"Or hath [have] mine uncle Beaufort and myself
With all the learned council of the realm

Studied so long, sat in the council house
Early and late, debating to and fro

How France and Frenchmen might be kept in awe,
And had his highness, in his infancy,

Crowned in Paris, in despite of foes?

And shall these labours and these honours die?" &c.

That is, 'have we studied, and sat in council, and had his highness crowned in Paris, only to lose our labor?'

SCENE 3.

Enter Peter, and others, with Petitions.

1 Pet. 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.

Thus this passage stands in all editions; but "in the quill" is obscure. Mr. Singer and Mr. Dyce suggest "in the quoil," i. e., 'in the coil, or confusion,' which is quite possibly the needful word. "In the sequel," proposed in Mr. Collier's folio, only shows the poverty of the resources, external and internal, of the proposer.

ACT IV. SCENE 1.

Cap. Cut both the villains' throats;-for die you shall
The lives of those which we have lost in fight

Be counterpoised with such a petty sum."

This passage, evidently corrupt, was amended by reading the last line,

"Cannot be counterpoised with such a petty sum;"

but Mr. Collier's folio, in reading,

"Can lives of those which we have lost in fight

Be counterpoised with such a petty sum?"

does less violence to the text, and avoids the addition of a redundant foot to the line.

SCENE 8.

Cliff. What say ye countrymen, will ye relent
And yield to mercy, whilst 'tis offered you,

Or let a rabble lead you to your deaths?"

For "rabble" Mr. Collier's folio substitutes rebel, meaning Cade. The change is plausible, and is defended by Mr. Collier on the ground that "the speaker was addressing the rabble, and would hardly ask whether they would allow themselves to lead themselves to their own deaths." But how many of the crowd would suppose that they were meant by the "rabble ?" Perhaps Shakespeare meant that Clifford should display a more thorough knowledge of human nature than his MS. corrector and his advocate have shown.

CORRECTION.

p. 336.

"In the quill" (Act I. Sc. 3) was never obscure to me, until I read the commentators on Shakespeare. They made the confusion for me, as they have for many others. I always understood the phrase as meaning, 'in writing ;' and such, I am convinced, is its plain signification. The original text should not be disturbed.

KING HENRY VI. PART III.

ACT II. SCENE 5.

"Father. And so obsequious will thy Father be, Men for the losse of thee, hauing no more,

As Priam was for all his Valiant Sonnes."

The obvious error in the second line was of course seen long ago; and all our editions have, on the suggestion of Rowe,

"Sad for the loss of thee, having no more," &c.

This emendation seems to have been made on the principle that the word substituted should be as unlike that in the original as the sense will allow. Mr. Dyce makes the obviously well-founded suggestion that "men" was a misprint for e'en. Read

"E'en for the loss of thee," &c.

ACT III. SCENE 1.

"K. Hen. Let me embrace the sower Aduersaries;

For Wise men say, it is the wisest course."

This passage, which stands thus corruptly in the folio, and does not occur in the quarto copies of The Contention of the Two famous Houses of Lancaster and Yorke, is usually printed,

"Let me embrace these sour adversities," &c.

Mr. Dyce, however, proposes,

"Let me embrace thee sour adversitie," &c.,

which obtains a finer reading at the expense of less variation from the original text.

ACT IV. SCENE 8.

"K. Hen. My mildness hath allayed their swelling griefs, My mercy dried their water flowing tears."

"Water-flowing" tears seems somewhat tautological, and to be so natural a misprint for the appropriate phrase, "bitter-flowing tears," suggested by Mr. Collier's folio, that I was at first inclined to accept the amendment. But I was soon ashamed of my vacillation; for reflection is hardly necessary to make it evident that "water-flowing tears" are tears that flow like water.

KING RICHARD III.

ACT I. SCENE 1.

"Glos. Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this sun of York," &c.

What reader of Shakespeare, on being present for the first time at the performance of Richard III., is not shocked and bewildered by the long first Scene of that droll piece of mosaic work which the managers facetiously announce as William Shakespeare's Tragedy. I shall never forget my youthful surprise, which gave place to wrath, merging gradually to sullenness, and finally veering round to laughter. I did not know that the Richard III. of the stage was a hodge-podge manufactured by Cibber, partly from Shakespeare's Richard III., partly from Henry V., partly from Henry VI., and partly from emanations of the Cibberian mind. A perusal of Hazlitt's criticism afterwards enlightened me as to the structure of the acting play,-if that can be called structure which has neither plan nor coherence before Shakespeare's works had become to me an object of critical study.

The editor of the Modern Standard Drama, remarks, in demurring to Hazlitt's strictures: "We suspect that old Cibber was, after all, a better judge than his more philosophical critic, of the ingredients that go to make up a