato ; but most modern editors, following the ex 
ample 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 LABOUK'S LOST. 



ACT L 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 in 
serting " 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 unlock the gate." 

This text the folio, 1632, adopted, excepting that it has f unlock for 
" to unlock." The quarto, 1598, had previously printed the coup 
let 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, corrected in 
manuscript, which seems preferable to the other authorities : 

(101) 



102 LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. [ACT i. 

" So you, by study now it is too late, 
Climb o'er the housetop to unlock the gate." 

Five lines lower we meet in the folio, 1623, with, 
" Yet confident, I'll keep what I have sworne ;" 

which is exactly copied from the quarto, 1598. The editor of the 
folio, 1632, seeing that a rhyme was intended, printed the line, 

" Yet confident, I'll keep what I have swore ;" 

But the manuscript-corrector of that impression gives us what 
Shakespeare wrote, which preserves the rhyme, and at the same 
time avoids the vulgarism : 

" Yet confident I'll keep to what I swore." 

We come to a more important emendation lower down, where 
Biron reads the decree " that no ^oman shall come within a 
mile " of the court, " on pain of losing her tongue." This Longa- 
ville declares, according to all editions, to be 

" A dangerous law against gentility ;" 
the corrector of the folio, 1632, tells us to read, 
" A dangerous law against garrulity." 

The two words were easily confounded, but the latter certainly 
affords the clearer, the stronger, and the more humorous meaning. 

P. 288. All the folios have, 

" If I break faith, this word shall break for me ;" 

which must be wrong, and speak has usually been placed instead 
of "break" in the second instance; but the corrector of the folio,' 
1632, informs us that the true word is plead : 

" If I break faith, this word shall plead for me." 

P. 289. The King describes Armado as 

" A refined traveller of Spain, 
A man in all the world's new fashion planted." 

The folio, 1632, has it thus : 

" A man in all the world new fashion planted." 



so. i.] LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. 103 

Planted yields but a poor sense, and the manuscript-corrector of 
that edition reads, 

" A man in all the world-new fashions flaunted." 

That is, a man flaunted, or decked out, in all the world-new fash 
ions. Shakespeare elsewhere uses the substantive, " flaunts," but 
not the verb. 

P. 290. Theobald congratulated himself on the change of 
"heaven" to having in this passage, "A high hope fora low 
heaven : God grant us patie'nce !" He was most likely wrong. 
The subject of conversation is "a letter from the magnificent 
Armado" just brought in by Costard, upon which Biron observes, 
" How low soever the matter, I hope in God for high words." 
Longaville's reply has reference to these " high words," and the 
corrector of the folio, 1632, says that we ought to erase " heaven" 
for hearing : 

" A high hope for a low hearing : God grant us patience !" 

What Biron adds seems consequent upon it, when he asks whether 
the patience prayed for is to be granted, " to hear, or to forbear 
hearing." Four lines below, the manuscrip^corrector has altered 
"clime in the merriness" of the old copies, to "chime in in the mer- 
riness," in allusion to the laughable contents expected in Arma- 
do's letter, "in the merriness" of which the King and his com 
panions hope to " chime in," or participate. 

P. 291. The words of Armado's letter, "that shallow vassal," 
appear always to have been misprinted, and the context, as well 
as the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, require us to alter 
it to " that shallow vessel." The connecting words are " that un 
lettered small-knowing soul, that shallow vessel, which, as I re 
member, hight Costard," &c. 

P. 293. "Sirrah, come on," has uniformly been assigned to 
Biron ; but it seems more properly to belong to the Constable, 
who had Costard in custody, and to him they are given by the 
corrector of the folio, 1632. He also, five lines below, inserts 
thee hi the proverbial sentence, " Set thee down, sorrow," as it 



104: LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. [ACT I. 

stands in the quarto, 1598, and as it occurs again, Act IV. Scene 
III. p. 331, where Biron exclaims, " Well, set thee down, sorrow !" 
The same proverb was most likely quoted in the same words in 
both places. 



SCENE H. 

P. 296. When Moth apostrophises, " My father's wit, and my 
mother's tongue, assist me !" Armado, in foolish admiration, 
breaks out, " Sweet invocation of a child ! most pretty and most 
pathetical !" Thus it is given in all editions ; but the old correct 
or changes " pathetical" into poetical, in reference to the boy's 
poetical " invocation." Yet he allows " pathetical" to remain in 
the text in Act IV. Scene I. (p. 324), where Costard terms Moth 
" a most pathetical nit." The word occurs in " As you like it," 
Act IV. Scene II. (p. 77), where Rosalind tells Orlando that if he 
" come one minute behind his hour" she will consider him a "most 
pathetical break-promise ;" but there no reason existed for mak 
ing any correction. 

P. 299. When Armado, relinquishing arms for love, exclaims, 
" Adieu, valour ! rust, rapier ! be still, drum ! for your manager 
is in love," nobody has made a note upon the uncouth word 
" manager" so applied. The corrector of the folio, 1632, shows 
it to have been an error of the printer, or of the scribe, for a 
much more appropriate and expressive term, which, perhaps, they 
did not understand, armiger " Adieu, valour ! rust, rapier ! be 
still drum, for your armiger is in love." This emendation is fol 
lowed by another, two lines lower, where the old copies have 
" Assist me some extemporal god of rhyme, for, I am sure, I shall 
turn sonnet." For sonnet, which, so used, is little better than 
nonsense, the proposed reading is sonnet-maker, as ballad-maker, 
song-maker, &c., " for, I am sure, I shall turn sonnet-maker." The 
usual word has been sonnetteer, which would answer the purpose, 
if it were in use at the time. The form of the word at that date 
and earlier would rather have been sonnetter, like enginer, muti- 
ner, &c. 



ACT in.] LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. 105 

ACT II. SCENE I. 

P. 300. Steevens has appended a note to the line, 
" Now, madam, summon up your dearest spirits," 

in which he observes, that " Dear, in our author's language, has 
many shades of meaning : in the present instance and the next, it 
appears to signify, best, most powerful." The fact is (if we may 
trust the corrector of the folio, 1632), that " dearest" was a mis 
print for clearest ; and it is easy to see how cl might be mistaken 
for d. He gives the line : 

" Now, madam, summon up your clearest spirits :" 

that is, her brightest and purest spirits, that the Princess might 
adequately discharge the important embassy entrusted to her by 
her father. 

P. 306. All the folios have a decided corruption in the line, 
" Though so denied farther harbour in my house," 

which has commonly been printed with fair for " farther." This 
may be right, but the manuscript-corrector inserts perhaps a bet 
ter word in his margin: 

" Though so denied free harbour in my house:" 

alluding to the refusal to the Princess of the unrestrained rights 
of hospitality in the King's palace. 

P. 306. In the short snip-snap dialogue between Kosaline and 
Biron, the prefixes to the speeches of the latter are always wrong, 
as if Boyet had been engaged with the lady in the wit-contest. 
The corrector of the folio, 1632, puts them right, in consistency 
with the quarto, 1598. 



ACT III. SCENE I. 

P. 309. In the folios this Act commences thus : 
5* 



106 LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. [ACT in. 

" Enter Braggart and Boy. 

SONG. 

Brag. "Warble, child : make passionate my sense of hearing. 
Boy. Concolinel. 
Brag. Sweet air! Go, tenderness of years," &c. 

Hence we may gather that the scene opens while the Boy is sing 
ing, and that Armado (called Braggart], delighted with the music, 
requires more, upon which the boy commences an Italian song, 
the first words of which are Con Colinel. The manuscript-cor 
rector of the folio, 1632, inserts the first words both of the Eng 
lish and of the Italian song, See my love, being the first, and 
Amato (which he spells armato) bene, the second. This circum 
stance may lead to the detection of them in some of our ancient 
collections of musical airs. Possibly, if not probably, Con Colinel 
was not the same as what in manuscript is called Amato bene, and 
it may, in the time of the corrector, have been substituted, the 
air of Con Colinel having gone out of fashion. Any scrap of in 
formation regarding the songs written or introduced by Shake 
speare is highly interesting. 

P. 310. After the Page's dissertation on the mode of " betray 
ing nice wenches," Armado asks, 

" How hast thou purchas'd this experience ?" 
and the answer is, as it stands printed in the old copies, 
" By my penne of observation." 

Sir Thomas Hanmer altered "penne" to penny, and Farmer and 
Eitson say that it alludes to a tract called " The Pennyworth of 
Wit." The manuscript-corrector entertained an entirely different 
notion : he tells us, as seems not at all unlikely, that paine (so 
spelt of old) was misprinted " penne ;" and this is the more pro 
bable, because the letter y at the end of penny would hardly have 
been converted into e. The true answer would therefore be, 
when Armado inquires how the Boy had procured his know 
ledge 1 

" By my pain of observation," 
or by the pains he had taken in observing the characters of men 



so. L] LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. 107 

and women. What most militates against this alteration is the 
figurative use of the word " purchased," for obtained, by Armado. 

P. 311. For " a message well sympathised" we ought unques 
tionably to substitute " a messenger well sympathised." Costard 
was to be the messenger, not the message. " Message" is altered 
to " messenger" in the margin of the corrected folio, 1632. 

P. 312. There are two emendations in Armado's soliloquy, 
after his Page has gone out to fetch Costard, one of them denot 
ing a strange corruption which has crept into the text from the 
earliest date, and in all impressions. The lines have been uni 
versally printed as follows : 

" A most acute Juvenal ; voluble and free of grace ! 
By thy favour, sweet welkin, I must sigh in thy face : 
Most rude melancholy, valour gives thee place." 

In the corrected folio, 1632, they are made to run: 

" A most acute Juvenal ; voluble and/azr of grace ! 
By thy favour, sweet welkin, I must sigh in thy face : 
Moist-eyed melancholy, valour gives thee place." 

"Fair of grace" is good-looking, whereas ''free of grace" means 
little more than had been already said by the epithet voluble. 
" Most rude melancholy " has no particular appropriateness, 
whereas, " moist- eyed melancholy" is peculiarly accordant with 
the sighs Armado breathes, with due apology, in the face of the 
welkin. 

It may be enough to say with reference to Costard's speech, a 
few lines below, that the manuscript-corrector completely justifies 
Tyrwhitt's emendation " no salve in them all." 

P. 313. The last line of the Page's Lenvoy is this in the manu 
script-corrected folio, 1632 : 

" Staying the odds by making four," 

instead of " adding four :" to add four would not have " stayed 
the odds." The next line is thus divided between Armado and 
the Page in the corrected folio, whereas in all editions it is made 
to belong to the Page only : 



108 LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. [ACT iv. 

" Arm. A good Lenvoy ! 
Page. Ending in goose, would you desire more ?" 

This change gives greater pungency to the dialogue, and makes 
Armado's position more ridiculous. 

P. 314. A point has been wholly lost by the omission of a word 
supplied by the manuscript-corrector. The ordinary, indeed the 
only, text has been this : 

" Armado. Sirrah Costard, I will enfranchise thee. 
Costard. ! marry me to one Frances ?" &c. 

This is unintelligible, for how could Costard imagine that Armado 
meant " to marry him to one Frances" or to any body else by 
merely saying to him, " I will enfranchise thee ? " What Armado 
says, is : 

" Sirrah Costard, marry, I will enfranchise thee ; " 

to which Costard's blundering answer applies naturally enough, 
" O ! marry me to one Frances 1 " &c. Just afterwards, for the 
incomplete expression of Armado, " I will give thee thy liberty, 
set thee from durance," the manuscript-corrector gives " set thee 
free from durance," the omission by the printer having been 
caused, no doubt, by the words " thee " and " free " following each 
other immediately. 

P. 317. What has usually been printed, 

" A whitely wanton with a velvet brow," 

the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, converts into "a witty 
wanton," the true word, in reference to Rosaline's talents, and 
certainly not to her complexion, which we are over and over again 
told is dark. The word is whitly in the old copies, and is a mere 
error of the press. We must therefore certainly read, 

" A witty wanton with a velvet brow." 



ACT IV. SCENE I. 

P. 319. The Princess good-humouredly rebukes the Forester 
for flattering her, and exclaims, 



sc. ii.] LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. 109 

" 0, heresy in fair, fit for these days ! 
A giving hand, though foul, shall have fair praise." 

The corrector of the folio, 1632, has it, 

" 0, heresy in faith, fit for these days !" 

which is probably right, although Shakespeare, like many other 
poets of his time, uses "fair" for fairness or beauty. 

P. 324. Costard speaks a soliloquy in rhyme at the close of 
this scene, one line in which is wanting, as is evident from the cor 
responding line, and from the insertion of the addition, though in 
a wrong place, by the corrector of the folio, 1632, He perhaps 
intended to write it in the blank space nearest to where it ought 
to come in, but he has written it in another blank space above it, 
and has drawn a mark with his pen to the spot where it is wanted. 
The whole passage is this, and the line in manuscript we have 
printed in italics : 

" Armado o' the one side, 0, a most dainty man ! 
To see him walk before a lady, and to bear her fan ! 
To see him kiss his hand ! and how most sweetly a' will swear I 
Looking babies in her eyes his passion to declare ; 
And his page o' t' other side, that handful of small wit ! 
Ah heavens, it is a most pathetical nit !" 

Besides the entire line, which escaped the printer or the copyist 
of the drama, the word small was also left out. 

SCENE H. 

P. 324. The manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, has made 
Act IV. commence with this scene ; but improperly, because 
Holofernes, Sir Nathaniel, and Dull enter on the exit of Costard, 
so that there is, in fact, no change of place, which usually consti 
tutes the division. 

P. 325. Part of Sir Nathaniel's speech is in rhyme, and part in 
prose, and there can be little doubt that the whole of it was 
originally in irregular jingling verse : the corrector of the folio, 
1632, "shows that some words, necessary to it, had been lost, 



110 LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. [ACT iv. 

though he evidently does not supply all that is wanting. Sir Na 
thaniel's first line rhymes to what Holofernes had said, 

" 0, thou monster ignorance, how deformed dost thou look ! 
Nath. Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book. 
He hath not eat paper, as it were, he hath not drunk ink : 
His intellect is not replenished ; he is only an animal, not to think ; 
Only sensible in the duller parts, and such barren plants 
Are set before us that we thankful should be. 
Which we. having taste and feeling, are for those parts that do 

fructify in us more than he : 

For as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet, or a fool, 
So were a patch set on learning, to set him in a school," &c. 

It is not possible to put the whole right, but the old corrector's 
contributions towards the original text are printed above in italics : 
how it happened that he could add so much, and not be able to 
furnish the rest, is a point we do not pretend to explain. The 
sense is a little obscure ; and as far as jingle is concerned, the 
line ending with " plants " has nothing to rhyme with it. 

P. 329. The characters of Holofernes (usually called the Pedant 
in the old prefixes) and of Sir Nathaniel are much confused in 
this scene ; it m'ay be sufficient to state that the speech " Here 
are only numbers ratified," &c., is given to Holofernes; but 
Theobald's apparently excellent emendation of imitari for " imi- 
tary" of the old copies is not countenanced by the corrector of 
the folio, 1632, who, instead of " imitary is nothing," reads, " imi 
tating is nothing," meaning that there is no merit in mere imitation. 
For " tired horse" he reads " trained horse," which affords a clear 
er and less dubitable meaning. 

SCENE IH. 

P. 331. The manuscript stage-directions in this scene, inserted 
in manuscript in the folio, 1632, are extremely minute, and the 
King cannot enter with " Ay me !" but we are informed in the 
margin that he sighs. When, at this juncture, Biron conceals 
himself, the printed stage-direction is only He stands aside, but 
that is obliterated, and He gets him in a tree is put in its place in 
manuscript. When, too, Biron interposes some remark to him 
self, it is added that he is in the tree, and when he descends to de- 



so. in.] LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. Ill 

tect his companions, Come down is inscribed in the margin. As 
each character retires or advances on the stage, information of it 
is duly given, so that the whole business and conduct of the 
scene are clearly explained. 

P. 332. Two transpositions, one of them of some moment, are 
pointed out by the manuscript-corrector : the first occurs in the 
fourth line, where " night of dew" (strangely justified by Steevens) 
is altered to dew of night; the second instance is only thou dost 
for " dost thou," in the fifteenth line of the King's sonnet. 

P. 333. A question has been agitated, whether, when Biron says, 
aside, in the old copies, 

" 0, rhymes are guards on wanton Cupid's hose ; 
Disfigure not his shop," 

we ought to read shape or slop. Theobald was in favor of slop, 
and his conjecture is confirmed by the corrector of the folio, 1632, 
who erases the h hi the text and inserts I. 

P. 334. The old reading of quarto and folios, 
" By earth, she is not corporal : there you lie," 

has also created dispute. Malone and other modern editors have 
usually adopted Theobald's alteration, " By earth, she is but cor 
poral." The corrector of the folio, 1632, substitutes most for not, 
" By earth, she is most corporal," which affords a still stronger 
contradiction to Dumaine. 

P. 336. Steevens contended that the line in Dumaine's " Son 
net " 

" Thou for whom Jove would swear," 

was defective, and wished to read, with Pope, 

" Thou for whom ev'n Jove would swear ;" 

while Malone absurdly insisted that " swear" was to be read as a 
dissyllable. The corrector of the folio, 1632, treats the line as 
if it wanted a syllable, and gives it, 

" Thou for whom great Jove would swear," 



112 LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. [ACT iv. 

the word great having dropped out in the press. After Dumaine 
has read his poem, he says, in all editions, 

" This will I send, and something else more plain, 
That shall express my true love's fasting pain." 

Here we see nearly the same error pointed out by the old cor 
rector which we also find set right in " Hamlet" (Vol. vii. p. 222,) 
" fasting" for lasting, although Johnson thought that " fasting" 
might here be taken as longing, hungry. 

P. 338. When Jaquenetta and the Clown enter with Biron's 
letter, the King, according to all copies of the play, asks them, 

" What present hast thou there ?" 

when he had no reason whatever to think that they had brought 
any " present." The mistake has been the printing of " present" 
for peasant, 

" What peasant hast thou there?" 

Costard was a clown or peasant, and is so addressed by the King. 
The manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, points out the blun 
der. 

P. 341. Biron having pronounced a eulogium upon the dark 
complexion of Rosaline, is laughed at by the King and his other 
companions : 

" 0, paradox ! Black is the badge of hell, 
The hue of dungeons and the school of night." 

This, the reading of the old copies, is evidently nonsense, and the 
corrected folio, 1632, contains the last line in this form : 

" The hue of dungeons and the shade of night," 

which is possibly the true reading, and not " scowl of night," which 
has been* generally adopted. 

P. 342. Nobody has suspected a misprint where one certainly 
occurs : it is in the passage, 

" For where is any author in the world 
Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye ?" 



sc. L] LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. 113 

The misprint is in the word " beauty," which incontestably should 
be learning, 

" Teaches such learning as a woman's eye ?" 

and it stands thus corrected in the folio, 1632. The whole tenor 
of Biron's- argument proves that the change is necessary, for he 
proceeds : 

" Learning is but an adjunct to ourself, 
And where we are our learning likewise is : 
Then, when ourselves we see in ladies' eyes, 
Do we not likewise see our learning there?'-' 

The hemistich, "With ourselves," which in the quarto, 1598, and in 
the folio, 1623, precedes the last line, is omitted in the folio, 1632, 
and is not restored in manuscript, so that we are better warranted 
in treating it as an accidental and unnecessary interpolation. 

P. 344. The line, as it has always stood, 

" And plant in tyrants mild humility," 

according to the evidence of the old corrector should be, 
" And plant in tyrants mild humanity ;" 

an evident improvement, since tyrants are void rather of human 
ity than of "humility," and the preceding line shows ^that the cor 
rection must be right. The next five lines are crossed out in the 
folio, 1632, three of them being nearly a repetition of what Biron 
had said in a previous part of his harangue to prove that oath- 
breach was lawful. 



ACT V. SCENE L 

P. 346. Theobald's conjecture that "infamie" of the old copies, 
near the close of the speech of Holofernes, ought to be insanie, 
is warranted by the corrector of the folio, 1632, excepting that he 
gives it in Latin, insania ; but he adds to it a farther emendation, 
which clears the passage still more : he give's it " This is abhomi- 
nable, which we would call abominable : it insinuateth one of 
insania." Thus one is substituted for me, which Farmer wished 



114 LOVE'S LABOUK'S LOST. [ACT v. 

to change to men ; while the blunder of " infamie" for insania was 
the result of the common mistake of reading /for the long s. 

P. 348. Armado asks Holofernes, " Do you not educate youth 
at the charge-house on the top of the mountain ?" Steevens tells 
us that he " supposes the 'charge-house' means the free-school;" 
but neither he nor any other person has adduced a single instance 
to show that "charge-house" and free-school were synonymous. 
It appears that it was only a misprint for " large house," for so 
the corrector of the folio, 1632, treats it. 

SCENE H. 

P. 350. To the stage-direction, " Enter Princess and Ladies," 
the corrector of the folio, 1632, has added, with presents, hi order 
to show that the performers displayed to the audience the various 
gifts they had accepted from the King and his companions. 

P. 351. When Rosaline says that she also has received lauda 
tory verses, she is laughed at, and Katharine taunts her with being 

" Fair as a text B in a copy-book ; 

but there seems no reason to choosing the letter B ; and the correc 
tor, hi reference to the first letter hi Rosaline's name, alters it to, 

" Fair as a text R in a copy-book." 

The next four lines are erased, probably because they were not 
intelligible, or were inapplicable. 

P. 352. The commentators have been puzzled by the following 
line in the folio, 1623, which is repeated in the other folios : 

" So pertaunt like would I o'ersway his state." 

They at length agreed that it should be read " portent-like," ex 
cepting Douce, who, somewhat at random, suggests scoffingly. It 
turns out that the disputed word (obviously not understood by 
any old editor or printer) is purely an error of the press. Rosa 
line thus alludes to the absolute power she would exercise over 
Biron, were she sure that he was unalteraby attached to her : 



sc. ii. J LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. 115 

" How would I make him fawn, and beg, and seek, 
And wait the season, and observe the times, 
And spend his prodigal wits in bootless rhymes, 
And shape his service wholly to my behests, 
And make him proud to make me proud with jests! 
So potently would I o'ersway his state, 
That he should be my fool, and I his fate." 

The use of potently here can require no explanation ; and it seems 
scarcely possible to doubt that it was the word of the poet, and 
for this reason it is placed in the margin of the corrected folio, 
1632. 

P. 353. Boyet brings word of the intended attack upon the 
Princess and her Ladies by the King and his Lords : 

" Arm, wenches, arm ! encounters mounted are." 

But it is not " encounters," but encounterers that are " mounted," 
and so the old corrector notes. Again, six lines lower, the Prin 
cess, in all ordinary editions, is made to ask, 

" What are they 
That charge their breath against us ?" 

" To charge their breath" is nonsense, and the corrector alters it, 
most naturally, to, 

" What are they 
That charge the breach against us?" 

The Princess carrying on the joke of supposing that she and her 
Ladies are in a state of siege. 

P. 354. We do not feel so confident respecting the next emen 
dation, at the end of Boyet's long account of the project he had 
overheard, the concoction of which had given such delight to the 
King and his merry companions : in fact they had laughed at it 
until they cried ; 

" That in this spleen ridiculous appears, 
To check their folly, passion's solemn tears." 

" Solemn tears" may possibly be right ; but we do not think it 
is, because the corrector of the folio, 1632, erases the word, and 
substitutes another in the margin, which certainly better answers 
the purpose : 



116 LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. [ACT v. 

" To check their folly, passion's sudden tears." 

That is to say, they laughed until they suddenly burst out crying, 
and thus checked their folly. We are to recollect that, as the old 
spelling of "sudden" was usually sodaine, the mistake would be 
easily made. 

Five lines lower we arrive at a change which cannot be doubt 
ed, and again rendered necessary by the blunder of / for long s. 
Boyet says that the King and his Lords will come to court the 
Ladies as Muscovites, and the invariable text has been, 

" And every one his love-feat will advance 
Unto his several mistress." 

" Love-feat" could hardly be Shakespeare's word, and as amended 
by the corrector of the folio, 1632, the line reads thus unobjec- 
tionably : 

" And every one his love-suit will advance 
Unto his several mistress." 

The fitness of the alteration seems self-evident. 

P. 360. The King and his Lords are so derided, jeered, and 
flouted by the Princess and her Ladies, that they are compelled 
to make a precipitate retreat, Biron having admitted that they 
had all been " dry-beaten with pure scoff." As soon as they are 
gone, the triumphant party burst out in expressions of joy and 
ridicule, and, among others, the Princess exclaims, as the line has 
always been printed, 

" O, poverty in wit, kingly poor flout !" 

Of which readers have been left to make what sense they could. 
The old corrector clearly saw no sense in it, and has furnished us 
with other words so well qualified for the place that we cannot 
hesitate to approve of them. The enemy had been utterly 
routed and destroyed, and the Princess, in the excess of her de 
light, breaks out, 

" 0, poverty in wit ! killed by pure flout !" 

meaning, of course, in consistency with what Biron had said of 
" pure scoff," that the King and his companions, disguised as Mus- 



so. ii.] LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. 117 

covites, had been driven from the field by the mere mockery of 
the Ladies. 

P. 375. In the old editions Costard makes his exit after the 
speech of the King, " Stand aside, good Pompey," and, accord 
ing to the corrector of the folio, 1632, he enters again after Ar- 
mado has delivered the words, " This Hector far surmounted 
Hannibal," the manuscript stage-direction being, Enter Costard 
in haste and unarmed : he is suddenly to bring word to Armado 
respecting the pregnancy of Jaquenetta, and afterwards to engage 
in his shirt in a conflict with the Spaniard, who turns out to be shirt 
less. Such was, doubtless, the manner in which this portion of 
the comedy was originally conducted, notwithstanding modern 
editors have needlessly and clumsily inserted a stage-direction, 
JBiron. whispers Costard, as if the latter had never left the scene. 
He had quitted it to disarm from his part of Pompey, and to 
convey the alarming tidings regarding Jaquenetta. 

P. 377. The emendation proposed by Theobald, 
" A heavy heart bears not a nimble tongue," 

instead of " an humble tongue" of the old impressions, is war 
ranted by good sense, and by the change introduced by the cor 
rector of the folio, 1632 ; but three lines lower, we come to a pas 
sage hitherto passed over, but which evidently requires the emen 
dation which it has received from the same authority. The lines 
are commonly printed, 

" The extreme parts of time extremely form 
All causes to the purpose of his speed." 

The passage is corrupt, and the manuscript alteration made in 
the folio, 1632, thus sets it right, and renders the sense dis 
tinct : the Princess is on the point of hastily quitting Navarre, 
on the news of the death of her father, and the King observes, 

" The extreme parting time expressly forms 
All causes to the purpose of his speed." 

Another error occurs in the answer of the Princess to the request 



118 LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. [ACT v. 

of the King, that she would not forget his love-suit : the reading 
has been, 

" I understand you not : my griefs are double." 

She did not understand him, because her sorrows had deadened 
her faculties, and the line, as we find from the manuscript correc 
tion in the folio, 1632, ought to be, 

" I understand you not : my griefs are dull," 

the copyist mishearing " double" for dull. Biron then takes up 
the subject, and when, among other things, he says, 

" As love is full of unbefitting strains, 
As wanton as a child," 

we ought to read strangeness for " strains," which is quite con 
sistent with what he adds just afterwards when he tells us that 
love is 

" Full of strange shapes, of habits, and of forms ;" 

instead of "straying shapes," as it is misprinted in the folios. 
Both these words are altered by the old corrector. 

P. 378. It seems clear that Biron meant to conclude his ad 
dress in rhyme, but it closes thus in all editions of the play : 

" We to ourselves prove false, 
By being once false forever to be true 
To those that make us both, fair ladies, you : 
And even that falsehood, in itself a sin, 
Thus purifies itself and turns to grace." 

Bead, with the corrector of the folio, 1632, and the sense is pre 
cisely the same while the rhyme is restored, 

" And even that falsehood, in itself so base, 
Thus purifies itself, and turns to grace." 

P. 379. The six lines in all the old copies, which read only like 
an abridgment of the penance imposed afterwards by Rosaline on 
Biron, are expunged by the corrector of the folio, 1632, as a need 
less and injurious reduplication. 

P. 380. Rosaline tells Biron that he is 



so. IL] LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. 119 

" Full of comparisons and wounding flouts, 
Which you on all estates will execute." 

" Will exercise" is the plausible manuscript-correction in the folio, 
1632. 

P. 381. There can, we apprehend, be no doubt that, instead of 
the following, 

" Then if sickly ears, 

Deafd with the clamours of their own dear groans, 
Will hear your idle scorns, continue then, 
And I will have you and that fault withal," 

we ought, with the old corrector, to read, 

" Then, if sickly ears, 

Deafd with the clamours of their own dire groans, 
Will hear your idle scorns, continue them, 
And I will have you and that fault withal ; 
But if they will not, throw away that spirit," &c. 

Dire for " dear" and them for " then" are slight changes, but edi 
tors have hitherto been unwilling to make them in the face of the 
old impressions. 



MIDSUMMEK NIGHT'S DEEAM. 



ACT I. SCENE I. 

P. 391. Rowe was the first editor who changed the old read 
ing, 

" And then the moon, like to a silver bow, 
Now bent in heaven," 

to " new bent in heaven ;" but the corrector of the folio, 1632, was 
of the same opinion as Rowe, although it is in vain to inquire 
whence he derived his knowledge. 

P. 392. By a very trifling emendation he makes Theseus end 
his speech with a couplet, which seems so naturally led to, that 
it is a wonder the alteration should never before have suggested 
itself: 

" But I will wed thee in another key, 
With pomp, with triumph, and with revelry," 

the common reading being " with revelling." 

The old corrector also renders it quite clear that " Stand forth, 
Demetrius," and " Stand forth, Lysander," lower down in the same 
page, are parts of the speech of Egeus, and not mere stage-direc 
tions, as they are printed in the ancient editions in quarto and 
folio. The corrector placed carets where the words ought to come 
in, and drew a line from the carets to the words, adding in the 
margin directions for the performers to step forward. Still 
lower, he reads "stubborn hardness" for "stubborn harshness," 
which is more in accordance with the rest of the sentence. 

P. 394. Capel's emendation, 

(120) 



ACT I.] A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. 121 

" But earthly happier is the rose distilled," 

which has been generally adopted since his time, is supported by 
a similar correction in the folio, 1632. The old reading is, "But 
earthlier happy," &c. 

P. 396. We here meet with a confirmation of Theobald's 
change of " love" to low, in 

" O cross ! too high to be enthrall'd to low." 
The line in the old copies, three lines farther down, 

" Or else it stood upon the choice of merit," 

is evidently misprinted, and friends has ordinarily been substitu 
ted for " merit ;" but men, inserted in the margin by the corrector 
of the folio, 1632, is more likely to have been the real word mis 
heard by the copyist : 

" Or else it stood upon the choice of men." 

P. 398. The corrector of the folio, 1632, gives the subsequent 
line differently from any other early authority, viz. 

" His fault, fair Helena, is none of mine." 
Fisher's quarto has it, 

" His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine ;" 
and Roberts' quarto and the folios, 

" His folly, Helena, is none of mine." 

P. 399. Near the end of Helena's speech occurs this couplet, 
where she is stating her determination to inform Demetrius of the 
intended flight of Lysander and Hermia : 

" and for this intelligence, 
If I have thanks, it is a dear expense ;" 

which is only just intelligible, but the old corrector singularly 
improves the passage by the word he substitutes : 

" and for this intelligence, 
If I have thanks, it is dear recompense." 

It cannot be doubted that the original reading is thus restored, 
although here, as in many other places, it is difficult to understand 
how the corruption crept into the text. 
6 



122 A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. [ACT II. 

P. 400. In the first scene of the actors of the burlesque tragedy 
of Pyramus and Thisbe, a question has arisen out of the words 
of the old copies, at the end of Bottom's second speech, " and so 
grow on to a point." The expression has not been well under 
stood, and it appears that, when the corrections in the folio, 1632, 
were made, it was deemed a misprint, and that the words ought 
to be, " and so go, on to appoint ;" that is, to appoint the different 
actors to their parts, which, in fact, is done immediately after 
wards. 

P. 401. Bottom's declaration that if he play Pyramus, "let the 
audience look to their eyes ; I will move storms," is amended in 
manuscript in the folio, 1632, to " I will move stones :" and when 
the word was written " stormes," it was not an unlikely blunder 
for a printer or scribe to make : either word will do. ' 



ACT H. SCENE I. 

P. 403. The words, " Take pains ; be perfect ; adieu," are given 
to Quince by the old corrector, as well as "At the Duke's oak 
we meet," and they seem to belong to him, as the manager of the 
play, rather than to Bottom. 

P. 404. The Fairy, soon after meeting Puck, says, speaking of 
Titania, 

" The cowslips tall her pensioners be ; 
In their gold coats spots you see : 
Those be rubies, fairy favours, 
In those freckles live their savours." 

There seem several objections to this passage as it has stood in all 
editions. First, cowslips are never " tall," and, next, the crimson 
spots are not in their " coats," or on the petals, but at the bottom 
of the calix, as Shakespeare has himself told us in " Cymbeline," 
Act II. Scene II. 

" Like the crimson drops 
I' th' bottom of a cowslip." 

The alteration authorised in manuscript in the folio, 1632, is, 
therefore, as follows : 



SO; I.] A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. 123 1 

" The cowslips all her pensioners be ; 
In their gold cups spots you see : 
Those be rubies, fairy favours, 
In those freckles live their savours." 

Rubies would be singular decorations for a " coat," but were 
common ornaments to golden chalices. 

P. 405. Johnson and others saw that the line commenced by 
the Fairy's question, 

" Are you not he ?" 
was not completed by Puck's answer, 

" Thou speak'st aright ;" 

and it was proposed to fill up the vacancy by " / am ; thou 
speak'st aright ;" but the true word seems to be that given by 
the corrector of the folio, 1632, 

" Fairy, thou speak'st aright." 

P. 408. It is a mere trifle, but still, in relation to the integrity 
of Shakespeare's text, worth notice, that in the corrected folio, 
1632, Titania tells Oberon, 

" Thy fairy land buys not the child of me." 

It is "The fairy land" in the old editions ; but Titania afterwards 
repeats nearly the same words when she again refuses the boy to 
Oberon, "Not for thy fairy kingdom." We may, therefore, con 
clude, that thy is the original. 

In the later part of the same speech the expression occurs, 
" her womb then rich with my young squire," which is altered in 
manuscript in the folio, 1632, to "her womb then ripe with my 
young squire;" the word "ri'cA" had perhaps been caught from, 
a line just below. 

P. 410. There is a defect in the construction of the subsequent 
extract : 

" The juice of it, on sleeping eye-lids laid, 
Will make a man or woman madly dote 
Upon the next live creature that it sees ;" 



124 A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. [ACT II. 

accordingly we find the old corrector altering the last line thus, 
which is probably what the poet wrote : 

" Upon the next live creature that is seen." 
Puck's answer to Oberon has constantly been printed, 

" I'll put a girdle round about the earth 
In forty minutes ;" 

but Oberon had not required any such task of him, but merely 
to fetch a plant of " Love in idleness." What Puck means is to 
show his readiness to obey, even if he had been commanded to do 
much more, and therefore the manuscript-corrector has it, 

" I'd put a girdle round about the earth 
In forty minutes." 

The word " round," which is also inserted by him as necessary 
to the measure, is only met with in the quarto published by 
Fisher. 

P. 412. The change recommended, from "flowers" (which is 
the old reading) to bowers, in the following passage, may admit of 
doubt : but bowers certainly appears best adapted to the place ; 
and if best adapted, we may feel well assured that it was the 
word Shakespeare employed : 

" Quite over -canopied with lush woodbine, 
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine : 
There sleeps Titania, some time of the night, 
Lull'd in these bowers with dances and delight." 

It is certain that the " lush woodbine," musk-roses, and eglantine, 
which "quite over-canopied" the bank, converted it into bowers. 
Lush (also supplied by the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 
1632) is a decided improvement upon " luscious," which is too 
much for the verse. Theobald had proposed to read lush, and 
we have already met with it in " The Tempest," Act II. Scene I. 



SCENE H. 
P. 415. Hermia and Lysander, wearied by wandering in the 



ACT III.] A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. 125 

wood, are about to lie down, when Hermia, in maiden modesty, 
asks her lover to rest farther from her, but he urges her to repose 
her trust in him. The usual text has been : 

" 0, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence ; 
Love takes the meaning in love's conference." 

But the passage, as amended by the corrector of the folio, 1632, 
is clearly much more to the purpose : 

" O, take the sense, sweet of my innocence ; 
Love takes the meaning in love's confidence." 



ACT HI. SCENE I. 

P. 421. In the rehearsal scene of the mock-play by the Athe 
nian artisans, the corrector of the folio, 1632, gives Bottom's 
speech, as to the contrivance of a wall, thus : " And let him have 
some plaster, or some lime, or some roughcast about htm, and 
let him hold his fingers thus," &c. The ordinary reading is 
"loam" and " or"; but the sentence is clearly not in the alterna 
tive. Theseus afterwards speaks of the wall as made of " lime 
and hair." In the play itself, the first line delivered by Pyramus 
ought to run, 

" Thisby, the flowers have odious savours sweet," 
and not " of odious savours sweet ;" because the next line is, 

" So hath thy breath, my dearest Thisby, dear." 

Pope, to meet the difficulty, altered " hath" to doth ; but the 
error was, as the corrector of the folio, 1632, shows, in the word 
" of" in the previous line ; properly, therefore, the passage ought 
to be printed hereafter, 

" Thisby, the flowers have odious savours sweet, 
So hath thy breath," &c. 

P. 422. The manuscript stage-directions in this scene, and in 
deed in others, are as precise and full as can possibly be required, 
and supply all deficiencies of the kind in the printed copies. 
Thus, .when the "hempen home-spuns" are in the utmost dismay- 
and confusion, just previous to the return of Bottom after his 



126 A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. [ACT III. 

transformation, we are told that Robin is among them, that the 
dowries all exeunt in confusion, and that Snout afterwards Exit 
frighted, having seen the Weaver with the Ass head on his own. 
It may be here mentioned that when the eyes of Titania and the 
others are to be touched with the magic herbs, there is no infor 
mation in the printed copies as to the exact moment ; but in 
manuscript we have annoint her eyes and annoint his eyes in the 
precise place in the margin, in the hand-writing of the corrector. 
In the same way, though the printed copies state when the char 
acters sleep, we are told only in manuscript when they wake, 
which is quite as material. 

P. 424. The five lines in Titania's speech, declaring her love 
for Bottom, are strangely confused in the folio editions, and in 
Roberts' quarto ; but the corrector of that of 1632, by inserting 
a figure opposite each line, shows that they are to be read in the 
order in which they stand in Fisher's quarto, and such has pro 
perly been the modern arrangement. 

SCENE H. 

P. 428. Hermia, imagining that Demetrius has killed Lysan- 
der, vents her rage upon him in a speech of some length and 
great violence ; upon which, as the passage has hitherto been 
given, Demetrius coolly remarks, 

" You spend your passion on a mispris'd mood : 
I am not guilty of Lysander's blood ;' 

but the corrector of the folio, 1632, says that we ought to read, 
" You spend your passion in a mispris'd^ooc?;" 

that is, in a mistaken torrent, which appears to give additional 
force and greater intelligibility. 

P. 431. The conjecture hazarded in note 6, that "princess of 
pure white" ought to be read "impress of pure white," is con 
firmed by the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, and the 
quotation ought in future to stand, 

" 0, let me kiss 
This impress of pure white, this seal of bliss." 






SO. II J A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. 127 

In fact, the use of the word " impress" in the beginning of the line 
naturally led to the word " seal" at the end of it. 

P. 432. The old corrector, in accordance with Fisher's quarto, 
inserts Helen before " It is not so," in Lysander's speech, in order 
to complete the verse. 

P. 433. In Helen's speech occurs the same misprint as that 
pointed out in " The Two Gentlemen of Verona," Act I. Scene 
II. p. 18. 

" So we grew together 
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted, 
But yet an union in partition ; 
Two lovely berries moulded on one stem." 
_ 
It is not at all likely that Helena would call herself one of the 

" lovely berries," whatever she might say of Hermia ; but the 
fact is that the whole speech turns upon their mutual employment 
and mutual affection, and as the old corrector of the folio, 1632, 
informs us, we ought to displace "lovely" for loving : 

" Two loving berries moulded on one stem." 

The heraldic couplet which follows is struck out by the same 
hand, probably because, like most other readers, he did not under 
stand it. 

P. 436. In Hermia's first speech, on this page, a ludicrous 
error of the press has been eternally repeated. She is wonder- 
struck and bewildered by Lysander's infidelity, 

" What ! can you do me greater harm than hate? 
Hate me ! wherefore ? 0, me !" 

and then what follows ? this strange question, 
" What news, my love ?" 

It is astonishing that the blunder did not long ago expose itself; 
but it is easily accounted for : " news" was formerly spelt newes, 
and so it stands in the folios, and the printer or copyist misread 
meanes " newes." Hermia's question ought, indisputably, to be, 



128 A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DEEAM. [ACT IV. 

" What means my love ?" 

which is a natural inquiry for an explanation why Lysander had 
abandoned her. The manuscript-corrector obliterates newes, and 
inserts meanes. 



ACT IV. SCENE I. 
P. 444. The expression of Titania, 

" Fairies, be gone, and be all ways away," 

has occasioned some controversy, the word being " always " in 
the old copies : Theobald made the suggestion of " all ways ;" 
Upton, Steevens, and Malone stating their concurrence or dissent. 
It seems to be an error of the press, for Titania does not wish her 
attendants to be permanently, but only temporarily absent not 
"always," but a while and such is the manuscript-correction in the 
folio, 1632. Titania could not mean to dismiss the Fairies entirely 
and for ever, and therefore says, 

" Fairies, be gone, and be a while away." 

The error arose from the compositor confounding the words a 
while and " away," which come next each other. 

P. 450. A blunder from a somewhat similar cause has been 
committed in Lysander's speech, which in the folios and in one of 
the quartos is thus given : 

" And he bid us follow to the temple," 
instead of 

" And he did bid us follow to the temple." 

The words " did " and " bid " being in juxta-position, the printer 
omitted the first of them (which is found in Fisher's quarto only), 
and thus ruined the verse. The manuscript-corrector places did 
in the margin. 

P. 450. Bottom concludes his speech in these terms in all the 
old copies : he is speaking of the ballad of " Bottom's Dream," 



ACT V.] A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. 129 

" I will sing it in the latter end of a play, before the Duke : per- 
adventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall sing it at her 
death." Now, no particular play is here mentioned, and " at her 
death" seems to have no personal application. Nevertheless it 
is evident that the play of Pyramus and Thisbe was in the Clown's 
mind ; and what he proposed to do was to sing " Bottom's 
Dream " at the death of Thisbe. Such is the statement of the 
manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, who, to make the matter 
quite clear, has ended the speech thus : " And I will sing it at the 
latter end of the play before the Duke : peradventure, to make it 
the more gracious, I shall sing it at Thisbe's death." 

SCENE II. 

P. 451. In this scene Flute, the bellows-mender, is throughout 
introduced as a speaker by the name of the part he performs in 
the mock r tragedy ; but the manuscript-corrector has been careful, 
in every instance, to alter the prefix from " Thisbe" to Flute. 



ACT V. SCENE I. 

P. 453. There is a remarkable discrepancy between the old 
folio, and the old quarto editions in respect to an important pas 
sage, which we give as it appears in the latter, which have been al 
most universally followed : 

" And, as imagination bodies forth 
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing 
A local habitation and a name." 

The quartos, therefore, have " gives to airy nothing," and the folios, 
without any point after aire, " gives to aire nothing." With some 
editors it has been a question, which reading ought to be adopt 
ed ; but, as the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, by placing 
the letter i in the margin, indicates that the word was airie, and 
as the line is incomplete without the additional syllable, we need 
not entertain much hesitation upon the point. 

P. 454. The doubling of the parts of Egeus and Philostrate, 
that is, one actor filling both, perhaps led to the confusion be- 
6* 



130 A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. [ACT. V. 

tween the prefixes of those characters in this scene. Theseus, in 
the quarto editions, says, " Call Philostrate," and in the folios, 
" Call Egeus." The folio, 1623, adopted the quarto, by Roberts, 
as its foundation ; but at some time subsequent to the publication 
of that quarto, the part of Philostrate, having been given, in the 
economy of our old stage, also to the actor of Egeus, the name of 
Egeus became substituted for that of Philostrate in the folio, 1623. 
This is probably the cause of the variation, which the corrector of 
the folio, 1632, only in part sets right; for while Egeus produces 
the " brief" of the " sports" that are " rife," Lysander reads it, and 
then Philostrate takes up the dialogue, by giving a description of 
the play, the players and the rehearsal. It seems likely that the 
poet meant the whole of this to have been said by one man, 
Philostrate, who in the very opening of the drama is sent out by 
Theseus to " stir up the Athenian youth to merriments," and who 
acted as a sort of Master of the Revels on this occasion. 

P. 455. Theseus, referring to the ridiculons contradiction in 
" the tragical mirth" of the title of the play about to be repre 
sented before him, observes 

" That is, hot ice and wondrous strange snow." 

Now, unless we read " wondrous" as a trisyllable, the measure 
is defective : the sense too is much in the same predicament ; for 
" wondrous strange snow," does not necessarily imply opposition, 
like " hot ice." The truth is that Shakespeare meant boiling snow, 
only the compositor, or copyist, mistook seething for " strange," 
the true word having been supplied by the old corrector, 

" That is, hot ice and wond ? rous seething snow ;" 

which is exactly what was intended to be expressed. Theseus, in 
the fourth line of the scene, has already used the word " seeth 
ing," which renders the misprint here less pardonable. 

P. 457. After the Prologue by a speaker who, -as Theseus re 
marks, did not " stand upon his points," we come to the introduc 
tion of the mock-actors, and the old stage-direction in the folios 
is " Tawyer with a trumpet before them." It has been thought 



SC. I.] -A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. 131 

that "Tawyer" was the name of the trumpeter; but a manu 
script-correction in the folio, 1632, calls him Presenter, and it places 
Pres. as a prefix to the argument of the main incidents of the 
burlesque. In it, it was necessary to observe punctuationfor the 
sake of intelligibility, and, not to derange it, as in the case of the 
Prologue, for the sake of laughter. This argument was, there 
fore, not delivered by the Prologue speaker, as has been invariably 
stated, but by the Presenter, whose name was in all probability 
Tawyer. 

P. 460. On the exit of Wall, Theseus observes, in the quartos, 
" Now is the moon used between the neighbours." The folios 
read, with even less intelligibility, " Now is the moral down be 
tween the neighbours." Theobald altered " moral" to " mural," 
but no instance has been adduced of the employment of mural 
as a substantive ; and the manuscript-corrector erases " moral" 
and inserts wall, which, at least, is the word wanted. Lower 
down in the Lion's speech we ought, on the same authority, to 
read, 

" Then know, that I, one Snug the joiner, am 
A lion's fell, nor else no lion's dam." 

By " lion's fell" we are to understand lion's skin, and Snug was 
to assure the ladies, that he was no more than a man in a lion's 
hide. This~correction was conjecturally proposed some years 
ago by the late Mr. Barron Field, who never imagined that he 
had been anticipated in the emendation by full two centuries. 

P. 462. The manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, converts 
" mouz'd" of the old copies into mouthed, in the exclamation of 
Theseus, " Well moused, lion." Steevens was in favour of the 
same change ; but, nevertheless, the old reading may perhaps 
stand, from museau, French, muzzle, and the Italian muso. 

P. 463. The lamentation of Pyramus on the supposed death of 
Thisbe produces an observation from Theseus, which has been al 
ways thus printed : " This passion, and the death of a dear 
friend", would go near to make a man look sad ;" but it has parti 
cular reference to the " passion" of Pyramus on the fate of Thisbe, 



132 A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. [ACT IV. 

and therefore the corrector of the folio, 1632, properly changes 
" and" to on, and reads, " This passion on the death of a dear 
friend," &c. When Pyramus kills himself with the words, 

" Thus die I, thus, thus, thus !" 

there is this singular manuscript stage-direction in the opposite 
margin, Stab himself as often : that is, as often as he exclaims, 
" thus, thus, thus !" Exit Moonshine is inserted just before Py 
ramus dies. These instructions to the players are not in any of 
the old impressions. 

P. 464. In part of Thisbe's dying rhapsody, as it appeared be 
fore Theobald's time, he saw that the rhymes did not correspond, 
as they ought : 

" These lily lips, 

This cherry nose, 
These yellow cowslip cheeks," &c. 

He therefore proposed brows instead of " lips ;" but he missed 
the alteration of the right word : the manuscript-corrector of the 
folio, 1632, gives it, and, no doubt, accurately, 

" This lily lip, 
This cherry tip," 

in allusion to the tip of the nose of Pyramus, to which, we may 
imagine, Thisbe pointed at the moment. 

P. 465. The early editions do not inform us where the " Bergo- 
mask Dance" was introduced ; but the old corrector tells us, that 
it came hi just before Theseus recommences his speech, with 
" The iron tongue of midnight," &c. The words written hi a 
blank space are Dance : then, the Duke speaks. It is a singular 
addition to the old stage-direction of " Enter Puck," to be told 
that he came in with his broom on his shoulder, doubtless in the 
very way in which he is represented on the title-page of the old 
tract of " Robin Goodfellow, his Mad Pranks," &c., in the library 
of Lord Ellesmere, and in the chap-book hi verse upon his histo 
ry : that Puck was so furnished we have his own evidence, when 
he tells the audience, 



SO. I.I A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DEEAM. 

" I am sent with broom before, 
To sweep the dust behind the door." 

P. 467. In "the Song," just preceding Puck's last speech, 
there are two small, but not trifling emendations, made by the 
corrector of the folio, 1632. The one is by a change in the punc 
tuation to carry on the sentence about " the blots of nature's 
hand" for another line, thus : 

' And the blots of nature's hand 
Shall not in their issue stand ; 
Never mole, hare-lip, nor scar, 
Nor mark prodigious, such as are 
Despised in nativity 
Shall upon their children be, 
With this field-dew consecrate." 

That is, none of these disfigurements shall be seen on the children 
consecrated with the field-dew. Then begins a new sentence, 
which is judiciously altered in two words by the corrector, and 
reads as follows : 

" Every fairy take this gait, 
And each several chamber bless, 
Through this palace, with sweet peace : 
Ever shall it safely rest 
And the owner of it blest. 
Trip away ; make no stay ; 
Meet me all by break of day." 

The question is whether the fairies, or the issue of the different 
couples are to be " consecrate" with the "field-dew ;" and there 
seems no reason why such delicate and immortal beings should 
require it, while children might need it, to secure them from 
"marks prodigious." Beading the line, as in old as well as 
modern editions, 

" Ever shall in safety rest," 

there is a want of an antecedent ; whereas, the manuscript emen 
dation in the folio, 1632, renders the whole "song" consecutive, 
grammatical, and intelligible. 



THE 

MEKCHANT OF VENICE. 



ACT I. SCENE I. 

P. 478. In the following quotation Rowe changed " when " of 
all the old copies, quarto and folio, into who, 

" When, I am very sure, 

If they should speak, would almost damu those ears, 
Which, hearing them, would call their brothers fools." 

Eowe was followed in this change by Pope, Theobald, Warbur- 
ton, Malone, and others ; but the emendation recommended on 
the authority of the corrector of the folio, 1632, is much slighter, 
simpler, and more effectual merely " would " to "'twould : 

" When, I am very sure, 

If they should speak, 'twould almost damn those ears, 
Which, hearing them, would call their brothers fools." 

P. 479. Only one of the two quartos printed in 1600 gives this 
line as it ought to stand, viz. 

" Farewell : I'll grow a talker for this gear." 

The other quarto of the same date, and all the folios read, to the 
injury of the verse, 

" Fare you well : I'll grow a talker for this gear." 

The manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, who seems to have 
had an accurate and a sensitive ear, properly strikes out you. 

P. 480. Bassanio tells Antonio, in all editions, 

" I owe you much, and, like a wilful youth, 

That which I owe is lost." 
(134) 



SO. III.] THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 135 

The folio, 1632, as corrected, substitutes a more appropriate word 
in reference to Bassanio's extravagance, 

" I owe you much, and, like a wasteful youth, 
That which I owe is lost." 

It is not easy to account for some of these blunders, either by 
the copyist or by the compositor: and "wilful" may possibly 
have been the poet's word ; but he does not elsewhere represent 
Bassanio as " wilful," while Bassanio admits and deplores his own 
wastefulness. 

SCENE n. 

P. 482. The corrector of the folio, 1632, seems here to have 
inserted another alteration from one of the early quartos : in 
the folios Portia observes, " But this reason is not in the fashion," 
&c. ; but in the quartos "reason" is reasoning. In her next 
speech but one Portia observes of the Neapolitan Prince and his 
horse, that " he makes it a great appropriation to his own good 
parts that he can shoe him himself." "Appropriation to" is 
altered by the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, to appro 
bation of, in the sense of proof a great proof of his own good 
parts, &c. Approbation is not unfrequently used by Shakespeare 
in this way ; whereas, if "appropriation" were his word, this is 
the only place where he has employed it. 

P. 483. In order not to offend James L, the word " Scottish" 
of the quartos, published more than two years before he came 
to the throne, was altered in the folio, 1623, to other, in 
Nerissa's question, " What think you of the Scottish lord, his 
neighbour 1 " In the folio, 1632, the word other is struck through 
with a pen, and Irish placed in the margin, as if it had not been 
considered objectionable, in the time of the corrector, so to stig 
matise Irish lords. 

SCENE III. 

P. 486. There is here a transposition in all printed copies of 
this play, by which Shylock is made to call " /cmc?-thieves," in 
stead of " water-thieves," pirates. He tells Bassanio, " There be 



136 THE MERCHANT OP VENICE. ACT II.] 

land-rats and water-rats, water-thieves and land-thieves ; I mean, 
pirates." Shylock could not mean that land-thieves were pirates, 
and therefore the corrector of the folio, 1632, reverses the words, 
and makes them follow the order of " land-rats and water-rats," 
" there be land-thieves and water-thieves ; I mean, pirates." The 
change is not very important, but as it shows that comparative 
trifles did not escape. 

P. 487. The corrector of the folio, 1632, again adopts the text 
of both the quarto editions in reading "well-won thrift," for 
thrift," as the epithet stands in the folios. 



P. 488. The whole passage regarding Jacob and Laban down 
to Antonio's reflection, 

" 0, what a goodly outside falsehood hath !" 

is erased ; but nevertheless an emendation is made in Antonio's 
answer to Shylock, as hitherto printed, 

" Was this inserted to make interest good ?" 
which is changed by the corrector of the folio, 1632, to, 
" Was this inferred to make interest good ?" 

There is no doubt that Shakespeare frequently uses the verb to 
infer in the sense of to bring in ; and Antonio inquires whether 
Shylock brought in the story of Laban to justify the taking of 
interest. 



ACT II. SCENE I. 

P. 492. In the second line of the speech of the Prince of Mo 
rocco we meet with a change of epithet which deserves notice : 
the reading has been : 

" The shadow'd livery of the burnish'd sun ;" 
but the corrector has written, 

" The shadow'd livery of the burning sun," 



SO. V.] THE MEKCHANT OF VENICE. 137 

which seems much more proper, when the African Prince is 
speaking of his black complexion as the effect of the sun's rays. 
To speak of the sun as artificially " burnish'd" is very unworthy. 
Lower down the reading of the corrector is, " I would out-stare " 
of one of the quartos, instead of" o'er-stare" of the other quarto, 
and of the folios. 

P. 493. The almost inevitable conjecture of Theobald, 
" So is Alcides beaten by his page," 

instead of " beaten by his raye" of all the early impressions, is 
borne out by the corrector of the folio, 1632. 

SCENE H. 

P. 494. Launcelot in the old copies calls the devil " a courage 
ous fiend," a word certainly very ill applied, when he is advising 
the boy to run away ; and in the margin of the folio, 1632, the 
word is made contagious, as appropriate as "courageous" is inap 
propriate, unless we suppose Launcelot to speak ironically. At 
the end of what he says, he is about to make his escape with all 
speed, and this manuscript stage-direction is added, As he is going 
out in haste, when he is met by his father. As the dialogue be 
tween them proceeds, we are told when Launcelot kneels to re 
ceive his father's blessing, and when he rises, after the old man 
has compared his son's hair to Dobbin's tail. 

SCENE V. 

P. 504. The manuscript-corrector again introduces the reading 
of the quarto editions where Shylock is speaking of Launcelot : 
the folio, 1623, has it, 

" Snail-slow in profit, but he sleeps by day 
More than the wild-cat." 

The folio, 1632, omits " he ;" but the quartos have, " and he sleeps 
by day," &c. Both words are inserted in the margin of the folio, 
1632. The proverb with which the speech ends is given differ 
ently both from quartos and folios ; for instead of " Fast bind, 
fast find," we have " Safe bind, safe find." The lines from, 

" O ! ten times faster Venus' pigeons fly," 



138 . THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. [ACT II. 

down to the entrance of Lorenzo, are crossed out ; but the gross 
error of the folios, " to steal love's bonds," instead of " to seal 
love's bonds," is duly corrected. The two quartos have " seal." 

SCENE VH. 

P. 507. When the Prince of Morocco enters to his choice of the 
caskets, we are informed by a manuscript stage-direction in the 
folio, 1632, that a curtain is drawn or rather withdrawn in front 
of them, as, indeed, is the case afterwards when the Prince of Ar- 
ragon and Bassanio go through the same ceremony. This fact is 
easily to be collected from what is said by the characters, but the 
object was to take care that the caskets should be exposed to the 
view of the audience at the proper moment. The inscription upon 
the golden casket, in the second line of the speech of the Prince of 
Morocco, is different in the folios from the subsequent repetitions 
of it, by the omission of the word " many," 

"Who chooseth me shall gain what men desire," 

instead of " what many men desire." In the quarto impressions 
" many" is found, and the corrector of the folio, 1632, has placed 
it in the margin : thus all three inscriptions were rendered of the 
same length, and are in the same measure. 

SCENE IX. 

P. 512. There is a material emendation in the speech of the 
Prince of Arragon, when commenting on the caskets. The read 
ing has always been, 

" What many men desire : that many may be meant 
By the fool multitude, that choose by show, 
Not learning more than the fond eye doth teach ; 
Which pries not to th' interior, but, like the martlet, 
Builds in the weather," &c. 

This is certainly intelligible, but the verse is redundant in the first 
line by " many," which is erased, and the corrector of the folio, 
1632, farther informs us that the words of the poet, in the fourth 
line, were, 

" Which prize not th' interior, but, like the martlet, 
Builds in the weather," &c. 



ACT III.] THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 

That is to say, the fool multitude do not prize, or value the inte 
rior, but judge only by externals. It will be observed also, that 
this new reading restores in some degree the regularity of the 
verse. 



ACT III. SCENE I. 

P. 516. Where Shylock calls Antonio " A beggar that used to 
come so smug upon the mart," the manuscript-corrector of the 
folio, 1632, reads " A beggar that was wont to come," &c. ; and 
as in the subsequent part of the same short speech Shylock re 
peats the expression, " he was wont to call me usurer," and " he 
was wont to lend money," it seems probable that in the different 
clauses of the same sentence the same words would be employed. 

SCENE II. 

P. 520. The expression " to peize the time" in Portia's intro 
duction of Bassanio to the caskets has not been well understood : 
to " peize" is to weigh, to poise ; but the sense wanted is to delay, 
and that sense we have in the corrector's manuscript, who writes 
pause for " peize" in the following extract : 

" I speak too long : but 'tis to pause the time, 
To eke it, and to draw it out at length, 
To stay you from election." 

Portia wished to postpone Bassanio's choice, lest he should select 
the wrong casket, and thus necessarily and suddenly terminate 
their intercourse. 

P. 522. Much controversy has been produced by these lines, 
where Bassanio is moralizing upon the deceitfulness of external 
appearance : 

" Thus ornament is but the gniled shore 
To a most dangerous sea. the beauteous scarf 
Veiling an Indian beauty ; in a word, 
The seeming truth which cunning times put on 
To entrap the wisest." 

As to the first line, the folio, 1623, has " guiled shore," as above, 



140 THE MEECHANT OF VENICE. [ACT III. 

which the editor of the folio, 1632, not understanding, he altered 
it to guilded, i. e. gilded ; so that when Steevens asserts that " all 
the ancient copies" have " guiled," he was mistaken. The manu 
script-corrector of the folio, 1632, not approving guilded, and 
seeing that the participle ought to be active and not passive, a 
point to which Shakespeare did not much attend (as indeed it was 
not the habit of his age), changed guilded to guiling. This how 
ever is not by any means the most important emendation in the 
passage, since a remarkable alteration for the better is wrought 
by the mere change of punctuation. No editor has been satisfied 
with " Veiling an Indian beauty," because " beauty" was obvious 
ly the very converse of what the poet intended : Sir Thomas 
Hanmer therefore proposed " Indian dowdy ;" but no other vari 
ation from the old text is necessary than to observe the stops 
which the corrector of the folio, 1632, introduced, and to read 
the .lines as follows : 

" Thus ornament is but the gulling shore 
To a most dangerous sea, the beauteous scarf 
Veiling an Indian : beauty, in a word, 
The seeming truth which cunning times put on 
To entrap the wisest." 

Here every thing is clear and consistent ; but it is most likely 
that had the introducer of this emendation written in the time of 
the author he illustrates, he would not have thought it necessary 
to change " guiled" to guiling. It was perhaps recited guiling on 
the stage in his day. 

* 

P. 523. Bassanio, descanting on the portrait of Portia, thus 
expresses his admiration of the eyes : 

" How could he see to do them ? having made one, 
Methinks, it should have power to steal both his, 
And leave itself unfurnish'd." 

The corrector has it, " And leave itself unfinished" which reads 
extremely well, if we suppose that the word applies to the por 
trait, and not to the eye alone. " Unfurnish'd," if it refer to the 
fellow eye, reads awkwardly, and Shakespeare would scarcely 



SC. II.] THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 141 

have left the expression of what he intended so imperfect. Stee- 
vens hesitated about unfinished. 

P. 524. Portia, stating the sources of her happiness after the 
successful choice by Bassanio, thus sums them up : - 

" Happiest of all is, that her gentle spirit 
Commits itself to yours to be directed." 

The correction of in for " is" appears a trifle, but it makes a great 
difference in the grace of the expression : 

" Happiest of all, in that her gentle spirit 
Commits itself to yours to be directed." 

The use of in that for inasmuch as was common. 

P. 526. Gratiano, speaking of his eager courtship of Nerissa, 
observes : 

" For wooing here, until I sweat again, 
And swearing till my very roof was dry," &c. 

The manuscript-corrector of the folio tells us that " roof" ought 
to be tongue : the old spelling is " rough," and as r was often 
misprinted for , and u for n, tongue seems at least as probable 
an error, especially as "roof" was never, even of old, spelt 
rough : 

" And swearing till my very tongue was dry," 
is more natural, though not necessary. 

P. 529. Bassanio tells Portia that Antonio is, 

" The best condition'd and unwearied spirit 
In doing courtesies ;" 

but the corrector has put "unwearied" also in the superlative, 
" unwearied' 'st spirit," which is quite in the manner of Shakespeare, 
and quite consistent with Bassanio's opinion of his friend. 

P. 535. What passes between Lorenzo and Launcelot, regard 
ing the negro with child by him, is erased in the corrected folio, 
1632. 



142 THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. [ACT IV. 

ACT IV. SCllNE I. 

P. 539. We here meet with an emendation which must, in all 
probability, have been derived from some good authority; cer 
tainly better than any resorted to for all the printed editions, 
judging from the result. The commentators have been at fault 
respecting an epithet applied by Shylock to a bagpipe : 

" 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. 

The question at issue was, why a bagpipe should be called " wool 
len," and some have argued that it was because the bag was cov 
ered with cloth, while Johnson was for changing the word to 
wooden, and Hawkins and Steevens, more plausibly, to swollen. 
As to the meaning, they were right, though wrong as to. the word. 
Shakespeare's word unquestionably was bollen, from the Anglo- 
Saxon, which means swollen. It was spelled in various ways, as 
boln, bolne, boll'n, and bollen, and it is used by several authors 
of Shakespeare's time, which it is needless to refer to, because he 
avails himself of it in his own " Lucrece," vol. viii. p. 455 : 

" Here one, being throng'd, bears back, all boll'n and red." 

It was, therefore, a word with which he was well acquainted, and 
there can be no doubt that in future the passage above quoted 
from this drama ought to be printed as follows : 

" As there is no firm reason to be render'd, 
WTiy he cannot abide a gaping pig, 
Why he, a harmless necessary cat, 
Why he, a bollen bagpipe," &c. 

P. 540. All appeals failing to move Shylock, Antonio entreats 
for judgment, observing, as the lines are printed in the folio, 
1632, 

" Or even as well use question with the wolf, 
The ewe bleat for the lamb : when you behold." 

Such are the words, and such the punctuation ; but the earlier 
folio, of 1623, gives the sentence even more imperfectly: 



SO. I.] THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 143 

" Or even as well use question with the wolf, 
The ewe bleat for the lamb ;" 

the rest of the line being wanting. How, then, is the defect rem 
edied by the corrector of the folio, 1632] Simply by a transpo 
sition and the removal of a colon, which accomplishes all that is 
wanted by making the meaning indisputable : he reads, 

" Or even as well use question with the wolf, 
When you behold the ewe bleat for the lamb." 

This is nearly the text of the quarto published by Heyes, in the 
copy belonging to the Earl of Ellesmere. 

P. 542. Malone was disposed to preserve the misprint in the 
following : 

" 0, be thou damn'd, inexecrable dog :" 

at all events he thought it doubtful whether " inexecrable " were 
not the true word, in preference to inexorable, which it did not 
become in print till 1664. "Inexorable" is in the margin of the 
corrected folio, 1632, and there can surely be no doubt that it is 
what Shakespeare really wrote. 

P. 546. When Portia asks, 

" Are there balance here to weigh 
The flesh ? 

Shylock answers instantly, 

" I have them ready ;" 

but neither in ancient nor modern printed editions is there any 
stage-direction, showing that at this point it was the duty of the 
actor to display his scales to the audience. The deficiency is 
supplied in manuscript by the corrector of the folio, 1632, by the 
words, Produce them, in the margin. Afterwards (p. 547), when 
Shylock exclaims, 

" Most learned judge ! a sentence ! come, prepare!" 

there is another note, which proves that the scales were again 
effectively paraded by the Jew as ready for use, Show scales 



144: THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. [ACT V. 

again while we are previously told that he whets his knife. 
These particulars are not necessarily to be inferred from what is 
said, and we may conclude that they represent the practice of our 
elder stage. 

P. 548. The change of a word in the subsequent passage seems, 
if not required, probable : 

'' If thou tak'st more 
Or less than a just pound, be it so much 
As makes it light or heavy in the balance," &c. 

The usual reading has been " in the substance ; " but the addition 
by the heroine, 

" Nay, if the scale do turn 
But in the estimation of a hair," 

renders it likely that balance was the right text, and " substance " 
is altered to balance in manuscript in the margin of the folio, 
1632. - 



ACT V. SCENE I. 

P. 555. There could hardly be a doubt on the point whether 
" Sweet soul," at the commencement of Lorenzo's speech, belong 
to him, or to Launcelot, to whom the words are assigned in all 
the old copies. In the folio, 1632, the expression is " Sweet love" 
which the manuscript-corrector has not thought it necessary to 
change to " Sweet soul " (the reading of the earlier folio and of 
the quartos), but he has transferred it to Lorenzo. 

P. 556. In the folio, 1632, there is a singular misprint upon 
which modern editors have not remarked, and which it is only 
necessary to notice here, in order to state that the manuscript- 
corrector of that impression detected and remedied the blunder. 
It stands, as printed, 

" Therefore the poet 
Did feign that Orpheus drew tears, stones, floods," &c. 

For tears, we should of course read " trees," in accordance with 
the folio, 1623, and with the two early editions in quarto. The 



SO. I.] THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 145 

corrector's first emendation was to beasts, but he struck it out 
subsequently, and properly inserted " trees " in its stead. This 
may look like speculative emendation. 

P. 557. At the end of Portia's speech we have this passage, as 
it is found in all the old copies : 

" Peace ! how the moon sleeps with Endymion, 
And would not be awak'd." 

Malone changed it to " Peace, hoa ! the moon," &c. ; but the 
manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, tells us that the error was 
not how for " hoa," but how for " now : " this is the more likely, 
because when the folios came from the press it was not usual to 
spell the interjection " hoa," but ho ; and we know that it was a 
very common mistake to print " how " for now, and vice versa ; 
therefore we ought to read, 

" Peace ! now the moon sleeps with Endymion, 
And would not be awak'd." 

P. 558. The corrector of the folio, 1632, has taken pains to 
set right even the most minute errors. Thus, in the fifth line, he 
has erased "from," and properly substituted for. Lower down, 
he has shown us how the versification of a defective line ought to 
be amended: it is where Gratiano says, that he had already had 
a quarrel with Nerissa 

" About a hoop of gold, a paltry ring, 
That she did give me ; whose poesy was, 
For all the world, like cutlers' poetry." 

Here we must read, for the sake of the measure, " That she did 
give to me," &c. That " poesy" ought not to be read as three syl 
lables we have evidence within three lines, where Nerissa uses it 
as two syllables only : 

" What talk you of the poesy, or the value?" 

The carelessness of the printer, or of the transcriber, omitted 
" to," and spoiled the harmony : the old corrector inserted it. 

P. 560. To the same cause we may probably attribute the em 
ployment of " contain," in Portia's accusation of Bassanio, instead 
7 



146 THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. [ACT V. 

of retain, although the words, of old, were sometimes used nearly 
synonymously : 

" Or your own honour to contain the ring." 

Shakespeare often has to retain in the sense of to keep ; but the 
change here made may show only the customary mode of deliv 
ering the line in the time of the corrector. 

P. 561. Antonio, pleading to Portia for Bassanio, says, in the 
folio impressions, 

" I once did lend my body for thy wealth ;" 

but it ought to be "for his wealth," and so it stands in the quarto 
editions, and so it has been made to stand in the folio, 1632, by 
the corrector of it. 

P. 562. An adverb of place instead of an adverb of time has 
been misprinted hi all the editions of this play, where Gratiano 
remarks, 

" Why, this is like the mending of highways 
In summer, where the ways are fair enough/' 

We ought certainly to substitute when for " where" in this pas 
sage, because the question is not as to where the roads are to be 
repaired, but when; the speaker means to point out the absurd 
ity of doing a particular act at the period when it is least wanted. 
The manuscript-corrector places when in the margin, and expunges 
" where." It is a misprint of frequent occurrence. 



AS YOU LIKE IT. 



ACT I. SCENE I. 

Vol. iii. P. 7. The corrector of the folio, 1632, has made an 
emendation at the very outset of this play, which is nearly in ac 
cordance with Mai one's proposal, to insert a period after "fashion" 
and to commence a new sentence with he, in reference to the 
bequest of Orlando's father. The corrector's reading is this : 
" As I remember, Adam, it was upon this fashion : he bequeathed 
me by will but a poor thousand crowns," &c. Orlando and Adam 
enter talking on the subject of the will of Sir Roland de Bois. 
When Oliver comes in shortly afterwards (p. 8), a manuscript 
stage-direction informs us that, while the two brothers are con 
versing, Adam goes apart, and comes forward again, when Or 
lando has taken Oliver by the throat, and, in the words written 
in the margin, shakes him. 

P. 10. To remove ambiguity regarding the "old" and the 
"new" Duke, both spoken of by Charles, the wrestler, the 
manuscript-corrector inserts the words old and new, where they 
are not found in the early copies, but where they seem required, 
and were, probably, originally found : 

" Olincr. Can you tell if Rosalind, the old duke's daughter, he banished 
with her father ? 

Charles. ! no ; for the new duke's daughter, her cousin, so lores 
her," &c. 

The meaning is more complete with the added words, though 
intelligible without them. 

P. 11. The two last portions of the two speeches of Charles 

(147) 



148 AS YOU LIKE IT. [ACT I. 

and Oliver, after the word " withal " in the first, and after the 
word "living" in the second instance, are struck out in the cor 
rected folio, 1632. The object seems to have been to shorten 
the colloquy. 

SCENE H. 

P. 16. A trifling change, the omission of a letter, shows that 
Shakespeare intended to make Le Beau talk in an affected man 
ner. He enters to give Rosalind and Celia tidings regarding the 
wrestling, and the common reading has been, 

"Le Beau. Fair princess, you have lost much good sport. 

Celia. Sport ? Of what colour ? 

Le Beau. What colour, madam ? How shall I answer that ? " 

The point, such as it is, is thus entirely lost : Celia ought to 
say, 

"Spot? Of what colour," 

viz. of what colour is the spot, for Le Beau must have pronounced 
the word " sport," as if it were spot, or Celia's question " OF 
what colour?" is as unintelligible to others as it was to Le Beau. 
The corrector of the folio, 1632, has put his pen through the let 
ter r in " sport." 

P. 18. Sir Thomas Hanmer was right in altering, " there is 
such odds in the man," to " there is such odds in the me/i," viz. 
the two men, Orlando and Charles, the wrestler. "Man" an 
swers the purpose : but as the old corrector puts it in the plural, 
we may perhaps be satisfied that it ought to be so. Lower down 
the sentence is thus changed, and evidently for the better, " If you 
saw yourself with our eyes, or knew yourself with our judgment, 
the fear of your adventure would counsel you to a more equal 
enterprise :" the folios have " your " in both places. 

P. 19. In the old copies there is no stage-direction that Charles 
is thrown by Orlando, and carried out ; nor, on the next page (20), 
that Rosalind puts a chain round the neck of Orlando. These are 
supplied in manuscript by the corrector of the folio, 1632. 



SC. HI.] AS YOU LIKE IT. 149 

P. 21. The old copies represent Le Beau as telling Orlando 
that " the taller" is daughter to the Duke an oversight in the 
author, or an error in the printer. Malone substituted " smaller," 
but the manuscript-corrector informs us that the word was 
shorter, and he therefore displaced" " taller." 

SCENE III. 

P. 22. We are rejoiced to find Coleridge's delicate conjecture 
fortified, or rather entirely justified, by the folio, 1632, as amend 
ed in manuscript : Celia asks, 

"But is all this for your father? " 

and Rosalind replies, as her answer has always been printed, 
" No, some of it is for my child's father," 

which turns out to be an unnecessary piece of coarseness. The 
passage, as it stands with the change in manuscript, is merely 
this : 

"No, some of it is for my father- s child," 

Rosalind meaning herself as her father's child, and not Orlando as 
the father of a child to be born of her. 

P. 23. When the Duke suddenly banishes Rosalind from the 
Court, he tells her, 

" Mistress, dispatch you with your safest haste ; " 

but, if we may trust the old corrector, supported by obvious plau 
sibility, we ought in future to give the line thus : 

" Mistress, dispatch you with jour fastest haste," 

or with your greatest speed. In " The Merchant of Venice" (p. 
115), we have seen safe misprinted "fast," in two instances close 
together: here we ha,v& fastest misprinted "safest." 

P. 24. The line in Celia's speech, 

" Still we went coupled and inseparable," 

is altered in the folio, 1632, to, 

" Still we went coupled and inseparate." 



150 AS YOU LIKE IT. [ACT II. 

Shakespeare uses inseparate in " Troilus and Cressida," Act V. 
Scene II., but he also has " inseparable" in " King John," Act III. 
Scene IV. "Inseparate" is in the poet's manner, and the old cor 
rector states that such was the word in " As you like it." But for 
the sake of accuracy, it would hardly have seemed necessary for 
him to have pointed out the difference: one word was as good as 
the other, excepting as one must have been the text of Shake 
speare. 

y 

P. 26. The line in the folio, 1632, 

" Maids as we are, to travel so far," 

clearly wants a word which had dropped out, and is found hi the 
folio, 1623, 

" Maids as we are, to travel forth so far." 

The corrector puts " forth" in the margin, and perhaps he derived 
it from the earlier edition. On the same page the line, 

" I'll have no worse a name than Jove's own page," 
is corrected to 

" I'll have no worser name than Jove's own page," 

which is a form of the comparative of perpetual occurrence in 
Shakespeare and in authors of his time. 



ACT H. SCENE L 

P. The banished Duke remarks, 

" Here feel we not the penalty of Adam, 
The seasons' difference ; as, the icy fang 
And churlish chiding of the winter's wind," &c. ; 

but the sentence is improved by a very small restoration by the 
corrector of the folio, 1632, who reads, 

" The seasons' difference, or the icy fang," &c. 

In the 1st Lord's speech also (p. 28), hath for "had" is decidedly 
for the better : 



SC. III.] AS YOU LIKE IT. 151 

" Giving thy sum of more 
To that which hatk too much." 

It is clearly of the essence of the thing, that the stream should 
have too much at the moment when the " hairy fool" is weeping 
into it ; otherwise the satire of Jaques is almost meaningless. 

SCENE III. 
P. 31. The folio, 1632, erroneously reads, 

" O, unhappy youth, 

Come not with these doors : within this roof 
The enemy of all yor graces lives." 

The folio, 1623, has, properly enough, "within these doors;" but 
it has also " within this roof," which can hardly be right, and the 
manuscript-corrector gives what is doubtless the true text, the 
printer having carelessly repeated " within :" 

" Come not within these doors : beneath this roof 
The enemy of all your graces lives." 

A misprint is also pointed out in a line below the preceding, 
which runs, to say the least of it, rather uncouthly : 

" Of a diverted blood and bloody brother." 

The commentators dwell upon the meaning of " diverted," which 
cannot well be doubted, but the word in fault is that which follows 
it, and the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, puts it thus: 

" Of a diverted, proud, and bloody brother." 

When " blood," as in this very line in the old copies, was spelt 
bloud, the error of the press which converted proud into bloud 
might easily be committed. 

P. 32. Orlando, addressing Adam, says, 

" 0, good old man ! how well in thee appears 
The constant service of the antique world, 
When service sweat for duty, not for meed!" 

The word "service" thus occurring in two consecutive lines may 
nevertheless be right, but the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 
1632, changes the second line to 



152 AS YOU LIKE IT. [ACT II. 

"The constant favour of the antique world." 

The ''seventy years" of the old copies, occurring afterwards, is 
properly altered to "seventeen years," though it, somewhat un 
accountably, remained "seventy years" until the time of Rowe. 

SCENE IV. 

P. 33. The old editions begin this scene with Rosalind's excla 
mation, 

" 0, Jupiter! how merry are my spirits !" 

a decided misprint for " how weary are my spirits," to which it is 
changed in manuscript by the old corrector. Theobald has 
" weary," and was the first to adopt it in print. 

P. 34. All known impressions represent Silvius as stiting in 
the presence of Rosalind, Celia, and Corin, by printing his speech 
thus : 

" Or if thou hast not sat, as I do now, 
Wearying thy hearer in thy mistress' praise," &c. 

It is sate in the folios ; but the language of the poet was undoubt 
edly, as the context shows, as well as the correction in the folio, 
1632, 

" Or if thou hast not spake, as I do now," &c. 

The scribe, probably, misheard "sate" for spake. 

P. 35. Rosalind's observation in short rhyme, 

" Jove ! Jove ! this shepherd's passion 
Is much upon my fashion," 

reads like a quotation from an old ballad, as well as Touchstone's 
reply; and not only does the old corrector underscore the lines, 
as if to mark the fact, but he slightly alters them, and makes an 
important addition of a line in what is said by the Clown : the 
whole, therefore, runs thus, according to his statement ; and it is 
to be remarked that he does not represent Rosalind as calling 
upon " Jove ! Jove !" but upon " Love f Love /" which, under such 
circumstances, was much more in keeping : 

" Ron. Love ! Love ! this shepherd's passion 
Is too much on my fashion. 



SC. VII.] AS YOU LIKE IT. 153 

Clo. And mine ; but 

It grows something stale with me, 
And begins to fail with me." 

The Italic type marks what is only found in the hand-writing of 
the corrector. We take it that the addition by the Clown was a 
farther portion of the same popular production. 

P. 36. The whole of Scene V., with the song of Amiens and 
the parody by Jaques, is struck out ; possibly, when this play 
was revived, at some date subsequent to the appearance of the 
folio, 1632, no performer who could sing well enough belonged to 
the company. The omissions may, however, have been made 
merely for the sake of compression. 

SCENE VI. 

P. 38. Orlando tells old Adam to cheer up, and says to him, 
" For my sake be comfortable." There seems no particular rea 
son for any change, excepting that what is printed was perhaps not 
the true reading : there is a correction in the folio, 1632, which 
may restore it, in the words, " For my sake be comforted.'''' 
Shakespeare in many other places uses both " comfortable" and 
comforted. 

SCENE VII. 

P. 41. There is an evident defect in every old copy in the fol 
lowing lines by Jaques : 

" He, that a fool doth very wisely hit, 
Doth very foolishly, although he smart, 
Seem senseless of the bob : if not," &c, 

Theobald inserted " Not to" before " seem senseless," and he 
was nearly right, though not entirely so, for the better correction 
in the folio, 1632, is, 

* 

" Doth very foolishly, although he smart, 
But to seem senseless of the bob : if not 
The wise man's folly is anatomiz'd," &c. 

Lower in the same page occurs another line, which has caused 
dispute. The printed words in the folio, 1623, are these : 
7* 



AS YOU LIKE IT. [ACT III. 

"Till that the weary very means do ebb." 

This is indisputably corrupt ; and Pope, and nearly all editors 
after him, altered it as follows: 

" Till that the very very means do ebb." 

This repetition is poor and unlike Shakespeare, and the corrector 
gives us, we may believe, the poet's words, 

" Till that the very means of wear do ebb :" 

" of wear" in some way got transposed, and the printer or tran 
scriber, not knowing how to restore it to its right place, mutilated 
the meaning, which, however, is now quite intelligible : we are to 
take " the very means of wear" to be the money which buys the 
apparel. 

P. 45. Amiens' song is struck out, and the Duke ends by call 
ing for music, which, we may presume, was played while he talked 
with Orlando regarding his parentage. There is a manuscript 
stage-direction, wanting in every printed copy, Duke confer with 
Orlando. The object must have been here, as else\vhere, to 
make the stage-business clear. 



ACT III. SCENE I. 

P. 46. The Duke enters talking with Oliver about the absence 
of his brother, Oliver having previously told him that he has not 
seen him. 

" Not seen him, Sir ?" 

exclaims the incredulous Duke, according to the corrector of the 
folio, 1632, and not, "Not see him, Sir!" as it has always been 
printed and reprinted. 

^ 
SCENE H. 

P. 48. Orlando after hanging a paper on a tree, in the words 
of a manuscript stage-direction, makes his exit and Touchstone 
and Corin enter ; but the latter half of what they say, after the 
words "-mockable at court," down to " I cannot see else how thou 



SC. III.] AS YOU LIKE IT. 155 

should'st 'scape," is crossed out. Still, several literal errors are 
set right. 

P. 50. In Touchstone's verses the line, 

" .Wintred garments must be lin'd," 
is corrected to 

" Winter garments must be lin'd," 

which may be the true reading, although the folios all have win- 
tred. The variation from the old copies by modern editors 
ought, at least, to have been noted. 

P. 51. The first line of Orlando's Poem has the indefinite arti 
cle supplied by the corrector, in conformity with Pope's emen 
dation, 

" Why should this a desert be ? " 

Tyrwhitt and Malone took a needless liberty with the text when 
they thrust silent into the line. 

P. 57. Rosalind offers to tell Orlando the different paces of 
time with different people, and afterwards " whom he stands still 
withal ;" and when she comes to the last, Orlando, according to 
all editions, asks " Whom stays it still withal ?" For " stays it " 
the manuscript-corrector inserts stands he, which is consistent with 
what has gone before, and assuredly the language of the poet. 

SCENE in. 

P. 62. A misprint is met with in the middle of Touchstone's 
speech upon horns, which, we think, has hitherto not been sus 
pected, but the correction of which makes an obscure passage 
quite clear. It is given in the four folios in these terms : 

" Many a man has good horns and knows no end of them. "Well, that is 
the dowry of his wife : 'tis none of his own getting ; horns even so poor men 
alone : No, no, the noblest deer hath them as huge as the rascal." 

Malone and others printed, "Horns? even so: Poor men 
alone f and what follows these words is an answer to the obscure 



156 AS YOU LIKE IT. [ACT III. 

question, which explains what was the import of that question. 
It appears that are had accidentally dropped out, and that for " even 
so " we ought to read given to, and then Touchstone's question 
will be perfectly intelligible : " Are horns given to poor men 
alone?" "No, no (replies Touchstone to his own interrogatory) ; 
the noblest deer hath them as huge as the rascal." This emendation 
may have been obtained from some good authority. 

P. 63. All printed editions have missed the rhyme in the last 
line of the fragment of the ballad, " O, sweet Oliver." Perhaps 
it was only the extemporal invention of Touchstone, but it is thus 
given by the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632. 

" sweet Oliver, brave Oliver ! 

Leave me not behind thee : 
But wend away ; begone, I say, 
I will not to wedding bind thee." 

" I will not to wedding with thee," has hitherto been the conclu 
sion. " Wend away " was Johnson's suggestion. 

SCENE IY. 

P. 66. Perhaps " dies," in the following passage, is to be taken 
in the sense of causes to die; but the corrector of the folio, 1632, 
removes all doubt, if we may take his representation of the 
original text, by substituting kills. Silvius is asking Phebe 
whether she will be more cruel than the common executioner : 

" Will you sterner be 
Than he that dies and lives by bloody drops ? " 

If we may read kills for " dies," the difficulty upon which War- 
burton, Johnson, Steevens, Toilet, and others have dwelt is at an 
end. Can dines have been the true word ? ' 

P. 67. The commentators differ as to the precise meaning of 
"capable" in this passage : 

" Lean but on a rush, 
The cicatrice and capable impressure 
Thy palm some moment keeps ; " 

but "capable" appear; not to have been the poet's word, and the 



SC. IV.] AS YOU LIKE IT. 157 

manuscript-corrector has it "palpable impressure," an indentation 
that may be felt. 

P. 69. It is worth a note that Marlowe's celebrated line, quoted 
in this play, 

"Who ever lov'd that lov'd not at first sight?" 
was underscored by the corrector because it was a quotation. 

P. 70. From " But what care I for words ?" down to " For 
what had he to do to chide at me 1 ?" is crossed out in the folio, 
1632, apparently for brevity's sake. 

P. 73. There is a remarkable misprint of Rosalind's speech, 
which has been every where repeated, because not till now made 
apparent. She and Orlando are talking of kissing, as a resource 
if a lover be " gravell'd for lack of matter." The dialogue has 
always been this : 

" Orl. How if the kiss be denied? 

Ros. Then she puts you to entreaty, and there begins new matter. 
Orl. Who could be out, being before his beloved mistress ? 
Ros. 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, 1632, 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, 
occurred. 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 \vere your mistress, or I 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. 



158 AS YOU LIKE IT. [ACT IV. 

P. 76. Sir Thomas Hanmer made a tolerable guess, when he 
altered " occasion," in the following sentence, to accusation, " O, 
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 incomplete without you, 
which is found in the margin. 



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-posi- 
tion, and allow no interval. Although the song is struck out with 
the rest, that which is only a prose direction, 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 com 
mencement of this scene must be a quotation, and it is under 
scored as such by the corrector of the folio, 1632. Rosalind, 
impatient at Orlando's apparent want of punctuality, 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 warrant 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, 



ACT V.] AS YOU LIKE IT. 159 

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 w.ord 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, 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 by Oliver, the circumstance is 
noted in the margin, in the absence of printed stage-directions. 



ACT V. SCENE H. 

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 m. 

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, 



160 AS YOU LIKE IT. [ACT V. 

" 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 in the manuscript in 
the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh. Probably 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 Touchstone's comment upon the singing, is 
not " un tuneable," 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 produced 
much doubt, and many proposals for emendation. It stands as 
follows in all the old copies : 

" As those that fear they hope, and 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 in 
stance, 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 urgM." 

" Urg'd " seems a word not well adapted to the place, and the 
manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, informs us that it is anoth 
er 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. 



SO. IV.] AS YOU LIKE IT. 161 

P. 93. Rosalind makes her exit with an imperfect line, 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 I go, 
To make these doubts all even. [Exeunt ROSALIND and CELIA." 

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) in 
forms 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 wu met, and thus we finish." 

We can readily believe that such was the authentic conclusion 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 fit 
ness, 



162 AS YOU LIKE IT. [ACT V. 

" To Hymen, god in every town." 

He also introduces an emendation into the last line but 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 by ingenuity be rec 
onciled to propriety ; but 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 SHEEW. 



INDUCTION. SCENE I. 

P. 107. The stage-direction at the commencement of this 
comedy in the old folios is confused and redundant : Enter Beg 
gar and Hostess, Christophero Sly ; but the "Beggar" and Chris- 
tophero Sly are the same person : therefore the corrector of the 
folio, 1632, has made the stage-direction run merely as follows : 
JZnlcr Hostess and Christophero Sly. The prefixes to what Sly 
says are always printed Beg., for " Beggar," but they are in every 
instance changed in manuscript to Sly. 

Sly's exclamation from "The Spanish Tragedy," "Go by S. 
Jeronimy," has given commentators some trouble, in consequence 
of the capital S. before "Jeronimy." 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 the Lord's speech of instruc 
tions 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 incom 
plete. Such does not appear to be the fact, for the manuscript- 
correcter of the folio, 1632, makes the line run naturally enough, 

"When he says what he is, say that he dreams." 

(163) 



164 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. [INDUC. 

In modern editions, by the separate printing of insignificant 

words, such as is it for " is't" and an it for " an't" of the old 

copies, syllables have been multiplied in preceding 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 humble service to your lordship." 

Adopting this word, it will be necessary to put the Lord's ques 
tion in this very usual form : 

" How now ! who is't ? 
Sero. An't please your honour, 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 hi the company offering their services. 

SCENE IL 

P. 113. The Lord (dressed like a servant), wishing to persuade 
Sly that he has been insane, begins his speech, as commonly print 
ed, 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 has 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, 

" 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 sup 
posed that it meant shearing or reaping ale, for so reaping is 



SO. II.] THE TAMING OF THE SHKEW. 165 

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 manu 
script, and made 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 Strat- 
ford-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 celebrated, and of 
which he had doubtless often partaken at Mrs. Racket's. We 
almost wonder that, in his local particularity, 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. 118. 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 trans 
position, 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 the manu 
script eorrector of the folio, 1632, state that the above lilies 
should run ? 



166 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. [ACT I. 

" 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 arrange 
ments 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 btlow ; that is, look on 
at what is acted on the stage below them. 



ACT I. SCENE L 

P. 119. Recollecting how many learned hands our great dra 
matist'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, having 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 of 
the folio, 1632. 

In the last line of this page, Lucentio is represented as apos 
trophising 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. 
This is one of the mistakes that must have arisen from mishear- 



SC. II. J THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. 167 

ing on the part of the copyist of the play. The manuscript-cor 
rector of the folio, 1632, sets the matter right. 

P. 120. Two errors, one of omission and the other of commis 
sion, occur in a question by Katherine and an answer by Horten- 
sio. 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. 1 " 

P. 123. Lucentio breaks out into a speech in rhyme in admira 
tion of Bianca's beauty, but it is injured by the misprinting of so 
poor a word as " had " for race : 

" 0, 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 imper 
fect 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, 



168 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 Hortensio, 
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 L 
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-corrector 
tells us that gards or guards, in the sense of ornaments, 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 beauty, 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 recommenda 
tions arid 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. Petru 
chio tells her, 

" "Women are made to bear, and so are you ;" 

to which she replies, as the line has been given since the publica 
tion of the second folio, 

"No such jade, sir, as you, if me you mean ;" 



ACT III.] THE TAMING OF THE SHKEW. 

thus calling Petruchio a jade ; but the point of her reply is, that 
although 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 interview 
with Katharine, 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 doubt 
less the true word. 

P. 151. 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 winniwg, 
A child shall get a sire, if I fail not of my cunning." 



ACT in. SCENE I. 

P. 151. Lucentio and Hortensio, disguised as a language mas 
ter and a musician, quarrel as to precedence in the instruction of 
Bianca. All editions represent Hortensio's speech as beginning 
thus defectively : 
8 



170 THE TAMIXG OF THE SHREW. [ACT III. 

" But, wrangling pedant, this is 
The patroness of heavenly harmony." 

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 following manner : 

" Tut I wrangling pedant, / avouch this is 
The patroness of heavenly harmony," <fec. 

which is somewhat better than the insignificant mode adopted by 
Ritson, who only wanted to fill up the line, " But, wrangling pe 
dant, know this lady is," &c. There must have existed some ori 
ginal for / avouch. 

SCENE H. 

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 va 
rious ways ; but the manuscript correction hi the folio, 1632, 
differs 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 ?" which immediately follows. Old is 
often used as a superlative. 

P. 157. If the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, be ac 
curate m 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 " Matilda," first pub 
lished in 1594, withdrew the stanza, in 1596, and never after 
wards 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 dif 
ference in one of the manuscript changes made in the play under 
consideration, which would show that it arose out of a particular 
allusion by Shakespeare to one of Drayton's poems, and not out 
of any competition between them as dramatic authors. Bion- 
dello, bringing an account of the arrival of Petruchio and his 



SO. II.] THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. 171 

man Grumio, and of their strange caparisons and appearance, says 
of the latter, that he wore " an old hat, and the humour 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 Stee- 
vens speculated that " the humour of forty fancies" was a collec 
tion 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 corrector of the folio, 1632 ; but he gives us 
more than a hint what was the publication in question, by alter 
ing 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 sufficiently near 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 latter editions of his 
" Matilda," the praise he had given to Shakespeare in the first im 
pression 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 in 
serted some of the sonnets it contains in others of his republi- 
cations. 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 Dray ton's "Amours," 
and although not in " forty," it is in fifty " fancies," or short love 
poems ; but " forty fancies," with the introductory 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 



172 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. [ACT III. 

he meant to produce a harmless 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 representa 
tion of " The Taming of the Shrew" to about the period assigned 
by 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 
1594. 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. 158. 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 cor 
rector of the folio, 1632, who as usual underscores it on that ac 
count. 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 therefore not legible. The first line 
spoken by Petruchio, alluding to his apparel, is deficient of a syl 
lable, 

" 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 concerneth us to add," 



ACT IV.J THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. 173 

is amended in manuscript to 

" But to our love concerneth us to add," 

which, while it preserves the verse, makes the meaning apparent. 
Theobald has " our" for to our, and Tyrwhitt recommended, 
" But, sir, to her," which, however, renders the measure redundant. 

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 per 
fect, 

" 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, but he, had quite forsworn Aer." 

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 " ancien 



174 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. [ACT. IV. 

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, 1632. 
As to engle or ingle, which means a person of weak understand 
ing, how was Biondello to know that "the Pedant" was so, by 
merely seeing him walk down the hill 1 he could see at once that 
he was an ambler. How ambler came to be misprinted "angel" 
is a difficulty of perpetual recurrence. 

SCENE IV. 

P. 183. Baptista, conferring with the false Vincentio, consents 
to the marriage of Bianca on the passing of a sufficient dower : 
if so, he adds, 

" The match 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 assur 
ance, 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. 



ACT V.] THE TAMIXG OF THE SHREW. 175 

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 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 back again." 

It is a mere trifle ; and lower down, in the same page, Katherine 
admitting that the sun is the moon, says, 

" And so it shall be so for Katherine." 

The manuscript-corrector very properly makes the last "so" 
still: 

" And so it shall be 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 abus'd," 

which is hardly verse, but the addition of two omitted letters 
makes it indisputably so, 

" Thus strangers may be handled and abus'd." 

Handled, which was misprinted " haled," is supplied in manuscript 
in the corrected folio, 1632. 

SCENE H. 
P. 194. Petruchio remarks, in all the folios, 

" And time it is, when raging war is come, 
To smile at 'scapes and perils overblown." 

Howe altered " come " to " done," some emendation of the kind 
being necessary; but, according to the correction in the folio, 



176 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. [ACT V. 

1632, the proper word was not " done," but gone, as conjectured 
in note 2, at the foot of this page. 

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 adequate 
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 cor 
rupt both in substance and form, for the wager was not Jive hun 
dred, but " one hundred crowns," and the verse is also redundant, 
though easily reduced to its proper length without any loss, ex 
cepting 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 crowns since supper timet" 

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 aux 
iliary. 



ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. 



ACT I. SCENE I. 

P. 208. The Countess, speaking of Gerard de Narbon, says, as 
the passage has been 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 acci 
dentally omitted : 

" Carries no favour in't but only Bertram's," 
is doubtless the true reading from the corrected folio, 1632. 

P. 212. In the dissertation on virginity by Parolles, " 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 mis 
print, and, on the whole, it seems preferable to Sir Thomas Han- 
mer's change of " two," in the second instance, to ten, " Within 
ten years it will make itself ten" Parolles would hardly look for 
ward to so distant a period. This speech, and indeed all the rest 
of the scene until the entrance of the Page, is crossed out in the 
folio, 1632. Nevertheless several emendations are made in the 
8* C 1 ") 



178 ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. [ACT i. 

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 with 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 transposition 
of the words "fortune" and "nature:" the manuscript-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 IH. 

P. 220. It has been stated that it was the practice of the cor 
rector 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 War- 
burton 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 com 
plains th.it the Clown " corrupts the soiig," which he denies ; and 
his answer contains another addition to the text of some impor 
tance, besides the correction of a printer's error, which has always 
been amended in a way to injure, instead of improving, the sense. 



so. in.] ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. 179 

The Clown says, in 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 strengthened by " but 
owe" 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 emen 
dation 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 Stew 
ard of Helena's secret love for Bertram, and in a soliloquy (for 
according to the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, the hero 
ine 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 mishearing 
of the scribe, the correction of which is of importance, 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 -for 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 



180 ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. [ACT n. 

the suspicions of the Countess are confirmed by her appearance, 
"Her eye is sick on't," &c. 

P. 225. In Helena's speech, describing her father's prescrip 
tions, 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, 1632, places manifold 
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 un 
der the influence of the most received 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 wonderful 
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 cor 
rector 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, 



so. IIL] ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. 181 

To give great Charlemaine a pen in's hand 
To write to her a love-line." 

P. 233. The manuscript-corrector reads, " despair most Jits," 
for "shifts" hi 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 Warburton added 
the word "virtue" to complete the measure. It has been sup 
posed 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 recommends 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 in. 

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 bestowing :" 

" 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 '* power and father's voice 
I am to use." 



182 ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. [ACT n. 

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 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 buck, to show in what way the hero on the instant indi 
cated his astonishment and reluctance. The notifications of the 
kind throughout this play are comparatively few and of little mo 
ment. 

P. 243. Eegarding the sentence, 

" My honour's at the stake, which to defeat 
I must produce my power," 

the commentators differ, 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 Parol- 
les, where he says, according to all old copies of the play, " You are 
more saucy with lords and honourable personages, than the com 
mission 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 condition : " 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 indis 
putable error. 



ACT III.] ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. 183 

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 con 
jectured 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 taught to find me ? 
Par. Go to, I say : 1 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 it 
self; but we are, of course, glad to preserve 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 misprinting " 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, tliat 
there is a small, but important, error in the second line, 



184 ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. [ACT in. 

" If thou engrossest all the griefs as thine, 
Thou robb'st me of a moiety." 

P. 259. A decided corruption is pointed out in one of the French 
Envoy's remarks upon Parolles : the words, as commonly 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 com 
mentators would have been spared much useless conjecture ; 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 mis 
placed ingenuity, is thus rendered clear and palpable. 

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, 

" ! 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 !" &c. 

The folio, 1632, 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 dis 
tinctly : 

" ! 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 lord !" &c. 



ACT IV.] ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. 185 

The mistake of " violent" for volant was almost to be expected ; 
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 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 both 
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 fo 
lio, 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 Diana to his wishes, tells her, 

" If the quick fire of 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. Ber- 



186 ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. [ACT iv. 

tram 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." 

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 themselves 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 Ber 
tram, 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 sufficient 
to state that Malone adopted hopes from Rowe, and substituted 
" hi such a scewe," 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 misprinted 
" ropes," and that suit (often spelt suite of old) had been mis 
printed "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 



so. in.] ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. 187 

should be her substitute, exclaims, just before Bertram 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 transac 
tion was nothing. We may take it for granted, perhaps, 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 indif 
ference. 

SCENE IE. 

P. 282. Those who have desired to adhere closely to the folio, 
1623, have sometimes been induced to refuse to correct even de 
cided 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 intents ?" " 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, although 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, 1632, 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 Parolles 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 as- 



188 ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. [ACT iv. 

sign them to Bertram, but Ritson contended that they rather be 
longed to Dumain. A manuscript-correction shows that it was an 
observation made aside by the person who pretended to act as In 
terpreter, 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 O, 
strange men," and ending, " But more of this hereafter," 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 understand. 

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 mis 
print, 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 bring on summer.' 7 

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 speculation. 

SCENE Y. 

P. 295. For " sa/ac?-herbs" (which Rowe inserted, the word 
being only " herbs" in the folios), we ought, according to the old 
corrector, to read poMierbs, the printer, or scribe, as in some 
other cases already pointed out, having blundered, because two 



ACT V.] ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. 189 

words came together with nearly the same letters and sound : 
"They are not pot-herbs, you knave; they are nose-herbs." 
Lower down, we have properly name for " maine" of the old im 
pressions. 

P. 296. The Countess, describing the Clown, says that " he has 
no pace, but runs where he will." A letter has merely been 
omitted, as we learn from a manuscript-correction, and we ought 
to read place for " pace," the Countess meaning that the Clown 
had no fixed duties, although allowed the run of the house. This 
slight change, which 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 introduced 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 mis 
take, first made in the folio, 1623, and that this gentleman, a 
stranger, had no necessary connexion with falconry. In confirma 
tion it may be 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 gentleman 
stranger, in order to identify him with the Gent, a stranger, in 
the former scene. 

SCENE H. 

P. 299. To the words, " Enter Clown and Parolles," the old 
corrector has subjoined ill-favoured, to show that the apparel of 
Parolies was very different, in this scene, to the gay attire he had 
worn before bis exposure and dismissal. 



190 ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. [ACT v. 

SCENE in. 

P. 302. The alteration of blaze for " blade" in the line, 
" Natural rebellion, done in the blade of youth," 

of the old copies, is confirmed by a manuscript marginal note in 
the folio, 1632. Theobald was the first judiciously to substitute 
blaze. 

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, 0, dear heaven bless ! 
Or, ere they meet, in me, nature, cease," 

to the Countess instead of the King, to whom they are certainly 
wrongly given in all the folios. The manuscript-corrector of the 
folio, 1632, places the prefix of 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 impres 
sions, 

" 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." 

Howe proposed she ; but the alteration of " that" to time seems 
equally necessary, and it is justified in the hand- writing of the old 
corrector. 



so in.] ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. 191 

P. 307. A good deal of contrariety of opinion has prevailed 
respecting Lafeu's speech, rejecting Bertram. In the folio, 1623, 
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." 

The old corrector of that edition merely alters the stops (setting 
right the mis-spelling of the word " fair "), and renders the sen 
tence 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 hither, 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 obtained 
the ring from him, 

" Her insult 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 hereafter, 



192 ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. [ACT v. 

" Her infinite cunning, with her modern 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, 1852. 

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." 

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, ex 
claims, " Both, both ! O, 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 by the King. 



TWELFTH NIGHT; 

OR, 

WHAT YOU WILL. 



ACT I. SCENE I. 

P. 325. From the manuscript stage-direction in the corrected 
folio, 1632, inserted before the Duke speaks, Music behind we 
may infer that the comedy opened by the performance of some 
instrumental strains at the back of the stage. When the Duke 
exclaims " Enough ! no more," Cease 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, 

" ! 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 modern times, as in future exploded from the text of Shakes 
peare. 

SCENE m. 

P. 332. The old copies, when Maria is going, make Sir Toby 
say, " An.thou let part so, Sir Andrew," omitting a pronoun 
which seems necessary, and which is supplied by the manuscript- 
9 (193) 



194 TWELFTH NIGHT; OK, [ACT i. 

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 tells Sir Andrew that his hair " will 
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 " damd colour'd stock," 
which the manuscript-corrector informs us ought to be " dun-co- 
lour'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-direction is inserted in the 
margin, Dances fantastically, 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 
possibly 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 bis wife." 

The force of the last passage is much augmented by making the 
first hemistich an exclamation, 



ACT II.] WHAT YOU WILL. 195 

"Yet, Obarful strife!" 

which is the judicious reading afforded by the corrector of the 
folio, 1632. 

SCENE V. 

P. 342. It is clear that the following ought to be in the alter 
native ; 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 man- 
uscripkcorrection is " or be the supporter 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 con 
sidered 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 H. SCENE I. 

P. 349. It is not easy to determine with whom the responsi 
bility rests of the strange, but decided, blunder here pointed out 
by the corrector of the folio, 1632. Sebastian is speaking of his 
reputed likeness to his sister : 

" A lady, sir, though it was said she much resembled 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 overcoming any obstacle. It certainly is dif- 



196 TWELFTH NIGHT; OR, [ACT n. 

ficult to account for the gross misprints in the above short sen 
tence ; but they are most distinctly pointed out by the corrector 
of the folio, 1032, 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. Se 
bastian modestly denies that he much resembled his beautiful 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 improvement 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 emendation 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 consist 
ent, " I left no ring with her," and " Why, he sent her none" 

SCENE in. 

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 terminated with a 
hyphen, showing that even the conclusion of a word has been 
carelessly omitted in the old copies : in modern editions the hy 
phen 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 ?" 



SC. III.] WHAT YOU WILL. 197 

The elongation of the hyphen in modern editions, has made Sir 
Andrew's speech of course appear thus, but it is a misrepresenta 
tion of the originals : 

" Sir And. There's a testril of me too : if one knight give a " 

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 impressions, completes 
the word, of which the two syllables had been separated : we 
give the speech, to the minutest particular, 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 size 
pence so will I 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, 1632, invented this termina 
tion of an unfinished sentence, he must have obtained it from 
some accurate and authentic source. In this instance, we appre 
hend that the manuscript used by the old printer was not defect 
ive, but that a line, consisting of what is above inserted in Italics, 
was accidentally left out by the compositor 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 different, if not an improved, meaning to the second line of it : 

" 0, mistress mine ! where are you roaming ? 
! stay, for here your true love's coming," &c. 

The ordinary words are " Oh ! stay and hear," &c. 

The stage-directions regarding the singing of the scraps of bal 
lads, catches, &c., in this scene, are numerous and precise : but 
there is one manuscript note opposite the line of the ballad, 

" ! the twelfth day of December," 
which is not easily understood : it merely consists of " 17 Nov." 



198 TWELFTH NIGHT; OR, [ACT n. 

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 November may possibly 
have been originally introduced in her honour, which might be 
altered to some other, beginning, " O ! the twelfth day of De 
cember," after her demise. This curious fact may have been 
within the knowledge 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 : " / give thee leave to leave we." Thee and me got trans 
posed, and / was omitted. 

SCENE V. 

P. 367. In Malvolio's speech beginning, " And then to have 
the humour 6f state," we meet with the common misprint of 
" humour" for honour. There can be little doubt that, the cor 
rector 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 conse 
quence 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 si 
lence 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 



ACT III.] WHAT YOU WILL. 199 

error of the press for by th' tars, or by the ears, and the meaning 
is perfectly clear when we read, " Though our silence be drawn 
from us by th 1 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 falcon, which means nearly the 
same thing), "become" for born, &c. The folio, 1632, 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 professed 
jester, remarks : 

" Ee must observe their mood on whom he jests, 
Tie 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 consistent by reading, 

" Not like the haggard, check af every feather 
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 mar 
gin by the corrector of the latter of these impressions, but not in 
the defective terms in which they are found in the earlier : in 1623 
they were thus given : 



TWELFTH NIGHT; OR, [ACT III. 

'' And thanks : and ever oft good turns 
Are shuffled off with such incurrent pay." 

Two syllables are clearly wanting in the first line, and 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 off 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 remarked that 
" still thanks" is interlined, in the same hand-writing, but in differ 
ent ink. 

SCENE IV. 

P. 384. The manuscript stage-directions in this scene are re 
markable for the minute manner in which they describe the con 
duct of Viola and Sir Andrew, when Sir Toby and Fabian are in 
citing them to a desperate encounter. When Sir Andrew enters 
we are told that he hangs bark ; and of Viola it is said that she is 
unwilling ; while they afterwards, at the instance of Sir Toby and 
Fabian, both draw, but instead of advancing, go back. It would 
not be easy to act such a scene without these or other similar in 
structions, 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 disappoint 
ment is repelled as a stranger. He then reproaches 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 T devotion." 

The corrector of the folio, 1632, places the letters in the margin, 
which convert " venerable" (an epithet hardly applicable to per 
sons 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 al 
lowed that " venerable," in a certain sense, answers the author's 
purpose, though his own word must have been veritable. 



ACT IV. V.] WHAT YOU WILL. 201 

ACT IV. SCENE L 

P. 398. For the Clown's declaration, " I am afraid this great 
lubber, 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 supposing 
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 entrance, 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 " How 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. 

P. 414. On the entrance of Sebastian, the corrector of the 
folio, 1632, has added, as a stage-direction, All start, to indicate, 
9* 



202 TWELFTH NIGHT ; OK, [ACT V. 

no doubt, the surprise which ought to be expressed by the per 
formers 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 supposing 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, 1623, 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 repre 
senting himself as in the same condition with Malvolio. Mai one 
persuaded himself that " extracting" was Shakespeare'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, obedience to 
which must have been intended to produce a ludicrous effect upon 



SO. I.] WHAT YOU WILL. 203 

the audience: Enter Malvolio, as froin 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 were presuppos'd 
Upon thee in the letter." 

According to corrections in the margin of the folio, 1632, the pas 
sage 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 misprinted 
"then," and "presuppos'd upon thee" is little better than non 
sense. 

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 confounded 
with " 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 erroneously stands in all the folios. 

P. 420. The Clown sings his song at the end to pipe and tabor, 
the usual musical instruments of such personages ; and in the first 
scene of Act III. he enters, playing on his pipe and tabor, two 
stage-directions only found in the manuscript additions to the 
folio, 1632. There can. be no doubt that he was furnished on both 



20-1 TWELFTH NIGHT; OR, WHAT YOU WILL. [ACT v. 

occasions with these accessories. The fourth stanza of his " song" 
is thus altered by the manuscript-corrector: 

" But when I came unto my bed, 

With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, 
With toss-pots still I had drunken head, 
For the rain it raineth every day." 

Modern editors have rightly put " bed" and "head" in the singu 
lar, instead of the plural as in the old impressions ; but the inser 
tion 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. 



ACT I. SCENE I. 

P. 430. The word so seems to have been accidentally omitted 
where Camillo is speaking of the friendly intercourse kept up 
between Leontes and Polixenes, while at a distance in their sepa 
rate dominions : he says : " Their encounters, though not personal, 
have been so royally attorney '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 sin 
gular 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 " sneap 
ing," 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 emendation at the commence 
ment^ which renders the whole intelligible ; we there read as 
follows : 

" 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," which Warburton 
calls the original, as first printed in the folio, 1623. 

(205) 



206 THE WINTER'S TALE. [ACT i. 

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 Polixenes 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 corrected 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 tha 
folio, 1632, are singularly to the purpose : 

" 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." Hermione is reverting to the 
good her husband had admitted she 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 



so. IL] THE WINTER'S TALE. 

supposing that in the following line we ought to substitute " boun 
ty'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 authority 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 
much; 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 emendation may have 
been derived from a better manuscript, or, perhaps, from a better 
recitation ; but, nevertheless, the obscure conclusion of this speech, 
from " Affection ? thy intention," &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 that 
neither is right, but that " a medal" was the poet's language. 



208 THE WINTER'S TALE. [ACT n. 

P. 448. It may be enough to mention that the punctuation 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, 1623. 

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 
pf his ill-ta'en suspicion." 

Warburton reasonably asks, how could "good expedition " com 
fort the queen 1 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 IT. SCENE I. 

P. 452. In the following, there appears to be a decided mis 
print : 

" There may be in the cup 
A spider .steep'd, and one may drink, depart, 
And yet partake no venom." 

The emendation hi the folio, 1632, is, 



sc. IL] THE WINTEE'S TALE. 

" and one may drink a part, 
And yet partake no venom ;" 

i. e. drink a part of the contents of the cup, and yet take no por 
tion of the venom supposed to be communicated by the spider. 

P. 456. The conjecture in note 7 respecting the word "stables," 
hi the ensuing observation by Antigonus, is in some degree con 
firmed 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 substitute me 
for " my ;" and the meaning then is, that Antigonus 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 stabulum, 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 lamback, a word of not unfrequent occur 
rence; 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 conjectures respecting lant, by Sir T. 
Hanmer, and laudanum, by Steevens. Johnson was well founded 
in thinking the word, for which " land-damn" was intended, " one 
of those which caprice brought into fashion." 

SCENE n. 

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 " unsafe." By " lunes," 
Shakespeare means fits of distraction, and when the old corrector 
directs us to read, instead of " unsafe," unsane, 

" These dangerous unsane lunes i' the King, beshrew them," 
we must at once admit the value of the emendation. 



210 THE WINTER'S TALE. [ACT in. 

SCENE m. 

P. 462. The manuscript stage-directions in this scene, clearly 
required for the government of the actors, are frequent arid expla 
natory. Paulina first enters at the back of the stage, with the babe, 
and after a struggle with the attendants, lays it down before 
Leontex. 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 need 
ful instructions are found in the old printed copies, and they show 
the precise manner in which the business was conducted when, 
we may suppose, the corrector of the folio, 1632, saw the drama 
performed at one of our early theatres. 



ACT HI. SCENE I. 

P. 470. This whole scene is crossed out with a pen, as capable 
of being dispensed with ; but it seems to have been inserted by 
the author for the purpose of giving more time for the prepara 
tion of the trial-scene of Hermione. If it were not acted, the in 
terval between the second and third acts must have been propor 
tionally extended. 

SCENE H. 

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. 

She is alluding to the visit of Polixenes, out of which, by some 
" uncurrent encounter," or unjustifiable meeting, the present ac 
cusation had grown. The difficulty has chiefly arisen out of the 
word" strain'd," for which the corrector writes stray 'd and it seems 



so. in.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 211 

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 justify her appearance before the court : 

" Since lie came, 

With what encounter so uncurrent I 
Have stray'dt' 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/a#s byck in his 
seat, and Paulina begins to repent the cruel recapitulation 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 peti 
tion ?" It is merely an error of the press, or of the copyist. Pau 
lina has repeated in most bitter terms all the evils that have been 
occasioned by the jealousy and obstinacy 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. 

SCENE III. 

P. "481. Antigonus, in the relation of his dream, in which he 
imagined he saw the weeping Hermione, says, 



212 THE WINTER'S TALE. [ACT iv. 

" I never saw a vessel of like sorrow, 
So fill'd, and so becoming." 

" So becoming," can scarcely be right ; and we learn from the 
manuscript-corrector that there was a natuual connexion between 
the words, " so fill'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 read 
ing appears to be : 

" I never saw a vessel of like sorrow, 
So fill'd, and so e'er-running.^ 

The sorrow with which Hermione was so filled, was overrunning 
at her eyes. Lower down on the same page, another error oc 
curs 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 Polix- 
enes that he has " missingly noted" the absence of his son Flori- 
zel from court; the corrector of the folio, 1632, marks "miss 
ingly," as an error, and inserts musingly instead of it a some 
what questionable change. 

SCENE n. 

P. 488. The manuscript-corrector notes, with great particu 
larity, that the fragments of ballads, with which Autolicus com 
mences this scene, were sung by him to three several tunes, put 
ting " 1 Tune," " 2 Tune," and " 3 Tune," against each of them. 
The three stanzas beginning, 



so. in.] THE WINTEK'S TALE. 213 

" When daffodils begin to peer," 

were sung to the first tune, whatever it may have been ; the one 
stanza, commencing, 

" But shall I go mourn for that, my 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 probably to 
understand, that it was left to the comic performer to decide whe 
ther 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 abso 
lutely 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, according 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 enrolled, 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 

" Sir, my gracious lord," &c., 
the manuscript-corrector has 



214 THE WINTER'S TALE. [ACT rv. 

" Sure, my gracious loid, 
To chide at your extremes it not becomes me." 

The change is at least plausible, but the difference is not impor 
tant. The other error is near the close of the speech in which 
Perdita contrasts her own gay apparel with the " swain's wear 
ing," 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 thiuk, 
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 cor 
rector 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 Florizel's 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 way 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, ffirle. 

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 sales, which may in some degree 



so. in.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 215 

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 correction'of 
the true error, viz. " makes," instead of wakes : 

" He tells her something 
That wakes her blood look on't." 

Such is precisely the mode in which the passage stands corrected 
in the folio, 1632, "look on't" being addressed emphatically to 
Polixenes, to direct his attention to the blush of Perdita, thus 
poetically described as waking her blood. 

P. 499. The old word jnpe, a jest (generally used in an indeli 
cate sense), according to the corrector of the folio, 1632, has been 
misprinted "gap" in the following part of the Clown's speech 
regarding the license of ballad singers : " And where some stretch- 
mouthed rascal would, as it were, mean mischief, 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 vend jape. 

Some controversy has arisen respecting the words, "unbraided 
wares," where the Clown, just below, asks whether Autolicus has 
any such to sell. ' Johnson, Steevens, Toilet, Malone, Monk Ma 
son, and Boswell, have each endeavoured to explain what turns out 
to be a mere misprint for " embroided wares," as embroidered 
commodities were then frequently spelt. This point has, there 
fore, been set at rest by the corrected folio. 

P. 501. 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 Malone's Supplement, ii. 
466, though he never thought of illustrating by it " clamour your 



216 THE WINTER'S TALE. [ACT. iv. 

tongues" in "The Winter's Tale." The editors of Shakespeare 
have not hitherto felt themselves warranted in altering his text 
on the mere 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 been stated, though not always ac- 
knpwledged, ever since the time of Grey. 

P. 506. Florizel, making his protestation of love before his 
disguised father and Camillo, exclaims, as all editions establish, 

" "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 expression, 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 complete : 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" 



sc. in.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 217 

Such is the mode in which the quotation has been hitherto given; 
but the slightest possible change, urged by the corrector of the 
folio, 1632, is thus made with the best possible effect : 

" 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 
unquestionable 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 it 
The scene you play were mine." 

To make the scene appear as if it were Camillo'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 exposed : 

" 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 soliloquise, and, among other reflections, 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 ad 
vancement?" What is "to turnback to his advancement?" 
The corrector of the folio, 1632, may be said to answer the ques 
tion 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. 
10 



218 THE WINTER'S TALE. [ACT v. 

ACT V. SCENE I. 

P. 526. The old stage-direction is, Enter a Servant, but from 
what he says, and is said of him, we learn that he had written an 
elegy upon Hermione. Modern 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 de 
scription of servant, Enter a Servant-poet, 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. 35), 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 intelligibility of the plot. 
The corrections of the text are continued notwithstanding with 
the same patience and perspicuity. Thus, on p. 533, we have 
" weather-beaten conduit," 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 Shep- 



sc. in.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 219 

herd 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. 

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. War- 
burton saw that something was wanting, but in note 3 it is sug 
gested that Leontes in his ecstasy might have left his sentence un 
finished : such does not appear to have been the case. The pas 
sage 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 manu 
script stage-direction, and the writer of it, in a vacant space ad 
joining, thus supplies a missing line, which we have printed in 
Italic type : 

"Let be, let be! 

Would I were dead, but that, methinks, already 
I am but 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 manu- 
scaipt for the printer's use, it might have been urged, that, sup 
posing our great dramatist to have written here no more ellipti- 
cally than in many other places, his sense might be complete at 
" already :" " Would I were dead !" exclaims Leontes, " but that, 
methinks, / am already ;" in other words, 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 ad- 



220 THE WINTER'S TALE. [ACT v. 

vances 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 kind in any part 
of the scene, where they appear to be so requisite for the infor 
mation of the performers ; but that deficiency is abundantly sup 
plied by the old corrector of the folio, 1632, who has taken great 
pains that nothing should go wrong during the representation. 
When Paulina first draws 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 wshied 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. 542. The last emendation, of any importance, is in the last 
speech of the play, where Leontes is choosing Camillo as a hus 
band 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 cor 
rector of the folio, 1632, without the slightest detriment 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," obtained 
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 inten 
tion 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 fit. 
ness, 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 1632. 

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 : 

" For new-made honour doth forget men's names : 
'Tis too respective, and too sociable, 

(221) 



222 KING JOHN. [ACT n 

For your conversion. Now your traveller, 

He and his tooth-pick at my 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 fo 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 Hive 
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 n. SCENE L 

P. 18. A single letter makes an important improvement in 
the following, where young Arthur expresses his acknowledg 
ments to Austria : 



SC. I.J KING JOHN". 223 

" 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 subse 
quent 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 blood, 
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 blood and strife ;" 
but instead of " An Ace," of all the folios, he has, 

" With him along is come the mother-queen, 
As Ati, stirring him to blood and strife." 

P. 23. In the following line there are, according to the ordinary 
rules of dramatic blank-verse, two redundant syllables, and the 
punctuation is wrong, according to a correction in the folio, 1632: 

" Of this oppressed boy. 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 boy, thy eld'st son's son, 
Infortunate in nothing but in thee." 

The above may well be as the poet wrate the passage, " this is " 
being detrimental, as well as unnecessary. 



224 KING JOHN. [ACT n. 

P. 25. In his speech to the citizens of Anglers, John says, as 
all the old copies represent it, 

" All 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 authority, 
that " comfort" was here used ironically : Rowe did not think so, 
when he printed confront; but the corrector of the folio, 1632, 
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, observing, 

" 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 after 
wards 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," in this 
line, as given in the folios, 



ACT III.] KING JOHN. 225 

" 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," 

is amended to, " Not that I have no power," &c., which comes 
very near one of the suggestions in note 3, at the foot of the 
page. 

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 hav 
ing 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 
hollowness and falsehood ? The correction in the margin of the 
folio, 1632, shows that the ear of the scribe misled him : Con 
stance is referring to the friendship just established between 
France and England, to the ruin of her hopes, and remarks : 

" The grappling vigour, and rough frown of war, 
Is cold in amity, and faint in peace, 
And our oppression hath made up this league." 

P. 44. The word " heaven " is repeated with great additional 
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." 

10* 



226 KING JOHN". [ACT in. 

For heaven, the invariable reading has been "him." Neverthe 
less, satisfactory as this emendation may appear, it is possible 
that the original reading (before the passing of the 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 be 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 sur 
prising the emendation was never conjecturally adopted ; espe 
cially 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 H. 

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 consistent with 
the context : 

" Now, by my life, this day grows wondrous hot ; 
Some^ery 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 com 
monly work by blazing stars," &c. 



SC. IV.] KING JOHN. 227 

SCENE HL 

P. 52. In the subsequent passage their, which seems required 
both by meaning and metre, is inserted in the hand- writing of the 
corrector of the folio, 1632 : 

" 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 without the slight 
est 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 hi the folios : when " ear " 
was spelt care, as was most frequently the case, the mistake was 
easy, and we may now be pretty sure that " race " was a mis 
take. 

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 



228 KING JOHN. [ACT iy. 

same meaning as collected, but is nearer in form and letters to the 
misprint in the ordinary text, viz : 

" A whole armado of consented 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 mean 
ing 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, 

" 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 "modern," 
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 cor 
rected folio, 1632, proves that we ought to substitute for it a word 
exactly applicable to the condition of Constance : 

" Which cannot hear a lady's feeble voice, 
Which 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 ingenuity, 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 beginning 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 



SC. II.] KING JOHN. 229 

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 exit and re-entrance of the Execu 
tioners 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, principally 
founded upon apprehensions arising out of his defective title : at 
length he tells them, as the folio, 1623, represents his lan 
guage : 

" 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 hemistich, 
"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 coronation, which was to confirm him on the 
throne. The manuscript-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 im 
agined 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. 



230 KIXG JOHN. [ACT iv. 

Lower in the same page, the words " then" and " should" seem 
injuriously to have changed places : the old text is, 

" Why then your fears, which, as they say, attend 
The steps of wrong, should move you to mew up 
Your tender kinsman? 1 ' 

instead of 

" 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." 

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 undoubt 
edly, as we are instructed in manuscript, to be sign, formerly 
spelt signe : 

" But thou didst understand me by my signs, 
And didst in signs again parley with sign." 

SCENE HI. 

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 private with me of the Dauphin's love, 
Is much more general than these lines import." 



SC. III.] KING JOHN. 231 

The notes upon this passage have all referred to the word " pri 
vate," 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 detection, 
even without such aid : it occurs in Salisbury's reply to the Bas 
tard : 

" 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," 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-bestained 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 abeve 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 Salisbury vows 
never to be " conversant with ease and idleness," until he has re 
venged 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 sup 
posed, and as Malone opposed, that the true language of Shake 
speare was, 

" Till I have set a glory to this head," 



232 KING JOHN. [ACT v. 

meaning the head of Arthur, whose dead body had just been dis 
covered on the ground. 



ACT V. SCENE I. 

P. 83. The preceding emendations may be thought to justify two 
others on this page, which occur close together, and which, though 
improvements of the usual reading, are not forced upon our adop 
tion by anything like necessity. The Bastard is endeavouring to 
cheer the spirits of the disheartened 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, 

" Forage, and run 
To meet displeasure further from the doors ;" 

which ought, on the same credible authority, to be, " Courage! 
and run to meet displeasure," &c. There is, then, no necessity 
for hunting after what Johnson calls, " the original sense" of " for 
age." On the next page, for "Send fair-play order," we ought, 
probably, to read, " Send fair-play offers" the last word being writ 
ten 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 H. 

P. 85. Salisbury, in anguish at the compulsion he was under to 
draw his sword against his country, interposes this parehthesis: 

" 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, informs 
us that " spot" was misheard for a word sounding something like 
it: 



SC. IV.] KING JOHN. 233 

" 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 Theo 
bald'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 territo 
ries ; 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 mishearing. The passage is 
where Faulconbridge is addressing 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 crowing of your nation's cock, 
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 dy 
ing Melun advises Salisbury and Pembroke to return to their 
duty to their Sovereign, and to 



234 KIXG JOHX. [ACT Y. 

" Unthread the rude eye of rebellion," 

as the line stands in the ancient, and in most modem editions. 
Theobald 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 cor 
rector 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 after 
wards, 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 compositor. 

P. 93. Salisbury tells the expiring Melun, 

" For I do see the cruel pangs of death 
Right in thine eye ;" 

and some commentators would for " right' read fright, or pight, 
and others fight : bright appears, from the old corrector's inser 
tion of the necessary letter in the margin, to be the word, in ref 
erence 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 totfred colours closely up." 



SO. VII.] KING JOHN". 235 

Tattered was then usually spelt " tottered," and he preferred the 
passive to the active participle, though we may doubt if Shake 
speare 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, 1632, 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 set 
ting 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 insensible, 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 : 

" 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 representation of the fact. 



KING KICHAKD 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 manuscripkcorrection 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 " othtr misbegotten hate" does he refer to ? The corrector 
of the folio, 1632, tells us to read the third line, 

And free from wrath or misbegotten hate, 
Come I appellant," &c. 

Bolingbroke appeals his antagonist, not out of anger or hatred, 
but out of loyal affection to his King. We may question 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 

(236) 



ACT I.] KING RICHARD II. 237 

" 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. J21. We may feel assured that the word "farewell" was 
repeated in the following line, and we find it in manuscript in the 
margin of the folio, 1632, though not in any extant printed copy 
of the play : 

" Why then, I will. Farewell, 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 defence," instead 
of " and defence." 

P. 122. The repetition of the word " desolate," in the subse 
quent 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." 

<t 
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 be 
cause she could not move Gaunt to revenge the death of her hus 
band. 

P. 125. It deserves remark that, whereas in the line, 
" And furbish new the name of John of Gaunt," 

the folios have ''furnish new ;" the manuscript-corrector restores 
the older and better reading of the earlier quarto impressions. A 



238 KIXG RICHARD II. [ACT II. 

few lines farther on, the second folio has captain for " captive," 
which did not pass unnoticed. 

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 preserve suffi 
cient verisimilitude. Gaunt was here to be represented ill in bed, 
and the printed stage-direction is only, Eider Gaunt sick, with 
York, and modern editors have represented Gaunt as on a couch ; 
but a manuscript note in the folio, 1632, 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 stoocj : 

" 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 cor 
rector 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." 



SC. II.] KIXG RICHARD II. 239 

Here " 'Gainst us, our lives," is tautologous ; for, of course, what 
the King prosecuted against the "lives" of his nobility, must be 
against them. The correction in the folio, 1632, makes the pas 
sage 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 Willoughby are plotting 
against the King, and Northumberland tells the two others that 
he fears to let them know how near good tidings are. Eoss re 
plies, 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 conspira 
tors, 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 un 
known calamity is hanging over her, has occasioned 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 un 
thinking as two words, " on thinking ;" the Queen was so sad, that 
it made her faint and shrink with nothing, although she was so un- 



240 KING RICHARD II. [ACT II. 

thinking, as not to think. Malone and others have " in thinking," 
which seems just the opposite 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 puz 
zled 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 rhym 
ing couplets, which the scribe seems to have written at random, 
and has thus made utterly unintelligible what, at the best, is diffi 
cult. In the corrected folio the lines are thus given, we may pre 
sume 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 understanding what he was put 
ting upon paper, and the compositor made it worse by knowing no 
thing 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 confusion : the versifica 
tion 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 :" 



ACT III.] KING KICHARD II. 241 

a line that is especially uncouth from the want of a syllable, which 
the corrector of the folio thus furnishes : 

" Is my near kinsman, whom the King hath wrong'd." 

P. 156. The epithet used by the Duke of York, in his reproof 
of Bolingbroke, when he asks him, 

" But then, more why, why have they dar'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 sugges 
tion ; and Sir T. Hanmer, despightful ; while Monck Mason fan 
cied 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. 159. This short scene between Salisbury and the Welsh 
Captain, is struck out, perhaps, as needlessly protracting the per 
formance. 



ACT III. SCENE n. 

P. 162. On arriving near Berkeley Castle, Eichard 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 brooks your grace the air, 
After your late tossing on the breaking seas ?" 

The manuscript-corrector amends both : 
11 



242 KING RICHARD II. [ACT IIL 

" Yea, my good lord. How brooks your grace the air, 
After late tossing on the breaking seas?" 

We need hardly doubt that this is as the passage ought to be 
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 follow 
ing 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 corrector 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-bears" for "white- 
beards :" this blunder was not derived from the quartos ; but 
they have " clap" for clasp (which was Pope's conjectural emenda 
tion) ; 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;" hi all the old copies, for ar 
mour : " arms" more properly signifies weapons, than the " stiff 
unwieldy" casing, by which the bodies of soldiers were formerly 
protected. 

SCENE m. 

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 !" 



SC. III.] ZING RICHARD II. 243 

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 !' ' 

In the next line but one, the same authority tells us that " fear 
ful" ought to be faithful; and though "fearful" may seem to 
answer its purpose sufficiently well, the context persuades us in 
favour of faithful ; for the King is complaining of Bolingbroke'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, with 
out 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 
That 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 



KIXG RICHARD II. [ACT IV. 

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 commence 
ment of this scene, that Bagot entered with the other characters ; 
but the corrector of the folio, 1632, says that such was not the 
case, and that he did not come in, in custody, until after Boling- 
broke 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 
afterwards, 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 noble Richard ; then, true nobleness would," Ac., 

he adopts nobless of the quarto, 1597, which was unquestionably 
Shakespeare's word, since "nobleness" too much burdens the 
metre. Again, in the line in the folios, 

" And he himself not present ? 0, forbid it, God," 

he erases " himself," which is unnecessary to the sense, and inju 
rious to the rhythm, and writes forfend instead of " forbid." All 
the quartos have forfend ; but on the other hand, they have 
" himself." On the preceding page, the corrector has, " As surely 



ACT V.j KING RICHARD II. 245 

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 right 
by the old corrector ; but it seems as if he had previously substi 
tuted some other word, and had erased it. Such may have been 
the case in several other places, where he himself blundered. 

P. 192. To srfpply the want of printed stage-directions, they 
are, as usual, added in manuscript in the folio, 1632 : thus, when 
Eichard dashes the glass against the ground, we read in the mar 
gin, 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 exclama 
tion 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 "weakeu'd," weakened ; but the glaring redundancy of the 
third line they did not set right. The old corrector, however, in 
structs 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 ?" 

Much contempt is contained in the expression " this Bolingbroke," 
and the repetition of " hath he," in the next line, rather lessens, 
than increases, the effect of the Queen's despairing interrogatory. 



246 KING EICHARD II. [ACT V. 

The old corrector again either adopted a word from the quar 
tos, 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 fancied 
that " fall" for tale, was one of Shakespeare's own emendations ; 
but it was much more probably a misprint in the folio, 1623, 
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 H. 

P. 200. The word " day," in what follows, may also have been 
derived from the quartos, for it is in no folio impression : 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 Tie's entered into 
For gay apparel 'gainst the triumph day." 

Modern editors, of course, insert day, but there can be litre 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 



SC. III.] KING RICHARD II. 247 

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, by 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 by, and the corrector 
of the second folio inserted it. The minute errors and variations 
in this part of the play are numerous. 

SCENE III. 

P. 203. When Aumerle arrives in great haste, the quarto edi 
tions say that he is amazed, but 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 perturbation, and he added to Enter 
Aumerle, the words rush in, to evince the eagerness and impetu 
osity 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, 



KING RICHAED II. [ACT V. 

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 
copies, 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 in no other 
old edition of this play. All but the quarto, 1597, read defect 
ively, 

" 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 consequence of the state of relig 
ious opinion at the time the folio, 1623, was printed : the manu 
script-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 Testament. 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 re 
mark, 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 YI. 

P. 214. The emendations by the corrector of the folio, 1632, in 
the last scene of this tragedy, only relate to corruptions in the 



SO. VI.] KING EICHAED II. 249 

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, 1632, 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?" 

A. third and more noticeable instance occurs where Bolingbroke, 
on p. 215, passes sentence on the Bishop of Carlisle : 

" 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 unimportant ex 
cepting 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 kills another. He dies as Exton 
pronounces his first line. 



11* 



THE FIEST PAET 

OP 

KING HENKY 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 produced so many conjec 
tures, 

" 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 misprinted dambe 
in the second folio, that blunder is set right. 

P. 227. The manuscript-corrector restores the word " for," of 
the earlier quartos, instead of far, 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. 

(260) 



SO. III.] THE FIRST PART OF KING HENRY IV. 251 

P. 228. For the imperfect line, 

" Of Murray, Angus, and Menteith," 
the old corrector writes, 

" Of Murray. Angus, and the bold Menteith." 

How far, and in what manner, he was warranted in this addition? 
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 II. 

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 circumstance that they are 
underscored, as usual in such cases, by the old corrector. 

P. 231. Falstaff's remark, hi answer to the Prince, "Yea, and 
so used it, that were it not here apparent, that thou art heir ap 
parent," has generally been printed with a line after it, as an 
unfinished sentence ; but the corrector of the folio, 1632, repre 
sents 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 so, not merely because it 
finishes the line, but because, when he resumes after the interrup 
tion, he uses the same expression, "Yea, my good lord." 



252 THE FIRST PART OF [ACT I. 

P. 238. Here, again, the old corrector seems to have resorted 
to the quarto editions of this play, or to some authority 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 1598 : 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. No 
body 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 buy 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, noth 
ing can be plainer than the meaning of the poet : 

" Shall we buy treason, and indent with foes, 
When they have lost and forfeited themselves ?" 

To " indent," is, of course, to enter into a compact or indenture. 
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 years, nobody should ever have even 
guessed &tfoes for "fears:" if it were merely a guess by the old 



ACT II.] KING HENRY IV. 253 

corrector, it is a happy one ; and some may be disposed to enter 
tain 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 misprint, 
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 " tarnished 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, 1598, 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 loe Mortimer." 
The line in the quarto, 1598, is, 

" I'll steal to Glendower and Lo : Mortimer ;" 

meaning Lord Mortimer, which abbreviation " Lo :" was subse 
quently strangely misunderstood. In the text of the folio, 1632, 
loe is erased, and Lord is written in the margin. There can be 
no dispute that this is the poet's word, and so, in fact, it stands in 
modern editions. 



ACT H. SCENE I. 
P. 250. Much speculation has been the result of the subsequent 



254 THE FIEST PART OF [ACT II. 

speech by Gadshill, where he is talking of the high rank of the 
parties with whom, as a highwayman, he was in league : 

" I am joined with no foot land-rakers, no long-staff, 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 " tran 
quillity" "nobility and tranquillity" although it has no mean 
ing 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 pre 
cedes it, being in the same predicament. He sets the whole mat 
ter 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 
companions 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 Chamberlain, 
with whom Gadshill was speaking, intimated his incredulity. The 
first error seems to have arisen from mishearing, 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 corrector 
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 ?" 

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?" 



SC. IV.] KING HENRY IV. 255 

They are in themselves of little import, excepting as they 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 impressions 
where it is found, or from #ny independent authority, may be 
questioned : 

" Away, you rogue ! Dost thou not hear 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. Eowe seems to have been right (indeed the emenda 
tion 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 approving of the use 
of the name of the Creator, has substituted 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 erroneously 
given to the Prince, but the corrector has remedied the defect ; 
and in FalstafF's long mock-address, he has inserted 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 tkee, the rest banish :" this emendation is, however, dis 
putable, and perhaps scarcely requires notice. 

P. 276. The Prince calls Falstaff, according to the old corrector 
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 



256 THE FIKST PART OF [ACT HI. 

the older text of the quartos, 1598, 1599, and 1604, is " 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 m. 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 unobjectionably, 

" 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 wrfter, and withal, 
Break with your wives of your departure hence ;" 

by giving them thus : 

" I'll haste the writer, and withal Fll break 
With your young wives of your departure 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. 261 
of this vol.), we shall see that "your" was left out before 
" younger." 



SO. II.] KING HENRY IV. 257 

P. 286. We can readily believe that there must be a misprint 
in the following : 

" la faith, my lord, you are too wilful-blame," 

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 cor 
rector of the folio, 1632, makes the passage run as follows : 

" Grlend. 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. 
Mort. 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, introduced several 
important blunders. One of them applies to the last words on 
this page, " carded his state," which Warburton, with great saga 
city, proposed to read " discarded state :" such is the emendation 
proposed in manuscript : next, the corrector struck out " do," un 
necessarily thrust into a line on page 292 : 

" As cloudy men use to do their adversaries." 
Thirdly, in the first line on p. 294, 

" Thou that art like enough, through vassal fear," 



258 THE FIRST PART OF [ACT IV. 

the printer injuriously omitted "that," which is written in the 
margin of the folio, 1632. 

P. 295. The line, as it stands in the quartos, 

" The which, 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 Hot 
spur's exclamation, , 

" Zounds ! how has he the leisure to be sick ?" 

The folios read, with ridiculous tameness, and most prosaically, 
" How I 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 oc- 



SO. III.] KING HENRY IV. 259 

curs in the last line of this page, where the Messenger is made to 
say, 

" His letters bear his mind, not I, his mind," 

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 manu 
script 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 word, the meaning of the speaker being (as suggested in 
note 1), that the power he, and the other revolted 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 H. 

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 but a shirt and 
a half," &c. "Not" and but were often confounded by the old 
printers. 



260 THE FIRST PART OF [ACT V. 

SCENE III. 

P. 311. There is a surplusage of two syllables, which certainly 
weaken the effect of the passage, in a line of Sir 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-cor 
rector 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 the 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 defectively, 
" if every owner were plac'd." 



ACT V. SCENE I. 

P. 317. When Worcester declares to the King that he had 
" not sought the day of this dislike," the King observes with sur 
prise, 

" 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 ?" 



SC. II.] KING HENRY IV. 261 

P. 319. The last line of the King's speech is thus given in the 
folios : 

" Sworn to us in younger enterprise." 
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. 256 
of this vol. 

SCENE H. 

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, 1632, 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 mis 
print of the folio, 1623, was repeated 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." 



262 THE FIRST PART OF [ACT V. 

P. 326. Hotpsur 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." 

This is intelligible, and does not positively require change ; but 
the old corrector substitutes a word for "marching" (the forces, 
at this time, were fighting, not marching), which seems much bet 
ter adapted to the place : 

'' The King hath many masking in his coats ;" 

i.e. there are many in the field who have disguised themselves 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, 1613, 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 corrector 
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 suffi 
cient guide. Modern editors of course print earthy. 

P. 334. The old printed stage-direction, which has been repeat 
ed by all subsequent editors, informs us that Falstaff takes Hot 
spur 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 until the close of Falstaff's solilo 
quy, ending, " and live cleanly as a nobleman should do." Dur 
ing this interval, the corpse of Percy must have been lying on 
the ground, and we can hardly suppose that Falstaff would have 



SO. II.] KING HENRY IV. 263 

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 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 Lan 
caster 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 put 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 

OP 

KING HENEY 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 unques 
tionably ought to be, as commonly given, 

" Stuffing the ears of men with false reports." 

The corrector of the folio, 1632, altered " them" to men. Lower 
down, he made " surmise," of the same edition, surmises, as re 
quired 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 impres 
sions, is made " worm-eaten hold" Theobald was the first to sub 
stitute 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 made their ap 
pearance before the audience at the same moment : the modern 
stage-direction has been, The Porter before the gate : Enter Lord 

(264) 



ACT I.] THE SECOND PART OF KING HENRY IV. 265 

Bardolph. It should appear from a stage-direction in manuscript, 
in the folio, 1632, that the old practice was for Lord Bardolph to 
enter first, and as soon as he asked, " Who keeps the gate here 1 
ho !" for the Warder (so called) to show himself above 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 that 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 emendation of " ragged'st hour," of the old 
copies, to " rugged 1 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 H. 

P. 357. The following manuscript-correction accords with no 
copy of this play that has come down to us : it is part of Fal- 
stafFs 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, which do not precisely agree with the 
quarto, which reads, " about three o'clock in the afternoon :" the 
12 



266 THE SECOND PART OF [ACT I. 

folios have no trace of them. On the next page, he leaves out the 
whole of FalstafPs speech after " well, I cannot last ever," which 
he makes " last for ever. It is only found in the quarto, 1600. 

P. 359. Few things can be more evident than the necessity of 
an emendation in the following passage : " A man can no more 
separate age and coveteousness, 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 " de 
grees," and the copyist must have misheard diseases, and written 
" degrees." We must read with the old corrector, " and so both 
the diseases prevent my curses," i. e. anticipate my curses. 

SCENE in. 

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 cor 
ruptly 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 ap 
pears 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 buds," &c. 

Thus the measure is amended, and the sense cleared. But, far 
ther on, Lord Bardolph draws a parallel between the building of 
a house and the carrying on a war, which is obscured 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 quotation as amended. The 
speaker is supposing that a man purposes at first to construct a 
dwelling, which he afterwards finds beyond his means : 



ACT II.] KING HENKY IV. 267 

" 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," &c. 

As amended by the old corrector, the same passage runs as fol 
lows : 

" What do we then, but draw anew the model 
In fewer offices ; or at last 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, 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 application, is an important 
improvement, although the question still returns upon us, from 
whence was it derived ? 



ACT H. SCENE L 

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 hun 
dred 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-honse, observes : " At last I spied his eyes j 



268 THE SECOND PART OF [ACT II. 

and, methought he had made two holes in the ale-wives' new petti 
coat, and peeped through." The word red is inserted in manu 
script before "petticoat," in order to make the resemblance more 
distinct, but it would scarcely be necessary, if ale-wives usually 
wore red petticoats at the time. 

SCENE H. 

P. 374. The prefixes are so arranged by the corrector of the 
folio, 1632, that the Prince, and not Poins, is made to read Fal- 
staiTs letter aloud, which, according to a manuscript stage-direc 
tion, he shows to Poins. Several literal and trifling verbal correc 
tions are inserted in this part of the scene : the only one it is ne 
cessary 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 manuscript stage- 
direction, and it might be gathered from the fragment of the bal 
lad printed. On the same authority; he sings, " Your broaches, 
pearls, and owches," as the fragment of another ballad. In his 
preceding speech, he addresses 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 FalstafFs speech ending, " to venture upon 
the charged chambers bravely," omit what Doll says, according to 
the quarto, "Hang yourself, you muddy conger, hang yourself;" 
and, excepting the two last words, the manuscript-corrector has 
duly inserted them with the proper prefix. It is to be remarked, 
however, that when, on p. 384, FalstafF exclaims, " No more, Pis 
tol," &c., 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 HENKY IV. 269 

ACT HI. SCENE L 

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 Me, as was not unfrequent of old, the 
misprint might easily have been made, and high 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 debated 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 defi 
cient 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 im 
pressions, 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 
sense, and Steevens takes the trouble to insert several quotations 
in which " sway " is found, but always in its ordinary meaning, so 
that they prove nothing. The plain truth is that the copyist 



270 THE SECOND PART OF [ACT IV. 

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, excepting by the manu 
script-corrector of the folio, 1632. Westmoreland 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 consistent 
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 reproaches 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 low for "loud" 
of the folio, 1623. In " Richard III.," 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 Arch- 



SO. III.] KING HENRY IV. 271 

bishop's speech, in reply to Westmoreland's question, why he in 
particular had joined the rebellion. 

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 Arch 
bishop 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 God 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, 1 632. The " seal divine," which Scroop 
was charged with misapplying, has been before mentioned by 
Westmoreland on p. 411. 

SCENE m. 

P. 421. FalstaflPs joke, such as it is, upon Sir John Colevile 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 



272 THE SECOND PART OF [ACT IV. 

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 enough," &c. The manuscript-corrector has 
substituted dale for both " places." 

SCENE IV. 

P. 429. The manuscript stage-direction after the line, 
" O me ! come near me, now I am much ill," 

is not swoons, as in modern editions, but falls back, we may sup 
pose, into the arms of the Dukes of Gloucester and Clarence : the 
old printed copies are without any note of the kind ; and, just be 
fore, 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 mistake should be made by the per 
formers, 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 ima 
gine 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 mis 
print for ringol, both here and in " Lucrece," where Shakespeare 
also uses it. However this may be, it is certain that the correc 
tor of the folio, 1682, here converts " rigol" into ringol, by put 
ting n in the margin, and such was, perhaps, the original mode of 
spelling the word. Steevens was not aware " that it Avas used by 
any other author than Shakespeare," but Middleton, his contem 
porary, applies the compound " rigol-eyed" to the round eyes of 
young women, in his "Black Book," 1604, which has been 
strangely misunderstood wriggle-eyed, a word that has no meaning. 

P. 436. For " win," in the subsequent line, 

" That thou mighl'st win the more thy father's love," 

the folios have joyne, for which misprint it is easy to account, 
when we recollect that " win" was of old often spelt wynne. The 



ACT V.] KING HENRY IV. 273 

old corrector strikes out joy ne in favour of " win," or, as he writes 
" it, winne. 

P. 487. The expression, " for what in me was purchas'd." 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 purchase, 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 permitted, to lead 
others to the Holy Land, 

" Lest rest and lying still might make them look 
Too near unto my state." 



ACT V. SCENE I. 

P. 441. The folios all have, " and he shall laugh with intercal- 
lums" instead of " without intervallums" which is the text of the 
quarto, and to which the passage is restored by a manuscript-cor 
rection. 

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 
12* 



274 KING HENRY IV. [ACT V. 

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. 

P. 458. In the second paragraph of the " Epilogue" by one that 
can dance (as we are informed in a manuscript parenthesis), the 
word "forgiven," of the folio, 1623, is forgotten 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 conjecture, therefore, hazarded in note 2, is, so far, not 
supported. 



KING HENKY 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 descriptions 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 distin 
guish what was intended : imaginative could hardly be Shakes 
peare's word. 



ACT I. SCENE n. 

P. 471. In the long speech of the Archbishop, in defence of 
Henry's title to France, those parts which relate especially to the 
succession of the Kings of France, in connexion with the salique 
law, and which were almost verbatim derived 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 performance 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 considered the 
better reading of the three. 

(275) 



276 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 alteration 
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 supported 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 officers of 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 : 



SC. II.] KING HENRY V. 277 

" 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 Shakespeare 
might not wish here to vary the regularity of his lines by inter 
posing 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 this Vol. p. 183. 

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 \yritten 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 sub 
stitution of a single letter, makes a great improvement. The 
King is urging the utmost expedition of preparation for the inva 
sion 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." 



278 KING HENRY V. [ACT II. 

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. 

ACT II. 

P. 480. In the third line of the Chorus, AVC 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 prep 
arations for the army about to embark at Southampton. This, 
we feel convinced, was the poet's word, who was not at all con- , 
templating the profit the armourers would reap from the expedi 
tion : 

" 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 fol 
lows : 

"Th' abuse of distance, while we force a play." 

" While 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 cor 
rector has " tired jade" instead of "tired name" of the folios. 
The quartos read, " tired mare" which is unquestionably to be 
preferred to name, and, probably, to jade. 



SC. II.] KING HENRY V. 279 

SCENE H. 

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 enlargement of a drunkard who had 
railed on him, and the passage has always been thus printed : 

" 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 1 " but the old corrector shows 
that "late commissioners" was a misprint, or a mishearing, 
for "state commissioners" the commissioners who were to be in 
charge of the state during the absence of the King of France. 

SCENE IE. 

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 misprints, which we shall 
point out presently on the authority 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 sharp 
ness of a pen, as seen in strong relief on a table so covered, that 
Mrs. Quickly likens the nose of the dying wit and philosopher 
" 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 Greenfields," whom he supposed 



280 KING HENRY V. [ACT II. 

(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 apprehend, 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 line, 
" Whiles that his mountain sire, on mountain standing," 

is corrupt ; and a manuscript-correction in the fblio, 1632, shows 
that it ought to be read, in accordance with a previous line, de 
scriptive 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 in. 

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 supplies us 
with a word which, as it is more picturesque, as well as appro 
priate, 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 fragments of 
ballads quoted by Pistol and the Boy, in the beginning of this 
scene, are imperfectly given. Without thinking it necessary here 
to quote the ordinary text, we will subjoin the manner in which 



SO. IV.] KING HENUr Y. 281 

the dialogue, containing the extracts, ought to be conducted, ac 
cording 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 feel the same, 
And sword and shield 
In bloody field 
Do win immortal fame. 

Boy. Would I were in an alehouse in London ! I would give all my 
fame for a pot of ale and safety. 
Pistol. 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 corrector had 
access to some means of information which we do not now pos 
sess. We give the words he supplies in Italics, but the whole ap 
pears 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 cor 
rector 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. 



282 KING HEXRY V. [ACT IV. 

SCENE VL 

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-coined oaths." 

SCENE VII. 

P. 519. The Dauphin, vehement in praise of his horse, ex 
claims, " 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 occa 
sioned by the wrong use of the aspirate, for a marginal note in the 
folio, 1632, most plausibly substitutes air for " hairs," and there 
fore 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 injunction to 
Gower ought to be to " speak fewer," as it stands in the old copies, 
or to " speak lower" according to the ordinary 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 commen 
tators. Henry is descanting upon the vanity of regal accompa 
niments, 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 ? 
ceremony ! show me but thy worth ! 
What is thy soul of adoration?" 

The old corrector points out this last line as having been misprint 
ed ; and reading it as follows, the whole dispute between Johnson, 
Steevens, and Malone, seems at an end : 



SO. III.] KING HENRY V. 283 

" ceremony ! show me but thy worth : 
What is thy soul but adulation, ?" 

which is strongly supported by the whole context, and especially 
by two lines that follow almost immediately : 

" Think'st thou the fiery fever will go out 
With titles blown from adulation ?" 

Therefore, the answer, when Henry asks what is the worth of 
ceremony, is what he himself supplies, that the soul of ceremony 
is nothing but adulation. 

P. 534. 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, 

" 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, 1632, the epithet was mis 
printed, 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 distasteful to 
kings and princes. 

SCENE HI. 

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 inhabitants, 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." 



284 KING HENRY V. [ACT IV. 

The simile of the bullet's grazing from one object, which it de 
stroys, 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 iil 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 : 

" Mark, then, rebounding valour in our English, 
That, being dead, like to the bullets 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 " abound 
ing" was only to be taken as abundant ; and neither of them had 
any notion that " relapse " was a misprint for reflex. Both these 
changes are made by the corrector 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 Fal- 
staff that he " lards the lean earth as he walks along." No quo 
tation 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." 



ACT V.] KING HENEY V. 285 

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 condition 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 charitable licence, 
That we may wander o'er this bloody field, 
To look our dead, and then to bury them." 

The manuscript-corrector merely altered the first letter of " book;" 
and the use of look, as above, is frequent in all our old writers. 
It was an English herald who made out a statement 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 for 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 distasteful at any time after that noble 
man'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 har 
angue, 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 



286 KING HENKY V. [ACT V. 

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. 567. 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 refused 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 ac 
ceptance," but what the French King intends to say is, that, after 
further consideration, he will 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 with 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 as 
sured 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 



SO. II.] KING HENRY V. 287 

only one emendation that demands notice : it occurs not far from 
the end of the scene, where the King observes, " I dare not swear 
thou lovest me ; yet my blood begins to flatter me thou dost, 
notwithstanding the poor and untempering effect of my visage." 
Warburton's note is "Certainly untempting ;" and he was right, 
for a marginal correction directs us to read untempting for " un 
tempering." 

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 FIEST PART 

OF 

KING HENKY VI. 



ACT I. SCENE I. 

Vol. v. p. 9. The subsequent imperfect couplet closes Bedford'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 corrector of the folio, 1632, wrote Cassiopi 
in the margin, which, as far as regards the measure, answers the 
purpose ; but from whence he derived the information, it is im 
possible to conjecture : he therefore reads, 

" Than Julius Caesar on bright Cassiope." 

P. 10. In the following line, the folio, 1632, omits an important 
word. 

" Reignier, duke of Anjou, doth take his part." 

The old corrector inserted " take," which, perhaps, he found in 
the folio, 1623; at all events, it was not necessary for him to 
go to any other authority for it, if even to that. 

(288) 



SO. II.] KING HENRY VI. 289 

P. 12. The line has 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-correction makes it evident 
that " vaward" was a misprint for rearward : 

" He being in the rearward, plac'd behind 
With purpose to relieve and folloWthem." 

P. 13. The ensuing emendation is one of those which may have 
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 wrote 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 audi 
ences in his time did not so well relish the recurrence of same- 
sounding words. 

SCENE II. 

P. 14. When the Dauphin observes, in reference to the disas 
trous state of English affairs in France, 
13 



290 THE FIRST PART OF [ACT I. 

" At pleasure here we lie near Orleans, 
Otherwhiles, the famish'd English, like pale ghosts, 
Faintly besiege us one hour in a month ;" 

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 sur 
prising 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 1 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 " for- 
lorne" in the folios, and the old corrector had nothing more to do 
than to alter the letter I to b. 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 trans 
position in 

" Heaven and our Lady gracious hath it pleas'd," 

instead of " our gracious Lady," as it is marked by the corrector 
of the folio, 1632, unless "gracious" be to be taken as graciously. 

P. 17. 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 : 



SO. IV.] KING HENRY VI. 291 

" And, if thou vanquishest, thy words are true, 
Otherwise I renounce all confidence." 

The last line is almost ridiculously prosaic, and the change recom 
mended by a note in the folio, 1632, is small, but a decided im 
provement : 

" And, if thou vanquishest, thy words are true, 
Or I renounce all confidence in you." 

SCENE m. 

P. 19. At the heads 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 interview between the 
Duke of Gloucester and Beaufort takes places 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 JRoane, as it was spelt of old ; 
and at the head of the third scene we are told that the stage still 
represents 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. 25. It has been most strangely made a question by Steevens, 
whether when " vile-esteem'd " is misprinted in the folios, " piTd 
esteemed" ("vile" being frequently spelt vild in the time of 
Shakespeare), the poet did not mean that Talbot complained that 
he had been philistined. 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 sub 
sequent, which is the disputed line, 

" Rather than I would be so vile-esteem'd." 
P. 26. The eight lines following 

" In thirteen battles Salisbury overcame," 



292 THE FIRST PART OF [ACT II. 

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. 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 of 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 oifered to Suffolk ; and, according to the corrected folio, 
1632, we ought to read, 

" He braves him on the place's privilege." 

Consistently with this emendation, Plantagenet, on the next page, 
exclaims, 

" How am I braved, 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 thou 
sand souls " seems a very insignificant number to be prophesied on 
such an occasion, as likely to fall hi the Wars of the Roses. 



ACT III.] KING HENRY VI. 293 

SCENE V. 

P. 47. Theobald made, and most modern editors have adopted, 
a needless change in the text of the old copies, at 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 :" 

t. 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 ad 
vancer of his own interests. The proposed emendation of ill for 
" will," by Theobald, was merely arbitrary and fanciful. 



ACT m. SCENE I. 

P. 49. Whether such were the case with the ensuing emenda 
tion by the old corrector, we can only speculate from probabil 
ities : there are two points in its favour, viz. that both the con 
text 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, therefore, 



294 THE FIRST PART OF [ACT III. 

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 emenda 
tion in the King's appeal to Winchester, which, as ordinarily 
printed, ends with these lines : 

" Who should be pitiful, if you are not ? 
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 "pre 
serve a peace," peace having been broken by the affray 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, offers Winchester his hand, a 
manuscript stage-direction informs us (hat he scorns it at first, but 
subsequently takes it. 

P. 53. We need not doubt that the word so awkwardly recur 
ring in the two subsequent lines, was a misprint: it is in Planta- 
genet'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 honoured 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 honoured 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 hi capturing Kouen, 
calls her, 



SO. IV.] KING HENRY VL 295 

"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 Mi's despite I" 
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 tautology, an 
offence of which Shakespeare is rarely guilty ; and, as the old cor 
rector assures us that "martial"' has been misprinted, 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 Bur 
gundy : 

" 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 her in both places, and " lowly" 
for lovely : the last was Warburton's reasonable proposal, which 
ought, we see, to have been adopted, though opposed by Johnson, 
who treated lovely as a needless innovation. 

SCENE IV. 
P. 64. The King, addressing Talbot, observes, 

" I 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, 



296 THE FIRST PAKT OF [ACT IV. 

" 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 kc follows it up 
by a statement of the fidelity and merits of Talbot : 

" 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 authority, 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 



SO. V.] KING HENRY VI. 297 

out : the old corrector inserts it ; but whether he obtained it from 
the folio, 1623, or from some other source, must remain a ques 
tion. 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 : 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 marginal 
note in the folio, 1632, instructs us to ready?y for "bow" in the 
ensuing lines ; and we can hardly doubt that " bow " is a mis 
print, 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^y; 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 modern editions, that he is " supported by 
a servant;" the addition to the stage-direction in the folio, 1632, 
has much greater propriety, for he there is described as entering, 
led by a soldier from the field of battle. 

P. 83. The folio, 1632, omits a line in Joan's speech upon this 
page, viz. : 

"So, rushing in the bowels of the French." 

13* 



298 THE FIRST PART OF [ACT V. 

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 : 

"But tell me briefly, 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, per 
haps, had been lost : it is where Sir W. Lucy demands 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 ihem 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 I. 

P. 86. For " our Christian blood," in Gloster's speech, the cor 
rector of the folio, 1632, has "much Christian blood;" and, lower 
down, where the Protector recommends the marriage 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 consist 
ently with what Gloster says afterwards, that Armagnac is " near 
kinsman unto Charles." 



SO. III.] KING HENRY VI. 299 

SCENE HI. 

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 want 
ing 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 Suffolk lays his hands " gently on the tender 
side" of Margaret, and afterwards kisses her fingers. The old 
corrector always indicates an error of this kind 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. [kissing," 

P. 91. Much of Suffolk's speech is in rhyme ; and when he ex 
claims, as Margaret is about to depart, 

" O, stay ! I have no power to let her pass ; 
My hand would free her, but my 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 : 

" 0, 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 com 
mentators, which would have been avoided had they been able to 
detect the blunder of the printer or of the copyist, which the cor 
rector 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 



300 THE FIRST PART OF [ACT V. 

marginal notes in the folio, 1632, and the obscurity is at an 
end: 

" Aye ; beauty's princely majesty is such, 
Confounds the tongue, and mocks the sense of touch." 

Here, again, who is to determine whether the preceding emenda 
tion were derived from some good authority, or whether it was 
only a lucky guess on the part of the individual through whose 
hands this copy of the folio, 1632, passed? Certan 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 understand 
ing the copy he was ^composing, seems to have 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 especially 
corrupt. We will first give the text as represented in all edi 
tions, and follow it by the text as recommended in manuscript- 
corrections : 

" Marg. Tush ! women have been captivate ere now. 
Suff. 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? 



SO. IV.J KING HENRY VI. 301 

Marg. I cry you mercy, 'tis but quid pro quo. 

Buff. 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. 
Buff. 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. 95. 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 meaning 
being, that the virtues of Margaret (with whom Suffolk 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 prisoned, 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 modern editors have adhered 
to " poison'd." 

P. 101. We have- here another of the many emendations ren 
dered 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 



302 KING HENRY VI. [ACT V. 

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, 1632, reads the last line thus: 
" For here we interchange a solemn peace." 

The agreement for a peace being mutual : it cannot be said, how 
ever, that the change is imperatively called for, though recom 
mended on strong presumptive evidence. 



THE SECOND PART 



OP 



KING HENKY VI. 



ACT I. SCENE I. 
P. 1 12. A question has arisen whether to read, 

" And was his highness in his infancy 
Crowned in Paris, in 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 hi 
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 " hapless" 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. 

(303) 



304 THE SECOND PART OF [ACT I. 

SCENE m. 

P. 121. Johnson, 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 universally 
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 supplications to Suffolk 
in succession, one after another, and "the quill" ought, indis 
putably, 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 of 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 divisions being 



ACT II.] KING HENRY VI. 305 

made in print), and as a new scene (4) is made to commence with 
the entrance of the King, York, Somerset, &c., on p. 124, another 
scene, numbered 5, contains the incantations, &c., of Margery 
Jourdain, Southwell, Bolingbroke, &c., 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 Bolingbroke questions the Spirit raised by 
the Witch, Southwell writes the answers. When the former dis 
misses the Spirit, called up to ascertain and declare the truth, he 
exclaims, " False fiend, avoid," the impropriety of which is evi 
dent, ^nd the manuscript-correction is, " Foul fiend, avoid." 



ACT H. SCENE I. 
P. 133. Gloster, 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 imperfect 
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 Johnson : 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 staff of office, quits the scene, is in 
rhyme ; but there is one line which has nothing to answer to it, 
and we meet with the corresponding line, as an important addi 
tion, in the margin. There are also two emendations deserving 



306 THE SECOND PART OF [ACT III. 

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, by peers. 
God and King Henry govern England's helm, 
Give up your 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 coup 
let 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 com 
pelled "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 perfectly 
consistent with the situation and character of the Duchess of 
Gloster. 



ACT in. SCENE I. 

P. 155. Mai one, who was generally reluctant to vary from the 
ancient editions, could not refuse to adopt an emendation pro 
posed 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." 



SO. I.] KING HEtfRY VI. 307 

Steevens printed suspects for " suspense," and the corrector of the 
second folio.writes suspect (not suspects') in the margin. Never 
theless, " suspense " may be strained to a meaning, certainly 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 so 
liloquy, where he congratulates himself that his enemies are play 
ing 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 band, 
I will stir up in England some black storm," &o. 

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 poisonous 
too, and kill thy forlorn queen," is crossed out ; but various emen 
dations are made in it notwithstanding, besides the necessary cor 
rection 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 manuscript to ungentle gusts : 

" What did I then, but curs'd th' ungentle gusts, 
And he that loosed them from their brazen caves." 

It was because they were ungentle that the winds had been con 
fined 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 



308 THE SECOND PART OF [ACT III. 

Theobald's substitution near the end, of witch for " watch," how 
ever plausible, is not authorised by the old corrector. 

P. 169. Malone observed upon the harsh expression, "to 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 both 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 ene 
mies, " Poison be their drink," &c. : 

" Their chiefest prospect murdering basilisks, 
Their softest touch, as smart as lizards' stings." 

Here we are told to read sharp for " smart," and, independently 
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, introducing a gross inelegance of ex 
pression, which Shakespeare would most likely have avoided. 
The text has always been, 

" Live thou to joy thy life, 
Myself no joy in nought, but that thou liv'st ;" 

but as amended it runs, 

" Live thou to joy thy life, 
Myself to joy in nought, but that thou liv'st." 

The duplication of negatives was, of course, not at all unusual in 
the time of Shakespeare, but here it seems as injurious as it is 
needless. 



ACT IV.] KING HENRY VI. 309 

ACT IV. SCENE I. 

P. 180. Discussion has been produced by the subsequent lines, 
as they stand in the early impressions : 

" The lives of those which we have lost in fight 
Be counterpois'd with such a petty sum." 

Malone read, " Cannot be counterpois'd," &c., and Steevens, per 
ceiving at once that the last line had thus more than the regular 
number of syllables, proposed to leave out two small words, but 
without the slightest warrant, printed or manuscript. Note 1 
gives a hint of the proper emendation, such, indeed, as we meet 
with it, in the shortest possible form, in the margin of the folio, 
1632 : there the lines are put thus interrogatively, 

" Can lives of those which we have lost in fight 
Be counterpois'd with such a petty sum ?" 

Surely this slight change is unobjectionable, where some change 
is absolutely necessary. 

P. 181. Suffolk's speech to the Captain, beginning, "Obscure 
and lowly swain" ("lowly" is altered from lowsy, as mis 
printed in the folios), in which he heaps upon him the bitterest 
reproaches, contains several errors of the press, but they are not 
important f in Whitmore's inquiry (p. 182), consequent upon 
Suffolk's abuse, 

" Speak, captain, shall I stab the forlorn swain ?" 

there is, according to the old corrector, a gross blunder ; and cer 
tainly the epithet " forlorn," seems strangely applied : it is much 
more likely that Whitmore should ask, 

" Speak, captain, shall I stab the foul-tongued slave /" 

and such is actually his question, as represented in a manuscript 
note in the folio, 1632. We cannot believe that the writer of that 
note was merely indulging his taste, or exercising his fancy. It 
is to be remarked that the correction of " forlorn" to foul-tongued, 
is in a different ink to that which was used for the correction of 



810 THE SECOND PART OF [ACT IV. 

"swain" to slave. The whole of the Captain's reply to Suffolk, 
excepting the first five lines, is crossed out. 

P. 184. The prefixes in this scene are confused in the folios, 
especially as regards Suffolk. The line, 

" Thy words move rage and not remorse in me," 

is, for some reason, erased ; and Suffolk's last speech is made to 
begin, 

" Come, soldiers, show what cruelty ye can," 
undoubtedly the right distribution of the dialogue. 

SCENE II. 

P. 186. When Jack Cade enters, the old printed stage-direction 
states that he is followed by infinite numbers, to which the manu 
script-corrector adds, the more the better, and uproar: meaning, of 
course, that the rabble was to be represented on the stage as 
numerously and as riotously as the means of the old theatre would 
allow. When Cade subsequently knights himself (p. 189), we 
are told that he kneels and rises, and when the Staffords are killed, 
that he puts on the armour of one of them. 

SCENE V. 

P. 195. In all printed copies this scene terminates very flatly 
with a speech by Lord Scales -. 

" Fight for your king, your country, and your lives ! 
And so farewell, for I must hence again." 

It is given as follows by the corrector of the folio, 1632 : 

" Fight for your king, your country, and your lives ! 
And so farewell : rebellion never thrives." 

This rhyme may, possibly, have been a subsequent introduction, 
for the sake of giving more spirit to the exit of Lord Scales, and 
of enforcing a loyal maxim. 

SCENE VHI. 
P. 202. Two blunders of some consequence are detected by 



SO. VIII.] KING HENKY VI. 311 

marginal notes in the folio, 1632, in the address of Old Clifford 
to the "rabblement" under Cade: he appeals to them, in all 
editions, ancient and modern, in these terms : 

" What say ye, countrymen ? will ye relent, 
And yield to mercy, whilst 'tis offer'd you, 
Or let a rabble lead you to your deaths ?" 

The speaker was addressing the " rabble," and would hardly ask 
whether they would allow themselves to lead themselves to their 
own deaths : the second misprint is, therefore, " rabble " for rebel, 
meaning Cade, who was leading the rabble : the first misprint is 
less positively wrong, but still the sense (as well as the old cor 
rector) tells us to read, " relent" repent : the three lines, properly 
printed, will, therefore, stand thus : 

" What say ye, countrymen ? will ye repent, 
And yield to mercy, whilst 'tis offer'd you, 
Or let a rebel lead you to your deaths?" 

Writers of the time now and then used "relent" for repent ; but 
" rabble" for rebel must be wrong. 

P. 205. The Duke of York having suddenly returned from 
Ireland, a messenger informs the King that he is on his way to the 
court, 

" And with a puissant, and a mighty power 
Of Gallowglasses and stout Kernes 
Is marching hitherward in proud array." 

The first line is tautological, since a " mighty" power would ne 
cessarily be a " puissant" power : the second line is imperfect, 
owing to the absence of two syllables ; but both these defects 
are remedied by the corrector of the folio, 1632 : 

" And with a puissant, and united power 
Of Gallowglasses and stout Irish Kernes, 
Is marching hitherward in proud array." 

Most likely "a mighty" was written for united, in consequence of 
misapprehension by the ear of the scribe : York's power consisted 
of Gallowglasses and Kernes in union ; and as the Kernes were 



312 THE SECOND PART OF [ACT V. 

Irish, we may be confident that that word had, in some unexplain 
ed way, escaped from the text. 



ACT V. SCENE I. 

P. 214. York, accused of treason, calls for his sons to bail him, 
and afterwards for Salisbury and Warwick, whom he terms his 
" two brave bears :" 

" That with the very shaking of their chains 
They may astonish these fell-lurking curs." 

Steevens thought that " fell-lurking" was, in all probability, a mis 
print ; and Heath proposed fell-lurching, and others fell-barking as 
the fit compound. York has previously spoken of the looks of 
Clifford and other friends of Henry, and there is every reason to 
think that this correction in the folio, 1632, is well founded : 

" That, with the very shaking of their chains 
They may astonish these fel l-loo king curs." 

The misprint was easy, but, we believe, no editor ever guessed at 
the right emendation. Just below occurs another slight, but de 
cided error, of the same kind, in Richard's simile of " an over 
weening cur :" 

" Who, being suffer'd with the bear's fell paw, 
Hath clapp'd his tail between his legs and cried.' 

Here one auxiliary was used for another, for we ought clearly to 
read having for " being :" 

" Who, having suffer'd from the bear's fell paw," &c. 

It seems strange that Malone should ingeniously strive to vindi 
cate " being," without perceiving that having would at once put 
an end to the difficulty. 

SCENE H. 

P. 220. We may be pretty sure, if only on account of the dis 
agreeable jingle of " hearts" and " parts" in the same line, that 
Shakespeare did not write the following, as it has always been 



SC. II.] KING HENRY VI. 313 

handed down to us. Young Clifford is speaking of the total rout 
of King Henry's troops : 

" Uncurable discomfit 
Reigns in the hearts of all our present parts." 

Some corruption found its way into the text, and the corrector of 
the folio, 1632, informs us what it is, but he does not tell us how 
the word he substitutes became mistaken for that he expunges : 

" Uncurable discomfit 
Reigns in the hearts of all our present friends." 

If the transcriber of this play for the press had written as plain a 
hand as the corrector, such a blunder would not have been com 
mitted, and we do not see how any want of clearness could well 
pervert friends into " parts." That the one fills the place better 
than the other, will, probably, not pe denied : neither will it be 
denied, by those who have examined it, that the latter portion of 
this play is very incorrectly printed. As a farther proof, we may 
adduce the first five lines of York's speech, at the opening o c the 
next scene on this page: 

" Of Salisbury, who can report of him ? 
That winter lion, who in rage forgets 
Aged contusions and all brush of time, 
And, like a gallant in the brow of youth, 
Repairs him with occasion." 

There appear to be at least three errors in this short passage, two 
of which have been guessed at with success by Warburton and 
Johnson, though Steevens would not allow of either. The first, 
but not the most important, has never been hinted at, but is dis 
tinctly shown by a manuscript-emendation in the folio, 1632, 
where the extract appears in this form : 

" Old Salisbury, who can report of him ? 
That winter lion, who in rage forgets 
Aged contusions and all bruise of time, 
And, like a gallant in the bloom of youth, 
Repairs him with occasion." 

As to " Old Salisbury," instead of " Of Salisbury," it is to be ob 
served that not only is the change fully borne out by the context, 
14 



314 KING HENRY VI [ACT V. 

but that in the corresponding place of the drama upon which this 
play was founded, York inquires, " But did you see old Salisbury 1 ?" 
Bruise, for " brush," was Warburton's conjecture ; and Johnson 
proposed blow for " brow ;" but it turns out, as far as the old cor 
rector may be trusted, that the poet's word was bloom blow is 
certainly nearer the letters, and, in the same sense as bloom, might 
answer the purpose equally well. 



THE THIRD PART 



KING HENKY VI 



ACT I. SCENE L 

P. 229. Edward, speaking of the Duke of Buckingham, says 
that he 

" Is either slain or wounded dangerous." 

There are two pieces of evidence to show that we ought to read 
" wounded dangerously :" the one is the play from which this 
drama was in great part taken, and the other a manuscript-cor 
rection in the folio, 1632. Either ought, in such a case, to be con 
clusive. 

The old printed copies are without many necessary stage-direc 
tions, and when Richard throws down the head of Somerset, head, 
and throw it, are written in the margin, as a sufficient instruction 
to the performer. At the line, 



shake it is placed opposite. York afterwards takes the throne ; 
that is to say, places himself in the seat in the Parliament House 
appropriated to the King. This he is represented in the folio, 
1632, as doing earlier than in modern editions, and at the same 
time that his soldiers retire, or go up, as it is expressed in print. 
This course does not seem to be quite correct according to the 
dialogue. 

P. 235. The folio, 1632, thus blunderingly gives the passage, 
where Henry consents to reign only during life : 

(315) 



316 THE THIRD PAET OF [ACT I. 

"My lord of Warwick, hear but one word. 
Let me for this time reign as king." 

Manuscript-corrections change the lines thus : 

" My lord of Warwick, hear me but one word. 
Let me for this my life time reign as king." 

Me, necessary at least to the measure, is found in no known edi 
tion of this play ; but my life, in the second line, makes the pas 
sage agree with the folio, 1623 : the insertion of me, in the first 
line, may induce a doubt whether the corrector of the folio, 1632, 
did not resort to some independent source. This notion is 
strengthened by an emendation, a few lines above, where, accord 
ing to all authorities, York exclaims, 

" Henry of Lancaster, resign thy crown;" 

but York, from the commencement, had demanded the crown as 
his ; and, in consistency with this assertion of right, and perhaps 
warranted by some then extant authority, the old corrector makes 
York say, 

" Henry of Lancaster, resign my crown." 

At all events, such would seem to be the true reading. 

A leaf is unfortunately wanting in the folio, 1632, after this 
part of the scene. 

SCENE IV. 

P. 246. During the speech of Margaret, several stage-direc 
tions are inserted, of which there is no trace in any printed copies, 
ancient or modern. Thus, when she shows York the napkin 
stained with Rutland's blood, the fit time for producing it is duly 
marked, and she afterwards, in mockery, throws it to him, that he 
may wipe his eyes upon it. Again, when she and Clifford insult 
ingly place the paper crown on York's head, those words are in 
serted hi the margin. Before Clifford and the Queen stab him, 
York casts the napkin to her again. 

P. 249. The folio, 1623, has this exclamation by York, in allu 
sion to the death of young Rutland : 

" That face of his the hungry cannibals 
Would not have touch'd, would not have stain'd with blood ;" 



ACT II.] KING HENRY VI. 317 

and why the passage should have been altered to the following 
form in the folio, 1632, it is not very easy to understand, unless, 
when properly given, it corresponded with some better original 
than that from which the folio, 1623, was printed : 

"That face of his 

The hungry cannibals would not have touch'd, 
Would not have stain'd the roses just with blood." 

Theobald, to keep, we suppose, as near the letters of the second 
folio as possible, proposed, somewhat absurdly, to print "juic'd 
with blood ;" but the printer was in fault, by converting hues into 
"just ;" and hues is substituted for " just " by the old corrector. 
'' Would not have stain'd the rose's hues with blood," 

is intelligible enough, and on some accounts superior to the lan 
guage of the earlier folio, which was derived from the old play 
Shakespeare altered. We know of no originnl for the insertion 
of " the rose's hues " in the folio, 1632. 



ACT II. SCENE II. 

P. 259. Queen Margaret, endeavouring to animate Henry, 
thus addresses him, in all editions : 

" My lord, cheer up your spirits : our foes are nigh, 
And this soft courage makes your followers faint." 

What is " soft courage," but a contradiction in terms 1 Yet the 
words have always been treated as the genuine text of Shakes 
peare, when we ought certainly to read, with the old corrector, 

" And this soft carriage makes your followers faint." 

The allusion unquestionably is to the mild deportment of the 
King. The same lapse was committed by the printer in " Co- 
riolanus," Act III. Scene III. ; and what makes it still more 
evident that, in the instance before us, " soft courage" ought to be 
" soft carriage" is that the corresponding line in the older play 
(of which Shakespeare availed himself) is this : 

" This harmful pity makes your followers faint." 



318 . THE THIRD PART OF [ACT II. 

P. 263. When the Yorkists defy the party of the King and 
Queen to battle, this poor couplet is put into Edward's 
mouth : 

" Sound trumpets ! let our bloody colours wave, 
And either victory, or else a grave." 

The last line is vastly improved in expression and energy by a 
manuscript alteration in the folio, 1632 : 

" Sound trumpets ! let our bloody colours wave, 
And either victory, or a welcome grave." 

It seems hardly possible that a copyist should mishear welcome, 
and write " or else" for it ; but whether welcome were or were 
not the word of the poet, we may be quite sure that he never 
wrote " or else ;" and the great probability seems to be that he 
wrote welcome. 

SCENE V. 
P. 270. The folios all have this passage : 

" And so obsequious will thy father be, 
Men for the loss of thee, having no more," &c. 

The word " men" has occasioned discussion among the commen 
tators : Rowe substituted sad, and Steevens recommended man, 
which has been sometimes adopted. It is merely the printer's 
mistake, who carelessly began the line with M instead of E : 

" And so obsequious will thy father be, 
E'en for the loss of thee, having no more, 
As Priam was for all his valiant sons." 

" Obsequious" means mournful, as at funeral obsequies : the 
father would be as mournful even for the loss of this one son, as 
Priam had been for the loss of all his sons. There can be little 
objection to receive this trifling, but effectual, emendation at the 
hands of the old corrector. 

SCENE VI 

P. 274. We meet with a singular manuscript stage-direction in 
the folio, 1632, where Edward, Clarence, Richard, and Warwick 
are exulting over the dead body of Clifford ; for we are informed 



ACT III.] KING HENRY VI. 319 

in the margin that they pull him to and fro, as each of them in 
turn insults the corpse by the delivery of a malignant line. We 
can hardly believe that such an exhibition of brutality would 
have been generally tolerated even by spectators of that day ; 
but the old corrector, nevertheless, must refer to a practice he had 
either himself witnessed on the stage, or had heard of as the 
practice of the theatre before his time. 



ACT HI. SCENE I. 

P. 276. In the introduction to this scene, instead of the names 
Sinklo and Humphrey, "two Keepers" are substituted ; but the 
prefixes to their several speeches are still abbreviations of the 
appellations of the performers, Sin. and Hum. They stand back 
when the King, disguised as a churchman (so stated in manu 
script), enters ; and they come forward to carry him away with 
them. 

SCENE HT. 

P. 286. This scene is numbered 2 in manuscript (for none of 
the divisions of Acts and Scenes, after the first, are printed in this 
drama) ; but it is, in fact, Scene 3, a mistake having been intro 
duced in this respect. 

P. 289. A correction, of comparatively little moment, is made 
in a line of Queen Margaret's speech, which, at least, serves to 
show the minute accuracy of the person through whose hands 
this volume once passed : 

'' Look, therefore, Lewis, that by this league and marriage 
Thou draw not on thce danger and dishonour." 

The above is ordinarily printed " thy danger and dishonour," 
which is only to be questioned, because we here learn that it was 
not the authentic mode of giving the passage. 

P. 294. The regulation of the verse in this part of the dialogue 
is certainly erroneous as it stands, and the irregularity has arisen 
from the omission of an important word, which is supplied in the 



320 THE THIRD PART OF [ACT IV. 

margin of the folio, 1632, and which proves that the lines ought 

to run thus : 

" But, Warwick, thou, 

And Oxford, with five thousand warlike men, 
Shall cross the seas and bid false Edward battle." 

The line, without warlike, is clearly defective, and we can hardly 
suppose that it was inserted in manuscript at random. In the 
same way, in the last line of the last of King Edward's speeches, 
on p. 299, the word " have " was carelessly left out in the folio, 
1632, and was inserted by the old corrector : warlike, however, 
is not found in any of the old copies. 



ACT IV. SCENE II. 

P. 301. To the Introduction to this Act, " Enter Warwick and 
Oxford in England with French soldiers," the words, and English, 
are added, with a caret, after " French ;" for it is not to be sup 
posed that these two noblemen, coming to maintain the right of 
Henry VI. to the throne, were supported by no English followers. 
After they have surprised Edward in his tent, and the greatest 
alarm and dismay prevail, Shouts, noise, and confusion is added 
to the printed stage-direction. 

SCENE VII. 

P. 312. This scene is wrongly numbered 6 by the corrector ; 
and it is not unlikely that, for the sake of convenience in perform 
ance, two scenes, separated in modern editions, were combined. 
The introduction in the early impressions is, " Enter Edward, 
Richard, Hastings, and soldiers : " \miforeign is placed in manu 
script before " soldiers," to show, perhaps, that their forces were 
chiefly derived from continental aid. 

P. 313. We can very readily believe that the small word we 
have printed in Italics escaped from the following line by Gloster, 
in ridicule of the complying Mayor of York : 

" A stout wise captain he, and soon persuaded." 
It is not met with in any old copy, but it is added in the margin 



ACT V.] KING HEXRY VI. 321 

of the folio, 1632. The corresponding passage in "The true 
Tragedy of Richard Duke of York," is, 

" By my faith, a wise stout captain, and soon persuaded." 

SCENE VIII. 

P. 317. The old corrector informs us that mind has been mis 
printed " meed," where King Henry says, 

" That's not my fear ; my meed hath got me fame ;" 
and the context tends to convince us that the alteration was 
proper, and that the poet did not intend to use " meed" in the 
sense of merit. The mild and pious King refers not so much to 
his own acts, as to the gentle character of his disposition ; and, 
in conformity with this view, he remarks, just afterwards, as the 
passage has been uniformly printed, 

" My mildness hath allay'd their swelling griefs, 
My mercy dried their water-flowing tears." 

" Water-flowing" seems a poor and tautologous epithet for 
" tears ;" and bitter-flowing is substituted in the corrected folio, 
1632. " Water-standing eyes" is used afterwards, but under very 
different circumstances. 



ACT V. SCENE V. 

P. 331. The young Prince having been stabbed by Edward, 
Clarence, and Gloster, Margaret exclaims, 

" traitors ! murderers ! 
They that stabb'd Caesar shed no blood at all, 
Did not offend, nor were not worthy blame, 
If this foul deed were by to equal it." 

This passage cannot have reached us as Shakespeare wrote it, 
because one foul deed being present, and only equal to another, 
also present, would not show either of them off as more henious. 
An evident and easy mistake, either by the copyist or by the 
printer, has represented our great poet as writing what is little 
better than illogical nonsense ; and the corrector of the folio, 1632, 
by placing a single letter in the margin, has shown us what, we 
think, must have come from Shakespeare's pen : 



322 THE THIED PABT OF [ACT V. 

" O traitors ! murderers ! 
They that stabb'd Caesar shed no blood at all, 
Did not offend, nor were not worthy blame, 
If this foul deed were by to sequel it." 

That is, if this foul deed had been by, to follow up the stabbing 
of Caesar, the latter act would have appeared no crime in com 
parison. 

SCENE VI 

P. 332. According to all the folios, Richard must have talked 
with, and subsequently killed Henry VI. on the walls of the Tower, 
for the printed introduction to this scene is, " Enter Henry the 
Sixth, and Richard, with the Lieutenant, on the walls." This 
could scarcely have been the case, when the play was originally 
represented, because in the older drama, upon which it is founded, 
it is said, at the opening of the corresponding scene, " Enter Glos- 
ter to King Henry in the Tower." The corrector of the folio, 
1632, enables us to state that, in his time at least, the place of 
action in this scene was the interior of the Tower, for he erases 
"on the walls," and writes in the Tower instead of them. He 
also informs us that Henry is reading, when Gloster unceremo 
niously breaks in upon him. 

P. 334. Henry, referring to the birth of Richard, tells him, 

" The owl shriek'd at thy birth, an evil sign ; 
The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time." 

For " aboding," as one word, the corrector writes a boding, as two 
words ; and for " time," he writes tune. 

" The night-crow cried, a boding luckless tune." 

This appears to be the right reading, for in the older play, which 
is here followed more exactly than usual, the words are the same ; 
but it is, nevertheless, to be admitted that in " Henry VIII." 
Shakespeare uses "aboded" for foreboded, and that "time" was 
often misprinted tune. There is the same double reason for alter 
ing "indigested" to indigest, just below; it stands so in the older 
play, and it is changed so in the margin of the folio, 1632; the 
line, too, consists only of the regular number of syllables in the 



SO. VII.] KING HENRY VI. 323 

old play, the additions being, in all probability, corruptions. This 
circumstance is, therefore, adverse to the opinion expressed in 
note 3 on this page. 

SCENE VII. 

P. 336. The folios, where King Edward adverts to the losses 
sustained during the civil war, have two lines thus printed : 

" Three dukes of Somerset, threefold renown, 
For hardy and undoubted champions." 

The corrector of the folio, 1632, instructs us to read, 

" Three dukes of Somerset, threefold renowned 
For hardy and redoubted champions." 

Modern editors have " renown'd," and it is the word in the older 
play; but, like the folios, it has "undoubted" for redoubted. 

The introduction to this scene in the folios speaks of a " Nurse" 
being present (with a child, adds the manuscript-correction), who 
is altogether omitted in modern editions. The King and his 
brothers kiss the infant, and the proper places for doing so are 
noted in the margin of the folio, 1632. It deserves remark that, 
although Gloster's name is introduced in the printed play, as 
coming in with the King, Queen, Clarence, Hastings, Nurse, &c., 
at the opening of the scene, according to the old corrector it was 
the practice for him not to enter until afterwards, while Edward 
IV. was speaking, and Enter Richard behind is there found in the 
margin. This course appears to be hi keeping with Richard's 
character ; and the whole of his first speech .is noted as muttered 
to himself, after which he comes forward and joins in the general 
congratulations. Still he several times delivers passages aside, 
and these are carefully so marked. Some of the manuscript 
notes, intended for the government of the performance, are hi a 
different ink, as if additions had been made to them when it was 
found that those previously written were not sufficient. 



KING KICHARD III. 



ACT I. SCENE L 

P. 348. We notice the following, not so much as an emenda 
tion, but as a change of the received text, which the old corrector 
would, perhaps, not have thought it necessary to make, had it not 
accorded with some other than the usual authorities. All copies 
of this play, of our own or of former times, give this line, 

" I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion ;" 

whereas, by a marginal note in the folio, 1632, we are told to 
read, 

" I, that am curtail'd thus of fair proportion ;" 

as if the performer of the part of Richard had referred not so 
much to what he had already said, regarding his personal appear 
ance, as to what the audience must see of it. In the last line but 
one of this page, the second folio has grandfathers for "godfa 
thers," but it is, of course, set right. 

P. 349. There is a considerable increase of contempt, as well as 
an improvement in the verse, in the following line, where same is 
added in manuscript, not being found in any printed copy : 

" Was it not she, and that good man of worship, 
Anthony Woodeville, her same brother there, 
That made him send lord Hastings to the Tower ?" &c. 

If Woodeville could be read as a trisyllable, there is no absolute 
need of the addition. 

P. 352. Richard observes of Edward IV., 

" He cannot live, I hope ; and must not die 
Till George be pack'd with posthorse up to heaven." 

(324) 



ACT I.] KING RICHARD III. 325 

For " posthorse," the old corrector has posthaste ; but the altera 
tion does not seem to require more than to be pointed out, as 
possibly right. 

SCENE n. 

P. 360. The folios very imperfectly represent the text in this 
part of the scene, for Anne is made to give Richard a ring, and 
the words, " To take is not to give," which, according to the 
quartos, she interposes, are omitted. The old corrector makes 
the folio, 1632, correspond with the quartos in this particular, as 
well as in reading suppliant for " servant," in the line, 

" And if thy poor devoted servant may," &c. 

At all events, therefore, we may feel assured that the word sup 
pliant, in the older copies, was that of the poet. 

SCENE III. 

P. 364. We meet with a very characteristic stage-direction, 
when Richard enters to complain of the imprisonment of Clar 
ence : it is, Enter Richard, stamping angerly, which, no doubt, 
shows the manner of some early actor of the part, perhaps of 
Burbage himself, the original Richard ; for, supposing the correct 
or of the folio, 1632, never to have seen him (he died in March, 
1619), his peculiarities in the performance would, most probably, 
be traditionally handed down to his successors. The manuscript- 
instructions of the same kind are hardly as numerous in this as 
in some other plays ; but still, on all occasions, they are sufficient 
for the due conduct of the representation : when, ft>r instance, 
" old Queen Margaret," as she is called, arrives, on p. 367, she 
stands back, and a note of behind is made against every sentence 
she utters, until she comes forth with the words, 

" I can no longer hold me patient." 

Start all is then added in the margin, to indicate the surprise, if 
not alarm, her sudden appearance created. 

P. 370. One of the most striking and satisfactory emendations 
in the corrected folio, 1632, occurs in Queen Margaret's denunci- 



326 KING RICHARD III. [ACT I. 

ation of Richard, where she addresses him, in all editions, in the 
following terms : 

" Thou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rooting hog, 
Thou that wast seal'd in thy nativity 
The slave of nature, aud the son of hell," &c. 

Here " slave of nature," but especially " son of hell," sound so 
flatly and tamely near the conclusion of the curse, that an im 
pression rises at once in the mind, that Shakespeare must have 
written something more fierce and vigorous. How, then, does 
the old corrector inform us that the last line ought to run ? not as 
the words are spelt in the folio, 1623, and followed hi that of 
1632, 

" The slaue of Nature and the sonne of Hell," 

but with two remarkable changes, 

" The stain of nature, and the scorn of hell." 

Stain and scorn must surely have been the language of our great 
dramatist; and when we bear in mind that "stain" was of old 
spelt staine, and " scorn " scorne, it is not difficult to discover how 
the blunders arose. 

P. 371. It may be worth a note, that Queen Margaret, accord 
ing to a marginal note in the folio, 1632, does not here, and 
afterwards, call Richard a " bottled spider," but a " bottle-spider." 
A considerable portion of the protracted abuse in this scene, viz. 
from the line, 

" False-boding woman, end thy frantic curse," 
down to the line, 

" And say poor Margaret was a prophetess," 

is struck out, so that she only adds two more lines before she makes 
her exit, although by a misprint in the folios (corrected in that of 
1632) another speech is attributed to her after she has retired. 

SCENE IV. 
P. 375. In the quartos, Brakenbury, Lieutenant of the Tower, 



ACT II.] KING RICHARD III. 327 

is represented as hearing Clarence narrate his dream ; but in the 
folios, the dream is told to a " Keeper," who goes out as Braken- 
bury enters. Perhaps, when this play was first performed, the 
company could only afford one actor for both parts, and Braken- 
bury was, therefore, made to officiate as Lieutenant and as Keep 
er ; but afterwards, when the company became more numerous, 
it was thought better to divide the characters. In all editions the 
two Murderers deliver their warrant to Brakenbury. 

P. 380. The second Murderer, who was for saving the life of 
Clarence, says, in the quartos, "I hope my holy humour will 
change ;" in the folios, " I hope this passionate humour of mine 
will change ;" and in the corrected folio, 1632, " I hope this com 
passionate humour of mine will change." 

P. 385. One of the speeches of Clarence to the two assassins 
is left imperfect, though not so printed, and is completed by the 
addition of three words inserted in the margin of the folio, 1632. 
He asks, 

"Which of you, * * * * 

If two such murderers as yourselves came to you, 
Would not entreat for life ? As you would beg, 
Were you in my distress, so pity me." 

The lines are only in the folios, and have been treated in various 
ways by different editors, in consequence of the apparent incom 
pleteness of the sense ; but the three small words in Italics render 
the whole of this portion of the dialogue clear and consistent. 
The punctuation also is that of the corrector. 



ACT II. SCENE I. 

P. 391. The old corrector has made the text of the folio, 1632, 
conform to that of the quartos by the insertion of an important 
word, where Richard asks, 

" Mark'd you not, 

How that the guilty kindred of the queen 
Look'd pale?" 



328 KING EICHARD III. [ACT III. 

Just above, an unimportant word is added to complete a defective 
line, which is not found in any known impression of ths play, 

" Come, Hastings, prithee, help ine to my closet." 

Modern editors have generally finished this line by adding to it, 
" Ah ! poor Clarence ! " a hemistich spoken by the King just 
before he goes out, which renders the line as redundant as it was 
before deficient. 

SCENE H. 

P. 393. The quartos, speaking of the death of Edward IV., 
represent him as having gone 

" To his new kingdom of perpetual rest," 
while the folios have it, 

" To his new kingdom of ne'er changing night." 

In the corrected folio, 1632, "night" is made light. How it hap 
pens that the quartos in some places differ so materially from the 
folios, has never been explained : the blunder in the folios, twice 
committed at the end of this scene, in having London for " Lud- 
low," is set right in both instances, in manuscript. 

SCENE HI. 

P. 397. This scene between the three Citizens is struck out, but 
the emendations are, nevertheless, continued : for " Which, in 
his nonage," we have, " With, in his nonage," substituted, perhaps 
rightly, but the quartos read, " That, in his nonage." 



ACT IH. SCENE I. 

P. 404. Two emendations, for which we have reason to be 
thankful, are made in the opening of Buckingham's speech, where 
he is arguing that the Duke of York cannot be entitled to sanc 
tuary on account of his youth and innocence. Cardinal Bourchier 
maintains that sanctuary ought in no case to be violated : 

" God in heaven forbid 
We should infringe the holy privilege 
Of blessed sanctuary ! not for all this land, 
Would I be guilty of so great a sin." 



SO. I.] KING RICHAKD III. 329 

The words, " in heaven," are not in the folios, but were inserted 
by the corrector of the folio, 1632, and they accord with the text 
of the quartos : but in Buckingham's reply we encounter two 
changes, which we can hardly hesitate in admitting, since they so 
importantly contribute to enforce and explain the meaning of 
the poet. The first line of what Buckingham addresses to the 
Cardinal (as always hitherto printed), is needlessly offensive and 
coarse in its terms ; and the third line contains two misprints 
which have been the source of much speculation between War- 
burton, Johnson, Malone, &c. The passage, as invariably 
given, is this : 

" You are too senseless-obstinate, my lord, 
Too ceremonious and traditional : 
"Weigh it but with the grossness of this age, 
You break not sanctuary in seizing him." 

For "senseless-obstinate," a strange and unmannerly compound, 
the corrector of the folio, 1632, states that we must substitute 
words quite consistent with the good breeding of Buckingham, 
and at the same time quite -consistent with the argument he is 
employing, viz. that the Cardinal is too rigid and scrupulous in 
his unwillingness to violate sanctuary, in a case for which it was 
never intended : 

" You are too strict and abstinent, my lord, 
Too ceremonious and traditional : 
Weigh it but with the goodness of his age, 
You break not sanctuary in seizing him." 

The point for which Buckingham contends is, that age and purity, 
such as belong to little York, did not require " the holy privilege," 
and could not claim it ; " the goodness of his age," refers to the 
youth and innocence of the prince, and those words have been 
(in all cases but in one of the quartos, where greatness is found) 
misprinted " the grossness of this age." Warburton suggested 
greenness as the true reading ; but the errors were " grossness " 
for goodness, and " this" for his. These mistakes are remedied in 
the folio, 1632 ; and nothing but an excess of carelessness could 
have been guilty of them. 



330 KING RICHARD III. [ACT III. 

P. 408. Little York has been taunting his uncle Richard, upon 
which Buckingham remarks, 

" With what a sharp provided wit he reasons." 

The manuscript-corrector assures us that, although the intention 
of the dramatist is evident, a decided misprint has crept into the 
line : he reads, 

" With what a sharply pointed wit he reasons." 

Lower down, instead of the language of the quarto, 1597 (all 
other editions omit " needs"), 

" My lord protector needs will have it so," 

a correction in the margin makes the young Prince reply, 

' My lord protector will e'en have it so." 

The difference scarcely merits notice on any other account, than 
because it shows a preference for a word not in any of the extant 
authorities. 

P. 410. In the next emendation, the reading of the folios in 
Richard's answer to Buckingham, 

" Chop off his head : something we will determine," 

is made in the folio, 1632, to conform precisely to the words of 
the quarto impressions, viz. : 

"Chop off his head, man: somewhat we will do." 

We may, perhaps, conclude that the actor of the part of Richard 
so recited the line in the time of the old corrector, and not as it 
stands more tamely in the folios. 

SCENE II. 

P. 414. What passes between Hastings, the Pursuivant, the 
Priest, and Buckingham, is erased in the folio, 1632, perhaps as 
needless to the very protracted performance of this play. When 
Hastings alludes to it in Scene IV., on his way to execution, the 
five lines are also struck through with a pen, as well as the 
Scrivener's observations, in Scene VI. (p. 427), on the indictment 
of Hastings. 



SC. VII.] KING RICHARD III. 331 

SCENE V. 

P. 422. It is not very easy to understand how this scene was 
acted Of old : modern editors say that it took place on " the 
Tower walls ;" but to the old stage-direction (besides altering 
" rotten" to rusty) the corrector has added these words, all in 
haste, in the Tower, as if Richard and Buckingham were in some 
confusion, not on the Tower walls, but in some part of the edifice 
near the drawbridge, which Richard mentions. When Lovell 
and Ratcliff enter, just afterwards, with the head of Hastings, we 
are informed in manuscript that it was exhibited on a spear. 

SCENE VII. 

P. 428. Buckingham, giving an account to Richard how he had 
proceeded and succeeded among the Citizens at Guildhall, tells 
him that he had thus adverted to the bastardy of Edward IV. : 

" As being got, your father then in France ; 
And his resemblance, being not like the duke." 

This last line is only in the folios ; but Buckingham was to en 
force not Edward's likeness, but his want of likeness to his father, 
not " his resemblance," but dis-resemblance ; and precisely in this 
form the corrector of the folio, 1632, has put it : 

" As being got, your father then in France ; 
And dis-resemblance, being not like the duke." 

However unusual the word, it exactly suits the poet's meaning 
and dis may easily have been read " his." At a later date, " dis 
semblance" seems to have been employed to express want of sim 
ilarity. 

P. 430. A very slight change in another line, spoken by the 
Duke of Buckingham to the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, makes a 
considerable difference : 

" Happy were England, would this virtuous prince 
Take on his grace the sovereignty thereof; 
But, sure, I fear, we shall not win him to it." 

"Sure" is here a mere expletive; but the old corrector instructs 



332 KING RICHARD HI. [ACT III. 

us how to raise it into importance, by reading the line as nobody 
has hitherto thought of reading it, 

" But, sore, I fear, we shall not win him to it." 

Buckingham pretended to be much afraid that Richard would not 
be brought to consent. This is one of the smaller emendations 
that may be thought to need no advocacy. 

P. 435. The quartos and folios differ materially in one point, 
in the scene where Buckingham and the Citizens are pressing the 
Crown upon Richard. In the folios, Buckingham affects to be 
weary of solicitation, and retires with, 

" Come, citizens, we will entreat no more." 
In the quartos the line has more emphasis : 

" Come, citizens : zounds ! I'll entreat no more ;" 

upon which, Richard, who has a prayer-book in his hand, and who 
has just left the two bishops, affects to be shocked at the impiety 
of Buckingham in using even so mild an oath as " zounds !" He, 
therefore, says solemnly to him, 

" ! do not swear, my lord of Buckingham." 

All this was probably expunged by the Master of the Revels be 
fore the folio, 1623, was printed ; and on this account we meet 
with no trace of it there. The corrector of the folio, 1632, seems 
to have thought it too striking and characteristic to be omitted ; 
but he most likely resorted to some other authority than the 
quartos to supply the deficiency, as the words he inserts in a 
vacant space are not precisely the same as are there found : pos 
sibly, he had the addition from recitation on the stage, at some 
date when the injunction of the Master of the Revels was not at 
tended to. He gives Buckingham's line thus : 

" Zounds ! citizens, we will entreat no more ; " 

and Richard's rebuke in these words : 

" ! do not swear, my cousin Buckingham." 

Instead of making the Citizens retire with Buckingham, Bucking- 



ACT IV.] KING RICHARD III. 333 

ham alone goes out, an arrangement of apparent propriety, be 
cause it is quite clear that the four lines put into the mouth of 
Richard, while Buckingham was out of the apartment, were in 
tended to be heard by the Lord Mayor, &c. In accordance with 
this view, " them" is changed to him in the folio, 1632 : 

" Call him again ; I am not made of stone, 
But penetrable to your kind entreaties," &c. 

To whose " kind entreaties" could Richard refer, if not to those 
of the Citizens, who had remained behind after Buckingham had 
flung away in a pretended passion at Richard's refusal 1 



ACT IV. SCENE II. 

P. 446. The portion of this scene, near its close, which is only 
in the quarto copies, is passed over in silence by the corrector of 
the folio, 1632, and we may feel assured that it was not usually 
acted. After the line, 

" Thou troublest me : I am not in the vein," 

Exit is the brief printed stage-direction ; but to it the word angri 
ly, or, as it is spelt, angerly, is subjoined in manuscript. 

- 
SCENE m. 

P. 447. Tyrrell, who had suborned the two ruffians, Dighton 
and Forrest, to murder the young princes, says of them, and of 
the part they had acted, according to all editions, 

" Albeit they were flesh'd villains, bloody dogs, 
Melted with tenderness and mild compassion, 
Wept like to children in their death's sad story." 

The passage is surely much improved by the trifling alterations 
in the folio, 1632 : 

" Albeit they were flesh'd villains, blooded dogs, 
Melted with tenderness and mild compassion, 
Wept like two children in their death's sad story." 

The two villains had been fleshed, and were like dogs that had 
been allowed the taste of human blood ; yet they wept, like two 



834 KING RICHARD III. [ACT IV. 

children, while narrating the particulars of the murder of the 
princes. 

SCENE IV. 

P. 449. The beginning of this long scene between Queen Mar 
garet, Queen Elizabeth, and the Duchess of York, contains no 
emendation of any importance, excepting where, on p. 454, the 
old corrector, in accordance with the quartos, tells us to read, 

" Airy succeedera of intestate joys," 
instead of 

" Airy succeeders of intestine joys." 

P. 456. Two emendations are proposed in speeches of the 
Duchess of York : first, 

" Then patiently bear my impatience/' 
is put for "hear my impatience" of the folios ; and 
" Art thou so hasty ? I once stay'd for thee," 

for " I have stay'd for thee," of the same impressions. Both these 
minor changes seem recommended to adoption by their fitness. 

P. 462. Richard tells Queen Elizabeth that Dorset, her son, 
" Leads discontented steps in foreign soil," 

which may be right, but the old corrector furnishes what seems a 
more natural word, 

" Treads discontented steps in foreign soil." 

P. 466. The following lines, in reference to the intercession of 
Queen Elizabeth with her daughter in favour of Richard's preten 
sions, conclude the King's speech in the folios : 

" Urge the necessity and state of times, 
And be not peevish found in great designs." 

The quartos have " peevish fond" and the old corrector amends 
the couplet as follows : 

" Urge the necessity of state and times. 
And be not peevish fond in great designs." 



ACT V.] KING RICHARD III. 335 

That is to say, she was to enforce the necessity of state and of 
the times for the marriage. It may still be a question whether 
" peevish found," of the folios, be not preferable, as avoiding all 
appearance of tautology ; on which account it is advocated in note 
10 on this page: nevertheless, "peevish fond" has, we see, two 
pieces of evidence in its favour. 

SCENE V. 

P. 472. Stanley inquires of Sir Christopher Urswick, 
" What men of name resort to him ?" 

meaning Richmond. The line is evidently defective, while in the 
rest of the scene the verse is regular; and the corrector of the 
folio, 1632, restores two words that seem to have dropped out : 

" What men of name and mark resort to him." 
This short scene is struck out with a pen. 



ACT V. SCENE II. 

P. 474. Kichmonds, peaking of Richard, calls him as the words 
have always stood in print, 

" The wretched, bloody, and usurping boar :" 

" Wretched" is an epithet that has little comparative appropriate 
ness, while the word recommended in manuscript to supply the 
place of it, is especially adapted to the character of Richard, and 
we may readily believe it to have been that of the poet : 

" The reckless, bloody, and usurping boar." 

Reckless was of old frequently spelt wreckless, and hence, perhaps, 
the misprint. 

SCENE III. 

P. 477. -If the following line had been printed in other old 
copies as it stands in that of 1632 only, we should have hesitated 
to disturb the text, on the ground that the 'sense was quite intelli 
gible : it is where Richmond requests Blunt, if possible, to com 
municate with Stanley ; Blunt replies, 



336 KING RICHARD III. [ACT V. 

"Upon my self, my lord, I'll undertake it." 

Every other ancient authority has "life" for self; and as there 
can be no doubt it is an error of the press, the old corrector made 
the necessary emendation. 

The printed stage-direction here is, They withdraw into the tent, 
that is, Richmond's tent ; and according to the old theatrical 
arrangement of this scene, different sides of the same small stage 
contained the two hostile tents of the King and Richmond. As soon 
as Richmond and his friends withdraw into the tent on their side 
of the stage, the King and his adherents come forward and con 
verse, as if the encampment of the enemy were far out of hearing. 
A manuscript stage-direction (for there is here no printed one 
beyond Exit Ratcliff] informs us that Richard lies down and 
sleeps as soon as he has said, 

" And help to arm me. Leave me, I say." 

Richmond and Stanley then meet in the tent of the former, and 
the word couch is added to the printed stage-direction, in order 
that Richmond, after his conversation and prayer, may lie down 
and sleep also, as the King was already doing in sight of the audi 
ence. Thus, in the simplicity of our early theatres, the two 
leaders were seen reposing in their tents at the same time, and 
the Ghosts enter (whether by means of trap-doors, or otherwise 
is not stated), and severally address them. 

P. 480. This complicated scene is ill-printed in all impressions, 
quarto and folio, especially in the latter, and most especially in 
the folio, 1632: several important emendations are, therefore, 
made in manuscript. One of the earliest of these is the in 
sertion of the word " deadly" in the line, 

" By thee was punched full of deadly holes." 

The old corrector may have obtained it from the quartos, but it 
is not in any folio. On the other hand, however, he may have 
been indebted to some independent authority ; and some of his 
changes give a text which varies materially from any extant orig 
inal. Thus the second line of the next page, 



SC. III.] KING RICHARD III. 337 

" Doth comfort thee in sleep : live and flourish," 

evidently wants a syllable, and the quartos have it, 
" Doth comfort thee in thy sleep : live and flourish ;" 

which may be right, but it does not accord with the line as it 
stands amended in the folio, 1632, where we read, 

" Doth comfort thee in sleep : live thou and flourish." 

When, on page 481, the Ghost of Vaughan says to Richard, 
" Let fall thy lance. Despair and die," 

the line wants two syllables, not found in any impression ; but in 
the corrected folio, 1632, we have it, 

" Let fall thy pointless lance. Despair and die." 

When we find him inserted in manuscript in the line, just subse 
quent, 

" "Will conquer him. Awake, and win the day," 

the emendation might be derived from the quartos ; but such was 
not the case with an important change in what the Ghost of Anne 
addresses to Richard : in all editions it stands, 

" And fall thy edgeless sword. Despair and die." 

This is merely the repetition of a previous line given to the Ghost 
of Clarence, and the poet could hardly have intended two of the 
spirits to use the very same words. The corrector of the folio, 1632, 
induces us to believe that this was one of the corruptions acciden 
tally introduced, and he makes the Ghost of Anne vary the line 
thus : 

" And fall thy powerless arm. Despair and die." 

There can here be no impropriety : the emendation may have 
been obtained from some better authority, on or off the stage j 
and it avoids the strong objection to making the Ghosts of Cla 
rence and Anne use precisely the same form of imprecation when 
threatening Richard with his fate in the approaching battle. 

P. 483. The corrector of the folio, 1632, made the text conform 
to that of the earliest quarto in the line,-* 
15 



338 KING RICHARD III. [ACT V. 

% 

"The lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight," 

every old impression but that of 1597, reading, " It is not dead 
midnight." It may be urged that the corrector need not have re 
sorted to the earliest quarto, since this blunder corrects itself: the 
.wonder is, that this play should have gone through, at least, four 
editions in quarto, and as many in folio, before not was expunged 
for " now." Eleven lines of Richard's soliloquy, from " What 
do I fear ? myself?" down to " Fool, do not flatter," are struck 
through, and were, probably, not recited by the actor about the 
period when the erasure was made. 

P. 484. There is a material difference between the quartos and 
folios, where Richard exclaims, 

" Perjury, perjury, in the high'st degree :" 

such is the text as given in the quartos ; but the folios omit the 
second "perjury," and the corrector of that of 1632 supplies the 
word and something more : 

" Perjury, fmd perjury, in the high'st degree." 

If " perjury" be pronounced as two syllables, foul is requisite for 
the metre ; if " perjury" be pronounced as three syllables, the 
line, even without foul, is redundant. The question rather is, 
from whence foul was obtained, than whether it is necessary. 

Lower down on this page occurs an instance in which it may 
seem that the corrector was giving, not the words of any known 
impression, but the manner in which the play was acted when he 
wrote. Two short speeches by the King and Ratcliff, found in 
the quartos, are left out in the folios, where the King says merely, 
" O, Ratcliff! I fear, I fear," without adding why he feared, so that 
RatclifFs reply, 

" Nay, good my lord, be not afraid of shadows," 

wants application in the folios. This is clearly a defect, and the 
corrector remedies it by making the speech assigned to the King 
run thus : 

" 0, Ratcliff, I have dream' d a fearful dream ;" 

to which RatclifTs answer applies naturally enough. The words, 



SO. III.] KING KICHAKD III. 33 

/ have dream 'd a fearful dream, are in the quartos, but not ex 
actly in the place which they are made to occupy in the folio, 1632. 
This, therefore, looks like one of the emendations made from reci 
tation. 

P. 487. The same may be said of a line in the King's direc 
tions for ordering his battle. The quarto, 1597, only has it as fol 
lows : 

" My foreword shall be drawn out all in length ;" 
while in every subsequent old impression we have it, 

" My foreward shall be drawn in length." 
How does the old corrector tell us to read it ? thus : 

" My forward ranks shall be drawn out in length ;" 

which, as far as euphony is concerned, seems the best line of the 
three, though the first corresponds more with the words of Hol- 
inshed. 

P. 488. In the King's address to his army, Steevens proposed 
to read ventures for " adventures," and Warburton distrain for 
restrain : both these changes are warranted by manuscript emen 
dations in the folio, 1632. 

P. 491. There can be little doubt that a passage of some mo 
ment in Richmond's last speech has been misrepresented by blun 
dering punctuation, which is thus set right in the corrected folio, 
1632 : 

" All this divided York and Lancaster, 
Divided in their dire division, 
O, now let Richmond and Elizabeth, 
The true succeeders of each royal house, 
By God's fair ordinance conjoin together." 

The sense clearly runs on, and is complete at " together ;" but it 
has been the mistaken custom to place a full stop, followed by a 
line, after division, 

" Divided in their dire division. " 



340 KING RICHARD III. [ACT V. 

This is an error, which the old corrector amends ; and Johnson's 
opinion is entirely confirmed that " division" ought fo be followed 
by only a coma. 

P. 492. A blunder has prevailed, from the earliest to the latest 
times, in this line : 

" Abate the edge of traitors, gracious Lord !" 

Steevens says, as indeed everybody must know, that to " abate," 
is to lower, depress, or subdue ; but what has that sense to do 
with " the edge," which immediately follows 1 To lower, depress, 
or subdue an edge, is scarrely sense ; and undoubtedly we ought 
to substitute a word, inserted in the margin of the folio, 1632, 
which means to blunt, and which is used exactly in that way by 
Shakespeare himself: 

" Rebate the edge of traitors, gracious Lord !" 

. i. e. blunt the edge of traitors ; and in " Measure for Measure," 
&.ct I. Scene V. (vol. ii. p. 21), we read, 

" But doth rebate and blunt the natural edge," &c., 

where our great dramatist explains the meaning of rebate, if it 
could be doubted, by the word which follows it. 

It is hardly necessary to notice the stage-directions towards the 
close of this play : in the printed copies they are comparatively few 
and general ; but the corrector of the folio, 1632, felt the impor 
tance of supplying this deficiency, with a view, perhaps, to the rep 
resentation of this drama, in a portion of it that is especially 
confused and complicated. 



KING HENKY VIII. 



ACT I. SCENE I. 

P. 502. There is in this place an obvious mistake in the distri 
bution of the dialogue between Norfolk and Buckingham in all 
the folios. It was divided differently by Theobald, who has since 
been followed : he made Buckingham's speech begin jvith, " Who 
did guide," &c., at the top of p. 503 ; but the manuscript-correc 
tor of the fjplio, 1632, informs us that the observation, 

" The office did 
Distinctly his full function," 

also belongs to Buckingham, who might very properly give this 
opinion after Norfolk's description of the scene. 

P. 504. The last part of Buckingham's speech, from the words, 
" and his own letter," is struck out in the corrected folio, 1632. 
Just below, in 

"What did this vanity, 
But minister communication of 
A most poor issue ?" 

the old corrector alters "communication" to the consummation: 
the meaning is nearly the same according to Johnson's interpre 
tation, but 

" What did this vanity 
But minister the consummation of 
A most poor issue." 

seems much more distinctly intelligible, and the two words were 
probably mistaken by the compositor. 

(341) 



342 KING HENRY VIII. [ACT I. 

P. 506. The remark of Buckingham, 

" A beggar's book 
Outworths a noble's blood," 

has required several notes to show that the allusion was to Wol- 
sey's learning, which, it is admitted, was not very considerable : 
the change made in the margin of the folio, 1632, shows that no 
note would have been necessary, if the true text had been given j 
the antithesis is also stronger : 

" A beggar's brood 
Outworths a noble's blood." 

SCENE IL 

P. 511. According to the corrector of the folio, 1632, there are 
several misprints in this scene which need correction. The first 
is in the Queen's speech, where she is remonstrating against the 
exacting commissions sent out by the Cardinal, which had led to 
the use against the King of " language unmann erly," 

" Yea, such which breaks 
The sides of loyalty," &c. 

We are here instructed to read " ties of loyalty." The Cardinal 
answers (p. 512) that he has done no more, and knows no more 
than others ; to which the Queen replies : 

" You know no more than others ; but you frame 
Things, that are known alike, which are not wholesome," &c. 

For " alike," the correction is belike : 

" Things that are known, belike, which are not wholesome." 

Again, at the end of the Queen's next speech, the expression, 
" There is no primer baseness," of all the folios, is altered (in ac 
cordance with Southern's suggestion mentioned in note 6) to 
" There is no primer business ;" and such we may hereafter treat 
as the original word. Farther on (p. 514), the King, struck at 
the amount of the exactions under Wolsey's commissions, ex 
claims, 

"Sixth part of each? 
A trembling contribution !" 



SC. III.] KING HENRY VIII. 343 

The old corrector here put his pen through the m in " trembling," 
making the word trebling, as if the King meant to say that the 
sum was treble what it ought to have been. When the Duke of 
Buckingham's Surveyor enters to give evidence against his lord, 
the Queen says to the King, 

" I am sorry that the Duke of Buckingham 
Is run in your displeasure ;" 

which may be quite right, but it ought to be noticed that a mar 
ginal emendation makes the last line, 

" Is one in your displeasure." 

This last change, like some of the others, may be deemed no 
necessary emendation. 

P. 516. There can be no dispute that "under the commission's 
seal," of all the old copies, ought to be "under the confession's 
seal," as Theobald altered the word on the authority of Holinshed : 
it so stands also in the hand-writing of the corrector of the folio, 
1632. 

P. 518. This scene in all printed copies concludes with a very 
lame rhyming couplet, put into the mouth of the King : 

" Let him not seek't of us. By day and night 
He's traitor to the height." 

Some words were omitted which cured the defectiveness of the 
last line, and the old corrector tells us that they were these : 

" He is a daring traitor to the height." 

To say the least of it, we may be disposed to admit this emenda 
tion, without opposing evidence. 

SCENE HI. 

P. 520. The manuscript-corrector leads us to believe that there 
are two errors of the press in the following, where Lord Sands is 
speaking of Wolsey: 

" Men of his way should be most liberal ; 
They are set here for examples." 



344 KING HENRY VIII. [ACT IL 

We can readily accord in the first, if not in the second emenda 
tion: 

" Men of his sway should be most liberal ; 
They are sent here for examples." 

SCENE IV. 

P. 524. The pronoun me may have been left out in the folios 
at the end of the verse, because there was no room for it without 
turning the line, or because it accidentally escaped in the press : 

" Because they speak no English, thus they pray'd me 
To tell your grace." 

The sense is hardly complete without it, and as the old corrector 
inserted it, we need have little hesitation in adopting an improve 
ment so doubly recommended. 



ACT II. SCENE I. 

P. 528. The folio, 1632, gives this imperfect line to Bucking 
ham, on his way to execution : 

" You that thus have come to pity me." 
The folio, 1623, has it : 

" You that thus far have come to pity me." 

The corrector of the folio, 1632, may have obtained far from the 
earlier impression, and he places it in the margin. Notwithstand 
ing this omission, this portion of the play is well printed in both 
folios. Just before Buckingham makes his exit (p. 531), a change 
is made in the folio, 1632, in an adverb, which is supported by 
the sense ; Henry's victim is speaking of false friends : 

" When they once perceive 
The least rub in your fortunes, fall away 
Like water from ye, never found again 
But when they mean to sink ye." 

The ordinary reading is, " But where they mean," &c. The 
change is not material. . 



SO. III.] KING HENKY VIII. 345 

SCENE H. 

P. 534. It is evident from the old stage-direction, "the King 
draws the curtain, and sits reading pensively," that in the early 
simplicity and poverty of our stage, Henry himself drew a tra 
verse at the back of the stage, and discovered himself to Norfolk 
and Suffolk, " reading pensively." It would appear that in the 
time of the corrector of the folio, 1632, the practice in this respect 
had been somewhat improved ; for the words stating that " the 
King draws the curtain," are struck out, and " Curtain drawn" is 
inserted in the margin in parenthesis, showing that Henry was 
discovered to his nobles " reading pensively," by some contriv 
ance which rendered it needless for him to rise from his seat, and 
then to resume it after he had drawn the curtain. This is a curi 
ous indication of a slight advance made in the scenical arrange 
ments of our old theatres. When Henry subsequently asks, 

" Is this an hour for temporal affairs ?" 

we are told, in a manuscript stage-direction, that he holds up a 
book (probably of prayer) to the two noblemen who had intruded 
upon his " private meditations." 

SCENE HI. 

P. 538. Anne Bullen, reflecting on the fall of Queen Katha 
rine, observes of power, 

"Though it be temporal, 
Yet, if that quarrel, fortune, do divorce 
It from the bearer, 'tis a sufferance panging 
As soul and body's severing." 

Warburton, Hanmer, Johnson, and Steevens have all written notes 
upon the words, " that quarrel, fortune," some taking " quarrel" 
as an arrow, others in the sense of quarreller, &c. ; but, if we 
may believe the old corrector, it is only a misprint, for he gives 
the second line thus : 

" Yet, if that cruel fortune do divorce," &c., 

which certainly removes the difficulty, and applies to " fortune" an 
epithet, to which its commonness seems the main objection. 
15* 



346 KING HENRY VIII. [ACT II. 

When cruel was spelt crewell, as was sometimes the case, the mis 
take was not difficult. 

P. 541. The Lord Chamberlain, on retiring, tells Anne Bullen, 
who has just been made Marchioness of Pembroke, 

" I shall not fail to approve the fair conceit 
The king hath of you." 

"To improve the fair conceit," &c., seems the more natural word, 
although " approve" may be said, upon Johnson's construction, 
sufficiently well to fill the place in the text. The correction of 
improve for " approve," is made in the folio, 1632. 

P. 542. At the end of the scene, Anne Bullen declares that her 
advancement gives her no satisfaction : 

" Would I had no being, 
If this salute my blood a jot." 

Whatever meaning may be attached to the expression, " salute 
my blood," the sense of the poet is rendered much more distinct, 
if we substitute a different word, easily misread or misprinted : 

" Would I had no being, 
If this elate my blood a jot." 

Elate, as an adjective, is in very old use in our language ; and it 
is doing no great violence to Shakespeare to suppose that here he 
converted an adjective into a verb. This has been the practice 
ever since, and we have the authority of the corrector of the folio, 
1632, in favour of elate. 

SCENE IV. 

P. 544. The trial scene of the Queen seems to have been taken 
more than usual pains with, both by copyist and compositor ; but 
two exceptions to its general accuracy are pointed out in the mar 
gin of the corrected folio, 1632: both are misprints: the first 
less obvious, though more important than the last. Katharine 
desires that if any charge of infidelity can be made out against 
her, 

" In God's name 
Turn me away ; and let the foul'st contempt 



ACT III.] KING HENRY VIII. 347 

Shut door upon me, and so give me up 
To the sharp'st kind of justice." 

We can have no hesitation here in substituting another in the place 
of the very tame word " kind," in the last hemistich, when the 
substitution adds much to the force of the passage, and impresses 
us at once as the language of the poet : 

" And let the foul'st contempt 
Shut door upon me, and so give me up 
To the sharp'st knife of justice." 

We can hardly suppose this striking improvement merely specu 
lative and conjectural. When, afterwards, Wolsey says, 

" It shall be therefore bootless, 
That longer you desire the court ;". 

though "desire" be in the old editions (excepting the folio of 
1685), and though the intended meaning may be gathered from 
it, yet we cannot refuse, instead of it, to adopt defer, which suits 
the place so much better, and which is warranted by the same 
authority which, in the preceding instance, has given us so expres 
sive a word as knife, to the exclusion of so vague a term as "kind." 



ACT HI. SCENE H. 

P. 559. When Suffolk informs Surrey that the King has already 
married Anne Bullen, the latter exclaims, as it has always been 
printed, 

" Now all my joy 
Trace the conjunction !" 

but Surrey did not wish his joy in particular, but all joy to follow 
the marriage, and we ought certainly to read with the annotator 
of the folio, 1632, 

" Now may all joy 
Trace the conjunction!" 

And, in consistency with this wish, Suffolk and Norfolk cry "Amen" 
to it. 



348 "KING HENRY VIII. [ACT IV. 

Several stage-directions are added in manuscript in this scene. 
When Wolsey and Cromwell enter, the peers stand back to ob 
serve him ; and when Wolsey has dismissed his Secretary, he 
speaks to himself, and finally stands back musing. When the King 
enters reading a schedule, Wolsey does not at first see him, but 
wakes amazedly from his reverie as soon as Lovell touches him. 
Henry afterwards gives the schedule to Wolsey, who, when the 
King is gone, opens and reads it trembling. After he has glanced 
at his own letter to the Pope, he sinks in a chair, from which he 
rises when the Dukes of Norfolk, Suffolk, &c., enter, and in the 
King's name demand the Great Seal from him. Such, we may 
conclude, was the manner of the old actor of the part of Wolsey, 
and the way in which the business of the scene was formerly con 
ducted. 

P. 562. The King, addressing the Cardinal, says, 

" You have scarce time 
To steal from spiritual leisure a brief span, 
To keep your earthly audit." 

If Wolsey enjoyed so much " spiritual leisure," it would seem as 
if he might have time also for his earthly audit, and the manu 
script-corrector of the folio, 1632, inserts labour for "leisure" in 
the text with decided propriety : 

" To steal from spiritual labour a brief span," &c. 

This is another of the many cases in which it is very apparent 
how the two words were confounded by the ear of the scribe. 



ACT IV. SCENE I. 

P. 573. The corrected copy of the folio, 1632, is deficient of a 
leaf containing pp. 223 and 224, which was principally occupied 
by a description of the coronation of Anne Bullen. 

SCENE n. 

P. 580. In the folio, 1623, Katharine says of Wolsey, 
" So may he rest : his faults lie gently on him." 



SO. II.] KING HENEY VIII. 349 

In the folio, 1632, the line stands thus imperfectly : 
" So may he rest : his faults lie on him." 

The corrector of this last edition, instead of taking the word 
" gently " from the earlier folio, inserts lightly in the margin : 

" So may he rest : his faults lie lightly on him." 

Possibly, this was the form in which he had heard the passage 
delivered ; but Shakespeare's word was doubtless that of the 
folio, 1623. 

P. 581. Although it has been followed in various modern edi 
tions, nothing can be more absurd than the old punctuation of the 
opening of the speech of Griffith, where he gives a character of 
the deceased Cardinal : 

" This cardinal, 

Though from an humble stock, undoubtedly 
Was fashion'd to much honour. From his cradle 
He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one." 

The old corrector, in accordance with the obvious sense of the 
passage, omits the period before " From his cradle," and inserts 
it after it : 

" Was fashioned to much honour from his cradle. 
He was a scholar," &c. 

It is astonishing that so decided a blunder, as to represent that the 
Cardinal was a ripe and good scholar " from his cradle," should 
have been repeated over and over again from the year 1623 to 
our own day. Lower down occurs a line that has occasioned dis 
cussion, relating to Wolsey's foundations at Ipswich and Oxford : 

" One of which fell with him, 
Unwilling to outlive the good that did it." 

" The good that did it" has been construed " the virtue that raised 
the edifice ;" but a note in the folio, 1632, has the passage in a 
form which clears away all difficulty, and is in all probability the 
true reading : 

" Unwilling to outlive the good man did it ;" 



350 KING HENRY VIII. [ACT V. 

i. e. the good man (for such Griffith represented Wolsey) who 
laid the foundation. 

P. 583. All the early editions print thus, when Griffith speaks 
of Katharine very soon after the vision, 

" How pale she looks, 
And of an earthly cold ? Mark her eyes." 

Steevens, at a venture, inserted you to complete the measure, 
" Mark you her eyes ;" but the error lies earlier, and before the 
note of interrogation, for the old corrector gives the last line as 
follows : 

" And of an earthly coldness ? Mark her eyes." 

Such we may confidently believe was the original reading : to say 
that a dying person looks " of an earthly cold," is at least a pecu 
liar expression, though " cold" is very often used as a substantive. 



ACT V. SCENE I. 

P. 590. Instead of " you a brother of us," the corrected folio 
has " to a brother of us," which hardly seems required ; and at 
the bottom of the page, for 

" The good I stand on is my truth and honesty," 
which is certainly sense, the folio, 1632, has,- 

" The ground I stand on is my truth and honesty ;" 

which reads better, and ground might be carelessly mistaken for 
" good." 

SCENE n. 
P. 595. The Lord Chancellor tells Cranmer, 

" But we all are men, 
In our own natures frail, and capable 
Of our flesh." 

Malone, for " and capable," put incapable, without any warrant, 
and without extricating the passage from the difficulty involving 
it. Monk Mason saw what was necessary, and suggested the 



SC. III.] KING HENRY VIIL 351 

word which is found written in the folio, 1632, as the correction 
of a mere error of the press : 

" In our ' own natures frail, and culpable 
Of our flesh." 

P. 596. Another misprint is pointed out in Cranmer's speech 
in answer to the charges against him. The passage has always 
stood as follows : 

" Nor is there living 

(I speak it with a single heart, my lords) 
A man that more detests, more stirs against, 
Both in his private conscience and his place, 
Defacers of a public peace, than I do." 

Now, in the old copies, " stirs" is printed stirres ; and strives, the 
word supplied by the old corrector, appears to have been mis 
read stirres; we ought, therefore, in future, to give the line 
thus : 

" A man that more detests, more strives against, 
Defacers of a public peace," <fcc. 

SCENE HI. 

P. 603. In the two subsequent lines there appear to be as many 
unaccountable misprints, which are nevertheless set right by the 
corrector of the second folio : 

" Let me ne'er hope to see a chine again, 
And that I would not for a cow, God save her." 

God save whom ? the cow 1 Certainly not. To do justice to 
this singular emendation, we must quote more of the speech of 
the Man who is keeping back the people, in the palace yard at 
Greenwich, pressing forward to see the procession of the christen 
ing : the Porter is finding fault with his Man for not repelling 
the crowd, and the Man replies : 

" I am not Samson, nor sir Guy, nor Colbrand, 
To mow em down before me ; but if I spared any 
That had a head to hit, either young or old, 
He or she, cuckold or cuckold-maker, 
Let me ne'er hope to see a chine again, 
And that I would not for a cow, God save her." 



352 KING HENRY VIII. [ACT V. 

Why should he just at such a moment think of "a chine" or 
" a cow ?" He was about to witness the royal procession to the 
christening of the princess Elizabeth ; and the old corrector in 
forms us that both "chine" and "cow" are blunders of the 
copyist, of the compositor, or of both : he reads, 

" Let me ne'er hope to see a queen again, 
And that I would not for a crown, God save her." 

That is, God save the queen, the sight of whom again the Porter's 
Man would not miss for a crown. Queen (printed formerly with 
a final e) became " chine," and crown " cow." This emendation 
does not look like mere guess-work, but it is out of the question to 
speculate upon what authority the corrector of the folio, 1632, 
may. have proceeded. 

It is needless to quote the very particular stage-directions 
written in the margin towards the termination of this drama. It 
will be sufficient to say, that nothing seems omitted that could 
conduce to the exact and successful performance of it by the 
actors concerned in the representation. 



TEOILUS AND CKESSIDA. 



P. 11. The Prologue of thirty-one lines fills a whole page in 
the folios, and is not found in the quarto editions ; it is merely 
headed " Prologue ;" but the corrector of the folio, 1632, has 
subjoined the words in armour in parenthesis, showing, as indeed 
we learn from a passage in it, that the speaker was " a Prologue 
armed." He alters the mis-spelt name of Antenonidus to Ante- 
norides ; and, what is more important, he reads, " sparre up the 
sons of Troy," for " stirre up the sons of Troy," about which 
there can be no dispute, although, until the time of Theobald, the 
four folios, Rowe, and Pope had it " stir up the sons of Troy." 
The proper orthography seems to be " sperr up the sons of Troy," 
which has precisely the same meaning as " sparre up the sons of 
Troy," the word of the old corrector. We may add that in 
"The Cobbler of Canterbury," first printed in 1590, and agai^ in 
1608, the very year before Shakespeare's " Troilus and Cressida" 
came out, we meet with the following couplet, which occurs just 
after the mention of Troilus : 

" Grey and sparkling, like the stars 
When the day her light up spars." 

Possibly, therefore, our great dramatist was put in mind of the 
word by seeing it, in connexion with his hero, in the tract above 
quoted, just before he sat down to write : Shakspeare's use of it, 
however, is infinitely more proper, since to " sperr up a gate" is 
a natural expression, but to " sperr up light," a violent metaphor. 



ACT I. SCENE I. 

P. 14. Rowe and Pope made two excellent emendations in the 
line, 

(353) 



- 354 TROILUS AND CEESSIDA. [ACT I. 

" So, traitor! when she comes ! when is she thence ?" 

The manuscript-correction in the folio, 1632, only applies to 
" when" instead of then of the old copies, while it leaves unchang 
ed " when she is thence," although the transposition, " when is she 
thence ?" is equally wanted. Thus, in this instance, the corrector 
did only half what seems necessary to render the poet's meaning 
intelligible. Six lines lower, he properly altered scorn to 
" storm," which was also Rowe's emendation, but sufficiently 
obvious. 

SCENE H. 

P. 17. The Acts and Scenes are not distinguished in any of the 
old printed editions, but the corrector has introduced them in 
manuscript, with more or less accuracy, in the folio which went 
through his hands. 

P. 23. Pandarus tells Cressida that Antenor is " a proper man 
of person," which it may seem needless to change ; but a manu 
script note in the margin of the folio, 1632, tell us to read, " a 
proper man of his person." On the next page, the necessary 
word " see " is inserted where it is omitted in the folios, " you 

shall see Troilus anon." 



P. 27. For the evidently misprinted line, 

" Achievement is command ; ungain'd beseech," 
we are informed that we ought to read, 

" Achiev'd men still command ; ungain'd beseech." 

That achieved men should have been converted by the old compo 
sitor into " achievement," seems not unlikely ; but how still be 
came " is " in his hands, it is not easy to imagine ; and we may 
feel some surprise that the emendation of the line proposed in 
note 8, 

" Achiev'd men us command ; ungain'd beseech." 

is not supported by the authority of the corrector of the folio, 
1 632 : * for " is," was a most probable mistake. 



SO. III.] TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. 355 

P. 28. Agamemnon, referring to the disasters that have hitherto 
attended the siege of Troy by the Greeks, and observing that dis 
appointment constantly accompanies human undertakings, in 
quires, 

" Why then, you princes, 
Do you with cheeks abash'd behold our works, 
And call them shames ?" 

This is as the passage has been invariably printed ; but the old 
annotator points out an easy misprint, the correction of which is 
in exact accordance with the rest of Agamemnon's speech, where 
he advises the Greeks not to be disheartened by their previous 
misfortunes : 

" Why then, you princes, 
Do you with cheeks abash'd behold our wrecks, 
And call them shames ?" 

The word wreck is frequently used by Shakespeare, and by wri 
ters of his day, to signify any kind of disaster or ruin, and such is 
its meaning in this place. 

SCENE III. 

P. 29. The folio, 1632, is very carelessly printed in this part 
of the play ; and for " place and sway," of the earlier impres 
sions, it has " place and may." The old corrector does not pass 
over this blunder, nor others : thus, a few lines above, he has 
" replies to chiding fortune," for " retires to chiding fortune ;" and 
in the beginning of Nestor's speech, "godlike seat" for "godly seat." 
Pope has " returns," and Hanmer " replies," for retires ; and all 
modern editors, " godlike" for godly : the last was an error of the 
folios only. 

P. 33. Such was not the case with a mistake in the second great 
speech of Ulysses, where he is referring to the mimicry, by Pa- 
troclus, of the chiefs of the Grecian army : 

" And in this fashion, 
All our abilities, gifts, natures, shapes, 
Severals and generals of grace exact, 
Achievements, plots," &c. 



356 TROILUS AND CKESSIDA. [ACT I. 

fell under the ridicule of Achilles : here the words " of grace ex 
act," seem wrong, although always so printed, because the com 
plaint was, that they were not " of grace exact," but grossly cari 
catured. Therefore the corrector of the folio, 1632, thus altered 
the expression to a form much more in accordance with the con 
text : 

" Severals and generals, all grace extract;" 

i. e. deprived of all the grace which really belonged to the per 
sons Patroclus imitated. This appears to be an important im 
provement of the received text ; but it is certainly one which did 
not require resort to any independent authority, inasmuch as close 
attention to what must have been the meaning of the author, may 
have led to the detection of the error. 

P. 35. In a celebrated speech by ./Eneas, a fine compound epi 
thet appears to have escaped in the hands of the old printer : 

" The worthiness of praise distains his worth, 
If that the prais'd himself bring the praise forth ; 
But what the repining enemy commends, 
That breath fame blows ; that praise, sole pure, transcends." 

The second folio omits But at the commencement of the third line, 
as injurious to the metre ; and a small manuscript-correction in the 
margin, converts a poor expression in the fourth line into one of 
great force and beauty : 

" What the repining enemy commends, 
That breath fame blows ; that praise, soMZ-pure, transcends." 

The scribe wrote, or the compositor wrought, only by the sound, 
and that sound has hitherto satisfied. To show how readily mis 
prints are even now made, we may mention that both Malone and 
Steevens give the last line, most ruinously to the measure, thus : 

" That breath fame follows ; that praise, sole pure, transcends." 

P. 37. All the folio editions have this line : 

" I'll pawn this truth with my three drops of blood:" 
the quartos, more intelligibly, 

" I'll prove this truth with my three drops of blood." 



ACT II.] TEOILUS AND CEESSIDA. 857 

The old corrector of the folio, 1632, erases pawn, and places 
"prove" in the margin; but, supposing that he obtained the lat 
ter word from the quartos, he made no alteration in the next line, 
which in the folios varies from the quartos in two not unimpor 
tant particulars : the folios read, 

" Now heavens forbid such scarcity of youth ;" 
while the quartos give it, 

"Now heavens forefend such scarcity of men." 

If, therefore, "prove" were derived by the old corrector from the 
quartos, it is clear that, for some reason, he preferred the next 
line as it stands in the folios. 



ACT II. SCENE I. 

P. 41. Considering the difference between the quartos and the 
folios, the first reading unsalted, and the second " whinid'st," we 
may notice that the old corrector preferred the last, but altered 
the spelling of the word to whineicd'st, meaning vinewd'st, or most 
mouldy. Vinney, or vinnewy, for mouldy, is still a word in use 
in the provinces. 

SCENE II. 

P. 46. There can be no doubt that the line, 
" And fly like chidden Mercury from Jove," 

is misplaced in the folios, and rightly placed in the quartos : the 
corrector of the folio, 1632, appears first to have tried to remedy 
the blunder in his usual method, by figures in his margin, but not 
finding that effectual, he struck out the line, and inserted it in 
manuscript in the situation to which it unquestionably belongs. 
He subsequently set right two misprints in the same speech, hard 
for " hare," and lovers for " livers :" the first belongs also to the 
folio, 1623, and the last only to the folio, 1632. 

P. 50. We may, perhaps, receive with thankfulness a change 
in what Paris says regarding the dangers which had attended his 
enterprise in securing and retaining Helen, 



358 TROILUS AND CEESSIDA. [ACT III. 

"Yet, I protest, 

Were I alone to pass the difficulties, 
And had as ample power as I have will, 
Paris should ne'er retract what he hath done, 
Nor faint in the pursuit." 

Here for "pass the difficulties" (spelt passe in the old copies), the 
old corrector tells us to substitute "poise the difficulties," or 
weigh them, which we may believe, if only from the context, to 
have been Shakespeare's word. 

P. 55. The emendation of " We sent our messengers," instead 
of "He sent our messengers," of the folios, and "He sate our 
messengers," of the quartos, is warranted by an emendation of 
W for _H"in the margin. Theobald read, " He shent our messen 
gers ;" but this change is not required, nor is it supported by the 
fact, since, as is stated in note 3, Achilles had not shent, or rebuked, 
any messengers from Agamemnon. 

SCENE III. 

P. 56. The emendation of "lunes" for lines, in 
" His pettish lines, his ebbs, his flows, as if," &c., 

as it stands in the folios (the quartos have an entirely different 
text), is made in a correction in the folio, 1632; and "lunes" is 
certainly the word intended. 



ACT III. SCENE I. 

P. 64. Much discussion has been occasioned by the words of 
Paris, in all the early impressions, where he calls Cressida his 
" disposer," saying that Troilus is going to sup " with my disposer 
Cressida." The difficulty has been to discover why Paris should 
call Cressida his " disposer :" and some commentators have rec 
ommended deposer, others despiser, instead of " disposer," while 
Steevens wished to deprive Paris of the speech altogether, and to 
transfer it to Helen. It is surprising that no editor should have 
guessed at the right word, when speculating that "disposer" was 
an error of the press: a manuscript note in the folio, 1632, in 
forms us that for " disposer" we should substitute dispraiser, Cres- 



SO. II.] TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. 859 

sida being a person who did not allow the merits of Paris. Pany 
darus, just after Paris has called Cressida his dispraiser, observes 
that there had been some difference between them "She'll none 
of him ; they two are twain" and though he does not state on 
what point they had disagreed, it is enough to warrant us in be 
lieving that Paris calls Cressida, not his " disposer," but his dis- 
praiser. The word recurs twice in this part of the dialogue, and 
in each instance the old corrector has converted "disposer" into 
dispraiser. It is to be remarked also, that he makes no change in 
the prefixes, but allows " You must not know whereWie sups " to 
remain in Helen's speech, in contradiction to the practice of mod 
ern editors, which, it must be allowed, seems founded upon a 
correct notion of the course of the dialogue. Possibly the mistake 
in the prefix in this place, did not attract the attention of the 
writer of the marginal emendations ; but it can make no differ 
ence in the apparent fitness of changing "disposer" to dispraiser. 

SCENE H. 

P. 67. It is a very noticeable circumstance that the expression 
of Troilus, as found in some copies of the quarto of 1690, as 
stated in note 2, 

" Love's thrice repured nectar," 

instead of" Love's thrice reputed nectar" of the folios and other 
quartos, is transferred by the corrector of the folio, 1632, to that 
impression. This fact may show, if no independent authority 
were resorted to, how the passage was recited before and after 
the second folio made its appearance, and confirms it, if confirma 
tion were wanted, as the true reading. We often find t and r 
misprinted for each other ; and all that it was necessary to do 
was to put the pen through the first, and to insert the last in the 
margin. Although this important emendation was made, another 
emendation of considerable value, near the end of the play, aims 
for "arms" (p. 141, note 5), also found in some copies of the 
quarto of 1609, was not adopted. This looks as if the corrector 
had not there been guided by the same authority. 

P. 72. In the amorous dialogue between Troilus and Cressida, 



360 TKOILTJS AND CRESSIDA. [ACT III. 

the latter, affecting coyness, distinguishes between her two selfs, 
in all the ordinary copies of this play, as follows : 

" I have a kind of self resides with you, 
But an unkind self, that itself will leave, 
To be another's fool." 

The antithesis, undoubtedly intended by the poet, is thus, accord 
ing to a note in the folio, 1632, sacrificed to an error of the press, 
and we are instructed, therefore, to read the passage thus : 

. " I have a kind self, that resides with you, 
But an unkind self, that itself will leave, 
To be another's fool." 

Cressida represents her kind self as wishing to remain with Troilus, 
and her " unkind self as wishing to separate itself from his com 
pany. 

SCENE in. 

P. 74. All the old editions have the subsequent passage near 
the commencement of the speech of Calchas, and several pages of 
notes have been written upon it : 

" Appear it to your mind, 
That through the sight I bear in things to love 
I have abandon'd Troy." 

Some modern editors have given the second line, 

" That through the sight I bear in things to come," 

an amendment that unquestionably clears the sense of the author, 
and which Monk Mason considered so happy as to require no 
authority in its favour. Nevertheless, the most usual course has 
been to print differently, viz. : 

" That through the sight I bear in things, to Jove 
I have abandon'd Troy." 

Here it has been reasonably asked, why should Calchas- desert 
and abandon his native city to Jove, who was its protector? 
Theobald, Warburton, Johnson, Steevens, and Malone, all wasted 
their time and ingenuity on a mere misprint, which is set right in a 
moment, and which proves that the old compositor misread above 



SO. III.] TEOILUS AND CRESSIDA. 361 

" to love :" there is an error also, but of minor importance, in 
the preceding line, where " appear" is put for appeal, in the sense 
of recall or bring back, and the whole should, therefore, stand 
thus : 

" Appeal it to your mind, 
That, through the sight I bear in things above, 
I have abandon'd Troy ;" 

i.e. recall to mind that I abandoned Troy by reason of the sight I 
enjoy in things above foreseeing what would be the issue of the 
struggle. If Monk Mason thought "things to come" an emenda 
tion not requiring authority, a fortiori, " things above" is an emen 
dation even less requiring it, because nearer the misprinted letters 
in the quartos and folios, while we have the testimony of the old 
corrector of the folio, 1632, and common sense in its behalf. 

P. 78. There is an indisputable, though hitherto undiscovered 
misprint, in what follows : 

"For speculation turns not to itself, 
Till it hath travelFd, and is married there 
Where it may see itself." 

This is part of the reply of Achilles to Ulysses, who has adverted 
to the manner in which an individual sees his virtues reflected in 
another, and thus becomes sensible of them: Achilles answers 
that this effect is not at all strange, and explains it by reference 
to the knowledge obtained of personal beauty by sight of it in a 
looking-glass, adding, 

" For speculation turns not to itself, 
Till it hath travell'd, and is mirror'd there 
Where it may see itself." 

To read "married there where it may see itself," seems sheer 
nonsense, in comparison with the fine and distinctly expressed 
meaning of the poet, when, with the aid of a marginal emenda 
tion in the folio, 1632, we read mirrored for " married." 

P. 79. The quartos and folios differ in an important epithet : 

the first have the hemistich, " And great Troy shrieking," and the 

last, "And great Troy shrinking" There can be no dispute which 

is right, though Steevens raised the question ; and the old cor- 

16 



362 TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. [ACT III. 

rector put liis pen through the letter n, and left the word shriJcing, 
which was all he thought necessary. 

P. 80. Here again the folios misrepresent the author's words, 
if not his meaning : that of 1623 has, 

" Since things in motion begin to catch the eye :" 

the printer of the folio, 1632, seeing that the line was redundant, 
altered "begin" to 'gin ; but the quartos read, 

" Since things in motion sooner catch the eye," 

which we may, perhaps, admit as the true text ; but, nevertheless, 
the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, alters " ''gin to" to 
quicklier, which may have been the word of the poet, and which 
he employs elsewhere : 

" Since things in motion quicklier catch the eye." 

Here, therefore, the writer of the emendation did not follow the 
quartos, but he may have guessed at the word he inserted in his 
margin, or obtained it from some authority. In the next line he 
alters "out" to once, which agrees with the quartos and with the 
sense. It merits observation that the two changes, quicklier and 
once, were, most probably, not made at the same time, since the 
ink used is different. 

P. 81. The following is a couplet, in which there appear to be 
two lapses by the printer : 

" Keeps place with thought, and almost, like the gods, 
Does thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles." 

Hanmer read, " Keeps pace with thought," and so did the old cor 
rector : Warburton vindicated " place," though in the next line, 
properly represented (which it has never yet been), Shakespeare 
follows up the idea, and tells us that the providence of a watchful 
state, like the gods, almost anticipates thoughts not only keeps 
pace with them, but goes beyond them, 

"Does thoughts unveil in their dumb crudities;'' 

i.e. unveils them before they even become thoughts. This must 
have been the poet's language, and we find crudities for " cradles" 



ACT IV.] TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. 363 

in the margin of the folio, 1632. Hanmer, Malone, Steevens, 
&c., saw that "cradles" was not, in point of measure, enough for 
the line, but they never dreamed that the word was a misprint. 
The whole passage is, therefore, thus cleared : 

" The providence that's in a watchful state 
Knows almost every grain of Plutus' gold, 
Finds bottom in th' uncomprehensive deeps, 
Keeps pace with thought, and almost, like the gods, 
Does thoughts unveil in their dumb crudities." 

Here meaning and metre are both accomplished ; but in what way 
the emendation was arrived at, we have no knowledge : it seems 
something better than a merely speculative suggestion. 

P. 82. For " sweet, rouse yourself," addressed by Patroclus to 
Achilles, when he is endeavouring to excite him to renewed action, 
we are instructed in manuscript to read, " Swift, rouse yourself." 
We have before had swift misprinted " sweet" (p. 83). Three 
lines lower, the old corrector does not strike out airy in the pas 
sage, " Be shook to airy air," as it stands in the folios ; but he 
makes it, " Be shook to very air," which is much more emphatic 
than merely " Be shook to air." Nevertheless, if the poet intend 
ed his measure to be regular, very is not required. 



ACT IV. SCENE I. 

P. 85. Diomed tells vEneas, that when the truce is at an end, 
he will " play the hunter for his life," 

" With all my force, pursuit, and policy :" 

the line seems to run more properly as it is amended in the folio, 
1632, 

" By Jove, I'll play the hunter for thy life, 
With all my fierce pursuit, and policy." 

However, the change is by no means unavoidable. 

SCENE H. 

P. 90. When Troilus tells ^Eneas to keep his counsel, the lat 
ter replies, in the folios, 



364 TKOILUS AND CRESSIDA. [ACT IV. 

" Good, good, my lord ; the secrets of nature 
Have not more gift in taciturnity." 

Now, unless we read " secrets" as a trisyllable, the measure is 
faulty : Theobald proposed " the secret things of nature ;" and 
here resort to the quartos affords no aid, for they absurdly have 
" the secrets of neighbour Pandar." The corrector of the folio, 
1632, inserts a word which, most likely, had dropped out in the 
press, and which we may, perhaps, accept upon his evidence, be 
cause it is the very word required, in reference to the hidden ope 
rations of nature : 

" Good, good, my lord, the secret laws of nature 
Have not more gift in taciturnity." 

SCENE IV. 

P. 93. We have already seen that various scraps of ballads, 
introduced into the dialogue, have been erroneously given, when 
neither copyist nor printer was perhaps in fault ; for the author 
himself may have quoted from memory. Here we have another 
instance of the same kind, where Pandarus cites some well-known 
popular production : it is thus given in the early authorities : 

" heart ! O heart ! heavy heart ! 

Why sigh'st thou without breaking ? 
Because thou canst not ease thy smart 
By friendship, nor by speaking." 

Pope inserted an interjection before " heavy heart." for metre's 
sake ; but it seems probable, from mere perusal, that the last line 
has been mis-remembered, mis-written, or misprinted, since there 
is no antithesis between " friendship" and " speaking." The folio, 
1632, has sittest for " sigh'st," an error which the old corrector 
remedies, and represents that the quatrain should stand as fol 
lows : 

" heart ! O heart ! heavy heart ! 

Why sigh'st thou without breaking ? 
Because thou can'st not ease thy smart 
By silence nor by speaking." 

It is underlined as a quotation, though printed as prose in all the 
old copies. 



SO. V.] TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. 365 

P. 96. Troilus, alluding to the danger of too much reliance on 
our own supposed constancy, observes, 

"And sometimes we are devils to ourselves, 
When we will tempt the frailty of our powers, 
Presuming on their changeful potency." 

" Changeful potency " seems the very contrary of what was in 
tended : if the verse would allow it, we ought rather to read, 

" Presuming on their wwchangeful potency :" 

or the potency with which they would resist change ; and a manu 
script alteration in the folio, 1632, leads us to believe that the 
scribe misheard the word, 

" Presuming on their chainful potency," 

the potency with which they chain, and fetter us to the particular 
object of our affections. 

SCENE V. 

P. 99. There is a remarkable discrepancy between the quartos 
and folios, when Cressida is introduced by Diomed to the Grecian 
commanders, and when such as like kiss her in succession. When 
Menelaus advances for the purpose, Patroclus interposes and 
kisses for him : Menelaus says, 

" I had good argument for kissing once," 

alluding, of course, to the time when he was living with Helen ; 
and Patroclus answers, 

" But that's no argument for kissing now ; 
For thus popp'd Paris in his hardiment, 
And parted thus you and your argument." 

The last line is only in the quartos, and the corrector of the folio, 
1632, seeing its importance, writes it in a blank space, but differ 
ing in one word, 

" And parted you, and your same argument ;" 

adding this explanatory stage-direction, Puts back Menelaus, who 
thus allowed liimself to be defeated hi his design upon the lips of 



366 TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. [ACT IV. 

Cressida. Patroclus, having kissed for Menelaus, afterwards 
kisses on his own behalf, and then a note of kisses again is placed 
in the margin. If the corrector had derived the additional line 
from the quartos, it seems probable that he would have followed 
the precise wording of those editions. 

P. 100. Few lines in this play have produced more comment 
than the second of the following, where Ulysses is censuring the 
wanton spirit of Cressida : 

" ! these encounterers, so glib of tongue, 
That give a coasting welcome ere it comes," &c. 

What is " a coasting welcome ?" has been the question ; and we 
learn from the old corrector that the word, miswritten, we may 
suppose, in the manuscript used by the printer, was most appro 
priate to the place, 

" ! these encounterers, so glib of tongue, 
That give occasion welcome ere it comes, 
And wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts, 
To every tickling reader, set them down 
As sluttish spoils of opportunity, 
And daughters of the game." 

They became the " spoils of opportunity " by giving welcome to 
occasion even before it arrived. 

P. 102. Shakespeare employs the word " utterance" as the ex 
treme result of a personal encounter in " Macbeth," Act III. 
Scene I., and in " Cymbeline," Act III. Scene I. Tne manuscript- 
corrector of the folio, 1632, informs us that he used it also in the 
following passage, which refers to the conflict between Hector and 
Ajax, instead of the much less appropriate term " uttermost :" 
Agamemnon speaks to Diomed, 



"As you and 
Consent upon the order of their fight, 
So be it ; either to the utterance, 
Or else a breach." 

i. e. at your discretion either let them pursue the conflict to ex 
tremity, or else break off before it comes to. that : breach is a 



ACT V.] TEOILUS AND CRESSIDA. 367 

printed emendation in the folios, instead of " breath " of the 
earlier editions in quarto, which can only be understood as a 
breathing time. 



ACT V. SCENE L 

P. 110. Nobody has attempted to explain why Thersites, when 
he calls Patroclus the "male varlet" and "masculine whore" of 
Achilles, ends by wishing a list of loathsome diseases (part of 
which only are mentioned in the folios) to afflict " such prepos 
terous discoveries." What can be the meaning of " discoveries " 
so applied ? The old corrector has it " such preposterous disccl- 
ourersf and perhaps rightly, the allusion being to the painting 
and discolouring of nature by Patroclus, like a female prostitute. 

SCENE IL 

P. 113. The quartos and folios vary materially in one of the 
speeches of Thersites. According to the first, he says of Cres- 
sida, " And any man may sing her, if he can take her cliff; she's 
noted :" on the other hand, the folios, with evident . corruption, 
give the passage thus : " And any man may find her, if he can 
Tbut take her life : she's noted." The allusion is, probably, in 
delicate ; and the old corrector inserts one word in the folio, 1632, 
that had been omitted, and alters another that had been mis 
printed "And any man may find her key, if he can take her 
cle/t ; she's noted." The figure is, of course, borrowed from 
signing at sight, and this last reading seems preferable to that of 
the quartos. 

P. 115. In the speech of Cressida, 

" In faith, I will, la : never trust me else," 

we have something like a repetition of the blunder committed in 
" Henry IV.," Part II. Act I. Scene HI., where " lo." for lord, of 
the quartos, was subsequently misprinted lo ! as if it were an in 
terjection, and then to as if it were a preposition, In the instance 
before us, the corruption seems to have originated with the quartos : 
/a, there, became lo ! in the folio, 1623, andyoe in the folio, 1632. 



368 TROILUS AND CBESSIDA. [ACT V. 

The old corrector of that edition thought, or knew, that the word 
ought to be lord, and he so amended the line : 

D ' 

" In faith I will, lord: never trust me else." 

Still, the earliest impressions may be right, and Cressida may 
merely have used " la" as a feminine expletive, though we have 
the above evidence to the contrary. It is not a point of impor 
tance. 

SCENE III. 

P. 121. Andromache's speech to Hector only consists of these 
words in the amended folio, 1632 : 

" ! be persuaded : do not count it holy 
To hurt by being just." 

The rest is struck through with a pen, as if the person who intro 
duced the manuscript-emendations could make nothing of the pas 
sage either by guess or guide. This, therefore, is one of the 
places in which we are still left in the dark, not, indeed, as to the 
meaning of the poet, since that is pretty obvious, but as to the 
precise form in which he expressed that meaning. 

SCENE IV. 

P. 126. Cressida, having given to Diomed the sleeve she had 
received from Troilus, the latter hunts the former through the 
field to recover it. Thersites watches the pursuit, and, when they 
enter, observes, as all printed copies have it, 

" Soft ! here comes sleeve and th' other." 

A point (not indeed of much value) has certainly been lost ; for 
upon the authority of an emendation in the folio, 1632, Thersites 
ought to say, 

" Soft ! here comes sleeve and sleeveless.-'' 

Troilus being, as it were, upon " a sleeveless errand," in search 
of the sleeve he had given Cressida, which was still in the pos 
session of his rival : " Here comes sleeve and th' other" reads so 
poorly, that we may feel sure Shakespeare never wrote it. In 



SC. IV.] TROILUS AND CEESSIDA. 369 

the same way, when Troilus and Diomed fight, while Thersites 
stands behind, he exclaims, as if alternately encouraging each, 

"Hold thy whore, Grecian! Now for thy whore, Trojan! Now the 
sleeve ! Now the sleeveless." 

In all editions we find only, " Now tne sleeve ! Now the 
sleeve ! " 

P. 133. For the line, as it stands in the quartos, 

" So, Ilion, fall thou next ! now Troy, sink down," 
the folio, 1632, as corrected, has, 

" So, Ilion, fall thou ! Now, great Troy, sink down !" 

which shows that the writer of the marginal notes did not here 
follow the earlier impressions. He saw that the line required a 
syllable, but whether he added great upon conjecture, or upon 
authority, we know not. The folios, 1623 and 1632, omitting 
" next" of the quartos, left the line imperfect. 
. P. 135. There can be no doubt that for "broker, lackey," in 
Troilus' dismissal of Pandarus, we ought to substitute brothel- 
lackey, i. e. the servant of a brothel, not merely from the occupa 
tion Pandarus had taken upon himself, but from the peculiarities 
of the old copies : the quartos read, " broker lackey ;" the folio, 
1623, in one place (where the lines were mistakenly inserted) has 
"brother lackey," and afterwards, "broker, lackey;" the folio, 
1632, has, in one place, " brother lachy" and in the other, " brother 
lackey." " Brothel-lackey" was one of the few changes for the 
better in the folio, 1664 ; but it must have been preceded by the 
manuscript-emendation in the folio, 1632, where the passage is 
made to run as follows : 

" Hence, brothel-lackey, ignomy and shame 
Pursue thy life." 

Two circumstances are to be noted in reference to the conclu 
sion of this play, as it appears in the corrected folio, 1632. The 
first is, that the following words are written in a blank space op 
posite the speech of Pandarus, after all the other characters have 
16* 



370 TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. [ACT V. 

made their exit Left alone, let him say this by way of Epilogue. 
The other circumstance is that the four lines after Pandarus asks, 
" What verse for it "? what instance for it ? Let me see," are un 
derlined as a quotation ; and we may infer that they were extract 
ed from some popular, but now unknown, production of the day, 
and applied by the poet to his own purpose. We have repeatedly 
seen that the old corrector scored with his pen under every scrap 
by any other author, to whom Shakespeare appears to have been 
in this manner indebted. 



COKIOLAMJS. 



ACT I. SCENE I. 

P. 141. The earliest manuscript-emendation cannot be called a 
necessary one ; but still it seems, taking the context into account, 
a considerable improvement, and may, perhaps, be admitted on 
the evidence of the corrector of the folio, 1632. It occurs in the 
speech of 1 Citizen, where he is referring to the wants of the poor, 
and to the superfluities of the rich : 

" But they think we are too dear : the leanness that afflicts us, the abject- 
ness of our misery, is as an inventory to particularize their abundance ; our 
suffering is a gain to them." 

For abjectness, the common reading has been " object" " the ob 
ject of our misery ;" that is to say, the sight of our misery ; but the 
speaker has talked of the " leanness" of the poor citizens of Rome, 
and he follows it up by the mention of the abjectness of their 
misery. This substitution could hardly have proceeded from the 
mere taste or discretion of the old corrector, but still it is hardly 
wanted. 

P. 145. We encounter an important change in one part of 
Menenius' apologue, where the belly admits that it is the general 
receiver of food, adding, as the passage has always been given, 

" But, if you do remember, 
I send it through the rivers of your blood, 
Even to the Court, the heart, to the seat o' the brain, 
And through the cranks and offices of man." 

It is evident that the last line but one is not measure ; and we are 
instructed to read it, and the next, in a way that not only cures 
this defect, but much improves the sense, by following up the 

(371, 



372 COKIOLANUS. [ACT I. 

figure of " the court, the heart," and completing the resemblance 
of the human body to the various parts of a commonwealth : 

" Even to the Court, the heart, the Senate, brain ; 
And through the ranks and offices of man." 

Tyrwhitt thought " the seat o' the brain " a very " languid expres 
sion ;" and Malone agreed with him in taking " seat " to mean 
royal seat. When " seat" was written seate, the mistake for 
senate was easy ; and the change (which never occurred to any 
commentator) is supported both by what precedes, and by what 
follows it, going through the various degrees in a state the court, 
the senate, persons of different ranks, the holders of offices, &c. 

P. 148. Menenius, speaking of the crowd, says, 

"Nay, these are almost thoroughly persuaded" &c. ; 

whereas, according to the old corrector, the line, as properly read, 
is much more emphatic, 

{ ' Nay, these are all most thoroughly persuaded," &c. 
Lower down, at the end of the next speech of Marcius, 

" Shooting their emulation," 

of the old copies, is altered to " shouting their exultation." Mod 
ern editors have adopted shouting ; and " emulation," in the 
sense in which Shakespeare uses it, does not seem to require 
change : exultation, however, better expresses what is intended ; 
and " shooting," for shouting, shows that the compositor was 
careless. In the next line, we have tributes for " tribunes," and 
just afterwards, unroost for " unroof'd." 

SCENE HI. 

P. 154. The reading of the second folio has almost invariably 
been accepted, where Volumnia says that 

" The breasts of Hecuba, 

When she did suckle Hector, look'd not lovelier 
Than Hector's forehead, when it spit forth blood 
At Grecian swords contending." 

This, at least, is sense, but the first folio had absurdly printed 



SO. IV.] CORIOLANUS. 373 

"contending" Contenning, putting it in Italic type, as if it were 
a name, exactly thus : 

" At Grecian sword. Contenning, tell Valeria 
"We are fit to bid her welcome." 

In note 6 of this page a suggestion is offered that contemning was, 
perhaps, Shakespeare's word ; and the probability is confirmed by 
the fact, that the corrector of the folio, 1632, informs us that we 
ought to print as follows : 

' " Look'd not lovelier 

Than Hector's forehead, when it spit forth blood, 
At Grecian swords contemning :" 

i. e. contemning at Grecian swords, despising them. "Tell 
Valeria," &c., of course begins a new sentence. 

SCENE IV. 

P. 158. When the Romans are beaten back to their trenches, 
Marcius enters, " cursing " his flying followers ; and we here 
arrive at a line which has been fertile of discussion. Malone and 
most modern editors have concurred in supposing that Marcius, 
in his rage and vexation, commences a sentence which he does 
not finish, and have represented the passage thus : 

" All the contagion of the south light on you, 

You shames of Rome ! you herd of Boils and plagues 

Plaster you o'er ; that you may be abhorr'd 
Further than seen, and one infect another 
Against the wind a mile !" 

In the folios, the words, spelling, and punctuation, are 

" You shames of Rome : you Heard of Byles and Plagues 
Plaister you o're," &c. 

This mode of spelling heard leads us to the corruption, which was 
detected (possibly by mere conjecture, but more probably with 
the aid of some extraneous authority) by the manuscript-annotator 
of the folio, 1632 ; and when pointed out, it must, we apprehend, 
be admitted without an instant's controversy : 



374 CORIOLANUS. [ACT I. 

" All the contagion of the south light on you, 
You shames of Rome ! Unheard of boils and plagues 
Plaster you o'er," &c. 

The whole difficulty seems to have been produced by a strange 
lapse on the part of the old printer. 

The old stage-directions are confused in this part of the drama, 
for we are told that Marcius is shut in before he enters the gates 
of Corioli. This blunder is set right in manuscript, and when all 
the Roman soldiers, seeing the gates close, exclaim, " To the pot 
I warrant him," an expression that nobody has attempted to 
elucidate, it is explained at once by the corrector of the folio, 
1632 : 

" Sold. See, they have shut him in. 

" All. To the port, I warrant him." 

They finish the sentence the soldier has begun, " See, they have 
shut him in to the port, I warrant him." The enemy had shut 
Marcius into the port or gate ; and very shortly afterwards Lartius 
directs, " Let the ports be guarded." All editions, ancient and 
modern, have "pot" for port. 

P. 159. It is worth noting that, " Even to Calues wish," of 
the first folio, and " Even to Calves wish," of the second folio, is 
properly altered to " Even to Cato's wish," in the margin of the 
latter impression. Such a blunder seems to expose itself; but, 
nevertheless, it was continued until the time of Theobald, passing 
not only through the four folios, but through the editions of Rowe 
and Pope. 

SCENE VI. 

P. 164. Marcius, by permission of Cominius, and after an ani 
mating speech, wishes to select a certain number of soldiers to ac 
company him in an attack upon Aufidius and his Antiates : he, 
therefore, tells the troops, 

" Please you to march ; 

And four shall quickly draw out my command, 
Which men are best mclin'd." 

Here a difficulty has arisen, why "four" were to draw out his 



SC. IX.] CORIOLANUS. 375 

command, and many notes have been written upon the question. 
We print the passage, as we find it amended, which shows that 
the scribe or the compositor (most likely the former in this in 
stance) was to blame : 

" Please you march before, 
And /shall quickly draw out my command, 
Which men are best inclin'd." 

Whoever made the copy for the printer, must have understood 
before as by four, and put it in the wrong place, curing the defect 
in the metre of the first line by arbitrarily inserting to. Nothing 
could be more natural than for Marcius to direct the soldiers to 
march in front of him, that he might himself make the selection 
of such as he was to lead. 

SCENE VTII. 

P. 165. When Marcius and Aufidius meet, the latter addresses 
the former, as the text has always been given, 

" Not Afric owns a serpent I abhor 
More than thy fame and envy." 

This cannot be right, inasmuch as, taking " envy " even in the 
sense of hate, Aufidius could hardly mean that he abhorred the 
fame and the hate of Marcius : the printer made a slight error by 
mistaking the pronoun / for the contraction of the conjunction ; 
therefore the old corrector reads, 

" Not Afric owns a serpent I abhor 
More than thy fame / envy." 

SCENE IX. 

P. 168. Tyrwhitt's emendation of coverture for " overture," in 
the subsequent lines, is precisely that found in the margin of the 
folio, 1632; but "them" is also there altered to it, with obvious 
fitness : 

" When steel grows soft as the parasite's silk 
Let it be made a coverture for the wars." 

If coverture were not introduced into the text, it was from the 
hope that sufficient meaning might be made out of the old printed 



376 COKIOLANUS. [ACT n. 

language of the folios ; but the authority of a manuscript-correc 
tion here comes in aid of a speculative emendation, and it appears 
to us that we need not hesitate upon the point hereafter. 

ACT II. SCENE I. 

P. 173. Few scenes are worse printed in the early copies than 
this between Menenius and the two Tribunes : it is full of literal 
errors, and of some which are important to the author's sense, 
and are set right in manuscript in the second folio. Thus Me 
nenius says of himself, 

" I am known to be a humorous patrician, and one that loves a cup of hot 
wine, with not a drop of allaying Tyber in't : said to be something imper 
fect in favouring the first complaint." 

What is "the first complaint" in connexion with Menenius's love 
for " a cup of hot wine V It is merely an error from mishearing 
on the part of the copyist ; for, undoubtedly, we ought to alter 
"first" to thirst, "the thirst complaint:" 

" One that loves a cup of hot wine, without a drop of allaying Tyber in't : 
said to be something imperfect in favouring the thirst complaint." 

The humour is entirely lost in the old misprinted text, " first com 
plaint;" and although no objection need be raised to "with not," 
instead of without, nothing could be easier than the misprint of 
one word for the other: seeing that "thirst complaint" must be 
right, we can readily believe in the less important change. Lower 
down in the same speech, a negative and a pronoun are omitted, 
and "bisson" is misprinted beesome: while, still lower, we have 
"rejourn" for adjourn, though "rejourn" may answer the pur 
pose. Near the top of the next page, " controversy bleeding " is 
put for " controversy pleading" or controversy that was in a 
course of discussion before the Tribunes. 

P. 175. The word in the old editions, " emperickqutique," has, 
naturally enough, occasioned a pause among the annotators, who 
at last concurred with Ritson in thinking it " an adjective evidently 
formed from empirick." Such is not the case : the sentence in 
which it occurs is part of a speech by Menenius. who is so re- 



SO. I.] COEIOLANUS. 377 

joiced at having a letter from the hero, that he declares that it 
will lengthen his life seven years " the most sovereign prescrip 
tion in Galen is but emperickqutique, and to this preservative of 
no better report than a horse-drench." " Emperickqutique " was 
not, if we are to believe the old corrector, formed from " empir- 
ick," but was a blunder of the printer for two words, which he 
absurdly combined in one, namely, "empirick" and "phisique," 
as physic was then often spelt : we ought, therefore, to read, 
" the most sovereign prescription in Galen is but empiric physic, 
and to this preservative of no better report than a horse-drench." 
" Empiric physic' 1 '' is, of course, only quack-medicine. 

P. 178. The first part of the subsequent quotation hardly re 
quires a note ; while the awkward expression in the last part of 
it has attracted no observation : 

" Your prattling nurse 
Into a rapture lets her baby cry, 
While she chats him." 

Brutus is here referring to the triumphant return of Coriolanus 
(now so called) to Eome ; and " chats him " is certainly intelligi 
ble in the sense of talks about him, though " chats of him" would 
be more proper : but a note in the folio, 1632, induces us to 
believe that Shakespeare did not use the term " chats" at all, and 
that the word has been misprinted, the compositor taking ee for 
a, and t (the commonest blunder) for r : 

" Your prattling nurse 
Into a rapture lets her baby cry, 
While she cheers him." 

This change is quite consistent with the context. 

P. 180. In the following, Theobald read " teach," reach, on the 
supposition that, here also, t had been inserted by the compositor, 
instead of r : 

" This, as you say, suggested 
At some time when his soaring insolence 
Shall teach the people," &c. 



378 CORIOLAXUS. [ACT n. 

The right word was neither " teach" nor reach, but a word much 
better adapted to the situation than either : 

" This, as you say, suggested 
At some time when his soaring insolence 
Shall touch the people," &c. 

i. e. shall gall or irritate them. This use of touch is common in 
Shakespeare and other writers. 

SCENE H. 

P. 1 83. When the Senators and Tribunes have assembled " to 
thank and to remember" the services of Coriolanus, Sicinius re 
marks, 

" We are convented 
Upon a pleasing treaty." 

The corrector of the folio, 1632, directs us to substitute treatise for 
" treaty," a change supported by " theme," which immediately 
follows ; but he recommends a more necessary emendation in the 
speech of Brutus, just afterwards, where the Tribune adverts to 
the fitness of honouring and advancing the hero for his services : 
he says, 

" Which the rather 

We shall be blest to do, if he remember 
A kinder value of the people." 

The scribe clearly misheard the word, and wrote " blest" for prest, 
i. e. ready of perpetual occurrence in all writers of the time : 

" Which the rather 
We shall be prest to do," &c. 

Even the grudging Tribunes might declare themselves ready " to 
honour and advance the theme of their assembly," but there 
seems no reason why they should state that they should be 
" blest" in doing so. 

P. 185. This scene is ill-printed in the folio, 1623, but much 
worse in the folio, 1632, where errors of all kinds are so nume- 



SC. III.] CORIOLAXUS. 379 

rous that the margin is filled with corrections in manuscript. It 
may be sufficient to mention that in the speech of Cominius, re 
counting the deeds of Coriolanus, the old corrector alters " trim'd 
with dying cries," of the folio, 1632 (it is " tim'd with dying 
cries" in the folio, 1623), to " fund with dying cries," which may 
be right ; and " shunless defamy" to " shunless destiny," which 
was very likely derived from the earlier impression. 

SCENE III. 

P. 190. Many notes have been written upon the question of 
Coriolanus, thus represented in the folio, 1623 : 

" "Why in this woolvish tongue should I stand here ?" 

In the folio, 1632, " tongue" is altered to gown ; but the poet's 
word was doubtless " togue 1 " 1 for toga, mistaken by the compositor, 
and printed " tongue." The difficulty has not arisen out of this 
'substantive, but out of the epithet which precedes it, woolvish ; 
and Johnson, Steevens, Ritson, Malone, &c., have all tried in 
vain to explain its meaning in the place where it occurs. It is 
nothing but a lapse by the printer, who, earlier in the play (p. 179), 
did not know what to make of " napless," and called it Naples, 
" the Naples vesture of humility :" here, again, he did not under 
stand what he was putting in type, and therefore committed a 
singular, and hitherto inexplicable blunder. A manuscript note 
in the folio, 1632, sets all right, and offers a most acceptable 
emendation : 

" Why in this woolless togue should I stand here, 
To beg of Hob and Dick?" &c. 

As the toga was " napless," so it was woolless, an alteration for 
the better, that carries conviction on the very face of it. Are we 
to impute it merely to the sagacity of the early possessor of the 
folio, 1632, when nobody since his time has had any notion of the 
sort 1 or are we to suppose that he had in this instance, and in 
some others, a guide by which his speculations were assisted 1 

P. 195. Pope's line respecting Censorinus, as one of the an 
cestors of Coriolanus, was not wanted, inasmuch as this portion 



380 CORIOLANUS. [ACT in. 

of the speecn of Brutus was struck out by the old corrector, pos 
sibly, because he saw the defect, and was not in a condition to 
remedy it. Nevertheless, something was at one time written in 
the margin, but it is so erased as not now to be legible. 



ACT HI. SCENE I. 

P. 201. Modern editors, since the time of Theobald, have pro 
perly corrected the first line of the speech of Coriolanus, 

" 0, good, but most unwise patricians !" 

which stands in the old copies, " O God ! but most unwise," &c. ; 
but there are very important blunders in subsequent lines, which 
they have allowed to pass without remark. We will first, as 
usual, insert the text as it stands universally printed, and follow 
it by the excellent emendations contained in the folio, 1632 : 

" 0, good, but most unwise patricians! why, 
You grave but reckless senators, have you thus 
Given Hydra here to choose an officer, 
That with his peremptory ' shall,' being but 
The horn and noise o' the monsters, wants not spirit 
To say he'll turn your current in a ditch, 
And make your channel his ? If he have power, 
Then vail your ignorance : if none, awake 
Your dangerous lenity." 

In the above, besides the first, God for " good," there are no 
fewer than five striking errors of the press, or perhaps of the 
scribe, for some of them are hardly to be imputed to the compo 
sitor. Trusting to the corrector of the folio, 1632, we ought 
hereafter to give the passage as follows : 

" 0, good, but most unwise patricians ! why, 
You grave but reckless senators, have you thus 
Given Hydra leave to choose an officer, 
That with his peremptory ' shall' (being but 
The horn and noise of the monster) wants not spirit 
To say, he'll turn your current in a ditch, 
And make your channel his ? If he have power, 
Then vail your impotence : if none, revoke 
Your dangerous bounty." 



SC. I.] CORIOLANUS. 381 

The meaning- of the last portion of the quotation is, that if the 
Tribune have power, let the impotence (not "ignorance," which is 
not the proper antithesis of power) of the senate submit to it ; 
but if he have none, let the senate revoke the bounty by which 
such a perilous privilege had been conceded to the populace. 
The " lenity" of the patricians was not to be " awakened :" Corio- 
lanus calls upon them to revoke the bounty which had caused them 
to relinquish a power properly belonging only to themselves. 
What the hero says afterwards is in entire consistency with this 
view of the passage : 

" At once pluck out 

The multitudinous tongue : let them not lick 
The sweet which is their poison." 

The corrector of the folio, 1632, therefore, informs us that the 
whole passage ought, hereafter, to be printed as above ; and the 
faults of the received text are glaring enough, without supposing, 
with Johnson, that, farther on in the same speech, we ought to 
read " most palates" must palate, which the corrector does not 
require, and which he would, no doubt, have required, had it been 
necessary. 

P. 202. The grossness of the blunders just pointed out, will, in 
some degree, prepare us for others in the next speech by the same 
character, where he inveighs against those who had yielded to 
clamour in distributing corn gratis to the populace. The lan 
guage of Shakespeare has been hitherto stated to be this : 

" Th' accusation 

Which they have often made against the senate, 
All cause unborn, could never be the native 
Of our so frank donation. Well, what then ? 
How shall this bosom multiplied digest 
The senate's courtesy ?" 

Corrections in the folio, 1632, call upon us to read thus: 

" Th' accusation 

Which they have often made against the senate, 
All cause unborn, could never be the motive 
Of our so frank donation. Well, what then ? 



382 COEIOLANUS. [ACT in. 

How shall this bisson multitude digest 
The senate's courtesy ?" 

Monk Mason proposed motive for " native ;" but " bosom multi 
plied," a misprint most evident now it is pointed out, has always 
been retained in the text. It can never be reprinted ; and is it 
too much to infer that the old corrector had somewhere seen or 
heard the above passage, and others, represented with undoubted 
improvement 1 On p. 172, we have had " bisson" printed besome, 
and here it is printed bosome : it is very clear that the compositor 
did not understand the meaning of the word, which, perhaps, was 
then becoming somewhat obsolete : this consideration can, how 
ever, afford him no' excuse for converting " multitude" into multi 
plied, 

P. 208. It ought to be remarked that in the subsequent ex 
tract, 

" That our renowned Rome, whose gratitude 
Towards her deserved children is enroll'd," &c., 

the passive participle is changed to the active, " Towards her 
deserving children." It may have been so recited at the time the 
corrections were made in the folio, 1632. 

SCENE IL 

P. 211. A rather noticeable change is made by the old annota- 
tor in the entrance of Volumnia : in print she is made to come 
in just before the Patrician's speech, " You do the nobler," stand 
ing by and saying nothing, while Coriolanus speaks of her in the 
third person. A manuscript-emendation fixes her arrival on the 
scene, more naturally perhaps, at the words of Coriolanus, ad 
dressed expressly to her, " I talk of you," &c. We may suppose 
that this arrangement represents the practice of our old stage in 
this respect. Her first speech begins, not " O, sir, sir, sir," but 
'' O, son, son, sow," which seems more proper. 

P. 212. On the same evidence, we here recover a line, which is 
certainly wanting in the old copies, since they leave the sense in 
complete without it. It is in Volumnia's entreaty to her son, 



so. in.] COPJOLANUS. 383 

" 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 was Volumnia's heart " as little apt " as that of Coriola- 
nus ? The insertion of a missing line (the absence of which has 
not hitherto been suspected) enables us to give the answer : 

" I have a heart as little apt as yours 
To brook control without the use of anger, 
But yet a brain, that leads my use of anger 
To better vantage." 

The line in Italics is written in a blank space, and a mark made 
to where it ought to come in. The compositor was, doubtless, 
misled by the recurrence of the same words at the ends of the 
two lines, and carelessly omitted the first. From whence, if not 
from some independent authority, whether heard or read, was this 
addition to the text derived ? 

Nevertheless, a previous line in the folio, 1632, unquestionably 
misprinted, things being used for " thwartings" (a word excellent 
ly guessed by Theobald), is left imperfect in its meaning, as if it 
had escaped attention, a most unusual circumstance with the 
Hianuscrip t-corrector. 

SCENE III. 

P. 217. The following must be allowed to be a valuable emen 
dation of a passage, which is thus given in every edition, ancient 
or recent : 

" He hath been us'd 
Ever to conquer, and to have his worth 
Of contradiction." 

Malone gravely says, that " to have his worth of contradiction," 
means to have his pennyworth of it ; but the whole figure here is 
taken from horsemanship. When a restive animal obtains his 
own way, he is said to have his mouth given to him : to give a 
horse his mouth, is to free him from restraint ; therefore Brutus, 
speaking of Coriolanus and of his irritable spirit, remarks, 



384 CORIOLANUS. [ACT iv. 

" He hath been us'd 

Ever to conquer, and to have his mouth 
Of contradiction : being once chaf 'd, he cannot 
Be rein'd again to temperance." 

The old printer again confounded m and w, and read mouth 
" worth." The necessary letters are written in the margin of the 
folio, 1632, and struck through in the text. 

P. 219. There is certainly no play in the whole volume so 
badly printed as that before us ; and passing over several strange 
blunders, such as through for "throng," actions for "accents" 
(both corrected by Theobald), we arrive at one which may not be 
quite as glaring, but still must be pronounced an error of the 
press : it is where Coriolanus declares his contempt of death, rather 
than consent to purchase life by submission to the people : 

" I would not buy 

Their mercy at the price of one fair word, 
Nor check my courage for what they can give, 
To have't with saying, good morrow." 

It is most inconsistent with the noble character of the hero to re 
present him in this way applauding and vaunting his own " cour 
age :" the old corrector writes carriage for " courage," an easy 
mistake, the setting right of which is an evident improvement : 

" Nor check my carriage for what they can give," &c. 

The very same misprint has been pointed out, and remedied in 
the same way, in Henry VI., Part III., p. 317 of this volume. 



ACT IV. SCENE I. 

P. 222. The commentators have clearly not understood part 
of Coriolanus' address to his mother : 

" Nay, mother, 

Where is your ancient courage? you were us'd 
To say, extremity was the trier of spirits ; 
That common chances common men could bear ; 
That, when the sea was calm, all boats alike 



SO. V.] CORIOLANUS. 385 

Show'd mastership in floating ; fortune's blows, 
When most struck home, being gentle wounded, craves 
A noble cunning." 

Some editors have inserted warded for " wounded ;" Johnson, on 
the other hand, insisted upon the text of the folios ; but a slight 
change, which presupposes that the printer again mistook m and 
w, is vastly for the better. Coriolanus is distinguishing between 
the modes in which common men, and those of nobler faculties 
bear misfortunes; and, when his language is truly given, ob 
serves, 

" Fortune's blows 

When most struck home, being gentle-minded craves 
A noble cunning." 

That is, it requires a noble cunning for a man to be gentle- 
minded, when fortune's blows are most struck home. 

SCENE in. 

P. 226. The suggestion of Steevens that, in the speech of the 
Volsce, " appeared" should be approved, is supported by the testi 
mony of the old corrector, who also warrants the change, by the 
same commentator, on p. 229, of "my birth-place have I" to 
" my birth-place hate I." In a previous line of the same speech, 

" Whose hours, whose bed, whose meal, and exercise," 

the old corrector has, " Whose house, whose bed," &c., with some 
apparent fitness. The literal errors are here superabundant in 
both folios, but they are multiplied in that of 1632. 

SCENE V. 

P. 236. Perhaps the following may be considered as belonging 
to that class : it is where the third Servant is speaking of the 
friends of Coriolanus, who do not dare to show themselves so 
" whilst he is in directitude." The first Servant naturally asks, 
what is the meaning of " directitude 1" and receives no answer, 
excepting by implication, derived from the supposition that Cori 
olanus will soon be again in prosperity, and surrounded by his 
supporters. " Directitude" is clearly a misprint for dejectitude, 
17 



386 COKIOLANUS. [ACT iv. 

a rather fine word, used by the third Servant to denote the disas 
trous condition of the affairs of Coriolanus, which might be just 
as unintelligible to the first Servant as " directitude.'' The blunder 
must have been produced by the scribe having written deitctitude, 
with an i instead of a,j. It has remained, however, " directitude," 
from the earliest times to the present. 

P. 237. The first Servant, stating his preference of war to peace, 
says that war is " sprightly, waking (walking in the folios), audi 
ble, and full of vent." Johnson tells us that ' full of vent" 
means "full of rumour, full of materials for discourse." "Full 
of vaunt" says the old corrector, with much greater plausibility, 
full of deeds deserving to be vaunted. 

SCENE VI. 

P. 240. On p. 201 we have seen god misprinted for " good ;" 
and, in what follows, a marginal correction in the folio, 1632, 
shows that " good" has been misprinted for god. Brutus could 
hardly intend to call Marcius " good," when adverting to his re 
ported return ; but he applies the word " god" to him in deri 
sion, as if Coriolanus were in a manner worshipped by a certain 
class of his admirers : Brutus asserts that the rumour of his re 
turn has been 

" Rais'd only, that the weaker sort may wish 
God Marcius home again." 

Such is the emendation, which adds vastly to the force of the pas 
sage, and is most accordant with the character of the speaker ; 
"good Marcius" is comparatively tame and unmeaning. Comi- 
nius soon afterwards, talking of Coriolanus, says, " He is their 
god" &c. 

P. 242. The point of another passage appears, on the authority 
of the old corrector, to have been sacrificed to an error, where 
Menenius says to the Tribunes, 

" You have made fair hands, 
You and your crafts ; you have crafted fair." 

We ought unquestionably to read handicrafts for " crafts," and to 



SO. VI.] CORIOLANUS. 387 

print the lines as follows, both on account of the meaning and-the 
metre : 

" You have made fair hands ; 
You and your handycrafts have crafted fair." 

This change completes the defective line, and shows that Menenius 
uses the introductory expression, " You have made fair hands," in 
order that he may follow it up by the contemptuous mention of 
handycrafts. 

P. 245. The conclusion of the speech of Aufidius, where he is 
adverting to the manner in which high merits may be obscured, 
and even extinguished by the character and conduct of the pos 
sessor, has excited much comment. We print it first as the pas 
sage appears in the folio, 1623 : 

" So our virtue 

Lie in th' interpretation of the time, 
And power, unto itself most commendable, 
Hath not a tomb so evident as a chair 
T' extol what it hath done. , 
One fire drives out one fire ; one nail, one nail ; 
Rights by rights fouler, strengths by strengths do fail." 

The only difference between the folio, 1623, and that of 1632, is, 
that the latter corrects a grammatical blunder by printing " virtue" 
in the plural ; but, besides this trifle, there appear to be several 
other mistakes, of more consequence, and we subjoin the text as 
amended in manuscript: 

" So our virtues 

Live in the interpretation of the time, 
And power, in itself most commendable, 
Hath not a tomb so evident as a cheer 
T' extol what it hath done. 
One fire drives out one fire, one nail, one nail ; 
Rights by rights suffer, strengths by strengths do fail." 

Most editors have seen that " Rights by rights fouler" must be 
wrong, and have proposed various changes, though none so ac 
ceptable as that above given. However, the main difficulty has 
arisen out of the word " chair," which the old corrector informs 
us should be cheer, in reference to the popular applause which usu- 



388 CORIOLANUS. [ACT rv. 

ally follows great actions ; and, by extolling what has been done, 
confounds the doer. The change of " lie" to live, in a preceding 
line, is countenanced by the word " tomb," afterwards used ; and 
the whole passage means, that virtues depend upon the construc 
tion put upon them by contemporaries, and that power, though 
praiseworthy, may be buried by the very applause that is heaped 
upon it, &c. The last couplet requires no elucidation, when suffer 
is substituted for " fouler," an error that may, in part, have been 
occasioned by the letter / having been employed instead of the 
long 5. It is difficult to say how far some independent authority 
may, or may not, have been used in this emendation. 

P. 250. In order to induce the guard to admit him to an inter 
view with Coriolanus, Menenius says, as the lines have always 
been given, 

" For I have ever verified my friends 
(Of whom he's chief) with all the size that verity 
Would without lapsing suffer." 

This surely is little better than nonsense, the compositor having 
printed " verified" in the first line from his eye having caught 
" verity" in the second. We are, therefore, told to read thus : 

" For I have ever magnified my friends," &c. ; 

and Menenius goes on to say, that he had magnified them to the 
utmost " size" that truth would allow. 

P. 254. Another instance in which the annotator of the folio, 
1632, preferred the active to the passive participle occurs here, 
and where the one seems, to our ears, to answer the purpose quite 
as well as the other : it is in Volumnia's speech to her son, 

" I kneel before thee. and unproperly 
Show duty, as mistaken all this while 
Between the child and parent ;" 

mistaking is written in the margin for " mistaken," the word in 
all impressions, and requiring no alteration. 

P. 256. Shakespeare has always been hitherto represented as 
guilty of a grammatical blunder, little less than ridiculous : 



SO. VI.] CORIOLANUS. 389 

" Making the mother, wife, and child to see 
The son, the husband, and the father tearing 
His country's bowels out. And to poor we, 
Thine enmity's most capital." 

Here the punctuation of the old copies leads to the detection of 
two typographical errors, "to" for so, and "enmities" for ene 
mies : 

" And the father tearing 
His country's bowels out ; and so poor we 
Thine enemies most capital." 

i.e. and so poor we are thy most capital enemies. These small 
and natural changes at once remove the solecism. 

P. 258. The additions to the stage-directions in this play are 
not many, nor of much consequence ; but we here encounter one 
that requires notice, because it serves to show the manner of the 
old actor of the part of Coriolanus at this point of the noblest 
scene, perhaps, in the whole range of dramatic literature. After 
Volumnia's grand and touching appeal, beginning, " Nay, go not 
from us thus," we are informed in the ancient editions that Corio 
lanus holds her by the hand silent ; and the following descriptive 
addition is made in manuscript, long, and self -struggling. After 
this protracted strife, which shook the whole fabric of the hero, he 
yields, with the exclamation, 

" mother, mother ! 
What have you done?" &c. 

P. 263. An alteration which can hardly be subject to doubt or 
dispute, occurs where Aufidius is descanting on the manner in 
which he had "served the designments" of Coriolanus to his own 
injury : the passage in all editions has stood as follows : 

"Serv'd his designments 
In mine own person ; holp to reap the fame 
Which he did end all his." 

Howe printed make for " end," and he was followed by several 
editors, who did not see how sense could be extracted from 
" end." Shakespeare is here only using a metaphor which he has 



390 COKIOLANUS. [ACT iv. 

often employed before, and it is obvious from the context that 
for "end" we ought to read ear, which means, in its derivation as 
well as in its use, to plough : therefore, when Aufidius says that 
he had 

" Holp to reap the fame 
Which he did ear all his ;" 

he means that Coriolanus had ploughed the ground, intending to 
reap a crop of fame, which Aufidius had assisted him to harvest. 
The use of the word "reap" proves what was in the mind of the 
poet. It is needless to enumerate the places where Shakespeare 
employs the verb, to ear, in the sense of to plough. 

P. 266. It is a mistake, in note 7 on this page, to state that Ma- 
lone (Shakspeare, by Boswell, xiv. p. 225) reads voices : he prints 
it Voices, which is strictly right, although all the old copies have 
Volscians. The folio, 1632, like that of 1623, has, " flattered your 
Volscians in Coriolus ;" but the corrector of the former has alter 
ed "flatter'd" to fluttered, by striking out the a, and placing u in 
the margin. Fluttered is the word in the folio, 1664, and so it 
has continued ever since: " Volcians" is altered to Voices in no 
old copy. 

Lower down, where All People is the prefix to various excla 
mations by different citizens against Coriolanus, the figures 1, 2, 
3, 4, are placed in manuscript in the margin to show that the 
speeches, " He killed my son my daughter he killed my cousin 
Marcus he killed my father," were uttered by different people, 
whose families Coriolanus was charged with having thinned. 

P. 267. In the old impressions, when the Conspirators assail 
Coriolanus and kill him, the stage-direction is, Draw both the 
Conspirators and kill Martins ; but we have already seen Aufi 
dius instructing three Conspirators. Perhaps, in the economy of 
our old stage, only two were so employed at the time the hero 
was actually struck, and that the actor, who had played the third 
Conspirator on p. 264, had other duties to perform in the busy 
last scene of the drama. We have before said that the stage- 
directions are little added to or altered in this play ; but, at the 



SC. VI.] CORIOLANUS. 391 

very close, some words are subjoined which require notice : the 
old printed stage-direction is, Exeunt bearing the body of Martins. 
A dead march sounded ; to which the following words are ap 
pended in manuscript whiles they leave the staye, marching 
round : the dead march was, therefore, continued to be played, 
until the whole procession had passed round the stage, in order, 
doubtless, to render the ceremonial more distinct and impressive. 
This, we believe, is a traditional practice, which has ever since 
been continued. 



TITUS ANDEOMCUS. 



ACT I. SCENE I. 

P. 275. There can be no difficulty in admitting the subsequent 
emendation of an evident misprint near the opening of this play, 
where Bassianus says, 

" Keep then this passage to the Capitol, 
And suffer not dishonour to approach 
* Th' imperial seat, to virtue consecrate, 
To justice, continence, and nobility." 

There is no reason why the Capitol should be said to be conse 
crate to " continence," especially when, in the preceding line, it is 
stated to be consecrate to " virtue :" the corrector of the folio, 
1632, therefore, alters the last line thus : 

" To justice, conscience, and nobility." 

Besides, " continence," read as a tri-syllable, is too much for the 
verse. 

SCENE H. 

P. 279. Ehymes, whether lost by a change in the practice of 
the stage, by carelessness of recitation, copying, printing, or other 
wise, are restored in various parts of this tragedy : the earliest 
instance of the kind occurs at the end of one of the speeches of 
Titus, where he tells Tamora that her son must be slain as a sa 
crifice for his dead sons ; the rhyme seems so inevitable, that we 
can hardly suppose it relinquished excepting by design : 

" To this your son is mark'd ; and die he must 
To appease their groaning shadows that are dust." 

The printed copies poorly read " gone" for dust. 

(392) 



ACT II.] TITUS ANDKONICUS. 393 

P. 282. When the people wish to elect Titus for their Empe 
ror, he declines on account of age and infirmity : 

" What ! should I don this robe, and trouble you ? 
Be chosen with proclamations to-day, 
To-morrow yield up rule, resign my life, 
And set abroad new business for you all." 

u Proclamations" may be right, but acclamations is the word writ 
ten in the margin instead of it ; and for " set abroad," the more 
natural reading is set abroach, which is also supplied in the folio, 
1632. 

P. 288. We have here a proof that the old corrector may have 
resorted to the quarto copies of this play, where only, and not in 
the folios, in the following line, 

"That slew himself, and wise Laertes' son," 

the epithet "wise" is found. It is possible, however, that the 
necessary word was obtained from recitation, or even from some 
independent authority, written or printed. Some of the changes 
in this play could scarcely have been made without some such 
aid. 



ACT H. SCENE I. 

P. 297. When Aaron is prompting Chiron and Demetrius to 
ravish Lavinia, he tells them that they may safely do it in the 
forest : 

" The woods are ruthless, dreadful, deaf, and dull." 

To say that the woods are " dreadful," seems the very opposite 
of what is meant : they were pitiless, and discovery or opposition 
were not to be dreaded ; we are, therefore, told to read, 

" The woods are ruthless, dreadless, deaf, and dull." 

SCENE II. 

P. 297. In the opening of this scene, we meet with one of those 
passages to which the rhymes have been elaborately restored, 
17* 



TITUS ANDRONICUS. [ACT II. 

where, from the nature of the description, they seem natural, and 
to which we may feel confident they at one time belonged. The 
use of the phrase, " the hunt is up," in the outset, would almost 
appear to call for them, especially in a drama of the age to which 
"Titus Andronicus" must be assigned. It is needless to quote 
the lines as given in all editions, but we subjoin them with the 
manuscript-emendations, as they occur in the folio, 1632 : 

'' The hunt is up, the inorn is bright and gay, 

The fields are fragrant and the woods are wide, 
Uncouple here, and let us make a bay, 

And wake the emperor and his lovely bride. 
And rouse the prince and sing a hunter's round, 
That all the court may echo with the sound. 
Sons, let it be your charge, and so will I, 
To attend the emperor's person carefully : 
I have been troubled in my sleep this night, 
But dawning day brought comfort and delight." 

Nothing can well read more easily, naturally, or harmoniously. 
The first six lines form a stanza, and such were not uncommonly 
introduced by Shakespeare in his earlier plays, instances being 
found in " Love's Labour's Lost," &c. To say that " the morn 
is bright and grey," as in the old copies, reads a little contradic 
torily, and the word gay is, we see, substituted as that of the 
poet. How far any of these changes were supported by author 
ity, must remain a question ; at least we are not in a condition to 
answer it. 

An addition to the old stage-direction, wind horns, informs us 
that The hunt is up was here sung by the performers. 

SCENE III. 

P. 300. A mere misprint, pointed out by the old corrector, 
has been the occasion of notes by Heath, Steevens, Malone, and 
Boswell, upon the lines, 

" Thy temples should be planted presently, 
"With horns, as were Actions ; and the hounds 
Should drive upon thy new transformed limbs." 

Heath proposed thrive for " drive," and Steevens was for pre- 



ACT III.] TITUS ANDRONICUS. 395 

serving the old word, which, nevertheless, all admitted could 
scarcely be right. Now, as everybody knows that Actseon was 
devoured by his own dogs, it is singular that the blunder was 
never yet guessed at by any commentator : it is, 

" Should dine upon thy new transformed limbs." 
P. 303. Lavinia tells Chiron and Tamora, 

" The lion, moved with pity, did endure 
To have his princely paws par'd all away." 

It was not his " paws," but his claws, that he endured to be 
pared away : 

" To have his princely claws par'd all away." 

It is not likely that pity would have allowed the beast to re 
main quiet, while his " paws" were " pared all away." 

SCENE V. 

P. 310. There can hardly be a doubt, unless we suppose 
Shakespeare to have left the line purposely incomplete, that the 
ensuing addition to an imperfect hemistich was justified by some 
authority with which the corrector of the folio 1632, was ac 
quainted, though now lost. Marcus is referring to the music 
Lavinia sang to the lute before her tongue was cut out : 

" Or had he heard the heavenly harmony, 
Which that sweet tongue hath made in minstrelsy, 
He would have dropp'd his knife," &c. 



ACT III. SCENE I. 

P. 321. When Titus Andronicus sends his son to Lucius to 
raise an army among the Goths, he ends his speech with a couplet 
rhyming with the same word : 

" And, if you love me, as I think you do, 
Let's kiss and part, for we have much to do." 

This was probably a corruption, for the old corrector shows 
how easy it was to avoid the awkwardness : 

" And, if you love me, as I think 'tis true, 
Let's kiss and part, for we have much to do." 



896 TITUS ANDKONICUS. [ACT IV 

It does not require any very strong faith to believe that this must 
have been the original reading. 

SCENE H. 

P. 323. That part of the scene which relates to the killing of 
the fly is erased ; and the blunder at the end, where seven lines 
are given to Marcus, is set right by assigning the five last to An- 
dronicus. Copies of the folio, 1623, differ in this respect; in the 
folio, 1632, the prefix And, for Andronicus, is printed only, as if 
it were the conjunction. 



ACT IV. SCENE H. 

P. 331. When the Nurse brings to Aaron the black child of 
the empress, she says, 

" Here is the babe, as loathsome as a toad 
Among the fairest breeders of our clime." 

The child was not a " breeder," but a burden, and so it stands 
amended in the folio, 1632 : 

" Among the fairest burdens of our clime." 
P. 334. For the line as we find it in all the old copies, 

" Not far, one Huliteus my countryman," 
the correction is, 

" Not far hence Muli lives, my countryman." 

Steevens conjectured that " Muli lives" had been corrupted to 
Muliteus, and he was right ; but hence appears also to have been 
misprinted one : the latter change is, however, by any means re 
quired. 

Lower down, for the awkward expression, 

" This done, see that you take no longer days," 
the old corrector tells us to substitute, 

" This, done, see that you make no long delays." 

This, too, cannot be said to be a necessary change, but it is clearly 
an advantageous one, and most likely what the author wrote. 



ACT V.] TITUS ANDRONICUS. 397 

SCENE III. 

P. 336. This scene is made part of the preceding by the manu 
script-corrector ; and very possibly it was so, when the play was 
acted of old, in order to avoid too frequent changes of the kind. 
It is also much shortened by the erasure of the two long passages, 
in which Andronicus shows his distraction, and Publius humours it. 

SCENE IV. 

P. 339. Eowe amended the following line by the awkward in 
sertion of " as do " in the middle of it : 

" My lords, you know, as do the mightful gods ;" 

but the emendation in the folio, 1632, shows that words had not 
dropped out in the middle of the line, which was not so likely, but 
at the end of it, and they were, of course, not what Eowe con 
jectured : 

" My lords, you know, the mightful gods no less." 



ACT V. SCENE I. 

P. 345. There can be no doubt, on the evidence of the old cor 
rector of the folio, 1632, that the words, "Get me a ladder," be 
long to Lucius and not to Aaron, whose speech begins with, 
" Lucius, save the child." A manuscript stage-direction proves 
that a ladder was brought, and that the Moor made all his subse 
quent speeches standing upon it. Before he ascends it, he tells 
the Goths that he will disclose 

" Complots of mischief, treason, villainies, 
Ruthful to hear, yet piteously perform'd :" 

" Piteously perform'd " must be the very reverse of what he 
means, and there can be no hesitation in printing the last line in 
future, as we are instructed by an emendation, 

" Ruthful to hear, despiteously perform'd." 

SCENE II. 

P. 349. The old introduction to this scene is, Enter Tamora 
and her two Sons disguised ; and in manuscript we are informed 



398 TITUS ANDROXICUS. [ACT V. 

that the characters they assumed were those of Revenge, Rape, 
and Murder. Andronicus, when they call him, opens his study 
door above, i. e. in the balcony over the back of the stage, from 
whence he comts down, and joins them below, to converse about 
vengeance for the sufferings of himself and the rest of the An- 
dronici. Such appears to have been the mode in which the scene 
was managed in the time of the corrector, and, perhaps, from the 
first production of the tragedy. 

P. 355. When Andronicus cuts the throats of Demetrius and 
Chiron, Lavinia catcheth the blood in a basin she had procured : 
there seems little occasion for this addition to the usual stage- 
direction, as we are previously told the part she is to play in the 
transaction ; but the writer of the manuscript notes was anxious 
to be most explicit. 

SCENE III. 

P. 358. There is a remarkable discordance between the quar 
tos and folios regarding the speech beginning, 

"Lest Rome herself be bane unto herself:" 

the quartos strangely assign it to a Roman Lord ; and the folios, 
most absurdly, to a Goth. It seems evident from what precedes, 
where Marcus says, 

" ! let me teach you how to knit again," &c., 

that the whole belongs to him ; and the corrector of the folio, 
1632, has, therefore, put his pen through the prefix Goth, and 
makes the next twenty- three lines run on as the continuation of 
what Marcus delivers. 

P. 362. According to the old emendator, rhymes were numer 
ous towards the close of this play. Lucius, speaking of his father, 
says to his young son, 

" Shed yet some small drops from thy tender spring, 
Because kind nature doth require it so: 
Friends should associate friends in grief and woe. 
Bid him farewell ; commit him to the grave ; 
Do him that kindness, and take leave of him." 



SO. III.] TITUS ANDRONICUS. -399 

" And take leave of him," besides marring the rhyming couplet, 
sounds very tamely and weakly, and is, in another form, a mere 
repetition of " Bid him farewell," of the preceding line. We may, 
therefore, on all accounts, be prepared to acquiesce in the subse 
quent manuscript-emendation : 

" Bid him farewell ; commit him to the grave ; 
Do him that kindness all that he can have." 

It will excite surprise how rhymes like these escaped : they must 
have been more impressed upon the memory of the actor ; and, 
even if we suppose them to have been abandoned, on account of 
the advance made by blank-verse on the stage, that advance had 
hardly occurred when "Titus Andronicus" was first printed. 
Moreover, in the instance before us, and in others, the original 
lines (supposing them to have been such) were so much better 
adapted to the occasion, and to the person who pronounced them. 



EOMEO AND JULIET. 



ACT I. SCENE I. 

P. 375. A manuscript-emendation in the folio, 1632, makes it 
eel-tain that " civil," in the following portion of Sampson's speech, 
is a misprint : " When I have fought with the men, I will be civil 
with the maids ; I will cut off their heads." " Civil" is struck out, 
and cruel inserted instead of it. Malone rightly preferred cruel. 

P. 378. The corrected folio, 1632, gives one line differently 
from any other authority : it is a reading which may be right, but 
which ought not, perhaps, to have weight enough to induce us to 
alter the received and very intelligible text. It is met with in the 
Prince's reproof of Montague and Capulet for allowing the quar 
rels of their followers to disturb the public peace ; the universal 
reading has been, 

" Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word," &c. 

For "ayery word" (so spelt in the folios) the substitution is 
" angry word." 

P. 382. Romeo, describing love, remarks, 

" Love is a smoke, made with the fume of sighs ; 
Being purg'd, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes." 

Johnson, Steevens, Reed, and others, have contended that " purg'd" 
cannot have been the poet's language ; and they suggest urg'd, in 
the sense of excited. This emendation might answer the purpose, 
if no better were offered, but in the margin of the folio, 1632, we 
are told to substitute a word that exactly belongs to the place, 
and that might be easily misread " purg'd" by the printer : 

(400) 



ACT I.] EOMEO AND JULIET. 401 

" Being puff'd, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes." 

Every body is aware how a fire sometimes sparkles in the eyes 
of those who blow it with their breath : the somke is first "made" 
by the gentle "fume of sighs," and then caused to sparkle by 
being violently puffed by the lover's breath. 

If this emendation be capable of dispute, that in a line at the 
top of the next page cannot be doubted, since it accords, almost 
exactly, with the old copies, and obviously gives the sense of the 
author. Romeo is speaking of Rosaline, 

" She hath Dian's wit, 
And in strong proof of chastity well arm'd, 
From love's weak childish bow she lives unharm'd." 

Such has always been the reading since the time of Rowe ; but 
the quarto, 1597, and the folios have, 

" From love's weak childish bow she lives uncharm'd." 

" Unharm'd " may here again be said to answer the purpose, by 
giving a clear meaning ; but the alteration required by the cor 
rector of the folio, 1632, is only of a single letter, and a much 
more poetical turn is given to the thought : 

" She hath Dian's wit, 
And in strong proof of chastity well arm'd, 
From love's weak childish bow she lives encharm'd." 

That is to say, she was magically encharmcd from love's bow by 
chastity. Nobody will deny that "unharm'd" is comparatively 
flat, poor, and insignificant. 

SCENE H. 
P. 384. The line, which in the folios is printed, 

" And too soon marr'd are those so early made," 
had been given hi the quartos, 

" And too soon marr'd are those so early married ;" 

and that should seem to be the true proverbial word, for the old 
corrector adopts it, and expunges " made." 



402 ROMEO AND JULIET. [ACT I. 

SCENE IV. 

P. 395. He makes three emendations in Mercutio's descrip 
tion of Queen Mab, all deserving notice, if not adoption : the first 
is the most singular, where, of the Fairy's wagoner, it is said, in 
the folio, 1623, that he is not half so big as a worm, 

" Prick'd from the lazy finger of a man ;" 
and in the folio, 1632, 

" Prick'd from the lazy finger of a woman;" 

while in the quarto, 1597, only, it stands, 

" Pick'd from the lazy finger of a maid." 
The modern reading has been compounded of both : 

" Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid." 

From whence the writer of the manuscript note in the folio, 1632, 
derived his information we know not, but he presents us with a 
fifth variety : 

" Pick'd from the lazy finger of a mz7-maid." 

As might be expected, seven lines lower, he alters countries knees, 
of the same edition, to " courtiers' knees," and cursies to " court 
esies ;" but his emendation of the last line of the page, 

" Sometimes she gallops o'er a courtier's nose," 

merits most attention. It has been properly objected that this is 
the second time the poet has introduced "courtiers" into the de 
scription. To avoid this, Pope read " lawyer's nose," adopting in 
part the "lawyer's lap" of the quarto, 1597 : but while shunning 
one defect, he introduced another ; for though the double mention 
of "courtiers" is thus remedied, it occasions a double mention of 
" lawyers." In what way, then, does the old corrector take upon 
himself to decide the question? He treats the second "courtiers" 
as a misprint for a word which, when carelessly written, is not 
very dissimilar : 

" Sometimes she gallops o'er a counsellor's nose, 
And then he dreams of smelling out a suit." 



ACT II.] ROMEO AND JULIET. 403 

That counsellors, and their interest in suits at court, should thus 
be ridiculed, cannot be thought unnatural. The third emendation, 
is in the line, 

" And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs," 

which is changed, more questionably and unpoetically, to " And 
makes the elf-locks," &c. 

P. 397. The quarto, 1597, when the wind is spoken of, alone 
has, 

" Turning his face to the dew-dropping south :" 

it is altered in all other old impressions to 

" Turning his side to the dew-dropping south ;" 

and by the old corrector, more than plausibly, to 

" Turning his tide to the dew-dropping south." 

The modern reading has been, " Turning his face," &c. ; but as 
the quarto, 1597, has a decided mistake in the preceding line, we 
may receive " Turning his tide " as Shakespeare's language, though 
tide may more fitly and strictly belong to water than to wind. 



ACT II. SCENE I. 

P. 404. The Acts and Scenes (excepting the first) are not 
marked in any of the old impressions ; and by a manuscript note 
in the folio, 1632, Act II. is made to begin before, and not after 
the Chorus. Such was, perhaps, the ancient arrangement, but the 
point, though requiring notice, is one of comparatively little con 
sequence. 

The words in this page, " Nay, I'll conjure too," assigned in all 
the quartos and folios to Benvolio, clearly belong to Mercutio, 
and the prefix is, therefore, altered in manuscript in the edition of 
1632. TRe blunder has, we think, never been repeated in modern 
times. 

SCENE II. 

P. 406. Romeo, speaking of the moon, and apostrophising 
Juliet, tells her, 



404 ROMEO AND JULIET. [ACT II. 

" Be not her maid, since she is envious ; 
Her vestal livery is but sick and green, 
And none but fools do wear it." 

Here we meet in the folio, 1632, with an emendation that calls 
for explanation : 

" Her vestal livery is but white and green, 
And none but fools do wear it." 

The compositor perhaps caught " sick " from a line above, where 
Romeo describes the moon as " sick and pale ; " " white and 
green " must be the true reading, as is proved by what follows, 
where it is said that it was worn by " none but fools." " White 
and green " had been the royal livery in the reign of Henry VIII., 
but Elizabeth changed it to scarlet and black ; and although mot 
ley was the ordinary dress of fools and jesters, it is capable of 
proof that, earlier than the time of Shakespeare, the fools and 
jesters of the court (and perhaps some others) were still dressed 
in "white and green :" thus it became proverbially the livery of 
fools. Will Summer (who lived until 1560, and was buried at 
Shoreditch on the 15th June in that year) wore "white and 
green," and the circumstance is thus mentioned in " Certain Edicts 
of Parliament," at the end of the edition of Sir Thomas Over- 
bury's "Wife," in 1614 : "Item, no fellow shall begin to argue 
with a woman, &c., unless he wear white for William, and green 
for Summer " that is, unless he be a fool, like Will Summer. 
Again, in Fox's "Acts and Monuments," iii. 114, a story is told 
of a person, who, noticing the colours in which St. John had been 
painted by the Papists in St. Paul's, said, " I hope ye be but a 
Summer's bird, in that ye be dressed in white and green." It 
appears also that Skelton (Works by Dyce, I. xii. and 128), who 
boasts of " the habit the king gave " him, wore "white and green," 
because he was the royal jester, though he also assumed the rank 
of laureat. In the time of Shakespeare it may have ben discon 
tinued as the dress even of court-fools, but it seems to have been 
traditionally so considered ; and on this account it is stated by 
him that " none but fools do wear it." 

P. 407. For " lazy-pacing clouds," the old corrector (in con- 



SC. II.] ROMEO AND JULIET. 405 

formity with the suggestion in note 8) converts lazy-puffing of the 
folios into lazy-passing ; and gives the line, 

" Thou art thyself though not a Montague," 

in the following manner, though, perhaps, properly punctuated, 
the change is not necessary : 

" Thou art thyself, although a Montague." 

He erases " belonging to a man," not being aware, possibly, of 
the omission of the preceding words, " Nor any other part," which 
are found in the quarto, 1597. This circumstance looks as if he 
had not referred to that edition. 

P. 410. On the other hand, we here find him inserting one word 
from all the quartos, and substituting another, met with only in 
the quarto, 1597: the folios have, 

" Lady, by yonder moon I vow ;" . 

obviously incomplete from the omission of "blessed" before 
" moon," which is in every quarto ; but the quarto, 1597, alone 
gives the whole line as follows : 

" Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear;" 

"Svvear"is in no other impression, yet the old corrector not 
merely inserts " blessed," but erases " vow," and puts swear in 
the place of it : swear is clearly right, as we learn from Juliet's 
reply. In these cases it appears most probable, that the writer 
of the manuscript-emendations was guided by the manner in which 
he heard the text repeated on the stage. 

P. 414. The last lines of Romeo's last speech in this scene as 
given in the folio, 1632, are erased. Four of them, in fact, be 
long to Friar Laurence, in the opening of Scene III., but as' the 
sense is complete without them, they might not be recited, and 
the old corrector, therefore, takes no farther notice of them : he 
makes the speech of the Friar begin with, 

" Now, ere the sun advance his burning eye." 



406 BOMEO AND JULIET. [ACT II. 

SCENE in. 

P. 415. A single letter makes an important difference in the 
following : 

" But where unbruised youth, with unstufFd brain, 
Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign." 

Friar Laurence is drawing a contrast between the wakefulness of 
careful age, and the calm sleep of untroubled youth : the epithet 
"unbruised" has, therefore, little propriety, and we are instructed 
to amend the line thus : 

" But where unbusied youth, with unstufFd brain," &c. 

This comes, we apprehend, within the class of extremely plausi 
ble emendations. 

SCENE IV. 

P. 424. The Nurse says to Romeo, regarding Juliet, as the 
text has always stood : " And, therefore, if you should deal 
double with her, truly, it were an ill thing to be offered to any 
gentlewoman, and very weak dealing." We can easily believe 
that "weak" is here not the proper epithet, and a manuscript 
marginal note warrants in altering it to " and very wicked deal 
ing." The copyist, probably, misheard ; and in a case like this 
we certainly might venture to alter the defective text. 

SCENE V. 

P. 428. The Nurse brings tidings that Eomeo is waiting for 
Juliet, hi order to be married at the cell of Friar Laurence, and 
says, 

" Now comes the wanton blood up in your cheeks, 
They'll be in scarlet straight at any news. 
Hie you to church," &c. 

It w*as not " at any news" that Juliet's cheeks would be in scarlet, 
but at the particular and joyful tidings brought by the Nurse, 
who, according to an emendation in the folio, 1632, tells her. 

'' Now comes the wanton blood up in your cheeksj 
They'll be in scarlet straightway at my news." 



ACT III.] ROMEO AND JULIET. 407 

ACT III. SCENE I. 

P. 435. It may be sufficient to state that a correction in the 
folio, 1632, converts "fire and fury," of the later quartos and 
folios, into "fire-eyed fury," of the quarto, 1597. On a previous 
page (432), the same course has been taken with the words, 
" Romeo, the hate I bear thee," instead of " the love I bear thee." 
Did the corrector derive these emendations from the quarto, 
1597, or from more accurate recitation of the text than as it ap 
pears in the folios 1 

P. 437. We may conjecture that such was the case, from an 
addition to the text which we here meet with, and which is neces 
sary for the completion of a line, but is not contained in any 
known copy, quarto or folio. It is in Benvolio's narrative of the 
fatal encounter between Mercutio and Tybalt : of the former he 
says, 

" And with a martial scorn, with one hand beats 
Cold death aside, and with the other sends 
It back to Tybalt, whose dexterity 
Retorts it. Romeo he cries aloud 
' Hold friends ! friends part !' " &c. 

Here it is certain that the line, 

" Retorts it. Romeo he/Cries aloud," 
is abridged of a syllable, which is supplied in manuscript : 

" Retorts it home. Romeo he cries aloud," &c. 

On the next page we have " hate's proceeding," instead of "heart's 
proceeding," although the quarto, 1597, is the only copy of the 
play which reads " hate's proceeding." 

SCENE II. 

P. 439. The line of Juliet's speech, as usually printed, 
" That run-away's eyes may wink," &c., 

has always been a stumbling-block, and perhaps no emendation 
can be declared perfectly satisfactory. The change proposed by 
the corrector of the folio, 1632, at all events makes very clear 
sense out of the passage, although it may still remain a question, 



408 ROMEO AND JULIET. [ACT III. 

whether that sense be the sense of the poet 1 another subsidi 
ary question will be, how so elaborate a misprint could have been 
made out of so simple and common a word 1 He gives the whole 
passage thus : 

" Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night, 
That enemies' eyes may wink, and Romeo 
Leap to these arms untalk'd of and unseen." 

In the margin of the folio, 1632, enemies is spelt enimyes; but the 
letters are, perhaps, too few to have been mistaken for run-awaies. 
At the same time it seems extremely natural that Juliet should 
wish the eyes of enemies to be closed, in order that they might 
not see Romeo leap to her arms, and talk of it afterwards. The 
Capulets were, of course, the enemies to whom she must particu 
larly refer. 

- SCENE V. 

P. 453. We here encounter a comparatively insignificant error, 
which is injurious to a very beautiful passage ; it is in the parting 
scene of Romeo and Juliet : 

" I'll say, yon grey is not the morning's eye, 
'Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow." 

Cynthia's "brow" would not occasion a "pale reflex," and by the 
omission of one letter the light is at once cleared : 

" 'Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's bow." 

P. 457. The old corrector informs us that the words, " These 
are news indeed ! " do not belong to Juliet, but to her Mother, as 
seems highly probable : it is where Juliet has directly refused to 
marry Paris, and Lady Capulet exclaims, 

" These are news indeed ! 
Here comes your father ; tell him so yourself," &c. 

This judicious arrangement is not in accordance with any known 
authority; and just above, "I swear" is erased, perhaps, as not 
adding to the force of Juliet's expression, hardly consistent with 
the delicacy of her character, and certainly destructive to the 
measure. 



ACT V.] BOMEO AND JULIET. 409 

ACT IV. SCENE I. 

P. 462. In Henry VIII. (p. 344) we have seen way printed 
for " sway j" and here we have " sway " printed for way. Paris 
remarks, 

" Now, sir, her father counts it dangerous, 
That she doth give her sorrow so much sway." 

"So much way" is the correction in the margin of the folio, 
1632 ; but the text may, perhaps, stand without change, although 
the corruption is a very easy one. 

SCENE II. 

P. 468. When Juliet says, speaking of Paris, that she had met 
him, 

" And gave him what becomed love I might," 

the corrector of the folio, 1632, alters " becomed," the passive, to 
becoming, the active participle : he has, as the reader is aware, pur 
sued the same course in other places. 

SCENE V. 

P. 479. It is to be noted, that, contrary to his usual practice, 
the old corrector adds nothing to Peter's quotation from the poem 
by Edwards, although it is certainly Defective, and is shown to be 
so by the quarto, 1597, where it is more completely given. He, 
however, underscores it with a pen, as he always does when Shakes 
peare employs any thing derived from another author. The whole 
of this part of the scene is struck out, perhaps as needless to the 
performance ; and it was most likely inserted by Shakespeare to 
give more importance to the character of Peter, and to afford 
William Kemp, who played it, an opportunity of exciting the 
laughter of the audience. When Kemp was gone, it was, perhaps, 
no longer wanted. 



ACT V. SCENE I. 

P. 480. The first line of this act has hitherto presented a se 
rious difficulty. Romeo says, 
18 



410 ROMEO AND JULIET. [ACT V. 

" If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep, 
My dreams presage some joyful news at hand." 

Nobody has been able at all satisfactorily to explain the expres 
sion " flattering truth," since " truth" cannot flatter : and Malone, 
not liking Johnson's interpretation, preferred what is to the full as 
unintelligible, the text of the quarto, 1597 " the flattering eye, of 
sleep." The real truth (not the " flattering truth") seems to be, 
that the old compositor was confounded between " trust," in 
the first part of the line, and death near the end of it, and printed 
a word which he compounded of the beginning of the one word, 
and of the end of the other. Sleep is often resembled to death, 
and death to sleep; and when Romeo observes, as the correction in 
the folio, 1632, warrants us in giving the passage, 

" If I may trust the flattering death of sleep ;" 

he calls it " the flattering death of sleep" on account of the dream 
of joyful news from which he had awaked: during this "flatter 
ing death of sleep," he had dreamed of Juliet, and of her revival 
of him by the warmth of her kisses. 

Two lines lower, the folio, 1623, has a remarkable corruption, 

"And all thisan day an vccustom'd spirit," 

which the folio, 1632, prints, in order to remedy the defect, 
" And all this winged unaccustom'd spirit." 

Whence it obtained winged does not appear, but the true reading 
has been the common text, 

" And, all this day, an unaccustom'd spirit :" 

to which the folio, 1632, is amended in manuscript. On the next 
page, " Then, I deny you, stars," is also properly altered to " Then, 
I defy you, stars." 

SCENE m. 

P. 485. The corrector makes a change, not authorised by any 
extant authority, in the speech of the Page attending Paris, whom 
hi& master has told to lie all along on the ground under some 
yew-trees : the line, as always printed, is, 



SC. III.] ROMEO AND JULIET. 411 

" I am almost afraid to stand alone ;" 

but Paris has expressly ordered him to lie down, with his ear close 
to the ground, that he might listen : therefore, the following alter 
ation seems most proper, and is, doubtless, what the poet wrote : 

" I am almost afraid to stay alone 
Here in the churchyard ; yet I will adventure." 

P. 486. Numerous stage-directions are written in the margins 
of the folio, 1632. In this scene, Romeo's Man ("Peter" is 
erased) Enters with a torch ; and we are previously informed that 
the Monument of the Capulets, or some stage-property to repre 
sent it, is seen by the audience, and that Paris brings with him a 
basket of flowers. When he and Romeo fight, Paris falls, and 
Romeo puts him in the monument. Printed stage-directions are 
entirely wanting, and no note is even made when Romeo drinks 
the poison, or dies. These, and others in subsequent parts of the 
tragedy, are supplied. 

P. 489. The words " Shall I believe," which are mere surplus 
age, are struck out, as well as the whole passage, obviously foist 
ed in by some strange mistake, beginning, " Come, lie thou in 
my arms," and ending, " Depart again." 

P. 494. The Prince of Verona, in the midst of the confusion 
and dismay, tells the people, 

" Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while, 
Till we can clear these ambiguities." 

Perhaps " outrage" is to be taken in the general sense of disturb 
ance but the manuscript-corrector gives the word differently, 

" Seal up the mouth of outcry for a while."' 

The necessity for this change is not very apparent ; but neverthe 
less, Lady Capulet has exclaimed on entering, 

" ! the people in the street cry Romeo, 
Some Juliet, and some Paris ; and all run 
With open outcry toward our monument." 

P. 497. The last emendation in this play certainly looks as 



412 ROMEO AND JULIET. [ACT V. 

much like the exercise of taste on the part of the old corrector as 
any alteration hitherto noticed : it is where old Montague declares 
his intention to raise a statue of Juliet " in pure gold :" 

" There shall no figure at such rate be set, 
As that of true and faithful Juliet." 

The words " true and faithful " are indisputably tautologous, and 
it is not unlikely that Shakespeare left the last line as we read it 
with the change introduced in the margin of the folio, 1632 : 

" As that of/a?V and faithful Juliet." 

We can suppose " true and faithful," a corruption introduced on 
the frequent repetition of this popular performance, although the 
alliteration of "fair and faithful" may seem more impressive 
upon the memory. We are previously told, in manuscript, that 
the heads of the two hostile houses shake hands over the dead 
bodies of ther children. 



TIMON OF ATHENS. 



ACT I. SCENE I. 
P. 506. After giving the obviously corrupt passage, 

" Our poesy is as a gown, which uses 
From whence 'tis nourish'd," 

in this manner, as indeed Pope recommended, 

" Our poesy is as a gum, which issues 
From where -'tis nourished," 

the old corrector of the folio, 1632, puts his pen through the rest 
of the Poet's speech, excepting the final question, " What have 
you there ?" This is certainly an easy method of getting over a 
difficulty ; but, perhaps, the writer of the emendation here had no 
other. Johnson suggested oozes for " uses," which is, perhaps, 
hardly as good as "issues," with reference to the process of poeti 
cal composition ; and Shakespeare no where else employs ooze as 
a verb, and whenever it occurs as a substantive it is spelt, in the 
old copies, ooze, and never use. 

P. 507. It seems improbable that Shakespeare, who, like other 
dramatists of his day, cared little about representing correctly the 
customs of the time or country in which he laid his scene, should 
make the Poet speak thus of the new work he was about to pre 
sent to Timon : 

" My free drift 

Halts not particularly, but moves itself 
In a wide sea of wax." 

Why " in a wide sea of wax ?" Admitting that not only the an 
cients, but that the English, at a very early date, wrote upon waxen 

(413) 



414 TIMON OF ATHENS. [ACT I. 

tablets (and such is the forced explanation of Hanmer, Steevens, 
and Malone), it would scarcely be understood by popular audi 
ences before whom this drama was originally acted. " Wax," of 
old, was commonly spelt waxe (although it is "wax" in the 
folios), and confiding, as we are disposed to do, in a representation 
in the margin of the folio, 1632, the compositor must have read 
" waxe " for a word not very dissimilar in form, but much more 
appropriate and intelligible : 

" My free drift 

Halts not particularly, but moves itself 
In a wide sea of verse." 

The Poet's work was, of course, in verse, and there is no appa 
rent reason why Shakespeare should not have employed that word 
instead of " wax," which looks something like a sort of pedantry, 
of which he would certainly be the last to be guilty. 

P. 513. The following answer by Apemantus has produced 

much dispute : 



" That I had no angry wit to be a lord." 

It is introduced as follows : Apemantus exclaims, 

" Heavens, that I were a lord ! 

Tim. What would'st do then, Apemantus? 

Apem. Even as Apemantus does now ; hate a lord with my heart. 

Tim. What, thyself? 

Apem. Ay. 

Tim. Wherefore ? 

Apem. That I had no angry wit to be a lord." 

Though a meaning, as Johnson says, may be extracted from these 
last words, yet nearly all editors have agreed that some corrup 
tion has crept into the text. Warburton proposed, " That I had 
so hungry a wit to be a lord ;" and Monk Mason, " That I had an 
angry wish to be a lord." The restoration offered in the folio, 
1632, is the same as parts of both these suggestions, and at once 
renders the sense evident " That I had so hungry a wish to be a 
lord." Apemantus would hate himself for having entertained so 
strong a desire to be a lord. It thus seems that Warburton and 
Monk Mason were both right, and yet both wrong. 



ACT II.] TIMON OF ATHENS. 415 

SCENE H. 

P. 518. There appears to be a remarkable lapse by the printer 
in the four lines which precede Apemantus' grace, where, during 
the feast, he takes a cup of water in his hand, and says, 

" Here's that which is too weak to be a sinner, 
Honest water, which ne'er left man i' the mire: 
This and my food are equals, there's no odds ; 
Feasts are too proud to give thanks to the gods." 

These lines are introduced by prose, and it can hardly be doubted, 
on reading them, that they were intended for two rhyming coup 
lets. Apemantus is adverting to the intoxication which follows 
drinking strong wines and ardent spirits, and contrasting " honest 
water" with them; and we may feel assured that the two first 
lines ought to be printed hereafter as they are made to run by the 
old corrector : 

"Here's that, which is too weak to be a fire, 
Honest water, which ne'er left man i' the mire." 

Water was too weak to possess the fiery and intoxicating property 
of wine, which often " left man in the mire." How fire came to 
be misprinted " sinner," cannot be easily explained ; but perhaps 
the long s and the /had something to do with the blunder. 



ACT H. SCENE II. 

P. 527. Flavius, Timon's Steward, lamenting over his master's 
lavish and thoughtless expenditure, as the text has always stood, 
says of him that he 

" Takes no account 

How things go from him, nor resumes no care 
Of what is to continue. Never mind 
Was to be so unwise, to be so kind." 

This can hardly bo right : " nor resume no care," as it stands in 
the folios, is a very uncouth, even if an allowable phrase, and the 
last line reads still more objectionably. Two valuable manuscript 
changes are made which remove all ground of complaint : 



410 TIMON OF ATHENS. [ACT III. 

" Takes no account 

How things go from him ; no reserve ; no care 
Of what is to continue. Never mind 
Was surely so unwise, to be so kind." 

Perhaps the occurrence of "to be" in the last part of the line, led 
to the mis-insertion of it in the first part ; and we can see at once 
how TIO reserve might become " nor resume." 



ACT HI. SCENE H. 

P. 538. The vagueness of the sum, " so many talents," men 
tioned by Servilius to Lucius, when the former comes to borrow 
of the latter, on behalf of Timon, has occasioned remark, and 
Steevens conjectured that no precise amount was stated by Shake 
speare, but that it was left to the player. This does not seem 
probable, and in a note in the folio, 1632, the sum is given as 
500 talents, both here and afterwards, where Lucius speaks of 
"fifty-five hundred talents." We may presume, therefore, that 
it was the practice of the theatre, in the time of the corrector, to 
consider that Timon sent to borrow 500 talents, and that that was 
the amount required by Servilius, and repeated by Lucius. The 
point is, however, of little importance, because it does not in any 
way affect the spirit and purport of the scene. 

SCENE V. 

P. 548. When Alcibiades is pleading before the Senate on 
behalf of his friend, who had killed an adversary, he observes, 

" He did behave his anger, ere 'twas spent, 
As if he had but prov'd an argument." 

Here the printer was in error ; in the old copies the lines are thus 
printed : 

" He did behoove his anger ere 'twas spent, 
As if he had but prov'd an argument." 

Modern editors have consented to suppose behoove intended for 
" behave," and they have taken great pains to justify the expres 
sion, " he did behave his anger ;" but the old corrector of the folio, 



ACT IV.] TIMON OF ATHENS. 417 

1632, shows that their labour has been thrown away, since the 
author did not use the phrase, but wrote as follows : 

" He did reprove his anger, ere 'twas spent, 
As if he had but mov'd an argument." 

If these small, but more than plausible, emendations be admitted, 
no explanation is wanted. 

P. 549. In the line, as printed by Malone and others, 
" If there were no foes, that were enough alone," 

Sir Thomas Hanmer received praise from Steevens for adding 
the word alone, " to complete the measure." In fact, it more 
than completes it ; it renders it redundant ; and as it is hardly to 
be disputed that the passage is wrong, as it stands baldly in the 
folios, 

" If there were no foes, that were enough 
To overcome him," 

we may be disposed to place confidence in the change recom 
mended in the folio, 1632, 

" Were there no foes, thatjspere itself enough 
To overcome him." 

Here, with little violence, the measure is restored, and the sense 
of the speaker strengthened. 



ACT IV. SCENE II. 
P. 557. Old and modern impressions furnish us. with this 

text : 

" Who would be so mock'd with glory, or to live 
But in a dream of friendship ? 
To have his pomp, and all what state compounds, 
But only painted, like his varnish'd friends," 

Much of the speech is in rhyme, and a couplet precedes the above, 
which, after the interval of a line, is succeeded by four other 
rhymes. We learn from manuscript-emendations, that what we 
have just quoted most imperfectly represents the passage ; that 
18* 



418 TIMON OF ATHENS. [ACT IV. 

the hemistich ought to be completed by two words carelessly 
omitted, and that an important verb ought to be altered : the 
whole passage will then remain as follows : 

" Who'd be so mock'd with glory, as to live 
But in a dream of friendship, and revive 
To have his pomp, and all state comprehends, 
But only painted, -like his varnish'd friends?" 

SCENE in. 

P. 558. Timon's speech, when he enters " in the woods," is 
very carelessly printed in the folio, 1623; and the errors are 
multiplied in the second folio, but they are there corrected in 
manuscript : thus for 

" Raise me this beggar, and deny't that lord," 

the reading is, " decline that lord," i. e. reduce him in his rank and 
condition, using the word in the same way as in " Antony and 
Cleopatra," Act III. Scene II. Again, for " brother's sides " we 
have " rother's sides " properly substituted ; farther on, Tim on, 
digging for roots, discovers gold, and asks, 

" What is here ? 

Gold ? yellow, glittering, precious gold ? No, gods, 
I am no idle votarist. Roots, you clear heavens !" 

The word has always been printed " idle ; " but it ought as cer 
tainly to be idol, 

" I am no idol-vot&nst," 

no worshipper of gold, which many make their idol, but a searcher 
for roots ; for which he again exclaims " Roots, you clear 
heavens ! " until, glancing at the treasure once more, he is led to 
moralise upon it. 

P. 563. There are few instances, where mishearing on the part 
of the scribe has been the origin of a corruption of the text more 
striking, than the blunder we are now about to point out, and set 
right, on the authority of the annotator of the folio, 1632. It is 
where Phrynia and Timandra entreat Timon to give them some 
of his gold, and ask if he has more : he replies, 



SC. III.] TIMON OF ATHENS. 419 

" Enough to make a whore forswear her trade, 
And to make whores, a bawd." 

Johnson strives hard to extract sense from this last clause, for of 
course the meaning of the first is very evident : it is in the hem 
istich that the error lies, for we ought beyond dispute to read, 

" Enough to make a whore forswear her trade, 
And to make whores abhorr'd." 

Whoever read, or recited, to the copyist dropped the aspirate, and 
induced him, merely writing mechanically and without attending 
to the sense, to put " a bawd" for abhorr'd. 

P. 565. In the same way ingenuity has been exercised by the 
same commentator to reconcile us to the word "marrows," 
where Timon is imprecating the earth in future to bring forth 
nothing but monsters, and to put an end to the race of " ingrate- 

ful man :" 

" Dry up thy marrows, vines, and plough-torn leas." 

What connexion is there between "marrows, vines, and plough- 
torn leas ?" We ought surely to read with the corrector of the 
folio, 1632, 

" Dry up thy meadows, vines, and plough-torn leas." 

Parch them up, that they may produce no " liquorish draughts" or 
" morsels unctuous" for the gratification and sustenance of man. 

P. 567. Timon reproaches Apemantus with his base origin, and 
tells him that he had never known luxury, adding, 

" Hadst thou, like us, from thy first swath, proceeded 
The sweet degrees that this brief world affords 
To such as may the passive drugs of it 
Freely command, thou wouldst have plung'd thyself 
In general riot." 

" The passive drugs" of the world surely cannot be right. Timon 
is supposing the rich and luxrious to be, as it were, sucking freely 
at the " passive dugs" of the world ; and an emendation in manu 
script, which merely strikes out the superfluous letter, supports 



420 TIMON OF ATHENS. [ACT IV. 

this view of the passage, and renders needless Monk Mason's 
somewhat wild conjecture in favour of drudges. 

P. 572. The accidental omission of him has induced editors to 
convert a participle and preposition into a sort of substantive, by 
a hyphen. One of the Banditti says of Timon, as the words have 
been ordinarily printed, " the falling-from of his friends drove him 
into this melancholy." May we not feel satisfied, upon the assu 
rance of the old corrector, that the sentence ran thus 1 " The 
mere want of gold, and the falling from him of his friends, drove 
him into this melancholy." 

P. 577. The mercenary Poet and Painter visit Timon at his 
cave to ascertain the truth of the report, that he has still abun 
dance of gold. In all editions the latter says to the former, " It 
will show honestly in us, and is very likely to load our purposes 
with what they travel for." This is very like nonsense, although 
no correction of it has ever been recommended : the annotator of 
the folio, 1632, thus proves what must have been in the author's 
mind :- 

" It will show honestly in us ; and is very likely to load our purses with 
what we travel for :" 

referring, of course, to Timon's wealth. This may be said to be 
one of the emendations that requires no authority : it carries con 
viction on the face of it. 

SCENE IV. 

P. 586. The old introduction to this scene is, Enter a Soldier 
in the woods, seeking Timon, to which is added in manuscript, the 
necessary information, finding his grave. Modern editors say, and 
a Tomb-stone seen, but we meet with nothing of the kind in the 
early copies : that there must, however, have been some rude 
erection, or pile of earth, visible to the audience, is clear from the 
soldier's words, 

" Some beast rear'd this ; there does not live a man." 
The folios have it, " Some beast read this ;" but it is undoubt 
edly an error, and the old corrector converts read into " rear'd." 
Such has always been the word since Warburton's time. 



SO. IV.] TIMON OF ATHENS. 421 

P. 588. The last emendation requiring notice, although it may 
deserve to be so termed, is certainly not one of the changes that 
must be adopted, since the ordinary text, although somewhat un 
couth, will serve : it occurs where the Senators of Athens are 
pleading to Alcibiades for the lives of the citizens : 

" All have not offended ; 
For those that were, it is not square to take 
On those that are, revenge." 

The correction in the folio, 1632, puts it as an interrogative ap 
peal, and substitutes another word for the unusual expression, " it 
is not square :" 

" All have not offended ; 
For those that were, is't not severe to take 
On those who are, revenge ?" 

Steevens altered " revenge " to revenges, for the sake of the metre, 
arid very justifiably, since the word occurs just above in the plu 
ral, but the old corrector leaves it in the singular. 

Prol. and Epilogue is written at the end in a blank space, and 
perhaps it was meant only as a note that they were deficient ; but 
such has been the case with the tragedy immediately preceding, 
and with others, to which no such words are appended. The 
stage-directions, added in manuscript, are not always as complete 
and precise as would seem to be convenient ; and the division into 
Acts and Scenes does not, in some instances, accord with modern 
editions : the old copies are destitute of any such distinctions : Act 
IV. is made unusually long, while Act III. and Act V. are too 
short: Act IV. begins, rather injudiciously, with Timon's banquet 
of hot water, and in the next scene he is outside the walls of 
Athens, cursing the city. 



JULIUS CLESAK. 



ACT I. SCENE I. 

Vol. vii. p. 7. The Acts, but not the Scenes, are distinguished 
in the old copies of this tragedy : the latter are supplied in man 
uscript in the folio, 1632, but they do not by any means tally with 
the same divisions as contained in modern editions. The economy 
of our early stage, and the deficiency of mechanical and other 
contrivances to denote changes of place, frequently rendered it 
necessary to continue the same, or nearly the same objects before 
the eyes of the audience, although by the characters and dialogue 
it appeared that the scene was altered. As an illustration, it may 
be mentioned that the fifth Act of "Julius Caesar" is divided by 
Malone and others into five Scenes, by representing that what oc 
curs passes on as many different parts of the plains of Philippi ; 
whereas the old annotator of the folio, 1632, makes the Act con 
sist of only two Scenes, the first where the forces under Octavius 
and Antony march in, and the second where Brutus endeavours, 
after the battle, to persuade one of his friends to kill him, in order 
that he may not survive .the freedom of his country. According 
to this arrangement, Cassius dies on the same ground that had 
been occupied by his enemies. 

SCENE H. 

P. 14. The two following lines have always been printed 
thus : 

" When could they say, till now, that talk'd of Rome, 
That her wide walks encompass'd but one man ?" 

This reading has never, we believe, been doubted, and, strictly 
speaking, a change is not necessary; but who will say that the 

(422) 



ACT I.] JULIUS (LESAR. 423 

last line does not run better with the emendation proposed in the 
folio, 1632 ? 

"That her wide walls encompass'd but one man?" 

Cassius is speaking of the walled city of Rome, and not of the 
Koman empire, although walks reads awkwardly in either case : 
neither does he refer to Cassar's " walks and private arbours," 
mentioned on p. 61. Possibly the occurrence of the verb "talk" 
in the preceding line, led to the intrusion of " walk" in the second 
line. 

P. 15. The manuscript-corrector requires us to make another 
change, which seems even less necessary, but at the same time is 
judicious : 

" Brutus had rather be a villager. 
Than to repute himself a son of Rome 
Under these hard conditions, as this time 
Is like to lay upon us." 

" Under such hard conditions" sounds better, followed as it is by 
" as this time ;" but this is, perhaps, a matter of discretion, and 
we have no means of knowing whether the writer of the notes 
might not here be indulging his taste. 

SCENE III. 

P. 20. A note in the margin of the folio, 1632, will, probably, 
settle a dispute carried on at considerable length, and with some 
pertinacity, between Johnson, Steevens, and Malone, regarding a 
word in a couplet thus printed in the folio, 1623 : 

" Against the Capitol I met a lion 
Who glaz'd upon me, and went surly by." 

Pope was the first to read glared for " glaz'd," and Johnson poorly 
substituted gaz'd in the folio, 1632, the second line stands, 

" Who glaz'd upon me, and went surely by ;" 

there can be no doubt about the last error, and that, as well as 
the first, is set right by striking out the e in surely, and by con 
verting "glaz'd" into glar'd. 



424 JULIUS CLESAR. [ACT II. 

P. 24. A question has arisen respecting another passage in this 
scene : 

" And the complexion of the element 
In favour's like the work we have in hand." 

The old copies have, " Is favours like the work," &c., and Reed 
would have it, " Is ferrous like the work," &c. ; but only change 
Is to " In," and nothing more can be required. This is done by 
the old corrector, and such has been the usual course in modern 
times. 



P. 31. It is proper to notice a small, but not immaterial change, 
where Brutus says, 

" And let our hearts, as subtle masters do, 
Stir up their servants to an act of rage, 
And after seem to chide 'em. This shall mark 
Our purpose necessary, and not envious." 

The usual reading, as authorised by the early copies, has been 
"This shall make," instead of "This shall mark" or denote our 
purpose as necessary, and not as proceeding from malice or 
hatred. 

P. 32. The observation of Metellus, in the folio, 1623, 

" Caius Ligarius doth bear Caesar hard," 
was converted in print in the folio, 1632, to 

" Caius Ligarius doth bear Caesar hatred." 

.The phrase occurs in two other places in this play; and the man 
uscript-corrector makes the folio, 1632, here conform to that of 
1623. 

P. 33. When Lucius falls asleep, Brutus says, as the passage 
has always been given, 

" Fast asleep ? It is no matter ; 
Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber." 



ACT III.] JULIUS C^SAB. 425 

The compound unquestionably is not " honey-heavy," but " honey- 
Jew," a well-known glutinous deposit upon the leaves of trees, 
&c. : the compositor was guilty of a transposition, and ought to 
have printed the line in this form : 

" Enjoy the heavy honey-dew of slumber." 
Such is the manuscript emendation. 



ACT HI. SCENE I. 

P. 44. Artemidorus, pressing forward to deliver his warning to 

Csesar, observes, 

" Miners a suit 
That touches Caesar nearer. V 

To which Csesar replies, as his answer has constantly been repre 
sented, 

" What touches us ourself shall be last serv'd." 

The corrector of the folio, 1632, puts it interrogatively, more 
pointedly, and more naturally, making Caesar repeat the very 
words of Artemidorus : 

" That touches us ? Ourself shall be last serv'd." 

It was Csesar who was to be " last served," not what touched him 
nearly. 

P. 45. There is a mistake in the distribution of the dialogue 
shortly before Csesar is stabbed : " Are we all ready T certainly 
belongs to one of the conspirators, and some commentators would 
assign the words to China, making them the conclusion of his 
speech. Casca, however, was to strike the first blow ; and, accord 
ing to a note in the margin, he reasonably first inquires, " Are we 
all ready ?" The course of the dialogue will, therefore, properly 
be this : Brutus, speaking of Metellus Cimber and of his peti 
tion, says, 

" He is address'd : press near and second him. 
Gin. Casca, you are the first that rears your hand. 



426 JULIUS CAESAR. [ACT III. 

Case. Are we all ready ? 

CCKS. What is now amiss, 

That Csesar and his Senate must redress T 

Metellus Cimber then kneels, and offers his petition on behalf of 
his brother. In Caesar's rejection of it, three misprints are indi 
cated, viz. " couchings" for crouchings, " the lane of children" for 
" the law of children" (so corrected conjecturally by Johnson), 
and " low crooked courtesies" for "low crouched courtesies." No 
change is proposed in the passage, " Know, Caesar doth not wrong," 
&c., so that the speculation upon it, founded upon Ben Jonson's 
" Discoveries," is so far not supported. 

P. 49. A manuscript stage-direction (the printed copy is desti 
tute of notes of the kind) requires Antony, on his entrance with 
the line, 

" mighty Caesar ! dost thou lie so low?" 
to kneel over the body, and to rise, when he says, 

" I know not, gentlemen, what you intend," &c. 

On the next page, after " I doubt not of your wisdom," he takes 
one after other of the conspirators by the hand, and turns to the 
body, and bends over it while he says, 

" That I did love thee, Caesar, ! 'tis true," &c. 

SCENE HI. 
P. 62. When Cinna, the poet, enters, he observes, 

" I dream'd to-night that I did feast with Caesar, 
And things unluckily charge my fantasy." 

Why should he consider it unlucky to dream of feasting with 
Cassar ] His fancy was charged with things improbable, not un 
lucky, and the marginal correction in the folio, 1632, is, 

" And things unlikely charge my fantasy." 
The word unlikely also suits the measure better. 



ACT IV.] JULIUS CLESAB. 427 

ACT IV. SCENE HI. 
P. 69. In the folio, 1623, when Brutus observes, 

" I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon, 
Than such a Roman," 

Cassius replies, in the folio, 1623, as if he had misheard, 
" Brutus, bait not me." 

The fitness of this diversity, " bay " in one place, and " bait " in 
the other, has been maintained by Malone, and disputed by 
Steevens. If the change from " bait " to 6ay, made in manuscript 
in the folio, 1632, can be considered at all conclusive, the differ 
ence is at an end : it is there printed " bait " in both instances, 
and in both instances bay is substituted. 



P. 69. An emendation of some interest is made in a celebrated 
passage in the quarrel-scene between Brutus and Cassius. The 
latter has said, 

" I am a soldier, I, 

Older in practice, abler than yourself 
To make conditions." 

Brutus afterwards makes this calm remark : 

" You say, you are a better soldier : 
Let it appear so ; make your vaunting true, 
And it shall please me well. For mine own part, 
I shall be glad to learn of noble men." 

Cassius had said nothing about " noble men," and his reply to the 
above has reference to what he did actually utter : 

" You wrong me every way ; you wrong me, Brutus; 
I said an elder soldier, not a better." 

His word had been " abler," not noble, nor nobler ; and in order 
to make the retort of Brutus apply to what Cassius had asserted, 
Brutus unquestionably ought to say, 

" For mine own part, 
I shall be glad to learn of abler men." 

" Noble " is struck through by the old corrector, and abler inserted 



428 JULIUS C^lSAR. [ACT V. 

in the place of it ; whether upon any other authority than appa 
rent fitness must remain doubtful. 

P. 75. A question arising in council, whether the forces of 
Brutus and Cassius should march towards the enemy, or wait for 
him, Brutus urges the former course, and Cassius the latter. 
Brutus contends that if they delay, the enemy will be strength 
ened and refreshed as he advances : 

" The enemy, marching along by them, 
By them shall make a fuller number up, 
Come on refresh'd, new-added, and encourag'd." 

The corrector of the folio, 1632, implies by his proposed change, 
that " new-added " is merely a repetition of what is said in the 
preceding line " by them shall make a fuller number up " and 
he inserts a word instead of " added," which is not only more 
forcible, but more appropriate, and which we may very fairly 
suppose had been misheard by the scribe : 

" By them shall make a fuller number up. 
Come on refresh'd, nevf-hearted, and encourag'd." 

This error might be occasioned by the then broad pronunciation 
of " added " having been mistaken for hearted. 

P. 77. The printer of the folio, 1632, blunderingly transposed 
two lines, spoken by Brutus to the drowsy Lucius. The error 
has not been noticed, that we are aware of, and we only mention 
it, to state that it is corrected in manuscript : nothing of the kind 
seems to have escaped attention. When Lucius, after singing, 
falls asleep, and when Brutus takes his book, the circumstances 
are duly noted in the margin. 



ACT V. SCENE I. 

P. 81. Octavius, in his interview with Brutus and Cassius, de 
clares that he will never sheathe his sword, 

" till Caesar's three and thirty wounds 
Be well aveng'd ; or till another Caesar 
Have added slaughter to the sword of traitors." 



SC. I.] JULIUS CJ2SAR. 429 

Steevens subjoined what he considered a parallel passage from 
" King John," Act II. Scene II. : 

" Or add a royal number to the dead, 
With slaughter coupled to the name of kings." 

There is certainly some resemblance, but it is stronger when the 
quotation from " Julius Csesar " is printed as the old corrector ad 
vises : 

" Or till another Caesar 
Have added slaughter to the word of traitor." 

Octavius terms Brutus a traitor, and challenges him to add 
slaughter to the word, in the same way that slaughter, in " King 
John," was to be coupled " to the name of kings." This emenda 
tion seems plausible, though we may not be disposed to insist 
upon it. 

P. 82. So with the next emendation, where Cassius informs 

Messala, 

" Coming from Sardis, on our former ensign 
Two mighty eagles fell." 

For " former ensign," we are told to read "forward ensign," which 
is probably right, although "former" need not necessarily be 
displaced, and may be understood as foremost. The ensign being 
described as in front, at the head of the army, the copyist may 
have misheard, and therefore miswritten "former" for forward. 

Near the bottom of this page we are told to read term for 
"time," and those for "some :" it is where Brutus declares against 
suicide, 

" But I do find it cowardly and vile, 
For fear of what might fall, so to prevent 
The term of life, arming myself with patience, 
To stay the providence of those high powers, 
That govern us below." 

The above unquestionably reads better than as the text has been 
ordinarily given : to " prevent the term of life" means, as Malone 
states, to anticipate the end of life ; but still he strangely perse 
vered in printing " time" for term. 



430 JULIUS C^SAB. [ACT v. 

P. 89. The folio, 1632, omits " word" in the following : 

" And see whe'r Brutus be alive or dead, 
And bring us word unto Octavius' tent." 

The line stands correctly in the folio, 1623, and perhaps from 
thence the emendator derived " word ;" but the vacancy seems 
almost to supply itself. The second folio is carelessly printed 
here; and not long afterwards (p. 90) "in" was omitted, or al 
lowed to drop out. Brutus, just before he runs on his own sword, 
and after he has shaken hands severally (these stage-directions, like 
others, are only in manuscript) with his countrymen, observes, 

" My heart doth joy that yet, in all my life, 
I found no man but he was true to me." 

The folio, 1632, has "that yet all my life:" "in" is necessary to 
the metre, though, as far as the absolute meaning is concerned, it 
might possibly be spared. It is written hi the margin. 

P. 91. In Antony's brief character of Brutus, at the close of 
the tragedy, we meet with two material variations pointed out by 
the old corrector, which merit notice, and perhaps adoption : the 
passage has hitherto appeared as follows : 

" All the conspirators, save only he, 
Did that they did in envy of great Caesar ; 
He, only, in a general honest thought 
And common good to all, made one of them."* 

It must, we think, be admitted that the last two lines are improved 
if we read them as we are told they ought to be amended : 

- " He only, in a generous honest thought 
Of common good to all, made one of them." 

" A general honest thought and common good to all," is at least 
tautology ; and to say that Brutus was actuated by " a generous 
thought of common good to all" (i. e. a thought worthy of his 
rank and blood) is consistent with the disinterested nobility of 
his character, and an admission that might be expected from 
his great adversary. It is hardly requiring too much, in such 
a case, to suppose that the scribe misheard generous, and wrote 
general: but the propriety of introducing the change into the 
text is a matter of discretion. 



MACBETH. 



ACT I. SCENE I. 

P. 101. Although, as is stated in note 5, "quarry" (so printed 
in the old copies) affords an obvious meaning, we find the old 
corrector substituting for it a word sounding very like it, for which it 
might be mistaken, and which, in fact, Johnson proposed. The 
line is as follows, and it relates to the rebellion of Macdonwald, 
who, having supplied himself with kerns and gallowglasses from 
the Western Isles, for a time had been successful : 

" And fortune on his damned quarry smiling." 

While they continued triumphant the rebels could hardly be called 
a " quarry," unless by anticipation ; and the corrector of the folio, 
1632, introduces this alteration: 

" And fortune on his damned quarrel smiling." 

Malone, who was well disposed to adopt the language of the early 
editions, here deserted them (mainly on the ground that at the 
end of this play, " quarrel" is used in the same way for the cause 
of quarrel), and this without any confirmatory authority, such as 
we now possess. 

P. 102. When Ross enters suddenly, with tidings of the victory, 
by Macbeth and Banquo over the Norwegians, Lenox observes, 

. " What a haste looks through his eyes ! 

So should he look, that seems to speak things strange." 

Various commentators have here seen the difficulty of making 
Ross " seem to speak things strange" before he had spoken at all: 

(431) 



432 MACBETH. [ACT i. 

it was, therefore, suggested that teems was the word instead of 
" seems :" but if the objection be not hypercritical, it is entirely 
removed by the old annotator, who assures us that ' seems" (spelt 
seemes in the folios) had been misprinted : 

" So should he look, that comes to speak things strange." 

Ross certainly came " to speak things strange," and on his entrance 
looked, no doubt, as if he did. 

SCENE EH. 

P. 104. After the second and third Witches have bestowed 
winds upon the first, she says, 

" I myself have all the other ; 
And the very ports they blow, 
All the quarters that they know 
I' the shipman's card. 
I will drain him dry as hay," &c. 

All is in rhyme, excepting that " i' the shipman's card" has no 
corresponding line, and is evidently short of the necessary sylla 
bles. These are furnished by an emendation in the folio, 1632, 
which we can scarcely doubt gives the words of the poet, by some 
carelessness omitted : 

" All the quarters that they know 
I' the shipman's card to show." 

Lower down, we meet with a proof that the ordinary confusion 
between the /and the long * extended even to capitals : Banquo, 
in the folios, asks, " How far is't called to Soris?" instead of 
" Fores." In the manuscript used by the printer, " Fores" was 
most likely not written with a capital letter, and he read it 
soris; but, supposing it the name of a place, he printed it, as he 
fancied properly, Soris. The error is, of course, set right in the 
margin of the corrected folio, 1632. 



P. 106. The old impressions have, 

" As thick as tale 
Can post with post." 

Rowe wished to read hail for "tale," but without warrant ; but 



SO. V.] MACBETH. 433 

Can was unquestionably misprinted for " Came." Near the bot 
tom of the next page, " That trusted home," of the folios, is 
changed to "That thrusted home." In modern times the word 
has been variously treated. 

SCENE IV. 

P. 110. Duncan thus speaks of the merits of Macbeth in the 
folio, 1623 : 

" Thou art so far before, 
That swiftest wing of recompence is slow 
To overtake thee." 

The folio, 1632, misprints the second line, 

" That swiftest wine of recompence is slow ;" 

and the corrector of that edition amends the decided defect, not 
by converting wine into " wing," but into winde or wind, 

" That swiftest wind of recompence is slow." 

This may, or may not, have been the line as it came from the 
poet's pen : at all events, and for some unexplained reason, a per 
son writing soon after 1632, seems to have preferred wind to 
" wing," when either would answer the purpose. Another emen 
dation, in the passage which immediately succeeds the above quo 
tation, seems warranted by the sense : 

" Would thou hadst less deserv'd, 
That the proportion both of thanks and payment 
Might have been mine," 

say the folios : " might have been more" says the annotator on 
the edition of 1632 : Duncan wishes that his thanks and payment 
could have been more in proportion to the deserts of Macbeth. 
This change is doubtful. 

SCENE V. 

P. 113. A very acceptable alteration is made, on the same evi 
dence, in Lady Macbeth's speech invoking night, just before the 
entrance of her husband : it is in a word which has occasioned 
much speculation : 
19 



434 MACBETH. [ACT i. 

" Come, thick night, 

And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, 
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, 
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, 
To cry, ' Hold, hold !' 

Steevens, with reference to " blanket," quotes rug and rugs from 
Drayton ; and Malone seriously supposes that the word was sug 
gested to Shakespeare by the " coarse woollen curtain of the thea 
tre," when, in fact, it is not at all known whether the curtain, sep 
arating the audience from the actors, was woollen or linen. 
What solution of the difficulty does the old corrector offer 1 As 
it seems to us, the substitution he recommends cannot be 
doubted : 

" Nor heaven peep through the blankness of the dark 
To cry, ' Hold, hold !' " 

The scribe misheard the termination of blankness, and absurdly 
wrote " blanket." 

SCENE VII. 

P. 116. The folio, 1632, omits some important words, consist 
ing of nearly a whole line, where Macbeth is soliloquizing on the 
"bloody instructions" which "return to plague the inventor." 
They are added in manuscript in the margin, perhaps from the 
folio, 1623 ; but instead of " this even-handed justice," the old 
corrector writes, " thus even-handed justice," the propriety of 
which change was urged by Monk Mason. 

P. 118. It is not easy to imagine a case in which the alteration 
of a single letter would make so important a difference as in the 
ensuing portion of the interview between Macbeth and his Lady, 
where he is irresolute, and she reproaches him with want of cour 
age to execute the murder he once vaunted he was ready to un 
dertake : we give the text as it has appeared in every edition, 
from the earliest in 1623 to our own day : 

" Mod). Pr'ythee peace. 

I dare do all that may become a man ; 
Who dares do more is none. 
Lady M. What beast was't. then, 



ACT II.] MACBETH. 435 

That made you break this enterprize to me? 
When you durst do it, then you were a man," &c. 

Surely it reads like a gross vulgarism for Lady Macbeth thus to 
ask, " What beast made him divulge the enterprize to her ?" but 
she means nothing of the kind : she alludes _to Macbeth's former 
vaunt that he was eager for the deed, and yet could not now " screw 
his courage " to the point, when time and place had, as it were, 
" made themselves " for its execution ; this she calls a mere boast 
on his part : 

" What boast was't, then, 
That made you break this enterprise to me ?" 

she charges him with being a vain braggart, first to profess to be 
ready to murder Duncan, and afterwards, from fear, to relinquish 
it. That this emendation might be guessed by a person who care 
fully read the text, without attention to the conventional mode of 
giving and understanding these words, we have this proof, that it 
was communicated to the editor of the present volume, six months 
ago, by an extremely intelligent gentleman, whose name we have 
no authority to give, but who dated from Aberdeen, and who had 
not the slightest knowledge that boast, for " beast," was the manu 
script reading in the folio, 1632. It is very possible, therefore, 
that the old corrector of the folio, 1632, arrived at his conclusion 
upon the point by the same process ; on the other hand, it is im 
possible to deny that he may have had some authority, printed, 
written, or oral, for the proposed change ; and it is quite certain 
that people have been in the habit of reading " Macbeth" for 
the last 200 years, some of them for the express purpose of de 
tecting blunders in the text, and yet, as far as can be ascertained, 
have never once hit upon this improvement, so trifling as regard! 
typography, but so valuable as respects the meaning of Shako 
speare. 



ACT H. SCENE I. 



P. 122. Steevens suggested " curtain'd sleeper" for "(u 
sleep," and that correction is found in the folio, 1632 ; aj well us 
" sure" for sowre, and " which way they walk" for " which they 



436 MACBETH. [ACT n. 

may walk" of the folios ; but no change is made in " Tarquin's 
ravishing sides," as if that expression were not objectionable. 

P. 123. A new scene (numbered 3) has been usually made to 
begin, on the entrance of Lady Macbeth, with, 

" That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold ;" 

but the individual who took such singular pains with the folio, 
1632, strikes out the printed words, Sc&na secunda, and writes 
Same against them, indicating that it was not a new scene. Mac 
beth goes out after the dagger-soliloquy, and then Lady Macbeth 
enters to await his return from the murder. His re-entrance is 
marked too early in the old copies at the words, " Who's there 1 
what, ho !" for he makes this exclamation without, before he comes 
in and says, " I have done the deed," &c. Opposite " This is a 
sorry sight," bloody hands is added in manuscript, as an explana 
tory stage-direction. 

SCENE ILL 

P. 126. All that the Porter says respecting the supposed knock 
ing of different persons at hell-gate, down to the words, " the ever 
lasting bonfire," is struck out, perhaps, as offensive to the Puri 
tans ; but the dialogue between the same character and Macduff 
is abridged, most likely to shorten the performance. When Mac 
beth arrives, we are told that he comes in in his night-gown, and 
Banquo subsequently enters unready. Opposite Macduffs in 
junction (p. 131), "Look to the Lady," who is affecting to be 
overcome by the dreadful tidings, Lady sw. (perhaps for Lady 
swoons') is blotted in the margin, and just afterwards, we read, in 
the same situation, Exit Lady, borne out. 

The earlier part of Scene IV., with the Old Man's account of 
the falcon killed by an owl, and Eoss's description of Duncan's 
horses, is erased with a pen, but in so careless a manner that it 
hardly seems to have been done by the same hand which has else 
where marked particular portions for omission. Emendations, 
when necessary, are continued in spite of the erasures, as in for 
mer instances. 



SO. IV.] MACBETH. 437 

ACT III. SCENE I. 

P. 134. Too rigid an adherence to the early copies has led to 
the perpetuation of an expression which Shakespeare could hardly 
have used, and which Sir W. Davenant did not introduce into his 
alteration of this play. It occurs where Macbeth requests Ban- 
quo's presence at supper, and the latter replies, 

" Let your highness 
Command upon me." 

The old corrector of the folio, 1632, like Davenant (who was fol 
lowed by Howe), puts it much more easily and naturally, 

" Lay your highness' 
Command upon me." 

SCENE III. 
P. 142. The folio, 1623, makes the 1 Murderer say, 

" Now spurs the lated traveller apace 
To gain the timely inn ; end neere approaches 
The subject of our watch." 

Of course end is an error for " and ; " and the folio, 1632, has 
latest for " lated : " the old corrector restores " lated," and for 
" neere" puts " here " in his margin : either may be right ; but as 
the compositor of the first folio printed " and " end, he may, very 
likely (as we are told he did) have blundered with the next word 
"here." 

SCENE IV. 

P. 145. The manuscript stage-directions show particularly how 
Lady Macbeth conducted herself of old during the banquet. Op 
posite the words, " Are you a man," coming to M. aside to him is 
inserted in the margin. When, on the next page, she reminds 
her husband, " My worthy lord, your noble friends do lack you," 
the direction is, Go back to her state. Thus we see that she came 
forward upon the stage to reprove Macbeth for cowardice and 
distraction, and retired to her position upon the dais, when she 
made an effort publicly to direct his attention to his neglected 
duties as host. There are several instructions of the same kind 



438 MACBETH. [ACT IV. 

for the government of the actor of the part of the Ghost of Ban- 
quo, but they are to be collected sufficiently from the dialogue. 

P. 147. The conclusion of this great scene is not well printed 
in the folio, 1623, and worse in the folio, 1632, where "sights" 
is made signs, "stept" spent, &c. These errors the corrector 
carefully amends, and then offers a solution of a passage that has 
hitherto baffled satisfactory explanation. It is where Macbeth 
dares the Ghost of Banquo to the desert, and adds, as the folios 
give it, 

" If trembling I inhabit, then protest me 
The baby of a girl." 

Malone was for converting " inhabit then " to inhibit thee ; but 
we do not quite approve of the manuscript change in the folio, 
1632, not because it is not very intelligible, allowing for a trans 
position, but because it is too prosaic : 

" If trembling I exhibit, then protest me," &c. 

j. e. if you perceive rne tremble. We have been so used to at 
tach some indefinite meaning to " if trembling I inhabit," of the 
old impressions, that the reader is hardly prepared for so simple 
an explanation as " if trembling I exhibit." Yet, after all, it may 
be right. 



ACT IV. SCENE L 

P. 154. In his interview with the Witches, Macbeth calls upon 
them to answer him, as the lines have been always printed, 

" Though bladed corn be lodg'd, and trees blown down ; 
Though castles topple on their warders' heads ; 
Though palaces and pyramids do slope 
Their heads to their foundations," &c. 

No particular objection is obvious in the wording of this quota 
tion ; but still the writer of the emendations states that three 
words in it are wrong, and he alters them thus : 

" Though Headed corn be lodg'd, and trees blown down ; 
Though castles topple o'er their warders' heads ; 



SO. I.] MACBETH. 439 

Though palaces and pyramids do stoop 
Their heads to their foundations," &c. 

As to the word bleaded, we are to recollect that " bladed corn " 
is never " lodged " or layed ; but corn which is heavy in the ear 
is often borne down and flattened by wind and rain. Shakespeare 
must have been aware that green corn, or corn in the blade, is 
not liable to be affected by violent weather. Hence we may 
safely infer that he wrote " bleaded corn," which means, in some 
of the provinces, and perhaps in Warwickshire, ripe corn, corn 
ready for the sickle. Blead is a general name for fruit ; and the 
bleading of corn means the yielding of it, the quantity of grain 
obtained from the blead, or ear. As to the second word, it seems 
almost indifferent whether we adopt o'er, or leave "on" as it 
stands. The expression, " stoop their heads to their foundations," 
reads more appropriately and naturally than " slope their heads to 
their foundations ;" and we may feel strongly disposed to believe 
that it was an error of the press, since not only was the mistake so 
easy, but the poet uses the word stoop exactly in the same way in 
"Hamlet," Act II. Scene II., and in "Cymbeline," Act IV. Scene II. 
Whether it be, or be not, necessary to alter " on " and " slope," 
there can be no doubt that for " bladed " we ought in future to 
substitute bleaded in the text of our author. 

P. 156. Theobald saw the necessity of altering 

" Rebellious dead, rise never, till the wood 
Of Birnam rise," 

by substituting "head" for dead; but 'the old corrector does 
more: he alters "rebellious" to rebellion's, as it were, personify 
ing insurrection : he was surely right : 

" Rebellion's head, rise never, till the wood 
Of Birnam rise." . 

P. 158. When Macbeth is about to leave the cave of the 
Witches, Lenox enters and informs him that Macduff has escaped 
to England. " Fled to England ?" exclaims Macbeth in astonish 
ment ; and he goes on to declare his resolution in future to exe 
cute instantly whatever he determines, and first of all to surprise 
Macduff's castle : 



440 MACBETH. [ACT IV. 

" No boasting like a fool ; 
This deed I'll do, before this purpose cool ; 
But no more sights." 

Some commentators have supposed that "no more sights" refers 
to the visions he had just seen conjured up by the Witches ; but 
the corrector of the folio, 1632, gives the words an entirely new 
aspect, completely borne out by the context, which relates to the 
unexpected escape of Macduff: 

" This deed I'll do, before this purpose cool : 
But no more flights.' 

That is, he will take care, by the rapidity with which performance 
shall follow decision, that nobody shall again have an opportunity 
of taking flight. The compositor mistook the/ for a long *, and 
omitted to notice the / which followed it. 

SCENE II. 

P. 160. Much of what passes between Lady Macduff and her 
young son, viz. from " As birds do, mother," down to " and hang 
up them," is crossed out with a pen. Several comparatively 
small changes are made in the scene : thus Ross says, " And do 
not Tcnowt ourselves" for "And do not know ourselves;" and a 
few lines lower, " 'T shall not be long" for " Shall not be long." 
They are hardly necessary, but still improvements. 

SCENE in. 
P. 164. Malcolm, speaking of himself, observes, 

" In whom I know 

All the particulars of vice so grafted, 
That, when they shall be open'd, black Macbeth 
Will seem as pure as snow." 

Here, as has been said on many former occasions, "open'd" affords 
sense, but so inferior to that given by the correction in the folio, 
1632, that we need not hesitate in concluding that Shakespeare, 
carrying on the figure suggested by the word " grafted," as applied 
to fruit, must have written, 



ACT V.] MACBETH. 441 

" In whom I know 

All the particulars of vice so grafted, 
That when they shall be ripened, black Macbeth 
Will seem as pure as snow." 

Lower down, we are instructed to alter the word " convey " to 
enjoy, where Macduff tells Malcolm, 

" You may 

Convey your pleasures in a spacious plenty, 
And yet seem cold." 

When enjoy was written enioy, as it usually was of old, the prin 
ter's lapse may at once be explained. 

All that subsequently passes between Malcolm, Macduff, and a 
Doctor, respecting the cure of the evil, is struck out. It has been 
supposed that it was inserted, in part, to gratify King James, and 
after his death it was perhaps omitted. 

At the conclusion of the scene (p. 170), the old reading of the 
folios, " This time goes manly," is changed to " This tune goes 
manly," of which, however, there never has been any doubt since 
the days of Rowe. It is another of the instances in which we have 
already seen " tune" and " time" confounded. 



ACT V. SCENE H. 

P. 174. Another word, very liable to the same perversion, oc 
curs in the next emendation. The Scottish insurgent Lords are 
talking of the unsettled condition of Macbeth's mind, " Some say 
he's mad," &c., and Cathness adds, 

" But, for certain, 

He cannot buckle his distemper'd cause 
Within the belt of rule." 

The old corrector substitutes, and with apparent reason, course for 
" cause :" it was not Macbeth's " cause," but his course of action 
that was distempered. 

SCENE m. 

P. 176. In Coriolanus (p. 387) we have met with " cheer" mis 
printed chair ; and here, if we may trust the emendation, we have 
19* 



442 MACBETH. [ACT v. 

chair misprinted "cheer." Macbeth, distracted between his guilt, 
his fear, and his confidence in preternatural promises, when be 
sieged in Dunsinane Castle, exclaims, 

" This push 

Will cheer me ever, or disseat me now. 
I have liv'd long enough : my way of life 
Is fall'n into the sear," &c. 

These lines we are advised to correct in the following manner ; and 
with regard to the first word amended, as we are to take " disseat" 
in the sense of unseat (the folio, 1632, misprints it disease), there 
can be little objection to understanding chair, as having reference to 
the royal seat or throne, which Macbeth occupies, and from which 
he dreads removal : 

" This push 

Will chair me ever, or disseat me now. 
I have liv'd long enough : my May of life 
Is fall'n into the sear,'-' &c. 

Chair was Bishop Percy's suggestion, and " May of life" was pro 
posed by Johnson : both, we see, are confirmed by a much ante 
rior authority. 

P. 177. In note 9 it is urged that in the line, 

" Cleanse the stuflPd bosom of that perilous stuff," 

tne error was more likely to be in the repetition, than in the first 
use of the word " stufPd." Such turns out to be the case ; 
and we may presume that the old printer inserted " stuff" at the 
end of the line, owing to his having it in his mind from the earlier 
part of the line. From the writer of the manuscript notes in the 
folio, 1632, we learn that grief ought to have been inserted in 
stead of " stuff;" and it is not impossible that the recurrence of 
the letter f had something to do with the blunder : he, therefore, 
puts the whole passage thus : 

" Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, 
Raze out the written troubles of the brain, 
And with some sweet oblivious antidote 
Cleanse the stuifd bosom of the perilous grief, 
Which weighs upon the heart." 



SO. IV.] MACBETH. 443 

SCENE IV. 
P. 178. Malcolm says of Macbeth's power and followers, 

"For where there is advantage to be given, 
Both more and less have given him the revolt." 

Advantage was hardly so much to be " given," as to be procured 
by revolt ; and as it also seems unlikely that the same verb should 
have been used in the very next line, we may feel confident that 
when the old corrector puts it, 

" For when there is advantage to be gotten, 1 " 

he was warranted in making the change. In the next scene Mac 
beth complains that the ranks of his enemies were filled by those 
who ought to have been his friends : 

"Were they not/arc'c? with those that should be ours, 
We might have met them dareful beard to beard," 

Farc'd is misrepresented "forc'd" in the old copies, and in all 
modern editions ; but, as we gather from the substitution of the 
letter a in the margin of the folio, 1632, the meaning is that the 
ranks of the besiegers were stuffed or filled out by soldiers who 
had revolted from Macbeth. 

Just afterwards, we encounter another alteration of more mo 
ment, when Macbeth asks the meaning of the "cry of women" 
that he has heard within : he says, 

" The time has been, my senses would have cool'd 
To hear a night-shriek." 

The manuscript-correction here is quailed for " cooled," a much 
more forcible word ; but this is one of the places where it is pos 
sible, that the person recommending the change may have exer 
cised his taste, rather than stated his knowledge. It scarcely 
seems likely that one word should have been mistaken for the 
other, but this observation will, of course, apply to many of the 
extraordinary errors that have been from time to time pointed 
out. How little old compositors attended to the sense is proved 
on the next page by the fact that " dusty death," which occurs only 
a few lines subsequently, and which is rightly printed in the folio, 



444 MACBETH. [ACT V. 

1623, is converted into "study death" in the folio, 1632. Study 
is deleted, and " dusty " placed in the margin by the old corrector. 
Nevertheless, "study death" has met with its preverse vindicator 
in comparatively modern times. 

An addition is made to the printed stage-direction (p. 186, En 
ter Macduff with Macbeth 1 s head, in these words, which show the 
somewhat remarkable manner in which the spectacle was pre 
sented to the audience, on a pike stick it in the ground. This 
action precisely accords with what Macduff says on the occasion : 

" Hail, king ! for so thou art. Behold, where stands 
The usurper's cursed head.'-' 



HAMLET. 



ACT I. SCENE I. 

P. 195. When Bernardo comes to relieve Francisco on his 
guard, the latter observes, 

" You come most carefully upon your hour ;" 

to which Bernardo answers, as the text stands in the old copies, 
" 'Tis now struck twelve." Steevens suspected that Bernardo 
ought to say, " 'Tis new struck twelve ;" and in the folio, 1632, as 
corrected in manuscript, such is the reading : Bernardo means 
that he deserves Francisco's praise for his punctuality in coming 
just as the clock has struck. 

P. 197. The printed stage directions in this tragedy are more 
numerous than in many others, so that fewer remain to be sup 
plied in manuscript. Sometimes, where they are not new, addi 
tions are made to them : thus, when we have Enter the Ghost, the 
word armed is written in parenthesis, to show what was his ap 
pearance in this scene ; afterwards, we shall find that when the 
Ghost makes his visit to Hamlet and his mother hi the closet 
scene (p. 289), he is described in manuscript as unarmed, 
though we are not told as, as in the quarto, 1603, that he is " in 
his night gown." Perhaps,' in consistency with what Hamlet says, 
he was there supposed to be " in his habit as he lived ;" and when 
the drama was represented before the old corrector it may have 
been the custom of the theatre that the Ghost should come 
before the audience, not " in his night gown," but in his ordinary 
apparel. We may presume also that in this first scene a cock 
was heard to crow, in order to give the Ghost notice of the fit 

(445) 



446 HAMLET. [ACT L 

time for his departure, Cock crows being placed in the margin 
opposite the words " Stop it, Marcellus." 

P. 199. Whether the old corrector did or did not resort to any 
of the quartos for assistance, they all have 

" Shark'd up a list of lawless resolutes," 

for " landless resolutes " (to which it was changed in the folios), 
and "lawless" is imported into the folio, 1632. The cock (p. 
201) is called there in manuscript " the trumpet of the morn," 
and not of the c?ay, " morn " being the reading of the quartos, and 
day of the folios. 

SCENE H. 

P. 202. More passages than usual are crossed out in this play, 
owing to its extreme length ; and wherever the person who 
abridged it thought that even two or three lines could be dis 
pensed with, they are erased. Thus in Horatio's speech, near 
the top of this page, the second and third lines, as well as the 
eighth and ninth, are struck out ; and in the King's speech, open 
ing Scene II., the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth lines are marked 
for omission. Several other parts of the scene are treated in the 
same way ; but if any corrections were required in them, they, as 
in other places, are made notwithstanding. 

P. 205. When the Queen reproaches her son for continuing to 
wear his mourning, as the line is represented in the quartos, she 
says, 

" Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off :" 

the folios have nightly for " nighted," which the corrector of the 
folio, 1632, alters to nightlike, which is certainly better than 
nightly, but is not countenanced by any known edition. Perhaps 
such was the word he had heard upon the stage, and therefore 
inserted it. 

P. 210. Horatio, describing the effect of the appearance of the 
Ghost upon Bernardo and Marcellus, tells Hamlet, as the text of 
the quartos has it, 



SC. III.] HAMLET. 447 

" Whilst they, distill'd 
Almost to jelly with the act of fear, 
Stand dumb, and speak not to him." 

The folios, on the other hand, read, 

" Whilst they bestilVd 
Almost to jelly with the act of fear," &c. 

Neither word, " distill'd " or bestilVd, can be perfectly satisfactory ; 
but it is apparent that bestilVd was a misprint in the folio, 1623 
(and from thence copied into the folio, 1632), for a word, very 
like it in letters, but affording a very clear and sensible mean 
ing : 

" Whilst they, bechilVd 
Almost to jelly with the act of fear, 
Stand dumb, and speak not to him." 

Bernardo and Marcellus were almost chilled to jelly by their ap 
prehensions, " the cold fit of fear " having come powerfully upon 
them. This must be deemed a text superior to that of any old 
or modern edition. 

SCENE m. 

P. 213. The address of Laertes to his sister, instructing her how 
to receive and return Hamlet's love, is full of verbal and literal 
errors in the folio, 1632 ; and, besides corrections of these in 
three places, the text is made to tally with that of the quartos : 
thus " safety" is substituted for sanctity, "act and place" for sect 
and force, and " keep you in the rear " for " keep within the rear." 
These three mistakes were transplanted from the earlier folio, and 
the setting of them right may look as if the authority of the 
quartos had been appealed to. 

P. 215. Polonius, advising his son on the subject of apparel, 
thus speaks, as the lines have always stood, 

" And they in France, of the best rank and station, 
Are of a most select and generous chief in that." 

Mai one would explain " chief" heraldically ; but it is simply an 
error of the press : " chief" was of old spelt " chiefe," and the 



448 HAMLET. [ACT i. 

compositor misreading the long s for /, printed " chiefe " for 
choise or choice : 

" Are of a most select and generous choice in that." 

The folios print it cheff, but Steevens was disposed to think choice 
the word wanted, and he was not mistaken, for that alteration is 
made in the folio, 1632. 

P. 217. Theobald guessed rightly that "sanctified and pious 
bonds" ought to be " sanctified and pious bawds ;" but three lines 
lower occurs an emendation in the folio, 1632, which nobody has 
speculated upon, but which is at least equally plausible. Polo- 
nius says to Ophelia, 

" I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth, 
Have you to slander any moment leisure, 
As to give words or talk with the lord Hamlet." 

For "slander" read squander, and for "moment" moments: she 
was not to waste a moment's leisure upon him. The scribe seems 
to have misheard both bawd and uander. At the end of the 
speech this imperfect line occurs : 

" Look to't, I charge you ; come your ways." 
The old correction is, 

" Look to't, I charge you ; so now, come your ways." 

So now may have dropped out, or may possibly have been added 
merely to complete the measure. 

SCENE IV. 

P. 220. When the Ghost enters, a manuscript note states that 
he is armed as before. There is a singular marginal instruction to 
the player of the part of Hamlet, that after he has exclaimed, 

" Angels and ministers of grace defend us 1" 

he is to pause before he continues. This seems natural, and there 
fore judicious ; and we may, perhaps, infer that such was the 
mode in which Richard Burbage (the original representative of 
the character) delivered the address. From him it may have 



SC. V.] HAMLET. 449 

been handed down to the time of the old corrector through Joseph 
Taylor, who followed Burbage in this and some other principal 
parts. During this pause we may suppose that the actor was 
gasping for breath, with his eyes fixed upon the apparition, and 
unable for some moments to proceed. 

SCENE V. 

P. 222. This, according to the ancient stage-arrangements, and 
according to the representations of the old editions, was, proba 
bly, not a new scene ; for after Hamlet and the Ghost have gone 
out, as it were to " a more removed ground," Horatio and Mar- 
cellus say a few words and retire : Hamlet and the Ghost then 
return to the scene, and it seems to have been left to the audi 
ence to imagine that the ground on which they stood was not, hi 
fact, the same they had before occupied. 

It is to be observed that the Acts and Scenes are not divided 
in the quartos ; and in the folios, though Ac tus Primus and Actus 
Secundus are marked (with the distinction of some of the scenes), 
we are without any printed notes of the kind during the rest of 
the tragedy. The emendator of the folio, 1632, was, therefore, 
the first to supply the deficiency: he appears to have done so ac 
curately (with one or two exceptions) according to the practice in 
his age, but by no means precisely the same as in modern edi 
tions. 

In the last line on this page we are desired by the old corrector 
to read "confin'd to lasting fires," instead of "confin'd to fast in 
fires," a change recommended by Heath in his " Revisal." Stee- 
vens, Farmer, and Monk Mason contend that no alteration is 
required. 

P. 225. Regarding the subsequent lines, as invariably printed, 
an advantageous proposal is made in the corrected folio, 1632: 

" Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand, 
Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatch'd." 

"Dispatcd'd" cannot be right, and why should Shakespeare em 
ploy a wrong word when another, that is unobjectionable, at once 
presented itself, viz. 



450 HAMLET. [ACT n. 

"Of life, of crown, of queen, at once despoiVd?" 

Misreading was, most likely, the cause of this blunder ; the ear 
liest quarto, 1603, has deprived for " dispatch'd," of the other 
quartos and folios ; but we may feel confident that the poet's mis 
printed word was despoiVd. It is written upon an erasure, and 
possibly the old corrector first inserted depriv'd, and afterwards 
saw reason to change it to despoil'd, as the true language of the 
poet. 



ACT II. SCENE II. 

P. 236. We have here one more of the many proofs how one 
word was put for another, because the word misprinted occurred 
in a different part of the same line : the quartos assign to Polo- 
nius, 

" My news shall be the fruit to that great feast." 
Tn the folio, 1623, it became, 

" My news shall be the news to that great feast ;" 

which was more absurdly repeated in the folio, 1632 ; but " fruit" 
is restored (perhaps from one of the quartos^ in the margin of 
the second folio. 

P. 242. Exactly the same lapse occurs here : the quartos make 
Polonius ask Hamlet, 

" I mean the matter that you read, my lord ?" 
In the folios it stands, 

" I mean the matter that you mean, my lord." 

A corresponding correction erases mean, and inserts " read" in its 
place. 

P. 246. To show how minute and particular the owner of the 
folio, 1632, who introduced the manuscript notes, was in the stage- 
directions, it may be stated that before Hamlet says, " Man de 
lights not me ; no, nor woman neither," &c., Rosencrantz is direct 
ed to smile, in order that the actor might not forget to do so. 



ACT III.] HAMLET. 451 

What afterwards passes between Hamlet and Rosencrantz respect 
ing the popularity of companies of young performers, under the 
titles of Children of the Revels, Children of Paul's, &c., is crossed 
out with a pen, because, among other reasons, at the time when 
the play was shortened this portion was inapplicable. 

P. 251. Pope's emendation, in opposition to all the ancient au 
thorities, of salt for " sallets," is supported by a correction in the 
folio, 1632. 

P. 254. We must attribute to mishearing a corruption, though 
not of much importance, in the last line of the Player's proba 
tionary speech, referring to the clamorous grief of Hecuba, when 
she saw Priam's limbs "minced" by the sword of Pyrrhus : 

" Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven, 
And passion in the gods." 

" And passionate (i.e. compassionate) the gods" is the way in 
which we learn we ought to read the last hemistich : to say that 
it made " passion in the gods" is certainly sense, but the emenda 
tion proposed should probably be the text. 

P. 256. The same may be remarked of the next change that 
occurs in the folio, 1632 : it is in Hamlet's soliloquy, where he ad 
verts to his own irresoluteness : 

" For it cannot be, 

But I am pigeon-liver'd, and lack gall 
To make oppression bitter." 

It was not " oppression," but crime, that was to be punished by 
him ; and to read 

" To make transgression bitter," 

is so far an improvement : the similarity in the sound of the ter 
minations of both words may have misled the copyist. " Oppres 
sion" is, however, quite intelligible. 



ACT m. SCENE I. 
P. 260. The manuscript-annotator adopts two changes in the 



HAMLET. [ACT III. 

quartos in Hamlet's great soliloquy : these are "the proud man's 
contumely" instead of "the poor man's contumely," as it is given 
in all the folios ; and " the pangs of despis'd love" instead of " the 
pangs of dispriz'd love," as also there misprinted. 

P. 263. Hamlet, in old and modern editions, tells Ophelia, "I 
am very proud, revengeful, ambitious ; with more offences at my 
beck, than I have thought to put them in." Steevens says that 
" more offences at my beck" means " always ready to come about 
me ;" this may be so, but a manuscript-correction supplies a much 
more natural word and easy interpretation, viz. that Hamlet is 
loaded with offences " with more offences at my back, than I have 
thoughts to put them in." 

P. 266. The several misprints in the folio, 1623, in Hamlet's 
directions to the players, are copied, and multiplied in the folio, 
1632, but not one of them escapes correction : among them we 
may mention that " or Norman" is altered to " nor man " by strik 
ing out the conjunction, and dividing the word. This emendation 
entirely discountenances Farmer's notion that Mussulman was in 
tended. To the printed introduction of the scene, Enter Hamlet 
and two or three of the Players, is added unready ; that is to say, 
not yet dressed for the parts they were to fill in the play within a 
play. 

P. 270. It may be considered a somewhat singular feature in 
the manuscript-corrections, of this drama in particular, that all 
passages of an indecent character are carefully erased. Such are 
portions of the dialogue between Hamlet and Ophelia, prior to 
and during the representation before the King and Queen, which 
Steevens seemed to think " were peculiar to the young and fashion 
able of the age of Shakespeare." It appears, however, that not 
very long after " the age of Shakespeare," they were struck out, 
either on account of their needless indelicacy, or for the sake of 
abbreviating the performance ; perhaps both. 

P. 275. Johnson, Steevens, Farmer, and Toilet differed whether, 
when Ophelia remar-ks, " Still better and worse," Hamlet ought to 
ay, " So you mistake your husbands," as it is given in the quarto, 



SC. III.] HAMLET. 453 

1604, and in the folios, or " So you must take your husbands," viz. 
for better for worse. When these annotators wrote, it was not 
known that a still earlier quarto (1603) has it, "So you must take 
your husband ;" and, in addition, it now appears that the old cor 
rector of the folio, 1632, altered the reading there found to " So 
you must take your husbands." In the same way, it has been 
doubted when Hamlet on a subsequent page (277) speaks of 
" two Provincial roses on my rac'd shoes" (we spell it as in the 
folios ; the quartos print it raz'd), he means rayed shoes, razed 
shoes, or raised, that is, elevated shoes. The old corrector spells 
it " raised shoes," and we may presume that that is what was in 
tended ; namely, shoes which gave the actor artificial height. This 
is the more probable, because Richard Burbage, the original Ham 
let, was a man, probably, of rather short stature. 

P. 277. The two lines delivered by Hamlet after the sudden 
breaking off of the play, 

" For if the King like not the comedy, 
Why then, belike, he likes it not perdy," 

are underscored as a quotation ; and such we may reasonably sup 
pose them to be. 

SCENE m. 
P. 283. When the King, in his soliloquy, says, 

" Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice, 
And oft 'tis seen, the wicked prize itself 
Buys out the law," 

we need no great persuasion to make us believe that we ought to 
read, as a manuscript note tells us, 

" And oft 'tis seen, the wicked purse itself 
Buys out the law." 

When Hamlet enters behind, another stage-direction (printed in 
no copy) states that he has his sword drawn ready to kill the 
King, if his resolution had held. The old mode of acting the 
scene appears to have been, that, when Hamlet came in at the 
back, the King knelt in front of the stage, and did not retire 
and kneel, as stated in modern editions. 



454 HAMLET. [ACT iv. 

SCENE IV. 

P. 285. Before Hamlet comes to his mother, in the closet- 
scene, Polonius hides himself behind the arras, and says, as it has 
been invariably printed, 

' I'll Bilence me e'en here." 

That this is a misprint we might guess without any hint from the 
corrected folio, 1632, which thus gives the words, 

" I'll 'sconce me even here." 

Johnson felt obliged to explain that " I'll silence me e'en here" 
meant " I'll use no more words." In " The Merry Wives," Fal- 
staff says, " I will ensconce me behind the arras," which is exactly 
what Polonius does. ''Sconce and ensconce are constantly used 
figuratively for hide. 

P. 288. When Hamlet is comparing the representations of his 
father and his uncle, the first folio has " wholesome breath" instead 
of "wholesome brother" of the quartos, and the second folio adds 
to it various verbal and literal errors ; but all editions, modern 
as well as ancient, contain a reading, the change of which in the 
folio, 1632, must be admitted to be a considerable improvement: 
the misprint, with a careless compositor, must have been an easy 
one : it occurs where the hero says to his mother, 

" For, at your age 

The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble, 
And waits upon the judgment ; and what judgment 
Would step from this to this ?" 

i. e. from his father to his uncle : Hamlet is exalting the first, and 
debasing the last ; and the expression, " Would step from this to 
this," is feeble and inexpressive, while a slight alteration in one 
word makes a vast difference : 

" And what judgment 
Would stoop from this to this?" 

P. 290. After the entrance of the Ghost unarmed, as has been, 
already mentioned, Hamlet thus addresses it in all copies, 



ACT IV.] HAMLET. 455 

" Do you not come your tardy son to chide, 
That, laps'd in time and passion, lets go by 
The important acting of your dread command ?" 

The amended reading offered in the folio, 1632, is. 
" That laps'd in fume and passion," &c. ; 

but "laps'd in time and passion" may, nevertheless, be right, 
supposing Hamlet to intend that he has let slip the proper oppor 
tunity. 



ACT IV. SCENE m. 

P. 298. The emendation next to be noticed is well worthy of 
consideration, and perhaps of adoption. The King asks Hamlet 
where Polonius is at supper, and the answer is this in the quar 
tos : 

" Not where he eats, but where he is eaten : a certain convocation of 
politic worms are e'en at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet," 
&c. 

The folios omit " politic," probably unintentionally, but possibly 
because it was not clearly understood why the worms should be 
called "politic." The old corrector of the folio, 1632, leads us 
to suppose that " politic" was misprinted, or miswritten, for an 
epithet, certainly more applicable in the place where it occurs, in 
reference to the taste of the worms for the rich repast they were 
enjoying : 

" A certain convocation of palated worms are e'en at him. Your worm is 
your only emperor for diet : we fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat 
ourselves for maggots." 

It is easy to suppose that " politic," a word with which the 
scribe was familiar, was misheard by him for the unusual word 
palated. Shakespeare employs to palate as a verb in " Coriola- 
nus," Act III. Scene I., and in " Antony and Cleopatra," Act V. 
Scene II. ; and it is doing no great violence to imagine that he 
here uses the participle of the same verb. If the text had al 
ways stood "palated worms," and it had been proposed to change 



456 HAMLET. [ACT iv. 

it to " politic worms," few readers would for an instant have con 
sented to relinquish an expression so peculiarly Shakespearian. 

SCENE V. 

P. 304. It is worth a brief note, that the second of Ophelia's 
fragments of ballads, 

" And at his head a grass-green turf," 
is written in the folio, 1632, 

" And at his head a green grass turf." 

Again, on the next page, the folio, 1632, for the line, as it stands 
in the folio, 1623, 

" Let in the maid, that out a maid," 

misprints "Let in" twice, instead of "that out" in the second 
instance. This blunder is set right in the margin. When Ophe 
lia re-enters, " fare you well, my dove" (p. 310), is given in all 
the folios as part of her ballad ; but it is marked by the old cor 
rector as spoken, and not sung. Again, the same authority tells 
us that the lines on p. 311, 

" No, no, he is dead ; 
Go to thy death-bed," 

ought to run, as we may very well believe, 

" No, no. he is dead, 
Gone to his death-bed, 
He never will come again." 

It has always hitherto been printed, " Go to thy death-bed," and 
We can scarcely think the proposed change merely arbitrary. For 

" His beard was as white as snow," 
the correction in manuscript is, 

" His beard was white as snow." 

In the folios it is, " His beard as white as snow," and the variation 
may be deemed immaterial. When Ophelia makes her exit, it is 
stated that she goes out dancing distracted, although she had sung 



ACT V.] HAMLET. 457 

such a melancholy ditty just before, and had taken such a sad fare 
well. It is the last we see of her. 

P. 321. A very absurd misprint found its way into the folio, 
1623, where the Queen describes the death of Ophelia : the quar 
tos properly read, 

" Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay ;" 
which in the folio, 1623, stands, 

" Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious buy ;" 
and in the folio, 1632, 

" Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious by." 

Perhaps " lay," substituted in the margin of the folio, 1632, was 
obtained from the quartos ; but it is not impossible, if the emen 
dation were not guessed at, that it was introduced from accurate 
recitation of the passage on the stage : nobody could imagine buy 
or by right. 



ACT V. SCENE I. 

P. 322. Two small portions of the Grave-diggers 1 Scene are 
struck through with a pen : the first relates to Adam being a gen 
tleman : and the second to the length of time the First Grave- 
digger had filled his office, and the motive for sending Hamlet 
into England. If William Kemp played the part of the First 
Grave-digger, as has been conjectured (Chalmers's " Apology," p. 
457), we need not be surprised at any expedient to keep such a 
favourite before the audience ; but when he was gone, some re 
duction of the dialogue may have been held desirable, on account 
of the great length of the play. However, it is more than doubt 
ful whether Kemp belonged to the same company as Shakespeare 
when Hamlet was produced. (See " Memoirs of the Actors in 
Shakespeare's Plays," pp. 105. 115.) 

P. 329. The four lines in rhyme which follow Hamlet's prose 
introduction, 

" Imperial Caesar, dead, and turn'd to clay," Sx. 

20 



458 HAMLET. [ACT v. 

are distinguished in the folio, 1632, as a quotation in the usual 
way : and they seem to have occurred to the speaker, as extreme 
ly apposite to what he had himself just said respecting the " dust 
of Alexander." We have no notion from whence the passage 
was taken. 

P. 332. When Hamlet tells Laertes, as the line is printed every 
where, 

" I'll do't. Dost thou come here to whine ?" 

the line clearly wants two syllables ; and the corrector of the 
folio, 1632, makes Hamlet emphatically repeat, " I'll do't," which 
perfects the measure : 

" I'll do't : I'll do't. Dost thou come here to whine ?" 

This repetition was probably omitted by the printer accidentally. 
The whole speech, beginning, " This is mere madness," is given 
to the King in the folios ; but it is evident that at least part of it 
could not have been uttered by him : a new prefix, in the margin 
of the second folio, assigns the three last lines to the Queen, -while 
the two first are continued as before. In the quartos the Queen 
delivers all five lines ; but it seems more likely that the King 
should interpose to tell the spectators of the funeral, 

" This is mere madness ; 
And thus a while the fit will work on him." 

In consistency with this view, the King, just afterwards, desires 
Horatio to follow Hamlet, who had rushed out. 

SCENE H. 

P. 336. The compositor of the folio, 1623, was guilty of a 
careless blunder when he printed "Sweet lord, if jour friendship 
were at leisure," instead of " if your lordship were at leisure :" it 
was, notwithstanding, copied into the folio, 1632, where it is set 
right in the margin. We need not say that from all modern edi 
tions the corruption has been excluded. Precisely the same 
course was pursued with a lapse on p. 340, where, in all the folios, 
tongue is misprinted for "turn," and "hurt my mother' 1 ' 1 for- "hurt 
my brother." This part of the tragedy is extremely ill-repre- 



SC. II.] HAMLET. 459 

sented ha both the earliest folio impressions ; but the most minute 
inaccuracy did not elude the attention of the old amender of the 
second folio. 

P. 343. The printed stage-directions are extremely frequent in 
this last scene ; but, nevertheless, the additions to them in manu 
script in the folio, 1632, are many. Thus, no printed note being 
given when the Queen drinks the poison, the proper place is duly 
marked, as well as when she dies. When Horatio snatches the 
cup in order to poison himself, and when Hamlet strives and gets 
it from him, the necessary information is furnished in the margin. 
It should seem that the directions were not all added at the same 
time, but, perhaps, as the writer became aware of their impor 
tance, for the ink is not always alike. 

P. 344. During the fencing-match, the Queen interposes that 
Hamlet may take breath : in the quartos, her words are, 

" He's fat and scant of breath. 
Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy brows." 

In the folios, the passage is merely this : 

" He's fat and scant of breath. 
Here's a napkin, rub thy brows." 

The second line is obviously defective, and the corrector of the 
folio, 1632, does not, in this instance, cure it by adopting the text 
of the quartos, but that of some independent authority: perhaps 
his emendation here, as in some other places, represents the pas 
sage as it was delivered by the player of the part of the Queen : 

" He's fat and scant of breath. 
Here is a napkin, rub thy brows, my son." 

P. 347. The drama, abridged, as far as we can judge, for, or 
from, representation some time after the appearance of the folio, 
1632, concludes with the two lines spoken by Horatio over the 
dead body of Hamlet : all the rest, including " Why does the 
drum come hither," is crossed out, so that nothing is seen of 
Fortinbras, or of the English ambassadors. The lines put into 



460 HAMLET. [ACT v. 

the mouth of Horatio are these, as they stand in every edition, 
Hamlet having just expired : 

" Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince, 
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest." 

However, it seems to have been thought, about the time the ab 
breviations were made, that the tragedy ought to end with a 
rhyming couplet, and we may infer that the alteration we meet 
with in the folio, 1632, was made for the purpose : 

" Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, be blest, 
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest." 

This couplet is followed by the word Finis, in manuscript, to 
show that it was the conclusion of the piece. 

Nevertheless, the necessary changes of the text, as we find it 
in the second folio, are continued, as if what follows the entrance 
of Fortinbras, &c., had not been erased. The first is merely 
"This" for His, when Fortinbras says, 

" This quarry cries on havock," &c. 
It is " His quarry," &c., in the folios, and certainly wrong. 

P. 348. Fortinbras, seeing that the throne of Denmark is va 
cant, puts in his claim to it : 

" I have some rights of memory in this kingdom, 
Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me." 

These are the terms in the quartos ; the folios, 1623 and 1632, 
nonsensically have " Which are to claim," &c. When Horatio 
replies, according to the correct text, 

" Of that I shall have also cause to speak," 
the folio, 1623, gives the line thus inaccurately : 

" Of that I shall have always cause to speak," 
which the folio, 1632, makes still worse : 

" Of that I shall always cause to speak." 

These careless errors are corrected in manuscript in the later 
folio, where we also find in the margin an emendation which ap- 



SC. II.] 



HAMLET. 



461 



pears to be of considerable value. Horatio, in reference to the 
funeral of Hamlet, observes, as the line has invariably been 
printed, 

" But let this same be presently perform'd." 

Same sounds poorly and awkwardly, and the old corrector states 
that it was not the poet's word, but one that might easily be mis 
taken for it : he puts it, 

" Bat let this scene be presently perform'd," 

viz. the scene of the funeral, at which, while Hamlet's body was 
placed " high on a stage," Horatio was to explain the cause of his 
death : the mention of " stage," both before and afterwards, and 
the use of the word " performed," afford confirmation, if needed, 
that Shakespeare's language was scene, and not " same." This 
may have been only a guessed at misprint, but nobody else has 
ever guessed it. 



KING LEAK. 



ACT I. SCENE I. 

P. 357. The first correction in this tragedy in the folio, 1632, is 
the erasure of " Sir" at the beginning of Goneril's speech, and the 
addition of a letter to convert word into " words." The line is there 
exactly reprinted from the folio, 1623, where it stands, 

" Sir, I love you more than word can wield the matter." 

Here "Sir" is clearly redundant and needless, and Regan, soon 
afterwards, commences her speech without it ; word also should 
evidently be " words," even without the authority of the quartos 
for the change. 

P. 358. The folios also contain the following in Regan's answer 
to her father, 

" I profess 

Myself an enemy to all other joys 
That the most precious square of sense professes." 

The compositor caught professes, instead of " possesses," from the 
line almost immediately above, and there cannot be a moment's 
hesitation in following the quartos, which are uniform. The ques 
tion that has arisen has been as to the uncouth expression, " the 
most precious square of sense." Edwards contended that it is to 
be taken as " the full complement of all the senses ;" in other 
words, the whole circle of the senses ; and the old corrector fur 
nishes a word, misprinted " square," that exactly conveys this 
meaning, 

" That the most precious sphere of sense possesses." 

She loved her father, according to her own assertion, beyond all 
other joys in the round or sphere of sense. 

(462) 



ACT I.] KING LEAK. 463 

P. 359. The quarto editions read thus at the close of Cordelia's 
self-vindicatory speech : 

" Sure, I shall never marry .like my sisters, 
To love my father all." 

The words in Italics are strangely left out in all the folios, and 
are added in manuscript in that of 1632. The incompleteness of 
the sentence makes us wonder how the defective text of the folio, 

1623, could have been reprinted. 



P. 360. It is to be noted that in the following, 

" As my great patron thought on in my prayers," 

the folio, 1632, omits " great," which word is not supplied in man 
uscript, but the line is thus amended : 

" Loy'd as my father, as my master follow'd, 
And as my patron thought on in my prayers." 

Hence we may see that the old corrector was not constantly 
guided by older editions, which are all in favour of " great." 

P. 362. The folio, 1632, is made, in manuscript, to differ from 
all earlier copies where Lear banishes Kent : 

" Five days we do allot thee for provision 
To shield thee from diseases of the world, 
And on the sixth to turn thy hated back 
Upon our kingdom : if on the seventh day following 
Thy banish'd trunk be found in our dominions," &c. 

The quartos, as stated in note 10, have "four days," and "on the 
fifth ;" and it may seem unlikely that Kent should be allowed till 
" the tenth day following" (as in the folios) to quit the kingdom. 
This, however, is a point of little importance, excepting as it may 
show, either that the passage was usually recited " the seventh day 
following," as amended in the folio, 1632, or that the person who 
altered the text had some other authority for it. It is not prob 
able that he would arbitrarily make the change. 

P. 364. We come to a more important variation from every 
old copy, where Cordelia entreats her father to 



464 KING LEAR. [ACT L 

" make known 

It is no vicious blot, murder or foulness, 
No unchaste action, or dishonour'd step, 
That hath depriv'd me of your grace and favour." 

"Murder" (spelt murther in the folios) seems here entirely out of 
place : Cordelia could never contemplate that any body would 
suspect her of " murder," as the ground of her father's displeas 
ure : she is referring to " vicious blots," and "foulness" in respect 
to virtue, and there cannot, we apprehend, be a doubt that the 
old corrector has given us the real language of Shakespeare when 
he puts the passage thus : 

" make known 

It is no vicious blot, nor other foulness, 
No unchaste action," &c. 

The copyist or the compositor miswrote or misread nor other 
" murther," and thus occasioned a corruption, which has eternally 
been repeated. But there appears, on the same authority, to be 
another error in the latter portion of what we have just above 
quoted : 

" No unchaste action or dishonour'd stoop, 
That hath depriv'd me of your grace and favour." 

In Hamlet (p. 454) we have seen stoop misprinted " step," as 
here, and Cordelia alludes to some grossly derogatory act, some 
base condescension on her part, and not merely to some dishon 
ourable "step" which she had taken: "step," for stoop, here 
reads most insignificantly, and could hardly have been the poet's 
language. 

SCENE IV. 
P. 381. What the Fool sings, 

" Fools had ne'er less grace in a year," &c. 

is marked as a quotation in the folio, 1632, perhaps from some 
satirical ballad of the time ; and the third line is amended, so that, 
like the first, it rhymes in the middle : 

" And well may fear their wits to wear,'' <fcc. 



ACT II.] KING LEAR. 465 

The scrap that succeeds almost immediately is also underscored ; 
but it is evident that the Fool alters this fragment to suit his pur 
pose. The couplet on the next page has the same stage-direction, 
Sing, opposite to it, and it is likewise underscored. 



ACT H. SCENE I. 

P. 393. After hearing of the flight of Edgar, when he is sup 
posed to have wounded Edmund for not entering into the con 
spiracy to murder their father, Gloster says, as the passage stands 
printed and punctuated in the folios, 

" Let him fly far : 

Not in this land shall he remain uncaught 
And found ; dispatch, the noble duke my master, 
My worthy arch and patron comes to-night," &c. 

Here misprinting and mispointing have obscured the poet's 
meaning, and the old corrector of the folio, 1632, amends as fol 
lows : 

" Let him fly far : 

Not in this land shall he remain uncaught, 
And found, dispatcKd. The noble duke, my master, 
My worthy arch and patron comes to-night," &c. 

That is to say, " Let him fly far ; for if caught and found in this 
land he shall be dispatched." What succeeds in the dialogue 
entirely supports this view ; for Gloster declares that by the 
authority of the Duke, who was expected, "the murderous 
coward " should be proclaimed and brought " to the stake," 
adding, 

" All ports I'll bar ; the villain shall not 'scape." 

P. 394. Both the folios are here very carelessly printed ; 
but, as might be supposed, that of 1632 gives the more imperfect 
notion of Shakespeare's text. Thus, for " strange news," of the 
quartos, the folios have strangeness ; but all the copies, quarto 
and folio, are wrong in the line, 

"He whom my father nam'd ? your Edgar?" 

20* 



466 KING LEAK. [ACT n. 

for it obviously halts for want of two syllables : and the correc 
tion of the old annotator shows what they are : 

" He whom my father nam'd? your heir, your Edgar ?" 

It was natural that Regan should speak of him as Gloster's heir 
in the presence of Edmund, as hinting at the motive for Edgar's 
design on his father's life. Just below, there is a line with a 
syllable too many : 

" Was he not companion with the riotous knights." 

The negative is erased in the folio, 1632, by which the measure is 
restored, and the sense not injured ; for Edmund immediately 
afterwards replies, 

" Yes madam, yes ; he was of that consort ;" 

giving additional emphasis by the repetition of the affirmative yes, 
which is not in any ancient copy : the compositor, having inserted 
" yes " once, left it out the second time, and thus rendered the 
line defective. The folio, 1632, omits "his" before "revenues," 
but it is inserted in the margin. 

SCENE II. 

P. 396. When Kent tells Oswald, "If I had thee in Lipsbury 
pinfold, I would make thee care for me," the commentators have 
been puzzled to know where " Lipsbury pinfold " was situated, 
and Farmer and Steevens supposed it " a cant phrase." In the 
folio, 1632, it is altered to "Mnsbury pinfold;" and a misprint 
was, doubtless, the cause of the difficulty. There was, probably, 
an old pinfold standing in Finsbury in the time of Shakespeare, 
in connexion with Moorfields, and well known to his audiences ; 
and to this, without caring for the anachronism, he alluded. 

SCENE IV. 

P. 406. In the corrected folio, 1632, we encounter a very ma 
terial alteration hi the Fool's satirical rhymes, showing that the 
conclusion, always hitherto printed as prose, was also in verse : 
the last part stands thus in type in the folio, 1632 : 



SC. IV.] KING LEAR. 

" But for all this, thou shalt have as many dolours for thy dear 
daughters, as thou can'st tell in a year." 

The manuscript-corrector makes the whole run thus : 

" Fathers that wear rags, 

Do make their children blind ; 
But fathers that bear bags, 

Shall see their children kind. 
Fortune, that arrant whore, 
Ne'er turns the key to the poor. 
But, for all this, it follows, 
Thou shalt have as many dolours 
For thy daughters dear 
As thou canst tell in a year." 

The folio, 1632, alone contains the word " dear," but there it was 
transposed, since it forms the rhyme to " year." 

In the Fool's rhymes on the next page, there is a perversion in 
the two last lines, which have been always thus erroneously 
printed : 

" The knave turns fool that runs away, 
The fool no knave perdy." 

This is exactly the contrary of what is meant : in the first six 
lines the Fool says, that a mercenary knave quits his master in a 
storm, but that a fool remains with him ; and he follows it up by 
observing that the fool turns knave when he abandons his master, 
although the knave can be considered no fool for doing so, and 
taking care of himself: 

" The fool turns knave that runs away, 
The knave no fool, perdy." 

The corrector of the folio, 1632, transposes the words, in order 
to make them run as above. 

P. 410. We have here an instance of mishearing on the part 
of the scribe, which has occasioned an indisputable blunder. 
Regan tells Lear to admit to Goneril that he has wronged her, 
and he breaks out in reply, 

" Ask her forgiveness ? 

Do you but mark how this becomes the house : 
' Dear daughter, I confess that I am old,' " &c. 



468 KING LEAR. [ACT II. 

What has " the house " to do with it ? They are talking outside 
Gloster's castle, and not in, nor referring to, any habitation. 
What Lear should say is what the old corrector makes him 
say : 

" Ask her forgiveness? 

Do you but mark how this becomes the mouth : 
' Dear daughter, I confess that I am old,' " &c. 

Between the copyist and the compositor, mouth became " house." 
After kneeling, while he says the above, Lear never gets up again 
in modern editions ; but a note in the folio, 1632, directs the actor 
to rise at the beginning of his next passionate speech, " Never, 
Regan," &c. 

The conjecture, in note 9 on the next page, that the epithet 
"tender-hafted" ought to be tender-hearted, is supported by a 
marginal emendation in the folio, 1632. 

P. 412. Eegan again advises Lear to submit, and to return to 
Goneril : he exclaims, as the passage stands in modern editions, 

" Return to her? and fifty men dismiss'd ? 

No, rather I abjure all roofs, and choose 
' To wage against the enmity of the air ; 

To be a comrade with the wolf and owl. 

Necessity's sharp pinch !" 

From the folio, 1632, and its corrections, we learn that the omis 
sion of the aspirate has occasioned a serious error here : " Neces 
sity's sharp pinch !" has always been printed as an exclamation by 
itself, without connexion ; but it seems that Shakespeare made the 
verb howl transitive, and that in future the lines ought to be 
printed as follows : 

" To be a comrade with the wolf, and howl 
Necessity's sharp pinch." 

i.e. howl like the wolf when he feels the sharp pinch of necessity. 
The punctuation of the folios, if that can be any guide, warrants 
this construction of the text. 



ACT IV.] KING LEAR. 469 

ACT III. SCENE I. 

P. 417. Kent tells the Gentleman, whom he meets, of some 
disagreement between the Dukes, information of .which has been 
communicated to France by their 

" servants, who seem no less, 
Which are to France the spies and speculations 
Intelligent of our state." 

" Speculations," of all the old copies, must be wrong both as 
regards meaning and measure ; and the old corrector instructs us 
to read spectators instead of it, although the accentuation may be 
unusual: 

" Which are to France the spies and spectators 
Intelligent of our state." 

A few lines lower he puts flourishings for " furnishings," with ap 
parent fitness, though Steevens would justify " furnishings" by a 
quotation from the preface to one of Greene's tracts, no doubt it 
self a corruption, where he talks of " lending the world a furnish 
of wit ;" "a, flourish of wit" must have been Greene's expression. 
Here, again, one corruption is attempted to be supported by 
another. 

SCENE IV. 

P. 425. In two several speeches by Edgar, on this page, the 
quarto editions are followed and deserted by the old corrector : 
thus in " through the sharp hawthorn blow the cold winds," cold, 
which he inserts, is found in the quartos only ; while in the next 
speech of the same character, for " through sword and whirl-pool" 
he puts " through swamp and whirl-pool :" it is " ford and whirl 
pool" in the quartos. The first of these is marked as a quota 
tion, (both here and on p. 427, where it again occurs), in the 
usual manner ; and it most likely was derived from some then 
known ballad. 



ACT IV. SCENE I. 

P. 443. We meet with two comparatively small, but valuable 
amendments in the first line of Edgar's speech, which opens this 



470 KING LEAR. [ACT IV. 

Act, one of which was speculated upon by Johnson. The com 
mon reading has been : 

" Yet better thus, and known to be contemn'd, 
Than still contemn'd and flatter'd." 

Johnson's suggestion was to read "and known" unknown; and 
this is what the corrector states is the true text. Edgar says 
that it is better to be contemn'd because unknown, as he is in 
his disguise, than to be contemn'd and flattered when known. 
There is, however, a further change which deserves notice, viz. 
Yes for " Yet." Edgar enters, moralising with himself, and giv 
ing his assent to some proposition that he had stated before he 
comes upon the stage : the passage ought, therefore, to stand as 
follows : 

" Yes, better thus unknown to be contemn'd, 
Than still contemn'd and flatter'd." 

At the bottom of this page we have another example of the man 
ner in which the frequent mistake of w for m has in part led to 
the introduction of a corruption. Blind Gloster says, in answer 
to the Old Man, 

" I have no way, and therefore want no eyes : 
I stumbled when I saw. Pull oft 'tis seen 
Our means secure us ; and our mere defects 
Prove our commodities." 

In what way do " our means secure us ?" The point is not that 
our means secure us, but that having no means is advantageous : 
" our mere defects," or deficiencies, " prove our commodities." 
The printer read wants " means," and hence the blunder. Glos 
ter is speaking of the advantage even of want of sight : 

" Full oft 'tis seen 

Our wants secure us, and our mere defects 
Prove our commodities." 

Pope would read mean for " means," but it does not support 
Gloster's argument ; and it, besides, requires that the verb should 
be in the singular instead of the plural, as it is printed in all the 
old copies. "Means" is struck out, and wants substituted in the 
folio, 1632. 



SO. VI.] KING LEAR. 471 

P. 445. Gloster, giving his purse to Edgar, whom he still sup 
poses a lunatic beggar, says, 

- " Heavens, deal so still ! 
Let the superfluous, and lust-dieted man, 
That slaves your ordinance, that will not see," &c. 

Discussion has been produced by the expression, " that slaves 
your ordinance :" Johnson understood it to mean, that slights or 
ridicules it, and Steevens, that makes a slave of it ; while Malone, 
because he could suggest nothing, was in favour of adhering to the 
quartos " that stands your ordinance." The setting right of a 
trifling typographical error clears the sense of the whole : 

"Heavens, deal so still ! 
Let the superfluous, and lust-dieted man, 
That braves your ordinance, that will not see, 
Because he doth not feel, feel your power quickly." 

He braves the ordinance of heaven by his luxury, selfishness, and 
want of charity. This emendation can want no support. 

SCENE IV. 

P. 454. Whether the old corrector did or did not resort to the 
quartos, he makes the reading of the folios tally with them, where 
Cordelia entreats all the " unpubKsh'd virtues of the earth " to 

'' be aidant and remediate 
In the good man's distress." 

The word is desires, for " distress," in the folio. 1623, and the 
error was copied into the second folio. 

SCENE VI. 

P. 460. Lear having entered dressed with straws and flowers, 
according to the manuscript stage-direction (for no printed note 
of the kind is found, even where it is most wanted), inveighs 
against lust and hypocrisy : 

" Behold yond' simpering dame, 
Whose face between her forks presageth snow ; 
Who minces virtue, and does shake the head 
To hear of pleasure's name." 



472 KING LEAR. [ACT iv. 

Malone says that " who minces virtue " means " whose virtue 
consists in appearance ; " but that is the meaning of the poet, 
rather than of the words imputed to him ; for it does not follow 
that " a lady who walks mincingly along," as Malone has it, 
means thereby to affect virtue. " Minces," in truth, is a lapse by 
the printer for mimics " a dame that mimics virtue ; " that is, 
who puts on the externals of modesty : 

" Who mimics virtue, and does shake the head 
To hear of pleasure's name." 

Unless it can be shown that " minces " means the same as mimics, 
this emendation must surely hereafter form part of the text of 
Shakespeare. 

P. 463. Lear thus incoherently preaches to blind Gloster, in 
every known copy of the play, 

" When we are born, we cry that we are come 
To this great stage of fools. This a good block ? 
It were a delicate stratagem, to shoe 
A troop of horse with felt." 

The commentators have been puzzled to explain why Lear starts 
away with the words, " This a good block ; " and Ritson asks 
if we ought not to read "'Tisagood block." They suppose 
that Lear pulls off his hat when he begins to preach, and speaks 
of it, but how does it appear that he has any hat on his head, 
when he comes in " fantastically dressed up with flowers." He 
does not advert to his hat as " a good block " at all, but to the 
excellent stratagem he has in his mind, of shoeing a troop of 
horse with felt. The emendator of the folio, 1632, gives the text 
most satisfactorily, and shows that the word of the poet had been 
misheard : 

" 'Tia & goo& plot : 
It were a delicate stratagem, to shoe 
A troop of horse with felt." 

This was the " good plot " uppermost in Lear's thoughts. Lower 
down, the corrector adds, " And laying Autumn's dust," perhaps 
from the quartos (where, however, it stands, " Ay, and for laying 



sa VIL] ZING LEAK. 473 

Autumn's dust "), in order to complete the sense, which is left 
defective in the folios. 

P. 466. After reading Goneril's letter to Edmund, Edgar ex 
claims, as the words have always been printed after the folios, 

" O, undistinguish'd space of woman's will ! 
A plot upon her virtuous husband's life ; 
And the exchange my brother!" 

Editors have speculated differently as to the meaning of the first 
line ; but they reasoned upon false premises, since it does not by 
any means represent the poet's language, if we may put faith in 
the alteration introduced in the folio, 1632, or if we may trust to 
common sense. Edgar is struck by the uncontrollable licentious 
ness of the desires of woman : 

" O, unextinguish'd blaze of woman's will! 

" Blaze " is to be taken for fire, and " will " for disposition ; and 
the scribe misheard, or miswrote, unextinguisWd blaze as " undis 
tinguish'd space," making nonsense of a passage which, properly 
printed, is as striking as intelligible. Malone's explanation was 
particularly unfortunate, viz. that there was no distinguishable 
space between the likings and loathings of women : the meaning 
clearly is, " Oh, the blaze of woman's licentiousness, which can 
never be extinguished ! " 

SCENE VIL 

P. 467. Cordelia urges Kent to put off his humble disguise, but 
he answers, 

" Pardon me, dear madam ; 
Yet to be known shortens my made intent." 

For " made intent," Warburton would substitute " laid intent :" 
but Johnson contends that " made intent" is only another word for 
formed intent. Both were wrong : " main intent" was miswritten 
" made intent,' and hence the doubt. Kent refers to the chief 
purpose for which he had disguised himself, which would be anti 
cipated and defeated, if he were too soon known : 



474 KING LEAK. [ACT IV. 

" Yet to be known shortens my main intent." 

P. 480. The quartos and folios differ when Albany accuses 
Edmund of treason, and throws down his gauntlet, saying, 

" I'll prove it on thy heart 
Ere I taste bread, thou art in nothing less 
Than I have here proclaimed thee." 

This is the reading of the quartos ; the folios more imperfectly 
have, 

" I'll make it on thy heart," &c. 

The corrector of the folio, 1632, instead of taking "prove" from, 
the quartos, and striking out " make," which was all that was ne 
cessary, keeps " make," and puts good, instead of " it," after it : 

" I'll make good on thy heart," &c. 

This is another instance where the text of the quartos is de 
serted, although it would have been quite as easy here, as else 
where, to follow it. Was the word good inserted only as a mat 
ter of judgment, to cure the evident defect of the folios, or was it 
derived from any authority 1 

P. 481. When Edgar challenges Edmund, he declares, 
" Maugre thy strength, youth, place, and eminence," &c. 

" thou art a traitor." The folio, 1632 (like that of 1623), trans 
poses " place" and " youth," and in manuscript " place" is super 
seded by skill: 

" Maugre thy strength, skill, youth, and eminence." 

Skill has evidently been written in the margin, but part of it hav 
ing been accidentally torn away, only the three first letters of the 
word remain. It seems not unlikely that the mention of skill 
would follow " strength :" and " place" is certainly not wanted, 
with " eminence" in the same line. 

P. 487. When Lear enters, bearing the dead Cordelia, he asks 
for a looking-glass : 



SO. VII.] KING LEAR. 475 

" Lend me a looking-glass ; 
If that her breath will mist or stain the stone, 
"Why, then she lives." 

The looking-glass was not " stone," and a manuscript-correction 
substitutes shine, as having been misprinted " stone :" 

"If that -her breath will mist or stain the shine ;" 

i.e. the polish of the looking-glass. " Stain" and " stone" read awk 
wardly in juxta-position, and the error might easily be committed. 
Of old mirrors were made of steel, and Gascoigne wrote a well- 
known satire called by the contradictory title of " The Steel-glass ;" 
hence it would not have surprised us if the poet's word had been 
steel for " stone." 

P. 488. After Kent has spoken, Lear looks at him doubtingly, 
and observes, in all impressions, 

" This is a dull sight. Are you not Kent?" 

The words, " This is a dull sight," are not in the quartos ; and 
Steevens parallels them by " This is a sorry sight," from Macbeth ; 
while Blakeway contends that Lear only means that his eyesight is 
bedimmed. Lear has previously stated that his eyes " are none 
of the best," and here he means to complain of the badness, not 
of his " sight," but of the light : 

" This is a dull light " 

is the word in the folio, 1632, as amended. Lear would hardly 
call the sad spectacle before him " a dull sight ;" but his eyes 
being dim, and the light dull, he could not be sure whether the 
man before him was Kent. It was a mere misprint of " sight" for 
light. 

P. 490. The folio, 1632, generally deficient in stage-directions, 
went out of its course to insert the word Dies after Kent's two 
lines, 

" I have a journey, sir, shortly to go : 
My master calls me ; I must not say, no." 

Hence some editors have imagined that the Speaker died instantly 
on the stage, before all the characters exeunt with a dead march. 



476 KING LEAE. [ACT IV. 

No other ancient authority supports this notion, which Malone 
and Steevens disputed ; and that they were well warranted in 
doing so, is proved by the fact that the old corrector of the folio, 
1632, put his pen decisively through the word Dies, We may, 
therefore, certainly conclude that Kent, in what he says, only con 
templates the probability of the near approach of the termination 
of his career, and that the editor or printer of the folio, 1632, had 
an entirely mistaken notion upon the subject. Dies is found in 
no quarto impression, nor was it derived from the folio, 1623. 



OTHELLO. 



ACT I. SCENE I. 

P. 499. The first striking emendation in this tragedy is one 
which admits of much doubt : it occurs in the passage of lago's 
speech : 

" Others there are, 

Who, trimm'd in forms and visages of duty, 
Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves." 

For this the corrector of the folio, 1632, substitutes, 
" Who learn'd in forms and usages of duty," &c. 

It is certain that usages was formerly spelt vsages, and the com 
positor may have committed an error by printing "visages" for 
usages ; but, on the other hand, " hearts," in the next line, would 
seem intended as an antithesis to " visages," or outward appear 
ances ; and, in the second place, if the author had meant to employ 
the words " forms and usages" he would, perhaps, have said, not 
" learn'd in forms and usages" but " train'd in forms and usages." 
On the whole, therefore, it may be deemed unsafe to alter the 
received text in this instance, although in " Troilus and Cressida," 
Act IV. Scene II., we have the word visage misprinted for 
" usage," exactly as in the case before us. It is to be remarked 
that the proposed emendation applies to a part of lago's speech 
which is erased with a pen, viz. from " We cannot all be masters," 
down to " I would not be lago." 

P. 500. We should feel no hesitation in altering "timorous" 
to clamorous in the following, where lago tells Roderigo to awake 
and alarm Brabantio : 



478 OTHELLO. [ACT i. 

" Do ; with like timorous accent, and dire yell, 
As when by night and negligence, the fire 
Is spied in populous cities." 

Here "timorous," even taking it as frightened, seems quite out of 
place, when coupled with " dire yell ;" and we may, therefore, 
fairly conclude that the poet wrote, as the old corrector states, 

" Do ; with like clamorous accent, and dire yell," &c. 

P. 502. Koderigo informs Brabantio that his daughter had 
" made a gross revolt," 

" Tying her duty, beauty, wit, and fortunes 
In an extravagant and wheeling stranger." 

Here the commentators have notes upon " extravagant," but pass 
over "wheeling" without explanation, although very unintelli 
gible where it stands : a manuscript-correction in the folio, 1632, 
shows that it-is a misprint for a most applicable epithet ; and: 
other emendations are proposed, such as Laying for " Tying," and 
on for " in," which render the meaning much more obvious than 
in the ordinary reading': 

" Laying her duty, beauty, wit, and fortunes 
On an extravagant and wheedling stranger." 

Pope, adopting " Tying," follows it in the next line by the pre 
position to instead of " in ;" neither Laying nor on are by any 
means absolutely necessary, but wheedling for "wheeling" is an 
important improvement of the text, and shows that the word was 
of older employment in our language than some lexicographers 
have supposed. Nothing can be more natural than that TRoderigo 
should call Othello a ''wheedling stranger," who had insinuated 
himself into the good graces of both father and . daughter. 

P. 503. Nobody has remarked upon a curious variation between 
the folios, 1623 and 1632, in lago's line, 

" Though I do hate him as I do hell pains." 

This is the reading of the quartos ; but in the folio, 1623, the 
letters of the last word are misplaced, 



SC. III.] OTHELLO. 479 

" Though I do hate him as I do hell opines." 

The printer of the folio, 1632, not being able to understand apines, 
omitted the word altogether, making the line end imperfectly at 
" hell." The old corrector either saw what was meant in the folio, 
1623, or, perhaps, was assisted by the quartos, for he places paines 
(as the word was then commonly spelt) in his margin, with a 
caret in the text after " hell." 

SCENE HI. 

P. 509. The 2 Senator, referring to the contents of his letters, 
as different in the particulars, although alike in the main circum 
stances, observes, 

" As in these cases, where they aim reports, 
'Tis oft with difference." 

The expression, "where they aim reports" (or "where the aim 
reports," as Malone gives it from the folios), has occasioned dis 
cussion, although Johnson's interpretation has been usually fol 
lowed. According to a correction in the folio,' 1632, the words 
were misheard and misprinted, and the line is there given in a 
manner that clears away all obscurity : 

" As in these cases, with the same reports, 
'Tis' oft with difference." 

That is, where the "reports" were substantially the same, there 
were frequent minor discrepancies. Such, we may readily be 
lieve, was Shakespeare's meaning, and Shakespeare's language. 

P. 513.' A manuscript change in the text in the folio, 1632, 
differs from all known editions. The quartos make the Duke 
say, 

" To vouch this is no proof : 
Without more certain and more over test, 
Than these thin habits, and poor likelihoods," &c. 

The folio, 1623, gives the second line thus : 

" Without more wider and more over test ;" 
and hi the folio, 1632, as corrected, it stands : 



480 OTHELLO. [ACT i. 

" Without more evidence and overt test." 

Modern editors have "overt test;" but from whence evidence was 
derived by the old corrector, we cannot guess, unless he so heard 
the passage recited : the corruption, originating in the first folio, 
seems to afford some slight clue to the altered reading in the sec 
ond folio. 

P. 516. It ought to be noted that when, in the folios, Othello 
tells the Senate, 

" She gave me for my pains a world of kisses," 

the last word of the line is deleted in the folio, 1632, and " sighs" 
substituted hi the margin, in accordance with the quarto impres 
sions ; perhaps " sighs " was obtained from them, or from an 
actor's mouth. 

P. 520. Some material changes are made in Othello's speech, 
after Desdemona has besought the Senate that she may accom 
pany her husband to Cyprus. The text in the folio, 1623, is the 
following : 

" I therefore beg it not, 
To please the palate of my appetite, 
Nor to comply with heat the young affects 
In my defunct, and proper satisfaction, 
But to be free and bounteous to her mind : 
And heaven defend your good souls, that you think 
I will your serious and great business scant 
When she is with me. No ; when light-wing'd toys 
Of feather'd Cupid seal with wanton dulness 
My speculative and offic'd instrument," &c. 

The only difference between the folios, 1623 and 1632, is that,, hi 
the latter, " affects " is printed effects ; but various emendations 
have been proposed by modern editors (into which it is not ne 
cessary here to enter) in order to explain or remove the obscuri 
ties belonging to "nearly the whole passage. We subjoin the 
representation of the text as made by the corrector of the folio, 
1632 : 

" I therefore beg it not, 
To please the palate of my appetite, 



SO. III.] OTHELLO. 481 

Nor to comply wi' the young effects of heat 
(In me defunct) and proper satisfaction. 
But to be free and bounteous to her mind : 
And heaven defend your counsels, that you think 
I will your serious and great business scant, 
When she is with me. No ; when light-wing'd toya 
Of feather'd Cupid foil with wanton dulness 
My speculative and offic'd instruments," &c. 

In the third line it seems that " heat " got transposed, while of 
was omitted ; hi the fourth line, me was misprinted " my ; " and 
in the sixth line, counsels became " good souls," terms Othello 
would hardly apply to the Duke and Senators of Venice. Foil, 
in the ninth line, agrees with the quartos, where instruments is 
also hi the plural. These changes appear to be so effectual, as far 
as regards the plain sense of the passage, that all that some com 
mentators have said in favour of disjunct, instead of " defunct " 
(the word in every old edition), is thrown away : Othello did not 
ask for the company of his wife for his own proper satisfaction, or 
to comply with the young effects of heat, in him defunct at the 
age at which he had arrived ; and he therefore undertook that no 
amorous trifling should induce him to neglect the great duties 
entrusted to him. 

P. 524. We meet with the change of an important epithet 
where lago is encouraging Roderigo to hope that distaste will soon 
grow up between Othello and Desdemona : it is where he says, 
as it is commonly printed, 

" If sanctimony and a frail vow, betwixt an erring barbarian and a super- 
subtle Venetian be not too hard for my wits, and all the tribe of hell, thou 
shalt enjoy her." 

How had Desdemona given proof that she was " super-subtle ? " 
if she were so, she might be too cunning for the artifices of lago. 
What he wished was to persuade Roderigo that her love for 
Othello was not firmly rooted, that " she must have change," and 
that ere long she would be found, as her countrywomen prover 
bially were, complying and yielding to her own desires : there 
fore, for " super-subtle," the correction in the folio, 1632, is super- 
supple : because she was " a super-supple Venetian," Roderigo 
21 



482 OTHELLO. [ACT n. 

was to hope that she would submit to his importunity. "A frail 
vow " had passed between " an erring barbarian and a super-supple 
Venetian," which lago was soon to break. 



ACT II. SCENE I. 

P. 533. After lago has delivered his satirical verses against the 
female sex, Desdemona asks, " How say you, Cassio ? is he not a 
most profane and liberal counsellor 1 " By " counsellor," John 
son was here obliged to understand "one that discourses fearlessly 
and volubly ; " but if we may believe the author of the emenda 
tions in the folio, 1632, " counsellor " was not the poet's word, 
but censurer, used in the same way as in "Henry VIII.," Aet I. 
Scene II., where Wolsey speaks of " malicious censurers : " so 
Desdemona appeals to Cassio whether lago, in the character he 
had given of women, was not " a most profane and liberal cen 
surer ?" 

P. 538. The subsequent quotation, as it appears in the folios, 
has occasioned discussion : lago speaks : 

" Which thing to do, 

If this poor trash of Venice, whom I trace 
For his quick hunting, stand the putting on," &c. 

The quartos have crush for " trace," which must be wrong, and 
Warburton read brack, meaning a dog, for " trash." He was right 
in his guess, according to a correction in the folio, 1632, where the 
passage is thus given : 

"Which thing to do, 

If this poor brack of Venice, whom I trash 
For his quick hunting, stand the putting on," &c. 

To trash a dog was to chastise it ; and lago in this sense chastised 
Roderigo for his too eager pursuit of Desdemona. The composi 
tor blundered between brach and trash, and printed trash where he 
ought to have put " brach," and trace where he ought to have put 
" trash :" these emendations remove the whole difficulty. 



ACT II.] OTHELLO. 483 

SCENE m. 

P. 541. There is a remarkable discrepancy between the quarto 
and folios, which deserves the more notice, because the correc 
tion of an error in the folio, 1632, leads to an entirely new read 
ing of an important word ; lago says, in the quarto, 

" Three lads of Cyprus, noble swelling spirits ;" 

in the folios it is, 

" Three else of Cyprus, noble swelling spirits," 

an undoubted blunder ; and the question is how " lads," in the 
quartos, became else in the folios ] Simply from mishearing on the 
part of the scribe : the poet's word was probably not " lads," but, 
as lago jocularly calls them, 

" Three elf a of Cyprus, noble swelling spirits ;" 

and the manuscript-corrector alters "else" to clfes. Whether the 
true text be " lads" or elfs, the variation is curious ; and it seems 
probable, as lago terms them " spirits" in the last part of the line, 
that he should call them elfs in the first part of it. Our convic 
tion is that Shakespeare wrote elfes, which, not being immediately 
understood, was printed " lads" in the quarto, 1622. 

P. 547. We have several times seen words which begin with 
q printed with c: thus in Henry VIII. we have had chine for 
"queen" (p. 351), and in Macbeth cooled for " quailed" (p. 443). 
Here we meet with a repetition of the same strange mistake, in 
regard to a word that has been the source of considerable discus 
sion in the line, 

" And passion having my best judgment collied." 

The quarto has cooled for " collied ;" and various explanations of 
" collied" have been given, but we are not required to state them, 
in as much as " collied" was, probably, not the poet's word : 

" And passion having my best judgment quelled," 

is the substitution in the folio, 1632; and Malone says that some 
" modern editor," whom he does not otherwise distinguish, had 



484 OTHELLO. [ACT III. 

proposed quelled : Othello's judgment was quelled, or subdued, by 
his passion. There can hardly be a doubt that this is the proper 
restoration. 

P. 552. It may be enough to say that the old corrector does 
not accept the contraction of " probal," as it stands in all editions, 
but alters it to probable, which, pronounced in the time of two 
syllables, may suit the verse sufficiently well. 



ACT HI. SCENE I. 

P. 554. The dialogue between Cassio, the Clown, and the Mu 
sicians is struck out, probably because it was necessary to abridge 
the performance : several verbal and literal errors are, neverthe 
less, set right ; thus, " speak through the nose" is amended to 
" squeak through the nose ;" me is erased as injurious surplusage 
where Cassio says, " Dost thou hear me, mine honest friend ?" for 
"the gentlewoman that attends the general," we have " the gen 
tlewoman that attends the general's wife;" and for " I shall seem 
to notify unto her," we are told to read, " I shall seem so to notify 
unto her." All these emendations seem more or less required. 

SCENE HI. 

P. 559. In the parenthesis in Desdemona's appeal to Othello on 
behalf of Cassio, 

" (Save that, they say, the wars must make examples 
Out of her best)," 

the word " her" is altered naturally, but by no means necessarily, 
to " Out of our best." All this part of the play is so well printed 
in the folios, that few corrections, excepting of punctuation, are in 
troduced in the margin. It ought not to escape notice, however, 
that mock, of all the early impressions, is converted into " make" 
in the disputed line (p. 564), 

" It is the green-ey'd monster, which doth make 
The meat it feeds on ;" 

while the conclusion of the same speech is thus given : 
"Who dotes, yet doubts ; suspects, jet fondly loves." 



SO. III.] OTHELLO. 485 

It is " strongly loves" in the quartos, and " soundly loves" in the 
folios ; but the old corrector changed soundly to " fondly," and 
we are disposed to conclude that such was the received text in his 
time. 

P. 566. The next emendation seems questionable, because the 
intention of the poet is expressed with sufficient distinctness as the 
text has hitherto stood : it is where lago says, 

" But pardon me ; I do not in position 
Distinctly speak of her." 

He may refer merely to the position Desdemona occupies ; but 
still, what follows the above appears to countenance the recom 
mended alteration : 

" But pardon me, I do not in suspicion 
Distinctly speak of her, though I may fear, 
Her will, recoiling to her better judgment, 
May fall to match you with her country forms, 
And happily repent." 

P. 568. The imperfect and corrupt line in the folios, 

" If she be false, Heaven mock'd itself," 
appears thus in the quartos : 

" If she be false, O ! then heaven mocks itself." 

The emendator of the folio, 1632, furnishes a reading different from 
any old copy : 

"If she be false, ! heaven doth mock itself. 
I'll not believe it." 

Such may have been his mode of completing the line, or it may 
have been the way in which he had seen it written or heard it re 
cited, though the difference is not very material. 

The unprinted stage-directions are not many, but the ancient 
impressions have very few, even where most required. When 
Desdemona produces her handkerchief, in order to bind it round 
Othello's temples, Offers to bind is written in the margin ; and 
when he rejects it, Throws it away is inserted in the same manner, 
lago subsequently snatcheth it from Emilia. 



486 OTHELLO. [ACT in. 

P. 571. Othello's passionate exclamation in the quarto, 
" What sense had I of her stolen hours of lust ?" 

is the same in the folio, 1623, excepting that " of" is made in: in 
the folio, 1632, it is printed, 

" What sent had I in her stolen hours of lust?" 

The old corrector here restores the language of the quarto ; and 
two lines lower he erases " fed well," which found its way into the 
folios, and is not only utterly needless, but most prejudicial. 

P. 574. The grossest portions of lago's description of what 
Othello might wish to see for the sake of conviction, and of Cas- 
sio's supposed dream, are struck through with a pen, but errors 
are still carefully amended : " to bring to that prospect" the cor 
rector makes " to bring it" (not " them," as in the folio, 1623) " to 
that prospect ;" he supplies " and" before " then kiss me hard," 
and converts " sigh," " kiss," and " cry," of the folios, to the past 
tense, as in each case in the quarto. 

P. 576. A printer's error has occasioned difficulty in the line, 
where Othello draws a simile from " the Pontick sea," which, as 
the folios have it, 

" Ne'er keeps retiring ebb, but keeps due on," &c. 

" Keeps" must be wrong in the first instance, and Pope altered it 
to " feels," which was, perhaps, derived by him from the quarto, 
1630 ; but the manuscript-emendation in the folio, 1632, is, 

" Ne'er knows retiring ebb, but keeps due on," &c. 

This seems the superior reading, and may have been that of the 
poet : to say that a sea " ne'er feels retiring ebb," is hardly the 
language of Shakespeare. 

SCENE IV. 

P. 579. Othello, wishing to see the handkerchief, says to Des- 
demona, in the quarto, 

" I have a salt and sullen rheum offends me," 
which may be the correct text ; but the folios read, 



ACT IV.] OTHELLO. 487 

" I have a salt and sorry rheum offends me." 

The manuscript-emendator alters " sorry " to sudden, as if Othello 
meant that the rheum had unexpectedly come upon him, and 
therefore that he needed his wife's handkerchief: 

" I have a salt and sudden rheum offends me." 

This seems natural, and in " King John," Act I. Scene I. (p. 122), 
we have already seen sudden misprinted sullen. 

P. 582. Cassio entreats Desdemona, if she cannot remove 
Othello's displeasure, to let him know the result, in order that he 
may at once adopt some other method of life : 

" So shall I clothe me in a forc'd content, 
And shut myself up in some other course 
To fortune's alms." 

This is as the passage has always appeared, but we are directed 
in the margin of the folio, 1632, to correct the two following 
lapses by the printer : 

" So shall I clothe me in a forc'd content, 
And shift myself upon some other course 
To fortune's alms." 

Cassio was not to " shut himself up in," but to " shift himself 
upon some other course" to obtain the favours of fortune, per 
haps, by changing his profession. 



ACT IV. SCENE I. 

P. 587. Just before Othello falls in a trance, as the old copies 
describe it, he exclaims, " I tremble at it. Nature would not in 
vest herself in such shadowing passion, without some instruction. 
It is not words that shake me thus." He means, of course, that 
his own conviction of the fact of Desdemona's guilt, not lago's 
promptings, produced such a trembling and shaking effect upon 
him. Warburton has a note in favour of reading induction for 
" instruction ;" and Johnson calls a speculation respecting the in 
duction of the moon before the sun, so as to overshadow it, " a 
noble conjecture." It appears, however, that " shadowing" (often 



488 OTHELLO. [ACT iv. 

of old spelt shaddowing) is a misprint for shuddering, which is en 
tirely consistent with what precedes, as well as with what follows 
about trembling and shaking ; the old corrector alters the passage 
in the following manner : 

"I tremble at it. Nature would not invest herself in such shuddering 
passion, without some instruction. It is not words that shake me thus," &c. 

" Shadowing passion" seems to have no meaning, but that fanci 
fully suggested by Warburton, where he supposes Othello, in the 
height of his grief and fury, to illustrate his own condition by ref 
erence to an eclipse. It was the mistake of an epithet, very 
naturally applied to " passion," that forced the commentator upon 
this speculation. The person who abridged the tragedy (probably 
for representation at some period soon after 1632) struck out the 
words from " nature " down to " instruction," as well as a few 
previous expressions, for a different, but obvious reason. 

P. 589. The folios introduce a strange corruption where they 
convert 

" And his unbookish jealousy must construe" 

into " And his unbookish jealousy must conserve :" a correction of 
it is found in manuscript in the folio, 1632 ; but in the last line of 
this page an emendation of a singular kind is met with. Othello 
overhearing Cassio laugh, when lago alludes to Bianca, imagines 
that Cassio is exulting over him in consequence of his success with 
Desdemona : 

'' Do you triumph, Roman ? do you triumph ?" 

are the words put into Othello's mouth, " Roman," in the old 
copies, being spelt Romaine. Why should Othello call Cassio 
Roman ? Johnson says, because the word " triumph" brought 
Roman into his thoughts. This may unquestionably be so ; but 
the manuscript-corrector says that the word Roman (perhaps writ 
ten without a capital letter in the copy used by the printer) has 
been entirely mistaken, and that we ought to read, 

" Do you triumph o'er me? do you triumph ?" 
It is not easy to imagine how romaine became o'er me, either by 



SO. III.] OTHELLO. 489 

mishearing or misprinting ; but certainly the allusion to a Roman 
triumph seems very forced in the mouth of a Moor, and the ques 
tion, " Do you triumph o'er me ?" most fit and natural. Without 
confirmation, however, it might require considerable courage to in 
sert in the text of our great poet so peculiar an emendation. 

SCENE H. 

P. 598. The subsequent passage has produced discussion, arising 
mainly out of discordance of texts in the quarto and folios, 
the quarto it is, 

" But, alas ! to make me 
A fixed figure for the time of scorn 
To point his slow unmoving finger at." 

The folios have " The fixed figure," and " slow and moving," but 
both quarto and folios " time of scorn," which Rowe properly 
changed to " hand of scorn," as appears by a correction in the folio, 
1632. Another emendation in the next line, converts " slow and 
moving," not into "slow unmoving," of the quarto, but into "slowly 
moving," the text of no old copy, so that the whole is there thus 
represented, with manifest improvement : 

" But, alas ! to make me 
A fixed figure for the hand of scorn 
To point his slowly moving finger at." 

P. 600. Here we have another variation in the folio, 1632 (as 
corrected), from any known copy. The quarto reads, 

" How have I been behav'd, that he might stick 
The small'st opinion on my great'st abuse ?" 

*> 

The folios have " my least misuse" for " great'st abuse ;" both can 
not be right, and the old corrector informs us that neither is so, 
but that we should print, 

" The small'st opinion on my least misdeed ;" 

i. e. " how can he have formed the smallest ill opinion of me from 
the least misdeed that I have committed ?" 

SCENE IH. 

P. 607. Desdemona's willow-ballad begins in the folios, 
21* 



490 OTHELLO. [ACT V. 

" The poor soul sat singing by a sycamore tree." 

But the original (Percy's Rel. I. 212) has sighing for " singing," 
and such is the written correction ; but it goes farther by making 
it commence with the indefinite article : 

" A poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree." 

There is no other change in, or addition to it. That part of the 
dialogue between Desdemona and Emilia, which relates to the in 
fidelity of wives to their husbands, is marked for omission. 



ACT V. SCENE I. 

P. 609. There is not a single printed stage-direction in this 
busy and difficult scene, where so many seem necessary ; but they 
are furnished in the margin, or in vacant spaces of the folio, 1632. 
When Roderigo draws his sword, to wait for Cassio, he is told to 
stand back ; lago wounds Cassio and exit ; and subsequently en 
ters unready, with a torch and sword drawn. The entrance of 
Emilia is not at all marked in the folios, but the corrector duly 
notes the place, and the whole business of the scene is elsewhere 
accurately pointed out. This Act, with a few exceptions, is com 
paratively well printed in the folios. 

SCENE H. 

P. 616. One of these exceptions is found in Othello's first speech, 
where the folios print "I'll smell thee on the tree" instead of 
" I'll smell it on the tree." Before he commences he is instructed 
to lock the door. Another exception occurs on p. 619, where 
"Did yawn at alteration" ought to be "Should yawn at altera 
tion." These changes are introduced in the folio, 1632. 

P. 621. The folios give the following imperfectly, 
" Ay, with Cassio. Nay, had she been true," 

by omitting " nay ;" but the old corrector states that the line ought 
to be, 

" Ay, with Cassio. Had she been but true," &c. 



SC. II.] OTHELLO. 491 

The difference is small, and, as a mere matter of taste, we prefer 
the reading of the quarto. 

P. 624. It is difficult to decide, in the subsequent instance, 
which text ought to be adopted, that of the quarto, 1622, that of 
the folio, 1623, and quarto, 1630, or that of the corrected - folio, 
1632, for they all differ : 

" No, I will speak as liberal as the north." 

So it stands in the folio, 1623, and in the quarto, 1630 ; but the 
quarto, 1622, has it, "as liberal as the air" and the folio, 1632, 
as amended, 

" No, I will speak as liberal as the wind." 

Why, we may ask, should the old corrector make the change, in 
as much as no reasonable objection can be urged against the use 
of " north," which he deletes, not in favour of " air," of the quarto, 
1622, but in favour of wind? We may presume, perhaps, that 
he altered the word because he had heard the line repeated in that 
manner on the stage. Montano's speech, near the top of the next 
page, affords another proof to the same effect : 

" Which I have here recover'd from the Moor." 

The folios omit " here," clearly necessary to the measure ; but 
instead of inserting it from the quarto, the old corrector placed 
now in the margin. 

P. 628. The same authority is indisputably right when he sup 
plied another omission in the folios where Ludovico, after telling 
Othello that he must " go with us," turns to lago, and threatens 
him with torture : the line there is, 

" To the Venetian state. Come ; bring away." 

The quarto has, " Come ; bring him away ;" but both Othello and 
lago were to accompany the officers of justice, and therefore the 
old corrector properly puts it, " Come ; bring them away." He 
again varies triflingly from every old edition in the concluding 
words of Othello : 



492 OTHELLO. [ACT v. 

" And say, besides, that in Aleppo once, 
Where a malignant and a turban'd Turk 
Beat a Venetian, and traduc'd the state," &c. 

He alters "where" to when: the "where" had been already 
stated, viz. in Aleppo, and when has reference to the time and 
cause of Othello's anger, not to the place in which he gave vent 
to it. 

We are not informed in the folios, as printed, that Othello stabs 
himself at the words, " And smote him thus," but merely, four 
lines afterwards, that he " dies " on the bed, adds the corrector. 
Emilia expires, without any note in the folios, after she has been 
wounded by her husband, also without note. According to the 
old mode of performing the part, it seems that Othello threw 
himself, in an agony, upon the ground just before Emilia said, 
" Nay, lay thee down and roar," but started up again, exclaiming, 
" O ! she was foul," &c. In modern editions it is stated that at 
these points he fell upon the bed, and rose from it again. In the 
time of the corrector he did not fall upon the bed until the mo 
ment before his death. 

Some descriptive additions are made in manuscript, for the 
first time in the volume, to the list of " the Actors' names " ap 
pended to the play : thus we are told that logo is Ancient to the 
Moor, Gratiano Uncle to Desdemona, &c. One of these, and only 
one, is of importance, and that with reference to the question agi 
tated by Tyrwhitt, Henley, Malone, Steevens, &c., whether Bi- 
anca were a courtezan of Cyprus or of Venice ? The Venetian 
courtezans were famous in the time of Shakespeare, and he here 
exhibited one of them on the stage ; for to " Bianca, a courtezan," 
in the enumeration of the characters, is Jdded of Venice in the 
hand-writing of the annotator on the folio, 1632. There is no 
doubt, therefore, that she is supposed in the tragedy to have fol 
lowed Cassio from Venice to Cyprus, and, to a certain extent, 
aided in bringing about the catastrophe. It may be deemed more 
than probable, that she was dressed, at least in the time of the 
old corrector, in the costume so strikingly represented as that of 
Venetian Courtezans in Coryat's "Crudities," 4to. 1611. 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATEA. 



ACT I. SCENE L 

Vol. viii. p. 6. The heroine taunts Antony with supposed sub 
jection to Caesar : 

" Who knows 

If the scarce-bearded Caesar have not sent 
His powerful mandate to you, ' Do this, or this ; 
Take in that kingdom, and enfranchise that ; 
Perform't, or else we damn thee.' " 

Such has been the universal reading, and there may be no suffi 
cient reason to alter it; but the word "damn" sounds ill in Cle 
opatra's mouth, reads like a vulgarism in the place where it occurs, 
and may easily have been misprinted : 

" Perform't, or else we doom thee" 
is the emendation of the corrector of the folio, 1632. 

P. 7. An adverb, a decided misprint, as it seems to us, has 
hitherto escaped correction, where Antony tells Cleopatra that 
every mood becomes her : 

" Whose every passion fully strives 
To make itself in thee fair and admir'd." 

"Fully strives" is a clumsy expression, and a manuscript note 
points out a word, so much more acceptable and appropriate, that 
we may be satisfied in future to reject the blunder : the whole 
passage is, 

" Fie, wrangling queen ! 

Whom every thing becomes, to chide, to laugh, 
To weep ; whose every passion fitly strivea 
To make itself, in thee, fair and admir'd." 

(493) 



494 ANTONY AND CLEOPATKA. [ACT I. 

A compositor might carelessly commit such a blunder : the 
wonder seems to be that it has never been detected. 

SCENE II. 

P. 9. It only requires a brief note to state that Warburton's 
emendation of "fertile," for foretell of the folios, is not confirmed 
by the corrector" of the folio, 1632 : the word in the margin of 
that impression is fruitful ; fertile may come nearer the letters, 
but fruitful is certainly better adapted to the sense : 

" If every of your wishes had a womb, 
And. fruitful every wish, a million." 

P. 12. The subsequent quotation may be (as indeed it has been) 
construed into a meaning ; but when we state the errors of the 
press it contains, we can scarcely doubt regarding corruption : 

" The present pleasure, 
By revolution lowering, does become 
The opposite of itself." 

Such has always been the text, and Johnson, after admitting it to 
be obscure, confesses himself " unable to add any thing" to War- 
burton's explanation, which relates to the " revolutions of the sun 
in his diurnal course." Tollett and Steevens each made an at 
tempt with about the same success ; but can any thing be better 
than the changes offered by the old annotator ? 

" The present pleasure, 
By repetition souring, does become 
The opposite of itself." 

This needs neither illustration nor enforcement : sour and souring 
were of old spelt sower and sowering. Two lines farther on, the 
printer of the folio, 1632, left out the epithet " enchanting" before 
"queen," but the old corrector inserted it, perhaps from the 
folio, 1623. 

SCENE m. 

P. 15. Few things can be clearer than that the punctuation of 
the line where Cleopatra tells Charmain, 

" Thou teachest like a fool : the way to lose him," 



SC. IV.] ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 495 

is wrong ; yet it has been almost invariably followed. Malone, 
and others after him, have given it in that manner, but the sense 
unquestionably runs on : 

" Thou teachest, like a fool, the way to lose him." 
The corrector of the folio, 1632, erases the colon. 

P. 18. Cleopatra pretends to doubt the affection of Antony, 
who observes, in all editions, 

" My precious queen, forbear ; 
And give true evidence to his love, which stands 
An honourable trial." 

" Evidence " is one syllable too long for the verse, unless it be 
read evidence ; but that, if any, is the smallest objection to it, as 
will be seen when we quote the passage as corrected, and as it 
must be given in future : 

"And give true credence to his love, which stands 
An honourable trial." 

SCENE IV. 

P. 19. For "one great competitor" we must hereafter read 
" our great competitor," as Johnson conjectiired : the old corrector 
substitutes our for " one." In the first line of the next page, the 
negative at the end dropped out in the second folio ; and if it 
were not obtained from the first folio, the sense would necessarily 
supply it. Lower down, it appears equally proper to read " Fall 
on him for't," and the C is struck through, and F placed in the 
margin : Johnson's forced construction of " Visit him" for "Call 
on him," will not bear examination ; surfeits and dryness of his 
bones were to fall (not to " call") on Antony for his unrestrained 
voluptuousness. 

P. 20. A messenger brings intelligence that " Pompey is 
strong at sea " and he adds, 

" To the ports 

The discontents repair, and men's reports 
Give him much wrong'd. 

The emendator of the folio, 1632, substitutes, with much plausi- 



496 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. [ACT I. 

bility, fleets for " ports ;" and it seems likely that the compositor 
blundered in consequence of the word " report" being found two 
lines above, and " reports" just below. It is improbable that 
Shakespeare would have been guilty of the cacophony : neverthe 
less, it is not to be disputed that, as far as the sense is concerned, 
" ports " answers the purpose quite as well as fleets. 



SCENE V. 

P. 24. Alexas arrives, not " from Csesar," as stated in the old 
copies, but from Antony, as an emendation in the folio, 1632, 
informs us ; and at the end of his third speech he describes the 
manner of the hero as he delivered his message for Cleopatra, 
and then mounted his steed. The words have been usually printed 
in this manner : 

" So he nodded, 

And soberly did mount an arm-gaunt steed, 
Who neigh'd so high, that what I would have spoke 
Was beastly dumb'd by him." 

The first difficulty has arisen out of the epithet " arm-gaunt," and, 
without noticing other proposed emendations, we may state that 
Sir Thomas Hanmer's "arm-^ri" is precisely that of the old cor 
rector, who also makes a very important change in the last hem 
istich, which, in the folios, stands, 

" Was beastly dumbe by him." 

The commentators have properly taken "dumbe" as a misprint 
for dumUd, and have referred to " Pericles," where dumbs is used 
as a verb. It seems that "beastly" was not Shakespeare's word, 
which we can well suppose : in " Macbeth" we have seen " boast " 
misprinted beast, and in Henry V. (Chorus to Act IV.) we meet 
with the line, 

" Steed threatens steed in high and boastful neighs." 

In the passage before us, Alexas says that the "arm-girt steed" 
neighed so "high "that he could not address Antony: in what 
way, then, does the corrector of the folio, 1632, give the whole 
passage ? 



ACT II.] ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 497 

. "So he nodded, 

And soberly did mount an arm-girt steed, 
Who neighed so high, that what I would have spoke 
- Was boastfully dumb'd by him." 

One slight objection to this change is that boastfully must be read 
as a dissyllable, and such is the case with various words, one of 
them being " eA'idence," in a preceding quotation, if we could 
refrain from admitting credence instead of it. Boastfully might 
be, and probably was, misprinted " beastly ;" and the arm-girt 
steed, neighing proudly as Antony mounted him, "boastfully 
dumbed" what Alexas would have spoken to his master. 



ACT II. SCENE I. 

P. 27. We own that we do not like the first change in the fol 
lowing, where Pompey expresses his hope that the beauty and 
blandishments of Cleopatra will detain Antony in Egypt : 

" Salt Cleopatra, soften thy wand lip. 
Let witchcraft join with beauty, lust with both : 
Tie up the libertine in a field of feasts, 
Keep his brain fuming," &c. 

For "wand lip" the old corrector, prosaically as it seems to us, 
has " warm lip ;" but it is very possible that warm was misheard 
" wand." However, he goes on to make a double alteration in 
the next line but one, where he puts Lay for " Tie," and flood for 
" field." It reads very unlike Shakespeare to talk of tying up a 
libertine in a field of feasts. The proposed emendations, then, 
are these : 

" Salt Cleopatra, soften thy warm lip. 
Let witchcraft join with beauty, lust with both : 
Lay up the libertine in a, flood of feasts ; 
Keep his brain fuming," &c. 

To us the above appears one of the least satisfactory emendations 
made in this play in the folio, 1632 : it sounds too much like 
conjecture; yet on p. 478 we have seen tying misprinted for 
"laying." 



498 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. [ACT II. 

SCENE II. 
P. 29. When Antony says to Caesar, 

"Were we before our armies, and to fight, 
I should do thus," 

we are no where told, in ancient or modern editions, what Antony 
did, whether he embraced or shook hands with his competitor. 
There is a manuscript note, Shake hands, in the folio, 1632, which 
may be said to settle the doubt, as far as regards the old practice 
of the stage ; and Caesar, taking the proffered hand of Antony, 
says, " Welcome to Rome." This is nearly the first additional 
stage-direction that has occurred in the hand-writing of the cor 
rector, and instructions of the kind are not so frequent as in some 
other dramas. Shake hands is repeated, when the engagement 
respecting Oetavia is concluded between Antony and Caesar. 

P. 33. When Agrippa first recommends this marriage, Caesar 
slily and jocosely remarks, as the passage is given in all modern 
editions, 

" Say not so, Agrippa : 
If Cleopatra heard you, your reproof 
Were well deserv'd of rashness." 

This is intelligible, but hardly as the poet must have left his text; 
and the sentence is thus most blunderingly printed in the folios : 

" Say not, say Agrippa, if Cleopater heard you, 
Your proof were well deserv'd of rashness." 

The old corrector shows that proof is to be taken as " reproof," 
which was Warburton's supposition, not as "approof," which 
Theobald inserted ; and the folio, 1632, gives the lines in this 

way : 

'' Say it not, Agrippa : 
If Cleopatra heard you, your reproof 
Were well deserv'd for rashness." 

This is most comprehensible ; and it is easy to see how part of 
the blunders found their way into the old impressions : the pro 
posal of a marriage between Antony and Oetavia might well de 
serve reproof for its rashness, if Cleopatra had been by to hear it. 



SO. III.] ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 499 

P. 35. There seems to be a slight error in the description of 
Cleopatra's pavilion upon the Cydnus : 

" She did lie 

In her pavilion (cloth of gold of tissue), 
O'er-picturing that Venus," &c. 

A manuscript note informs us, as we may reasonably imagine, that 
cloth of gold was not " of tissue," but that we ought to read, 

" In her pavilion (cloth of gold and tissue)," &c. 

It was composed of cloth of gold and tissue : perhaps the cloth of 
gold was lined with tissue. Lower in the same page, " To gloue 
the delicate cheeks," of the folio, 1623, and " To glove the delicate 
cheeks," of the folio, 1632, are altered to "To glow the delicate 
cheeks," as in modern impressions. * 

On the next page (36) it has been invariable to print as follows : 

" The silken tackle 

Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands, 
That yarely frame the office." 

Why, or how, was the silken tackle to " swell with the touches 
of flower-soft hands?" The printer again mistook m for w : the 
poet is alluding to the perfume derived by the silken cordage from 
the flower-soft hands through which it passed, and adds, 

"From the barge 

A strange invisible perfume hits the sense 
Of the adjacent wharfs." 

Therefore, we ought undoubtedly, with the old corrector, to amend 
the text to 

"Smell with the touches of those flower-soft hands," &c. 

SCENE HI. 

P. 38. Whether it be or be not " more poetical," it is certain 
that the old corrector tells us to read, 

"But near him thy angel 
Becomes afear'd," 

and not " Becomes a fear." This emendation is at least consistent 



500 ANTONY AND CLEOPATEA. [ACT II. 

with North's Plutarch " for thy Demon is afraid of his" as 
well as with Shakespeare himself, who makes the Soothsayer re 
peat, 

" I say again, thy spirit 
Is all afraid to govern thee near him." 

The poet may, however, have here intended to vary the expression. 

P. 40. The Messenger who brings intelligence to Cleopatra of 
Antony's marriage with Octavia, and who appears again in a sub 
sequent scene (p. 60), is called Elis in a marginal note in both 
places in the folio, 1632. Whether Elis, or Ellis, were the name 
of the part, or of the performer may be doubted, but we have no 
knowledge of any actor of the time so called. 

SCENE VII. 

P. 54. Wlien Antony, during the debauch, says to Caesar, " Be 
a child o' the time," Csesar replies, rather unintelligibly, 

" Possess it, I'll make answer ; but I had rather fast 
From all four days, than drink so much in one." 

What does he mean by telling Antony to " possess it '?" Profess 
it is the emendation in the folio, 1632 : that is, professed to be a 
child of the time ; but Cassar follows it up by stating his dislike 
of drinking to excess. In the first scene of " King Lear" (p. 462) 
we have had the converse of this misprint professes for 
" possesses." 

A question has arisen whether to preserve beat, of the old copies, 
or to print " bear," where Enobarbus says, in reference to the 
boy's song, 

" The holding every man shall beat," &c. 

Theobald was in favour of " bear," and he is proved to have been 
right, not merely because that change is made in the folio, 1632, 
but because the old annotator has placed the two last lines of the 
song in a mark of inclusion, and has designated them as the bur 
then, or " holding," which the jovial company was to bear " as loud 
as their strong sides could volley." Johnson's notion that " drum 
ming on the sides " was intended, is out of the question. No 
printer's error was more common than t for r, and vice versa. 



ACT III.] ANTONY AND CLEOPATEA. 501 

ACT HI. SCENE I. 

P. 56. Although at the opening of this drama in the folios, we 
have Act us primus, Scena prima, no such divisions are elsewhere 
noted from beginning to end. Malone and other modern editors 
have marked Act III. as commencing with the entrance of Venti- 
dius in triumph in Syria ; but the corrector of the folio, 1632, 
makes Act III. begin after this scene, where the place of action is 
Rome, and where we read in the old editions, Enter Agrippa at 
one door, Enobarbus at another. This should seem to have been 
the division in the time of the corrector ; and it is certainly more 
proper and convenient than that adopted since the days of Howe, 
because it tends somewhat to diminish the extreme length of Act 
III., which, even according to the representation in the amended 
folio, 1632, comprises eight scenes. In more than one instance 
the place was supposed to be changed, although no actual altera 
tion had occurred. 

SCENE IV. 
P. 63. The usual reading of the following has been, 

" When the best hint was given him, he not took't, 
Or did it from his teeth." 

The folio, 1623, has " he not look'd," and the folio, 1632, " he had 
look'd." There appears no sufficient ground for doing more than 
amend the frequent error of "not" for but ; it avoids an awk 
wardness when Antony complains of Caesar, that, 

" When the best hint was given him, he but look'd, 
Or did it from his teeth." 

Such is the emendation in the folio, 1632, the meaning being, that 
Caesar only looked when the best hint was given him, or merely 
applauded Antony from his teeth, and not from his heart. The 
opinion of Steevens that " from his teeth" is to be understood 
" in spite of his teeth," of course, cannot be sustained for an 
instant. 

SCENE VI. 

P. 67. Caesar finds fault with Antony for sending back Octavia 
without due ceremony and attendance : 



502 ANTONY AND CLEOPATKA. [ACT III. 

" But you are come 

A market-maid to Rome, and have prevented 
The ostentation of our love, which, left unshown, 
Is often left unlov'd." 

" Left unlov'd" is the reading of all editions ; "but, nevertheless, 
it seems to be wrong, and in the folio, 1632. as corrected, we are 
told to print the last part of the quotation thus : 

" Which, left unshown, 
Is often held unlov'd ;" 

the meaning being, that where the ostentation of love was omitted, 
it was often held, or considered, that love did not exist. Lower 
down, the alteration of two letters in the margin, properly con 
verts abstract into " obstruct," which Warburton first introduced. 

P. 68. We surely need not pause in making a change which 
only requires the omission of a letter, which must have acciden 
tally become a part of the text, and which is palpably an " ob 
struct" to the author's sense. Caesar is still addressing his 
sister : 

" Your letters did withhold our breaking forth, 
Till we perceiv'd, both how you were wrong led, 
. And we in negligent danger." 

The corrector of the folio, 1632, puts wronged for "wrong led:" 
the objection was, not that Octavia had been " wrong led," but 
wronged by Antony, who had abandoned her, and returned to 
Cleopatra. Caesar, when he informs Octavia of this fact, calls 
her " my most wronged sister." 

SCENE VHL 

P. 74. After the loss of the battle, Scarus attributes it to the 
presence and flight of Cleopatra. Enobarbus asks, " How ap 
pears the fight V and Scarus replies, 

" On our side like the token'd pestilence, 
Where death is sure. Yond' ribald-rid nag of Egypt, 
Whom leprosy o'ertake, i' the midst o' the fight, 
When vantage, like a pair of twins, appear'd 



SO. XI.] ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 503 

Both as the same, or rather ours the elder ; 
The brize upon her like a cow in June, 
Hoists sails, and flies." 

Here the folio, 1632, omits take in " o'ertake," and has " Both of 
the same" for "Both as the same," of the folio, 1623; but the 
two folios read, " Yond ribaldred nag of Egypt," an expression 
that has occasioned much doubt and comment. Tyrwhitt suggested 
hag for "nag," but the prevailing text has been "nag" and 
"ribald-rid," for ribaldred. It is to be remarked, however (a 
circumstance mentioned in note 7), that the line is overloaded by 
a syllable : this redundancy the old corrector remedies, but he 
also instructs us, in conformity with Tyrwhitt's notion, that hag 
has been misprinted " nag," and that the line ought to run thus: 

" Where death is sure. Yond' ribald hag of Egypt," &c. 

Ribald hag is most appropriate to Cleopatra on account of her 
profligacy, as well as her witchcraft ; and it is just possible that 
in the manuscript before the compositor the word was miswritten 
ribaldry, which in his hands became ribaldred, and has been the 
occasion of considerable difficulty. Besides, how was leprosy to 
afflict a nag ? 

SCENE XI. 

P. 80. We cannot approve of the commencement of Act IV., 
as marked in the corrected folio, 1632. It is made to begin with 
this scene between Cleopatra, Enobarbus, Charmian, and Iras, in 
Alexandria, instead of the scene where Caesar enters (near Alex 
andria) reading a letter, and accompanied by Agrippa, Mectenas, 
and others. This arrangement still farther shortens Act III., but 
it lengthens Act IV., and is liable to several objections, into which 
it is not necessary here to enter. 

The conjecture in note 9, founded upon Johnson's hint, that 
"meered" might be a lapse by the printer for mooted, in the ex 
pression, "he being the meered question," is supported by a 
manuscript change of the old corrector. In future we may safely 
print " mooted question." 

P. 81. Enobarbus ridicules the challenge of Antony to Caesar 



504 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. [ACT III. 

to engage with him in single combat, on the ground that Antony, 
after the defeat of his forces, and his disgraceful flight, has nothing 
to lose, while Ceesar has nothing to gain : he exclaims, in solilo 
quy, as the language of the poet has always been represented, 

" That he should dream. 
Knowing all measures, the full Caesar will 
Answer his emptiness !" 

Nobody has explained what is meant by " Knowing all measures." 
It might mean that Antony knows how to measure beween him 
self and Caesar, were it not clear that Antony is quite ignorant 
upon the point ; and a correction leads us to believe that the 
printer was again in fault, and composed "measures" for a word 
like it, which he hastily misread : 

" That he should dream, 
Knowing all miseries, that the full Caesar will 
Answer his emptiness !" 

Enobarbus refers to the miserable plight and prospects of Antony 
at the time he dared Caesar to " lay his gay comparisons apart," 
and meet him " sword against sword." Just above, " quality " is 
changed to qualities, but this is a variation of little importance ; 
nevertheless, it reads as if it were right. 

P. 82. Thyreus tells Cleopatra that Csesar would be pleased to 
hear that she had left Antony, 

" And put yourself under his shroud, 
The universal landlord." 

The first of these lines halts for want of two syllables ; neverthe 
less, the text is such in the folio, 1623 ; but in the folio, 1632, the 
word "landlord" is strangely separated from what precedes, and 
put two lines lower. The old corrector sets this matter right, 
and adds what completes the measure of the first line, and was in 
all probability what Shakespeare wrote : 

" And put yourself under his shroud, who is 
The universal landlord." 

Three lines farther on the folios have, 

" Say to great Caesar this in disputation." 



ACT IV.] ANTONY AND CLEOPATEA. 505 

It is the introduction to a message of submission from Cleopatra 
to Caesar ; and Warburton, very judiciously, as now appears, put 
"deputation" for disputation, which last had Malone and others 
for adherents ; but the correction in the folio, 1632, goes some 
what farther : 

" Say to great Caesar, that in deputation 
I kiss his conquering hand," &c. 



ACT IV. SCENE IV. 

P. 92. According to the regulation of such matters in the folio, 
1632, this is the fifth scene of the fourth act ; but, as we have 
already stated, we think the old corrector so far wrong in his di 
vision of the play. 

Antony enters calling for his armour : " Mine armour, Eros !" 
and when the man brings it, Antony is made to say in the old 
copies, " Put thine iron on ;" but surely it ought to be, as a man 
uscript note renders it, " Put mine iron on :" Eros then begins 
to arm the hero, while Cleopatra insists upon lending her aid ; and 
in this place, in the early editions, three or four speeches are jum 
bled together, and all assigned to Cleopatra. The corrector sep 
arates them by marginal notes, but not precisely as has been done 
by Sir T. Hanmer and later editors. We give the mode of reg 
ulating the dialogue in the amended folio, 1632, and on compari 
son it will be seen that it varies : - 

" Cleo. Nay, I'll help too, Antony, 

What's this for? 
Ant. Ah, let be, let be ; thou art 

The armourer of my heart. False, false : this, this. 
Cleo. Sooth, la, I'll help. 
Ant. Thus must it be. Well, well : 

We shall thrive now." 

The chief difference is that "Thus must it be" is given by the 
old corrector to Antony, and not to Cleopatra. Afterwards An 
tony observes, 

" He that unbuckles this, till we do please 
To dofft for our repose, shall hear a storm." 

22 



506 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. [ACT IV. 

"Shall bear a storm," says a marginal note, "with much more fit 
ness, the compositor having taken a wrong letter An enemy 
who should attempt to unbuckle Antony's armour, was not likely 
to "hear a storm" of words, but ' ; to bear a storm" of blows. 

SCENE vm. 

P. 98. Antony, entering for a time victorious, tells his follow 
ers, as it has always been printed, 

" We have beat him to his camp. Run one before 
And let the queen know of our guests." 

Johnson adds a note, stating that by these words Antony means 
to say that he will bring his officers to sup with Cleopatra ; but 
near the end of the scene, while Antony laments that the palace 
had not " capacity to camp this host," he says not a word about 
feasting even the officers. The truth is that, from the first, the 
word has been mistaken, and because it was spelt guests in the 
old copies, it has always been supposed to mean what we call 
company. The amender of the folio, 1632, merely strikes out 
the letter w, leaving the word gests, and it requires no proof" that 
a gest, from the Latin, formerly meant a deed, and was synonymous 
with it. When, therefore, Antony directs, 

" Run one before, 
And let the queen know of our gests," 

it is as much as to say, " let her know of our deeds," and the man 
ner in which we have beaten the Romans to their tents. Gest was 
unquestionably Shakespeare's word. 

SCENE IX. 

P. 101. Enobarbus dying of grief and remorse on the stage, 
one of the soldiers present says that he sleeps, but another ob 
serves, 

" Swoons rather ; for so bad a prayer as his 
Was never yet for sleep." 

Steevens arbitrarily changed " sleep " to sleeping ; but instead of 
"for sleep" we ought to read "'/ore sleep," or before sleep, and 
the word is altered in manuscript accordingly : the sense is, that 



SC. XII.] ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 507 

so bad a prayer, as Enobarbus had ended with, was never uttered 
before sleep. 

SCENE X. 

P. 103. Antony rushes in in despair, with the words "All is 
lost !" and afterwards proceeds, 

" Betray'd I am. 

O, this false soul of Egypt ! this grave charm, 
Whose eye beck'd forth my wars," &c. 

Is it not evident, upon mere perusal, that " soul" must be wrong, 
that it could not be the word of the poet ? Almost the same 
may be said of " grave," in connexion with " charm ;" and when 
Johnson states that "grave charm" means "majestic beauty," he 
forgot that " charm " in Shakespeare's time, and indeed our own, 
was to be taken as enchantment. The manuscript-corrector alters 
both words thus : 

" 0, this false spell of Egypt ! this great charm," &c. 

Cleopatra, notwithstanding she was a " false spell," was a grand 
piece of witchcraft. On her entrance, immediately afterwards, 
Antony receives her with the words, " Ah, thou spell ! Avaunt !" 

SCENE XII. 
P. 110. When Diomed, speaking of Cleopatra, tells Antony, 

" You did suspect 
She had dispos'd with Caesar," 

Steevens subjoins a note stating that " dispose, in this instance, 
perhaps signifies to make terms, to settle matters ;" but he adds 
no example of such being its signification any where else. A cor 
rection in the folio, 1632, treats it as a mere lapse by the printer : 
such we may confidently deem it, and that the poet's language 
was, 

" She had compos'd with Caesar ;" 

*. e. had entered into a composition or treaty with him. The 
printer used the wrong preposition. 



508 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. [ACT IV. 

SCENE xni. 

P. 111. This scene, numbered the thirteenth in modern im 
pressions, according to the old corrector, begins Act V. ; and un 
less the last act be made unusually short, this should seem to be 
the proper division. 

Cleopatra, on the next page, declaring to Antony that she will 
never be led in triumph by Caesar, adds, as the text has been con 
stantly repeated, 

" Your wife Octavia, with her modest eyes, 
And still conclusion, shall acquire no honour 
Demuring upon me." 

What signification can we attach to " still conclusion ?" Johnson 
replies " sedate determination," a very forced construction, while 
a manuscript emendation, proposing the substitution of three let 
ters, seems to put the matter incontrovertibly at rest : 

" Your wife, Octavia, with her modest eyes, 
And still condition, shall acquire no honour 
Demuring upon me." 

The stillness of the condition of Octavia, her gentleness and tran 
quillity of deportment, have already been dwelt upon in various 
places. 

P. 112. A good deal of doubt has been occasioned by Cleopa 
tra's " strange words," as Johnson calls them (and justly, if they 
were such as they have always been represented), when she and 
her women are endeavouring with all their strength to raise the 
dying Antony into the monument : 

" Here's sport, indeed !" 

Steevens calls it " affected levity," and Boswell wishes to make it 
" a melancholy contrast with her former sports." The corrector 
of the folio, 1632, strikes out the letter s in "sport," and leaves 
the word merely port " Here's port indeed !" Milton uses the 
participle ported, and here Shakespeare appears to have employed 
port as a substantive to indicate weight : 

" Here's port indeed ! How heavy weighs my lord !" 
The French use port for burden, and navire de grand port is a ship 



ACT V.] ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 509 

of great burden. Cleopatra speaks of the weight of Antony by 
the same word ; and though we may not be able to point out any 
other instance where port signifies in English a load or weight, we 
can hardly doubt that such is the fact in the case before us, and 
that, when the heroine exclaims, " Here's port indeed !" she means, 
here's a load, weight, or burden, indeed. It is evident that the 
person who made the emendation in the folio, 1632, so understood 
it ; the printer probably did not, and hence his blunder. The 
alteration is very trifling, and it overcomes a great difficulty. 



ACT V. SCENE I. 

P. 115. The first lines of this act have created discussion : they 
stand thus in the old copies, where Caesar speaks of Antony : 

" Go to him, Dollabella, bid him yield. 
Being so frustrate, tell him, 
He mocks the pauses that he makes. 
Dol. Caesar, I shall." 

Malone could not comprehend what was meant by " He mocks the 
pauses that he makes," and printed " He mocks us by the pauses 
that he makes." This is not at all like the change introduced in 
manuscript in the folio, 1632, which may be considered all that is 
necessary both to complete the sense and the verse : 

" Go to him, Dollabella ; bid him yield. 
Being so frustrate, tell him that he mocks 
The pauses that he makes. 
Dol. Caesar, I shall." 

By " he mocks the pauses that he makes," we must understand 
Caesar to charge Antony with trifling with the pauses he made in 
finally submitting to his enemies. It is certain that the corrector 
considered it necessary to supply nothing but the word that, and 
with this addition (whencesoever he procured it) he imagined, no 
doubt, that he had left the poet's meaning clear. 

P. 116. Dercetas brings tidings of Antony's death in these 
terms, as commonly printed : 

"But that self hand, 
Which writ his honour in the acts it did, 



610 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. [ACT V. 

Hath, with the courage which the heart did lend it, 
Splitted the heart. This is his sword ; 
1 robb'd his wound of it," &c. 

Here, in spite of the word split being converted into two syllables, 
the line in which it occurs is left short of two others. In " the 
Comedy of Errors" (p. 85) we have seen "splitted," of the folios, 
amended to split, and here the same course has been pursued, and 
two words added, in entire consistency with what has gone before, 
and at the same time completing the defective measure. We 
have " self hand" for self same hand in the first line, and in the 
fourth line, as amended, we have " self noble heart" for self same 
noble heart 

" But that self hand, 
Which writ his honour in the acts it did, 
Hath, with the courage which the heart did lend it, 
Split that seff noble heart. This is his sword," &c. 

Every old copy has the defective line in a situation where there 
seems no reason why a defective line should be found ; and it is 
perfected in manuscript of the time by words which, in all proba 
bility, had accidentally escaped. 

SCENE II. 
P. 118. Cleopatra, contemplating suicide, says it is 

" To do that thing that ends all other deeds, 
Which shackles accidents and bolts up change ; 
Which sleeps, and never palates more the dung, 
The beggar's nurse and Caesar's." 

We must hero see the impropriety of talking of palating "dung," 
and afterwards calling that "dung" " the beggar's nurse and Cae 
sar's." By "dung" has been understood "gross terrene suste 
nance," but the sense is much cleared when we ascertain from a 
note in the folio, 1632, that the scribe misheard " dung" for dug: 
the dug of sustenance may most fitly be called " the beggar's 
nurse and Caesar's," and it may reasonably be supposed to be pal- 
ated by mankind : the corrector, therefore, has it, 

" Which sleeps, and never palates more the dug, 
The beggar's nurse and Caesar's." 



SO. II.] ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 511 

This emendation may, or may not, have been conjectural, but we 
may be pretty sure it is right. 

P. 120. The following is pointed out most likely as a printer's 
error : Cleopatra is on the same theme, declaring that she will in 
some way destroy herself: 

" Sir, I will eat no meat, I'll not drink, sir ; 
If idle talk will once be necessary, 
I'll not sleep neither." 

The poet's word was, no doubt, accessary : if idle talk would keep 
her awake, and thus be accessary to her death, she would indulge 
in it, and never sleep : 

" If idle talk will once be accessary, 
I'll not sleep neither." 

P. 122. In the subsequent speech of Dolabella, compassionating 
Cleopatra, the change of a single letter makes sense out of non 
sense : the old copies have this text : 

" But I do feel, 

By the rebound of yours, a grief that suites 
My very heart at root." 

Malone and others read "shoots" for suits, but the poet's word 
(as speculatively suggested in note 5) was smites, and not shoots 
nor suits: 

" A grief that smites 
My very heart at root." 

The old corrector put his pen through the letter u in suites, and 
wrote m in the margin instead of it. Not long afterwards, (p. 
125), Cleopatra herself uses the word smites : 

" Ye gods ! it smites me 
Beneath the fall I have." 

In all copies, ancient and modern, it stands, "The gods ! it smites 
me," &c. ; but as the was often formerly written ye, the article 
was mistaken for it in this instance. The sentence has relation to 
the contradiction of Cleopatra by Seleucus, in the presence of 



512 ANTON T AND CLEOPATRA. [ACT V. 

Csesar, as to the jewels, &c., she had reserved ; and when she de 
sires the Stewart to quit her presence, we encounter a change of 
expression which is not of much moment, and which can hardly 
be said to be necessary ; but as the folio, 1632, has a note upon 
it, it is perhaps fit to mention it : it is where Cleopatra says to 
Seleucus : 

" Prythee, go hence ; 
Or I shall show the cinders of my spirits 
Through th' ashes of my chance." 

Such has been the common reading ; but the old corrector tells 
us, what appears extremely plausible, that two mistakes are here 
to be set right : 

" Prythee, go hence ; 
Or I shall show the cinders of my spirit 
Through th' ashes of mischance." 

" My chance" may here, perhaps, be understood in the same sense 
as mischance. There can be little dispute that just afterwards 
"are" should be and, where the heroine tells Csesar, 

" When we fall, 

We answer other's merits in our name, 
And therefore to be pitied." 

Of course, " merits" here means deserts. 

P. 127. Iras declares that her nails shall tear out her eyes 
rather than see her queen led in triumph ; and Cleopatra's obser 
vation is this : 

" Why, that's the way 
To fool their preparation, and to conquer 
Their most absurd intents." 

The old corrector gives it thus : 

"Why, that's the way 
To foil their preparation, and to conquer 
Their most assur'd intents." 

Theobald proposed assured for " absurd," but the change has since 
his time been rejected; and although foil may read better on 



SO. II.] ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA, 513 

some accounts, still "fool" is stronger, and the alteration of the 
text so far not called for. 

P. 130. After the death of Iras, Cleopatra remarks, 

" This proves me base : 
If she first meet the curled Antony, 
He'll make demand of her," &c. 

The folio, 1632, is most carelessly printed in this part of the play, 
and instead of " first meet," repeats proves, which the composi 
tor's eye caught from the preceding line, 

" If she proves the curled Antony," &c. 

A marginal note restores the text as it appears hi the folio, 1623 ; 
but even a more stupid blunder of a different kind is made on the 
last page of the play ; for there the word " aspick," occurring in 
two nearly consecutive lines, one of them is misprinted aspect, and 
the necessary verb is omitted : the passage there stands precisely 
thus : 

" This an aspects traile 

And these fig-leaves have slime upon them, such 
As th 1 aspicke leaves upon the caves of Nile." 

These errors are remedied by the old corrector, though he does 
not amend the regulation of the lines ; but it may deserve remark, 
that he gives no countenance to the proposition (alluded to in 
note 3) to read " canes of Nile " instead of " caves of Nile." If 
Shakespeare had intended to refer to the reeds that grow upon 
the banks of the Nile, he would hardly have called them canes. 



22' 



CYMBELINE. 



ACT I. SCENE I. 

P. 139. The mode in which the person who made the emenda 
tions in the folio, 1632, points and corrects the three first lines in 
this play, is the following, showing Tyrwhitt's sagacity in omitting 
the s after " kings," as it is printed in all the early editions : 

" You do not meet a man but frowns. Our bloods 
No more obey the heavens, than our courtiers 
Still seem as does the king." 

i. e. Our bloods do not more obey the heavens, than our court 
iers imitate the king : as the king frowns, so all others look 
gloomy. There cannot be a doubt that this is the right reading. 

P. 140. The second folio is very ill printed in the opening of 
this scene : it has " wy so " for " why so," " he like " for " his like," 
and ''which himself" for " within himself." These blunders are 
set right ; but on the same authority we find all the folios wrong 
in the parenthesis, not there so printed, 

" (Then old and fond of issue,") 

for we are told that it ought to be, 

" Then old and fond of's issue ;" 

or " fond of his issue : " the correction is of little importance, since 
it varies neither sense nor metre. 

SCENE II. 

P. 144. As the subsequent passage has been ordinarily 
printed, it ought to have been followed by a mark of interroga 
tion : 

(614) 



SO. V.] CYMBELINE. 515 

" Thou took'st a beggar ; would'st hare made my throne 
A seat for baseness." 

Such, however, has not been the punctuation in ancient or 
modern editions ; and the fact appears to be, that it was not in 
tended as a question, for a slight manuscript alteration in the 
folio, 1632, makes it run, 

" Thou took'st a beggar would have made my throne 
A seat for baseness :" 

that is, " a beggar, who would have made my throne," &c., by a 
very common ellipsis: Imogen's indignant counter-assertion, "No; 
I rather added a lustre to it," seems to render it probable that a 
question was not intended. 

SCENE V. 

P. 150. We here encounter the first manuscript emendation 
that is of much value. lachimo observes, that the marriage of 
Posthumus with his king's daughter, tends to enhance the opinion 
of his merits, adding, 

" Ay, and the approbation of those, that weep this lamentable divorce 
under her colours, are wonderfully to extend him ; be it but to fortify her 
judgment, which else an easy battery might lay flat, for taking a beggar 
without less quality." 

What can be the meaning of the expression, " under her colours 1 " 
how was the "lamentable divorce " under the colours of Imogen? 
Johnson tells us that " under her colours" is to be understood as 
" by her influence." Surely not : Posthumus was not banished 
by the influence of Imogen, but in direct opposition to her wishes. 
How does the annotator of the folio, 1632, explain the matter? 
By showing that here occurs another of the many gross mistakes 
of the scribe, or of the printer, which have been from time to time 
pointed out : " under her colours " ought to have been and her 
dolours, a word not unfrequently used by Shakespeare, and most 
applicable to the distresses of Imogen in her separation from her 
husband. But besides this error, there are several others in the 
sentence, together with the omission of the verb wont, carelessly 
excluded, because, perhaps, as the next word begins with won, the 



616 CYMBELINE. [ACT I. 

compositor missed what is almost essential to the intelligibility 
of the passage : then, near the close, we have " less " for more, 
although Malone, not aware of any of the preceding defects, 
strives hard to justify " less." Read the whole, therefore, as the 
corrector says it was written, and nothing can well be plainer : 

" Ay, and the approbations of those, that weep this lamentable divorce 
and her dolours, are wont wonderfully to extend him; be it but to fortify 
her judgment, which else an easy battery might lay flat, for taking a beg 
gar without more quality." 

P. 154. Another remarkable corruption has been perpetuated 
near the close of this scene. lachimo has vaunted that he will 
overcome the chastity of Imogen, and Posthumus has accepted 
his wager : the latter observes, as the text has always stood, 

" Let us have articles betwixt us. Only, thus far you shall answer : if 
you make your voyage upon her, and give me directly to understand you 
have prevailed, I am no farther your enemy," &c. 

Now, "if you make your voyage upon her" may be understood 
as referring to the voyage lachimo was to make to Britain, in order 
to endeavour to carry his vaunt into effect ; but still the expres 
sion is awkward, and one which a correction in the folio, 1632, in 
forms us the poet did not use : the word " voyage " is a misprint, 
in part, perhaps, occasioned by the omission of an adjective which 
ought almost immediately to precede it : Posthumus observes, 
that if lachimo make good his boast, then Imogen would not be 
worth anger : he therefore says, 

" Only, thus far you shall answer : if you make good your vauntage upon 
her, and give me directly to understand you have prevailed, I am no 
farther your enemy." 

In other words, " if you succeed and accomplish your boast, she 
does not merit debate." It seems probable that good was left 
out in the manuscript, and that the compositor mistook vauntage, 
and printed "voyage," knowing that lachimo must necessarily 
cross the sea, in order to carry out his project. The sense of the 
poet appears to have been as different, as it was superior to the 
ordinary interpretation. 



SO. VII.] CYMBELINE. 517 

SCENE VIL 

P. 159. Two emendations were proposed by Warburton and 
Theobald in the following : both are found in the margin of the 
folio, 1632, with a confirmatory addition of some importance. 
We here give the passage as amended, marking the changes in 
Italics as usual : 

" What ! are men mad ? Hath nature given them eyes 
To see this vaulted arch, and the rich cope 
O'er sea and land, which can distinguish 'twixt 
The fiery orbs above, and the twinn'd stones 
Upon th' unnumbered beach," &c. 

For cope the ordinary text has been " crop," for O'er " Of," and 
for tK unnumbered " the number'd." We may in future safely 
adopt these emendations, which require no explanation. O'er is 
proposed for the first time. 

P. 162. There can be no doubt that the old corrector has, by 
the alteration of a single letter, rendered quite evident what has 
puzzled all commentators : it is where lachimo pretends to de 
scribe to Imogen the infidelity of Posthumus while in Rome : the 
folios have what follows : 

" Slaver with lips as common as the stairs 
That mount the Capitol ; join gripes with hands 
Made hard with hourly falsehood (falsehood as 
With labour) then by peeping in an eye 
Base and illustrous as the smoky light 
That's fed with stinking tallow." 

Some editors have adhered to this text, while others, Malone and 
Johnson for instance, have printed " by peeping in an eye" " lie 
peeping in an eye ;" but all have been mistaken, and what was 
meant was merely an allusion to the game of bo-peep, which is 
mentioned by Shakespeare and other authors (among them 
Lodge, in his " Alarum against Usurers," 1584), and is here again 
introduced : 

" Then, bo-peeping in an eye 
Base and illustrous," &c. 

Posthumus is represented by lachimo as pressing the hard hands 



518 CTMBELIXB. 

of the most hacknied prostitutes, and playing at bo-peep in their 
lack-lustre eyes. 

On such evidence we can readily believe in another amendment, 
proposed on the next page, which, however, is not so necessary, 
but, at the same time, by no means uncalled for : it is part of the 
same description of the dealings of Posthumus. 

" With diseas'd ventures, 
That play with all infirmities for gold 
Which rottenness can lend nature." 

The corrector states that they do not " play" with these infirmities 
for gold, but pay, or make return for gold by the most loathsome 
diseases : 

' That pay with all infirmities for gold." 

P. 163. When Imogen tells lachimo, 

" I do condemn mine ears, that have 
So long attended thee," 

a marginal manuscript note directs us again to change a single 
letter, and much strengthen the old and ordinary reading : 

" I do contemn mine ears, that have 
So long attended thee." 

She despised her ears for having listened so long to the slanders 
of lachimo. The reader will almost have anticipated this amend 
ment, which, however, has never been made, though adding much 
to the force of the heroine's indignation. 

We may add that in lachimo's last speech in this scene, the old 
corrector of the folio, 1632, substitutes out-stayed for outstood, at 
least with plausibility. 



ACT II. SCENE I. 

P. 166. It requires notice, in reference to the divisions of this 
drama, that when, probably, it was represented in the time of the 
annotator on the folio, 1632 (we know that it was revived and 
performed at Court, 1st January, 1633), the second Act began 
with what is made Scene VII. of Act I. in modern editions. 



SO. II.] CYMBELINE. 519 

In all the old printed copies also, Act II. commences with the en 
trance of Cloten and the two Lords ; but the words Actus Secun- 
dus, Scoena Prima are struck through with a pen in the folio, 
1632, and transferred to what is headed Scoena Septima of the 
preceding act. This change seems not unadvisable, if only for 
the sake of lengthening Act II. Therefore, above Enter Cloten 
and the two Lords, is written " Scene 2 ;" and we are informed, 
also in manuscript, that the three characters come on the stage as 
from the Bowling Alley. 

SCENE II. 

P. 168. The introduction to this scene in the old copies, is 
merely Enter Imogen 'in her bed, and a Lady, while nothing is said 
about the place and manner of lachimo's concealment : to remedy 
this omission, A great trunk is added in manuscript in the folio, 
1632, to show that this stage-property was exhibited to the audi 
ence. According to additional directions in the margin, lachimo 
not merely takes off Imogen's bracelet, but previously kisses her, 
at the words, 

" That I might touch ! 
But kiss ; one kiss !" 

It is very possible that such was part of the ancient business of 
the scene ; but it was a perilous undertaking that, at all events in 
modern times, has not usually been risked. Still, if the Italian 
could remove the heroine's bracelet, and turn down the bed 
clothes so as to be able to note the " mole cinque-spotted " on her 
left breast (supposing it not to have been accidentally exposed) 
without waking her, he might, perhaps, hazard the kissing of her 
lips. Opposite the words, " I will write all down," Take out 
tables, meaning his table-book, is placed in the margin, and Exit 
into the trunk again, at the end of the scene. These notes are 
altogether wanting in print in the folios. 



P. 170. It is not easy to make sense out of 

" Swift, swift, you dragons of the night, that dawning 
May bare the raven's eye." 

Such was Theobald's emendation, and if the meaning be that light 



520 CYMBELINE. [ACT II. 

may make bare the raven's eye, the expression is uncouth for 
" may ope the raven's eye." The old corrector converts beare, 
of the folios, into dare : 

" That dawning 
May dare the raven's eye :" 

i. e. may dazzle the eye of the raven, hi the same way that larks 
were dared by the glitter of a looking-glass. This^ may be the 
true explanation of the sentence, but still it is obscure ; and at a 
guess, supposing the old corrector's change to be nothing more, 
we might fancy that beare was a misprint for bkare, hi the sense 
of to dim. 

SCENE IV. 

P. 178. When lachimo returns to Italy, Posthumus, in his con 
fidence hi Imogen, asks him, referring to their wager, 

" Sparkles this stone as it was wont? or is't not 
Too dull for your good wearing ?" 

To which lachimo is always made to reply, 

" If I have lost it, 
I should have lost the worth of it in gold," &c. 

But it was Posthumus who had the chance of losing the ring, and 
lachimo the value of it, therefore the old corrector makes him 
answer, with much more apparent propriety, 

"If I had lost, 
I should have lost the worth of it in gold ;" 

and from thence he proceeds to show that he had not lost, but, in 
fact, had won the wager. 

P. 179. All impressions represent lachimo as not completing 
his sentence when describing the tapestry in Imogen's chamber: 

" Which, I wonder'd, 
Could be so rarely and exactly wrought, 

Since the true life on't was" 

Post. This is true," &c. 



SO. V.] CYMBELINE. 521 

Here, besides the imperfectness of the sense, the measure is at 
fault, because " this is true" does not finish the line lachimo had 
begun. Corrections in the folio, 1632, remedy both defects in a 
way that seems to carry conviction in their favour : 

" Which, I wonder'd, 
Could be so rarely and exactly wrought, 
Since the true life on't '(was. 
Post. This is most true," &c. 

lachimo wondered at the excellence of the tapestry " since 'twas 
the true life" of the scene it represented. ' The word most was 
carelessly left out in the answer of Posthumus, as "'twas in the 
preceding line was misprinted "was." 

Near the bottom of the page, lachimo thus describes part of 
the furniture : 

" Her andirons 

(I had forgot them) were two winking Cupids 
Of silver." 

The emendation here is winged for "winking" Cupids; and it 
certainly is not likely that lachimo should have so nicely observed 
at night, as to perceive that they were " winking," though he might 
have easily seen that they were winged. At the same time, this 
may be looked upon as one of the many cases where the fitness 
of altering the received text is doubtful, in as much as Shakes 
peare may have intended thus to show the elaborate exactness of 
the scrutiny of lachimo. 

'SCENE v. 

P. 182. In all modern editions, this soliloquy by Posthumus is 
converted into a new scene ; but such was not the case of old, for 
lachimo and Philario go out and leave the hero behind them to 
make his reflections upon what had passed, and to curse wo 
mankind. Here we meet with a word that has produced difficulty : 
Posthumus supposes lachimo to have easily overcome the scruples 
of Imogen, and we first give the terms exactly as they appear in 
the two earliest folios : 

" Perchance he spoke not, but 
Like a full Acorn'd Boare, a larmen on, 
Cry'de oh, and mounted." 



522 CYMBELINE. [ACT III. 

Dispute has arisen as to the meaning of the unintelligible words 
" a larmen on ;" and while Pope and Warburton read " a churning 
on," which Malone calls a sophistication, he himself read " a 
German one" surely a greater sophistication, as if Shakespeare 
could have had no boars in his thoughts but German ones. There 
is an evident misprint, and the emendator of the folio, 1632, points 
out what it was : 

"Like a full acorn'd boar, & foaming one, 
Cried oh ! and mounted." 

The manuscript must have been imperfectly written, and the prin 
ter mistook the/, with which foaming begins, for a capital /, 
then frequently carried below the line, and did not attend to the 
g at the end of the word. One, as Malone truly states, was often 
miswritten and misprinted " on," and there seems no doubt that 
the poet meant to express the furious and foaming eagerness of 
the full-acorn'd boar. Malone weakly supports his notion about 
a German boar, by stating that boars were never hunted in Eng 
land ; but Posthumus was speaking in Italy, and we are not to 
imagine that Shakespeare's notions regarding boar-hunting were 
derived solely from German representations, whether in " water- 
work" or in tapestry. We feel no hesitation in substituting so 
natural a word as, foaming for such an utterly unintelligible word 
as larmen. The mechanical compositor never thought of the 
sense of what he was printing. 



ACT III. SCENE I. 

P. 185. A line in Cymbeline's address to Lucius stands pre 
cisely thus in the folios : 

" Ourselves to be, we do. Say then to Caesar." 

With the immediate context it has been printed as follows in 
modern editions : the king is speaking of the Roman yoke : 

" Which to shake off 

Becomes a warlike people, whom we reckon 
Ourselves to be. We do say, then, to Caesar, 
Our ancestor was that Mulmutius, which 
Ordain'd our laws." &c. 



SO. III.] CYMBELINE. 523 

The clumsy contrivance of making Cymbeline use the expression, 
" We do say, then, to Caesar," has proceeded (as an emendation 
in the folio, 1632, shows) from a blunder on the part of the com 
positor or of the copyist, who made one of Cloten's impertinent 
interjections a portion of the speech of Cymbeline. This part of 
the dialogue is there divided as follows : Cymbeline ends, . 

" Which to shake off 

Becomes a warlike people, whom we reckon 

Ourselves to be. 
Clot. We do. 

Cym. Say, then, to Caesar, 

Our ancestor was that Mulmutius, which 

Ordain'd our laws," <fcc. 

This interruption by Cloten is most consistent with his character 
and conduct, and we have no doubt that such was the mode in 
which the line we have first quoted was distributed, before the 
corruption had crept into the early editions. 

SCENE II. 

P. 189. Warburton justly calls the phrase, "the sands that 
run i' the clock's behalf," fantastical ; but it is only so because 
"behalf" was misprinted. Imogen is speaking of horses that 
run much faster than the sands in clocks, and she goes on, by a 
familiar expression, to state how much faster they run : 

" I have heard of riding wagers, 
Where horses have been nimbler than the sands 
That run i' the clocks by half;" 

adding, " But this is foolery," hi reference, perhaps, to her own 
simile. 

SCENE III. 

P. 190. Belarius, contrasting the life he, Guiderius, and Arvi- 
ragus lead in the woods and mountains with that at court, ob 
serves, in the ordinary text, 

"0! this life 

Is nobler, than attending for a check 5 
Richer, than doing nothing for a bribe ; 
Prouder, than rustling in unpaid-for silk." 



524 CYMBELINE. [ACT III. 

The old copies give the third line, 

" Richer than doing nothing for a babe," 

and Hanmer substituted "bribe," though bribes are seldom 
given for doing nothing, while Warburton has bauble, and Malone 
adhered to babe. All three are unquestionably wrong : the sec 
ond line supposes a courtier to dance attendance, and only to 
obtain " a check," or reproof, for his pains ; and the third line fol 
lows up the same notion, that he does nothing, yet is rewarded 
with a blow : Shakespeare repeatedly uses bob (the word in man- 
nscript in the margin of the folio, 1632) in this way; and babe, 
then pronounced with the broad open a, was miswritten for it : 
therefore, the passage, properly printed, appears to be this : 

" O ! this life 

Is nobler, than attending for a check, 
Richer, than doing nothing for a bob," &c. 

P. 193. The copyist made an evident mistake when he wrote 
the following, where Belarius is soliloquizing on his two boys, and 
describing the way in which they listen to his account of " warlike 
feats :" of the elder, he says, 

" He sweats, 

Strains his young nerves, and puts himself in posture 
That acts my words. The younger brother, Cadwal, 
(Once Arviragus) in as like a figure 
Strikes life into my speech," &c. 

Here vigour was misheard " figute" (which could only refer to the 
"posture" of Guiderius), and for this reason the old corrector 
alters the word in the margin of the folio, 1632 : 

" The younger brother, Cadwal, 
(Once Arviragus) in as like a vigour 
Strikes life into my speech." 

That is, with the same energy with which Guiderius had " strained 
his young nerves." 

SCENE IV. 

P. 195. We here arrive at a most singular instance of mis 
hearing, which we must impute wholly to the writer of the manu- 



SC. IV.] CYMBELINE. 525 

script used by the compositor. It is in a speech by Imogen, where 
she supposes that Posthumus has been seduced by some Italian 
courtezan : 

" Some jay of Italy, 

Whose mother was her painting, hath betray'd him : 
Poor I am stale, a garment out of fashion ;" &c. 

Now, for " whose mother was her painting," of all editions, we 
are told by the amender of the folio, 1632, to read, 

" Some jay of Italy, 
Who smothers her with painting, hath betray'd him." 

We fairly admit it to be possible that the old corrector, not un 
derstanding the expression, " Whose mother was her painting," 
as it was recited before him, might mistake it for " Who smothers 
her with painting ;" but it is much more likely that in this place, 
where Imogen was to give vent to her disgust and anger, she would 
not use a metaphor, especially so violent a one, as to call the daub 
ing of the face actually the " mother" of a courtezan. She was 
describing a woman of abandoned character, who not merely 
tinged her cheeks, but absolutely smothered herself with painting, 
and who, though so made up and artificial, had, nevertheless, se 
duced Posthumus from the arms of a beautiful and innocent wife. 
Imogen would, therefore, be disposed to render the contrast as 
strong as words could make it, and would not be content to throw 
blame upon her debased and profligate rival, merely by a far 
fetched figure of speech. Shakespeare, indeed, even in this very 
play (p. 215), employs such a figure, but under extremely different 
circumstances, viz., where Guiderius ridicules Cloten for asking if he 
did not know him by his fine clothes 1 The answer is, 

" No, nor thy tailor, rascal, 
Who is thy grandfather : he made those clothes, 
Which, as it seems, make thee." 

These lines occur in Act IV., and what Imogen says of the " jay 
of Italy," is inserted hi the immediately preceding act ; and if 
one thing more than another could persuade us that " who smothers 
her with painting" is the true text, it is that, if we suppose differ 
ently, it makes Shakespeare employ the very same metaphor in 



526 CYMBELINE. [ACT III. 

two consecutive acts. Our great dramatist was neither so poverty- 
stricken as regards language, nor so injudicious as regards nature, 
to repeat himself in this way, and to make Imogen convey her 
scorn and detestation of the prostitute, who had betrayed her hus 
band, in so mild a form as to term painting the " mother" of the se 
ducer. Imogen would not study metaphors at such a moment, 
but, in the plainest and strongest language she could employ, such 
as charging the "jay of Italy" with smothering herself with paint 
ing, would express her abhorrence of the paint-plastered prosti 
tute. It is an axiom that genuine passion avoids figures of speech, 
because passion does not reflect, and a figure of speech is the fruit 
of reflection : therefore, we feel assured that the scribe misheard, 
and wrote "whose mother was her painting" instead of " who 
smothers her with painting." The coincidence of sound seems 
otherwise almost inexplicable. 

P. 196. We can have little difficulty, on the authority of the 
old corrector, in treating the word "fellows" in these lines as a 
lapse by the old printer : 

" And them, Posthumus, that didst set up 
My disobedience 'gainst the king my father, 
And make me put into contempt the suits 
Of princely fellows, shalt hereafter find 
It is no act of common passage, but 
A strain of rareness." 

For " princely fellows," the emendation is " princely followers" 
the noble suitors whom Imogen had rejected in favour of Posthu 
mus. 

Near the top of the next page is an expression upon which 
Hanmer, Johnson, Steevens, and Mai one have very unsatisfactory 
notes. Pisanio informs Imogen that he has not slept since he 
received command to destroy her : 

" Into. Do't, and to bed, then. 

Pis. I'll wake mine eye-balls first. 
Imo. Wherefore, then, 

Didst undertake it ?" 

What does Pisanio mean by " I'll wake mine eye-balls first ? " 
To extract some sense from the declaration, it has been usual to 



SC. IV.] CYMBELINE. 527 

print " I'll wake mine eye-balls Hind first ;" but another printer's 
error has occasioned all the trouble. The corrector converts 
" wake" into cracke, and doubt vanishes : he also inserts a small 
word in Imogen's inquiry, and presents the whole thus perfect in 
measure and meaning : 

" Imo. Do't, and to bed, then. 

Pis. I'll crack mine eye-balls first. 
Imo. And wherefore, then, 

Did'st undertake it ?" 

P. 198. Malone considered it vain to seek for the two-syllable 
epithet, obviously wanting, in a line where Imogen speaks of 
Cloten, 

" With that harsh, noble, simple nothing." 

Steevens would complete the measure by Cloten at the end, for 
getting, perhaps, that the name occurs at the very beginning of 
the next line ; but the missing word is found written in the margin 
of the folio, 1632 : 

" With that harsh, noble, simple, empty nothing." 

It had, doubtless, escaped by mere accident, and we may be 
thankful for the restoration. 

Lower down in the page occurs the words " Pretty and full of 
view." What can be the meaning of "pretty" in that place? It 
is an indisputable blunder, perhaps from defective hearing : Pisa- 
nio is showing Imogen how she may remain concealed, and yet have 
a full view of all that is passing around her : we print the passage 
here as it is corrected : 

" Now, if you could wear a mind 
Dark as your fortune is, and but disguise 
That, which, t'tappear itself, must not yet be 
But by self-danger, you should tread a course 
Privy, yet full of view : yea, haply, near 
The residence of Posthumus." 

She was to remain private, and unknown, while she was able to 
mark all that was done by others. 

The alteration of "courage" to carriage, near the top of the 
next page, may be contested j and in as much as " courage " an- 



528 CYMBELINE. [ACT IV. 

swers its purpose, perhaps it would be unwise to displace it, though 
more than once (see pp. 317, 384) the same easy error has been 
pointed out. Pisanio tells Imogen that when she has disguised 
herself as a youth, she must change 

" Command into obedience ; fear, and niceness, 
(The handmaids of all women, or more truly, 
Woman it pretty self) into a waggish courage : 
Ready in gibes, quick-answer'd," &c. 

Here "waggish camaye" seems more appropriate to a youth, 
though disputable. 

SCENE VI. 

P. 206. The old introduction to this scene is merely, " Enter 
Imogen alone," to which the following necessary words are added 
in manuscript in the folio, 1632, 'tir'd like a boy, i. e. attired like 
a boy. She commences her speech thus : 

" I see, a man's life is a tedious one : 
I have tir'd myself, and for two nights together 
Have made the ground my bed." 

It has always been supposed that " I have tir'd myself" is to be 
taken in the sense of " I have fatigued myself; " but the corrector 
places an apostrophe before tir'd 'tir'd and clearly means that 
" tir'd," in the speech, is to be understood in the same way as 
'tir'd like a boy in what he appended to the heading of the scene. 
This is a point upon which we may or may not take his word ; 
for we may imagine that Imogen means that she has tired herself 
with the tediousness of a man's life, and with sleeping two nights 
following upon the ground. It seems, however, more likely that 
she should refer to her dress, and purposely call the attention of 
the audience to the change it had undergone. 

The entrance of Belarius, Guiderius, and Arviragus is improp 
erly made a new scene in the folios ; but Scoena OSeptima is struck 
through with a pen, and Same written instead of it, as in several 
former instances. 



ACT IV. SCENE I. 
P. 211. The word " imperseverant," as it stands printed in the 



SC. II.] CYMBELINE. 529 

folios, has naturally given trouble to the commentators, who have 
not known what to do with it. Hanmer altered it to " ill-pQrse- 
verant," meaning persevering in ill, while Steevens argued that it 
was to be understood as perseveranL It appears, on the authority 
of an emendation in the folio, 1632, that the compositor blun 
dered by combining two words, one of which had relation to the 
obstinacy of Imogen, and the other to the wandering life to which 
she had taken. It is Cloten who speaks, and who is complaining 
of the perverseness of the heroine, who absurdly preferred Pos- 
thumus to him, and ran awayfrom court in order to avoid him. 
Very probably the manuscript was here confused and illegible, 
which led to the printing of " imperseverant " for perverse errant, 
as it is amended, and as we may be confident it ought hereafter to 
be printed " Yet this perverse, errant thing loves him in my des 
pite." Cloten had come to Milford Haven in search of this 
" perverse, errant thing," and to destroy Posthumus. 

SCENE II. 

P. 217. The question, somewhat hotly argued between Theo 
bald, Warburton, Mason, Malone, &c., whether in the following, 
as we find it in the old copies, 

" Though his honour 
Was nothing but mutation," 

"honour" should not be read humour, is decided (if, in truth, de 
cision were wanted) by the old corrector, who converts "honour" 
into humour by the change of two letters in the margin. It has 
been a misreading of frequent occurrence. 

P. 221. An emendation in the folio, 1632, changes " the leaf 
of eglantine," very naturally, but not necessarily, into "the 
leafy eglantine ;" but at the end of the speech we meet with a val 
uable improvement of the text in the setting right of a misprint, 
which has occasioned some pages of useless explanation and com 
ment. It applies to this passage, as given in the folios : 

" The ruddock would 

With charitable bill (0, bill, sore shaming 
Those rich-left heirs, that let their fathers lie 
Without a monument !) bring thee all this ; 

23 



630 CYMBELINE. [ACT IV. 

Yea, and furr'd moss besides, when flowers are none, 
To winter-ground thy corse." 

The puzzle has been the compound verb "to winter-ground;" and 
Warburton insisted upon " winter-ffown" while Malone and Stee- 
vens were for preserving the text unaltered. Warburton was 
right in treating " winter-ground " as a blunder, but no farther ; 
and when we show, from the corrected folio, 1632, what must 
have been the poet's language, it will be seen that the compositor's 
mistake was an easy one : 



" Yea, and furr'd moss besides, when flowers are none, 
To winter-coward thy corse :" 

i. e. the redbreast would bring furred moss to protect Imogen's 
corse in winter, when there were no flowers. 

P. 222. There is a substitution in the song over the body of 
Imogen, which requires notice, and which improves the reading of 
a line, but by no means forces adoption upon us : the text has 
always been, 

" Golden lads and girls all must, 
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust." 

It is altered as follows in the amended folio, 1632 : 

" Golden lads and lasses must, 
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust." 

" Lads and lasses" may be said to follow each other in every song 
(as well as in every place), and perhaps Shakespeare here pur 
posely avoided the repetition. 

Several variations from the received text are marked in this part 
of the play; but near the end of the volume the outer margins are 
so worn, torn, and encroached upon by damp and rough handling, 
that although words are corrected, or crossed out, what was sub 
stituted for them has sometimes disappeared. The subsequent 
comparatively trifling change on p. 224, has just escaped : it is 
where Imogen wakes and says, 

" I hope I dream, 
For so I thought I was a cave-keeper." 



ACT V.] CYMBELINE. 531 

The proposed emendation is to convert an adverb into an inter 
jection: 

" For lo I I thought I was a cave-keeper." 

This part of the play is carelessly printed in the second folio, and 
literal errors (all of them corrected by the manuscript-annotator, 
though his writing is often obscured or obliterated) are very fre 
quent. 



ACT V. SCENE I. 

P. 231. Only about one page of this act has been preserved in 
the corrected folio, 1632, four leaves at the end of the volume 
being entirely wanting. A manuscript edition to the heading of 
the first scene has been partly torn away, so that we can only 
read in print, " Enter Posthumus alone," and with a following it 
in the writing of the old corrector : probably napkin or handker 
chief was the word lost. 

P. 232. The last emendation we have to notice (beyond the 
insertion of some new stage-directions relating to the battle, such 
as Drums and trumpets, Alarums on both sides, <Szc.) is in the 
soliloquy of Posthumus, and it relates to a passage which has 
been much discussed, but never clearly understood : the old text 
has been this : 

" You some permit 

To second ills with ills, each elder worse ; 
And make them dread it, to the doer's thrift." 

Here, in the first place, is an admitted inaccuracy, because, as 
Malone remarked, the last ill deed, which was the " worse," was, 
in fact, the younger, and not the " elder." For this the correc 
tor provides a remedy, and writes later in the margin for " elder," 
which was, perhaps, a misprint. The line that follows is far from 
intelligible, for to what does "them" in it apply? 

" And make them dread it to the doer's thrift." 
The last antecedent was "ills," but "them" cannot refer to the 



532 CYMBELINE. [ACT V. 

crimes committed. This appears to be another instance where 
"them" has been misheard for another word, the adoption of 
which, on the testimony in our hands, makes a clear meaning out 
of an obscure line. The passage, therefore, stands thus, as amend 
ed in the folio, 1632 : 

" You some permit 

To second ills with ills, each later worse, 
And make men dread it. to the doer's thrift." 

The doer of ill deeds profited by the fears produced in men by 
still-increasing enormities. Later, therefore, was misprinted 
"elder," and men misheard "them." The word men is only just 
legible in the margin, in consequence of a stain and the abrasion 
of the paper. 



NOTES. 



PACK 22. 

IT should be added that in " Ricahrd II.," vol. iv. p. 172, the poet speaks of !' the cloudy 
cheeks of heaven ;" and, on the whole, heat in this place seems to be one of those altera 
tions, which, though supported by some probability, it might be inexpedient to insert in the 
text. 

PAGE 22. 

It ought to be noted that opposite the expression, on p. 13, " Out three years old," the 
old corrector of the folio, 1632, has written the word Quite, but he has not erased "Out ;" 
and possibly he only meant that " Out three years old " was to be understood as " Quite 
three years old." As he made no change, we may conclude that the text is right. 

PAGE 30. 

Perhaps neither of the smaller emendations on p. 40 is necessary : " she, from whom" 
may mean, she, coming from whom ' f we were all sea-swallowed." 

PAGE 33 

Nevertheless, it seems proper so to divide the song ; and, possibly, it is a point which 
did not attract the attention of the corrector of the folio, 1632. The emendation of rain 
for " spring," appears somewhat violent, and springs for " spring" might have been all 
that was really necessary. 

PAGE 45. 

In reference to the line supplied in manuscript in the folio, 1632, it is very possible that it 
was obtained from more correct recitation. 

PAGE 47. 

At the bottom of this page, " Scene IV." ought to have been marked as preceding the 
passage quoted from vol. i. p. 164. This division ought, therefore, to be deleted on p. 48. 

PAGE 48. 

We may add that it is much more easy to suppose ' include " misprinted for conclude, 
than to accept the very forced construction of Malone, that all jars were to be " included 
or shut in the bosoms of the parties, and to be prevented from getting out by triumphs, 
masques," &c. 

PACK 55. 

In "Othello," Act I. Scene m., the folios misprint "couch" coock, where the hero is 
speaking of " the flinty and steel couch of war." 

(533) 



634 NOTES. 

PAGE 61. 
In the sentence " which, however, was sometimes in the language of the day," dele in. 

PAGE 66. 

This mistake of " winter" for windows, ought not here, properly, to have been charged 
upon the printer, but upon the copyist, who, writing by his ear, mistook the sound of the 
word. 

PAGE 66. 

It is to be observed, however, that Shakespeare uses " top" sometimes in a peculiar man 
ner : thus in "Macbeth," Act IV. Scene I., he speaks of " the round and top of sovereign 
ty ;" and in " Coriolanus," Act I. Scene IX., he has " the spire and top of praises." 

PAGE 68. 
This emendation of toasted for " blessed" may have been adopted as a mere matter of taste. 

PAGE 71. 

It ought to have been stated that Pope made the correction of " his lordship's man," 
which has ever since been considered the text. In the last line but three of this page, the 
full point ought to be only a comma, and the sentence should run " but the fact seems to 
be that it is a misprint, and that the duke's real exclamation," &c. 

PAGE 73. 
Johnson was once, he tells us, in favour of confined, in preference to " combined." 

PAGE 73. 

The expression, " bears such a credent bulk," may look more like an attempt to mend, 
than an emendation. 

PAGE 75. 

On further consideration we may be disposed to prefer an adherence to the old text, since 
to "retort" and to " reject" etymologically have nearly the same meaning. 

PAGE 82. 

Nevertheless, it seems to us thatMalone's alteration of ruinate to "ruinous," in order to 
rhyme with Antipholns, is on some accounts preferable : at all events it is shorter. 

PAGE 88. 

The word " father," which is left out in the folios, is found in the quarto, 1600 " to make 
courtesy and say, Father, as it please you." Perhaps the old corrector of the second folio 
obtained it from thence. 

PAGE 99. 

It seems not unlikely that the compositor, confusing the two similar terminations, died 
and ~bdied, misprinted the latter " defil'd." 

PAGB 100. 

It should be stated, as mentioned in note 8, that most of these emendations were suggest 
ed by Hanmcr, and have since been adopted by Malone and some other modern editors. 

PAGB 110. 
For "the manuscript stage-directions," read " the stage-directions." 

PAGE 118. 

Malone has " strange shapes" for " straying shapes," but he did not detect the previous 
error of strangeness for " strains." 



NOTES. 535 

PAGE 122. 

The note on "Take pains ; be perfect," &c., belongs to Act I. Scene n. : the same re 
mark applies to the two preceding notes on pp. 400, 401 ; but that division has been acci 
dentally omitted in its right place. The division, Act n. Scene I., ought to precede the 
note on p. 404. 

PAGE 128. 

Theobald supposed that Bottom was to sing the ballad of his dream after his death on 
the stage, and Steevens terms it a happy emendation ; but his own notion, that Bottom 
might mean that he would sing it at Thisbe's death, turns out to be the correct one. 

PVGE 142. 

" Bollen" occurs in Chaucer, Compl. of the Bl. Knight, and Tyrwhitt derives it from 
Solge, of which, he says, it is the part. pa. It may be doubted whether Bolstrum, a bolster, 
which we meet with in Beowulf, had not its origin in the A. S. word signifying to swell. 

PAGE 144. 

Of this we have proof in Act V. Scene I. of this play, on the entrance of Launcelot ; but 
elsewhere we sometimes find it printed hoa. 

PAGE 149. 
Nevertheless, ' ' safest haste" may allude to the danger Rosalind would incur by remaining. 

PAGE 152. 

Tliis emendation, and the note upon it, as we discover in a subsequent scene (Act m. 
Scene IV.), is founded upon a mistake : "sat," or "sate," seems perfectly right. 

PAGE 164. 

This quotation should have been "Not seen him since," both here and immediately after 
wards. 

PAGE 165. 

It does not follow that this emendation, regarding Warwickshire ale, was necessarily 
obtained from some better manuscript, in as much as the corrector of the folio, 1632, might 
have heard the old actor of the part of Sly repeat the true text. 

PAGE 171. 

See also a note in vol. viii. 475, where it is stated that Shakespeare seems to allude to 
Drayton and his little volume called "Amours," in sonnet xxi., which begins, 

" So is it not with me, as with that muse 
Stirr'd by a painted beauty to hu verse," Ac. 

This may have formed another ground of difference between Shakespeare and Drayton. 
The whole collection of sonnets is headed " Amours ;" but on the title-page that word only 
comes second : we quote it exactly, with the imprint, as we copied it many years since : 
" Ideas Mirrour. Amovrs hi Qvatorzains. Che serve e tace assai domanda. At London, 
Printed by James Roberts, for Nicholas Linge. Anno. 1694." 4to. 

PAGE 175. 

It might be doubted whether " haled" is not to be taken as hauled ; but still the true word 
may have been handled. 



536 NOTES. 

PAGE 189. 

Yet if Helena were right in what she says, "Sir, Ihaveseen youmthe Court of France," 
he was not an absolute "stranger" to her. Most likely she only means it as a sort of in 
troduction, to warrant her in addressing him. 

PAGE 197. 

It is easy to see how this remarkable blunder originated : both the speeches of Sir Toby 
and Sir Andrew (as amended) end with " song, " and the eye of the compositor glanced from 
one to the other, and omitted the last, with its introductory words. 

PAGE 202. 

On reconsideration we are inclined to think that the old reading, "drew in that," may 
be right. 

PAGE 212. 

Unless we suppose Hermione to mean " there, while you weep yourself, leave the infant 
crying. ' ' This, however, seems a very forced construction, to which we are not at all driven. 

PAGE 215. 

In fact, the expression, "charm your tongues," wants no illustration from any other 
author than Shakespeare himself, who uses it in "Henry VI. Part m.," Act V. Scene V. : 
in " The Taming of the Shrew," Act IV. Scene II., he has "charm your chattering tongue," 
&c. 

PAGE 222. 

Farther reflection, on the proposed change of "conversion" into "diversion," induces 
us to give preference to the former, as well as to the ordinary punctuation. It is, however, 
not to be disputed that the corrector of the folio, 1632, may be right in his construction ; 
but we do not consider him so decidedly right as to warrant, in this place, the desertion 
of the usual text. The next emendation is possibly in the same predicament : the intro 
duction of a mark of interrogation certainly makes the passage read with more spirit. 

PAGE 224. 

A note ought to have been made applicable to a line on p. 30 of "King John :" it has 
been common to print it thus : 

" You equal potents, firy-kindled spirits ;" 

but the emendator of the folio, 1632, informs us that it ought to run : 

"Yon equal POTBST, FIRK-Y KINDLED spirits." 

PAGE 225. 

Johnson says that " sightless" is here used for unsightly : not so the old corrector ; nor 
have the commentators pointed out any other similar application of "sightless." 

PAGE 237. 

Scene HI. ought to have been placed before the emendation in the line, "And furbish 
new," &c. A note, applicable to a passage on p. 133, should have been added: Aumerle 
says, 

" Farewell : and for my heart disdained that my tongue 
Should counterfeit oppression of such grief," &c. 

The measure of the first of these lines is restored by printing disdain'd and omitting thai. 
On p. 35, the two hemistich?, "Where lies he?" and "At Ely house," are completed by 
now added to the King's interrogatory, and by my liege subjoined to Bushy's answer. The 
faintness of the ink in the correction of the folio, 1632, occasioned the omission. 



NOTES. 537 

PAGK 239. 

The lines as quoted from a manuscript (note 7, p. 143) do not support the change of " as 
thoughts" to " our thoughts," but the last cannot possibly be wrong. 

PAGE 241. 
Scene m. ought to have preceded the note upon the epithet despoiling for " despised." 

PACK 248. 

It should have been mentioned that the old corrector puts/or, instead of "sir," in the 
line beginning "Now, sir, the sound," &c. 

PAGE 249. 

It has been omitted to be stated that there is a change of punctuation on p. 216, which 
makes it appear that Bolingbroke declares that he will incontinent, or with all speed, visit 
the Holy Land ; and consistently with this emendation we find him, at the opening of 
" Henry IV. Part II.," ordering immediate preparations. The*passage, just before the 
closing couplet of " Henry IV. Part I.," is made to run thus in the corrected folio, 1632 : 

" Come, mourn with me for that I do lament, 
And put on sullen black. Incontinent 
I'll nuke a voyage to the Holy Land, 
To wash this blood off from my guilty hand." 

PAGE 253. 

When it is said, that the old corrector of the folio, 1632, was indebted for the emendation 
of Lord either to the quarto, 1598, or to his own sagacity, it ought to have been added, as 
in some other places, that he possibly derived it from some source, independent of the 
quarto, 1598, such, for instance, as having heard the passage properly delivered on the 
Stage. 

PAGE 257. 

A small, but interesting emendation, on p. 287, escaped notice, which may be mentioned 
here : it is welling for " swelling," when Mortimer tells his weeping wife, 

"That pretty Welsh, 

Which then ponr'st down from these swelling heavens, 
I am too perfect in." 

Steevens maintained that "swelling heavens" meant Lady Mortimer's " two prominent 
lips," while Douce rightly argued that her eyes were intended, and that they were swol 
len with tears. The poet's word was, doubtless, vxlling, the compositor having preceded 
it by s by mistake. To well is to issue as from a spring : and Lady Mortimer's tears welled 
from her blue eyes : we must in future read, 

" Which thon poar'st down from these WELLING heavens." 

PAGE 269. 

In vol. vi. p. 312 of "Notes and Queries," an emendation of the closing couplet of Hen 
ry's speech on sleep is proposed by Mr. Cornish : for " happy low, lie down," he proposes 
to read " happy lowly clown." The change, we may remark, is needless, the sense being 
very evident, and the expression not at all improved : the King by " happy low" means all 
the humble classes of the community, and does not confine himself to mere country clowns. 
Just before, he has expressly mentioned "the wet sea-boy," and he would hardly fly off, 
without the slightest introduction, to such a discordant object as a lowly clown. The cor 
rector of the folio, 1632, makes no alteration in the received text. 

23* 



638 NOTES. 



PAGE 272. 
It ought here to have been stated, that in the quarto, 1600, the word is twji, so spelt. 

PAGE 288. 
For "Julius Caesar on bright Cassiope," read "or bright Cassiope." 

PAGE 292. 

It ought to have been mentioned that the regulation of the verse, near the close of the 
Master Gunner's second speech, is materially altered hi the folio, 1632, by the insertion of 
the words on my post after " I can stay no longer." The lines are thus rendered quite reg 
ular. On p. 44, an emendation makes blind Mortimer refer to his long imprisonment " in 
a cage of care," meaning the Tower, instead of "in an age of care," which are the words 
in the folios. 

PAGE 317. 

See this vol. p. 384 ; but, perhaps, it is hardly as certain there as here, that "courage" 
ought hereafter to be printed carnage. A third instance is pointed out in a subsequent play 
(p. 528), but still it is not decisive. 

PAGE 320. 

How English and foreign soldiers were distinguished, as regards dress, at that time, on 
the stage, is not explained any where that we remember. It is not stated that Edward, 
Kichard, and Hastings had any English soldiers with them. 

PAGE 322. 

The line, " They that stabb'd Caesar shed no blood at all," is from the older play which 
Shakespeare used, but there is no trace in it of the two lines which follow. 

PAGE 322. 

Except that "a boding" is printed as one word : it has also undigest for " indigest," but 
they were, in fact, the same. 

PAGE 844. 

This blunder of printing way for " sway," with the pronoun " his" before it, occurs in 
a couplet at the end of " Henry IV. Part I.," where, in the folios, we read, 

" Rebellion in this land shall lose his WAY," 
instead of " lose his sway." 

PAGE 350. 

The words, " And of an earthy coldness," ought not to be followed by a mark of inter 
rogation : it is not a question, but an observation. 

PAGE 356. 

It stand's " that breath fame follows," &c., in Malone's Shakespeare, by Boswell, vol. viii 
p. 271. In the quarto, 1609, is is properly printed "fame blows." 

PAGE 358. 

At the same time, "pass the difficulties," in the sense of go through the difficulties, is 
very intelligible, and may be right. 

PAGE 376. 

It should have been stated that although physic of old was sometimes spelt physique, the 
most usual orthography of the word at that time was pTiysicke. Even this mode of spelling 
might account for the corruption, and emperickqutiqw is mere nonsenss. 



NOTES. 539 

PAGE 382. 

When referring to the misprinting of bisson on p. 173, we ought to have added that in the 
folios it is spelt beesome in one place, as it is bosoine in the other. 

PAGE 387. 

The note applicable to p. 245 ought to have been preceded by "Scene VH.," which was 
accidentally omitted. 

PAGE 396. 

In the note on p. 334, for the words, "the latter change is, however, by any means re 
quired," read " the latter change is, however, not by any means required." 

PAGE 399. 

There is a mistake in reference to the date when Titus Andronicus was "printed:" the 
word "printed" ought to have been acted. We know of no impression older than that of 
1600, in the library of the Earl of Ellesmere ; but Langbaine tells us that it originally came 
out in 1594, and we find it entered in the Stationers' Register on 6th February, 1593, which 
looks like a memorandum just anterior to publication. Henslowe inserts a play, which he 
calls " Titus and Andronicus," under the date of 23 Jan., 1593 : it was then a new play, 
and it may very likely have been the piece entered at Stationers' Hall only a fortnight after 
wards. 

PAGE 406. 

Correctly speaking, something more is required than the alteration of a single letter, in 
as much as to make " unbruised" uribusied, not only the r is to be struck out, but the place 
of the i is to be changed. 

PAGE 406. 

The blood had begun to mantle in Juliet's cheeks, and the Nurse anticipated that the 
moment afterwards they would be scarlet at the news she had just communicated. 

PAGE 408. 

The letters would scarcely be too few, if we suppose (as was frequently the case, though 
not here in the margin of the folio, 1632) that enemies was spelt ennemyes. We can also 
imagine that the compositor may have been puzzled by the word " eyes," which immedi 
ately followed ennemyes. 

PAGE 409. 

It is not unlikely that the corrector of the folio, 1632, did not know Edwards's poem, al 
though he might be sure that the lines he underscored were a quotation. 

PAGE 420. 

When it is said that "to load our purposes" is very like nonsense, compared with the 
expression " to load OUT purses," it ought to have been admitted that some meaning may 
be gathered from the passage by a forced construction, which supposes that the Poet and 
Painter came to have their designs loaded 

PAGE 437. 

But for this emendation of Lay for " Let," we should have thought that the alteration 
might have been only that of a letter, viz. 

" SET youi highneM 1 
Command upon me." 

Set would have answered the purpose nearly as well as Lay : it is a mere trifle, but " Let" 
can hardly be right 



540 NOTES. 

PAGE 439. 

With reference to the amended word UeadeA for " bladed," Spelman, in his Glossarium, 
p. 83, tells us : Certe apud priscos Saxones (aquitrus late per European vox diffundUur) blada, 
tea blreda, omnemfructum siynijlcat, etiam arborum et vitis : he also gives seges and./ rumen- 
turn as other meanings of the word. Jamieson, in his Etym. Diet, under Bled, speculates 
that in the expression, " Of his blade bled," bled is to be understood as sprung of his blood, 
from A. S. llaed, fruit. 

PAGE 440. 

An objection to ripened instead of " opened," may be, that Malcolm is representing 
these " particulars of vice" in him as already at maturity. 

PAGE 442. 

The old corrector writes " may of life" without a capital, and we feel assured that the 
blunder was caused by the confusion, common with the old printer, between m and w. 
We have had many instances of it 

In the repetition of the line, 

" Cleanse the stafPd bosom of that perilous GBIEF," 

" that" is accidentally misprinted the. 

PAGE 453. 

Still the emendation of purse for " prize" is liable to the objection that " prize," or price, 
in the sense of purse, affords a consistent meaning. 

PAGE 460. 

The word Finis marks " the conclusion of the piece ;" of course, as it was abridged 
probably for performance, with the omission of all the portions struck through with a pen. 

PAGE 465. 

In " Notes and Queries," vol. vi. p. 6, is a suggestion by Mr. Singer for reading the com 
mencement of this quotation as follows : 

"Let him fly far, 

Not in this land shall he remain uncangh t, 
UKFOUBD," &c. 

According to this conjectural change, " despatch" would hardly refer to Edgar, so much as 
to the Duke, whose speedy arrival was expected. 

PAGE 466. 

We have not been able to find in Stow, or in any other authority, a notice of Finsbury 
Pinfold, but we need scarcely doubt of its existence in Shakespeare's time. 

PAGE 469. 

But for the sake of the verse, which would be continued redundant, we might read, with 
even a smaller alteration of the old text, 

" Which are to France the spies and spcculaTOBS." 

We are by no means satisfied with "spectators, "recommended in the margin of the folio, 
1632. 

PAGE 470. 

As the sentence ends at "flattered," the words " when known," which we have added 
in our comment, are supposed to be understood. 



NOTES. 541 

PAGE 471. 

If delires had been a word in use in Shakespeare's age, it would on all accounts appear 
preferable to "distress :" delires might easily have been misorinted "desires,"and it would 
most accurately express the state of King Lear's mind. 

PAGE 478. 

Todd, in his edit, of Johnson's Diet., derives the verb "to wheedle" from the A. S., which 
he says means seducere, " to entice by soft words ;" but the earliest instance he cites of its 
use is from Butler's " Hudibras." Richardson gives wcedlian, A. S., to cajole, to coax, as 
the etymology. 

PAGE 487. 

It is very possible that Richard Burbadge, the original Othello, cast himself on the ground 
in the agony of his despair and remorse ; but not at all likely that he would be guilty of 
the needless brutality of dragging Desdemona by the hair, as described in a ballad written, 
it should seem, shortly before the Civil Wars. Eyllierdt Swanston, as he spelt his own 
name, was a distinguished actor, who, certainly at one time, between 1619 and 1642, 
had the part of Othello ; and it is not unlikely that he, in order to give greater effect to the 
scene, before a degenerate audience, introduced more coarseness and violence than was 
ever displayed by his great predecessor. 

PAGE 496. 

We might have guessed that dumbe, or dumb'd, was a misprint for drmm'd ; but the 
words of Alexas could not have been drowned, unless they had been first spoken : he says 
that what he " would have spoke" was " boastfully dumb'd" by the neighing of the horse. 

PAGE 498. 

The expression, " well deserv'd of rashness," may, perhaps, be understood in the same 
sense as " well deserv'd/or rashness." 

PAGE 504. 

Still it may be fit to hesitate before miseries for " measures" is introduced into the text. 

PAGE 516. 

Shakespeare does not elsewhere use the word vauntage, but " vaunting ;" and on p. 427 
we have already seen " make your vaunting true," in the same way as here we have 
" make good your vauntage." 

PAGE 518. 

At the same time the meaning may certainly be, that they gamble with their infirmities, 
staking them against the gold that is paid to them. 

PAGE 525. 

Mr. Halliwell has thought this emendation worthy of a separate and clever tract (Lon 
don, 1852), in which he has inserted various passages where Shakespeare resorted to a 
similar mode of expression. The more our great and original poet has done so elsewhere 
the less likely is he to have done so here ; but if some of Mr. Halliwell's quotations are 
apposite, which we admit them to be, others are opposite, as most people will perceive 
them to be. Mrs. Cowden Clarke's admirable " Concordance" will furnish them all, so 
that it is not necessary to quote them ; and we freely acknowledge Mr. HalliwelFs inge 
nuity in sometimes applying to his purpose what in no way makes in his favour : it is one 
thing to represent a prostitute as the mother of her painting, and another to say that paint 
ing is the mother of the prostitute : so it is one thing to represent a young fop as the father 
of his garments, and another to make the garments the father of the young fop. This is a 
distinction to which Mr Halliwell has, perhaps, hardly sufficiently attended. 

THE END. 



11 



April 27th, 1859. 

SIR, I have not had occasion to do myself 
the honor of writing to you for a lengthened pe 
riod. As you may possibly recollect, the last 
time I did so w as in my quality of President of 
the Shakspeare Club of Canada (from Montreal;, 
conveying to you the notification of your having 
been elected an honorary member of that Asso 
ciation. 



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