P. 63. Cry, holla! to thy tongue, I pr'ythee. - The old text has the tongue." An erratum hardly worth noting.

- Here and in

P. 63. God b' wi' you! let's meet as little as we can. many other places the old text prints "God buy you." Also in iv. I, of this play: "Nay, then, God buy you, an you talk in blank-verse." And in v. 3: “God buy you; and God mend your voices." Of course it is the old contraction of "God be with you," which has been still further shortened into good bye. I marvel that our modern sticklers for archaic forms and archaic spelling, who make so much of retaining the old possessive it, and of printing it's, wherever it occurs, for its, — I marvel that they so generally ignore this archaism. Standing on such points, where nothing either of sense or of metre or of rhyme is involved, seems to me indeed sheer pedantry, or affectation, or something worse; still I think consistency may be worth something.

P. 66. Every one fault seeming most monstrous till his fellow-fault came to match it. - So Walker. The original is without most, which seems fairly needful to the sense; and Walker points out a large number of like omissions under the heading "Omissions in consequence of Absorption."

P. 68. I drave my suitor from his mad humour of love to a loving humour of madness. — The original reads " to a living humour of madness." Johnson proposed loving as required for the antithesis clearly intended. Walker says, "Of course, loving.'

ACT III., SCENE 3.

P. 71. And what they swear in poetry, it may be said, as lovers, they do feign. So Mason and Collier's second folio. The original omits it.

P. 72. No assembly but horn'd beasts. - The old text has hornebeasts. The correction is Walker's, who cites a multitude of cases in which "final d and final e" have evidently been confounded.

P. 72. Horns given to poor men alone? No, no; the noblest deer hath them as huge as the rascal. - The original reads "hornes, even so poore men alone: No, no, the noblest Deere," &c.; which yields no sense at all, and is accepted by none of the editors. The more com

Poor men

mon reading is Theobald's, thus: "Horns? Even so: alone? No, no," &c. Singer prints "Horns! never for poor men alone? No, no," &c.; "which I hardly understand," says Dyce. And Dyce prints" Horns? ever to poor men alone?" which to me is not very intelligible.

ACT III., SCENE 4.

P. 74. He hath bought a pair of chaste lips of Diana: a nun of Winter's sisterhood kisses not more religiously; the very ice of chastity is in them. So the second folio. The first has "a paire of cast lips." I marvel that the editors should so generally have retained cast, with the word chastity before them in the same sentence.

P. 75. They are both the confirmers of false reckonings. — The original has confirmer instead of confirmers. Hardly worth noting, perhaps. Corrected by Pope.

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P. 75. As a puny tilter, that spurs his horse but on one side, breaks his staff like a noble goose.· I do not well understand this noble goose. Hanmer printed a nose-quill'd goose," which I understand still less. Singer prints "like a notable goose," which I more than suspect to be right.

P. 76. Bring us to see this sight, and you shall say

--

I prove a busy actor in their play. — The original wants see, which was proposed by Jervis. And rightly, no doubt; for it is incredible that the Poet would have left such a gap in one line of a rhyming couplet. - The old text also begins the second line with "Ile prove."

ACT III., SCENE 5.

P. 77. The cicatrice and capable impressure

Thy palm some moment keeps.- Singer and Collier's second folio change capable to palpable; perhaps rightly. See foot-note 3. — In the preceding line, the old text omits but; an error which the metre naturally corrects.

P. 77. That you insult, exult, and all at once. It has been asked what "all at once" can possibly mean here; and Singer follows Warburton in substituting rail for all. But Staunton shows that all at once

was in common use as a sort of expletive phrase. So in The Fisherman's Tale, 1594: "She wept, she cride, she sob'd, and all at once." Also in Middleton's Changeling, iv. 3: "Does love turn fool, run mad, and all at once?" And in King Henry V., i. 1 : "Nor never Hydraheaded wilfulness so soon did lose his seat, and all at once, as in this King."

P. 77. What though you have no beauty, &c. There has been a deal of stumbling at this passage. Instead of no, Hanmer printed some, and is followed by Dyce; while Malone proposed and Steevens adopted more. For my part, I am quite unable to see the force of the objections to the original reading, no beauty." See foot-note 5.

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P. 79. He's fallen in love with her foulness, and she'll fall in love with my anger. - So Hanmer. The original reads with your foulnesse." The next clause points out the correction.

So Capell. The

P. 8o. He is not tall; yet for his years he's tall. old text has "He is not very tall," thus overfilling the verse. Walker justly includes this among the various instances, which he quotes, of very interpolated.

ACT IV., SCENE 1.

P. 82. The sundry contemplation of my travels, on which my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous sadness. Here the first folio has" in which by often rumination"; the second, "in which my often." Singer and Dyce throw out the in altogether, and, retaining by, make which the subject of wraps; thus, which, by often rumination, wraps me," &c. The reading in the text was proposed by Jervis.

P. 83.

better jointure, I think, than you can make a woman. —

So Hanmer; the original," than you make."

If I understand this speech, I Collier's second folio reads "I my wit "; which I certainly do

P. 84. Marry, that should you, if I were your mistress; or I should think my honesty ranker than my wit. would rather it were not in the play. should thank my honesty rather than not understand at all, and therefore see nothing objectionable in it except darkness.

- Hero of

P. 85. And the foolish chroniclers of that age found it was— Sestos. For chroniclers Hanmer and Collier's second folio substitute coroners. Rightly, I suspect; notwithstanding Lettsom's opinion that "the plural number, and the phrase of that age, tell the other way."

P. 86. Men are April when they woo, December when they're wed. – The original reads "December when they wed." The correction is Mr. P. A. Daniel's.

P. 87. O, that woman that cannot make her fault her husband's occasion, let her never nurse her child herself, &c. - Hanmer changed occasion to accusation, which Singer adopts. The change seems so apt and just, that I have had much ado to resist it; for the interpretation commonly given to the passage comes, I think, rather too hard out of the words to be fairly admissible. See foot-note 19.

P. 88. I tell thee, Aliena, I cannot be out of the sight of Orlando.— Here, again, the original has "Ile tell."

ACT IV., SCENE 2.

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P. 89. [They sing him home, the rest bearing this burden.] - Here the original has "Then sing him home, the rest shall beare this burthen," all as the third line of the song, and printed in the same type as the rest. Of modern editors, some print the whole line as a stagedirection; others print the first four words, "Then sing him home," as the third line of the song, and the rest as a stage-direction. White and Dyce are among the former; Singer and Staunton among the latter. I cannot but think it rather unlike Shakespeare to break up the proper symmetry of a lyrical strain, by thrusting in such an exceptional line as the four words make in this case.

The owners of the house I did inquire for?—I here adopt the reading proposed by Lettsom, with great ingenuity certainly, and, I think, with excellent judgment also. In the second line the original has and instead of but, and in the third ripe sister instead of right forester. The hole left in the verse by sister was stopped with but by the editor of the second folio, probably with no other thought than to rectify the metre. Walker remarks upon the passage that "A ripe sister seems an odd expression." Odd it certainly is, and, I think, out of keeping with the character and situation; while it were an easy gloss or corruption of right forester, when s was written long, so as to be hardly distinguishable from f. The substitution of but for and is not so clear; but the play has fifty undoubted misprints that are hardly more easy to account for. — In the last line also, the original has owner instead of owners. The context readily suggests the correction.

P. 93. Chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy. -The old text has food instead of cud. The correction was made by Sir Walter Scott in the Preface to Quentin Durward, and is adopted by Staunton and Dyce; the former remarking that "to chew the cud, metaphorically, to ruminate, to revolve in the mind, is an expression of frequent occurrence in our old authors."

P. 93. Under an oak, whose boughs were moss'd with age. - The original reads "Under an old oak"; where old is palpably redundant both in sense and in metre. Even White, stickler as he is for the text of the first folio, gives up old here.

P. 95.

And to give this napkin,

Dyed in his blood, unto the shepherd youth, &c. The original has "Died in this bloud"; this being evidently repeated by mistake from the preceding line. Corrected in the second folio.

ACT V., SCENE 1.

P. 98. Or, clown, thou perishest; or, to thy better understanding, diest; to wit, I kill thee, &c. The original prints "dyest; or (to wit) I kill thee "; the or being probably repeated once too much by mis