lir, or Ital. abbellire, and not to refine, as Mr. Collier, in a note on the passage in his edition of Shakespeare, seems to imagine!

P. 254. "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.””

If this is Mr. Collier's genuine opinion, I am sorry for it; and am quite sure he will find no one of the same mind who has paid much attention to the language of the poet. Giddy here, as elsewhere, means unstable, insecure, uncertain, and not to be trusted.

Ib. "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.""

Whoever looks at the context would have at least equal doubt of this innovation.

To fill King Edward's fame with prisoner kings,
And make their chronicle as rich with praise

As is the ooze and bottom of the sea,

With sunken wreck and sumless treasuries.

Truin, Mr. Collier may be assured, was not the poet's word; and the corrector here makes a futile endeavour to improve upon him.

Ib. "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."

Here we have another remarkable instance of sympathetic coincidence with a conjecture of Mr. Collier on the part of the corrector? But as the quartos afford a much better reading, spoil, we may surely adhere to them, and leave the corruption of the folios, tame, out of the question; as it is at least quite as probable that this was a misprint for spoil, as that the quartos put that more expressive word for tear. No interference with the received text is therefore here needed.

Ib. "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."

Mr. Collier, in his edition of Shakespeare, adopted the erroneous reading of the quartos, curs'd, with the following note: "So the quartos, in reference perhaps to the disposition of a cat. The folios read crush'd. It has been suggested to me that we might read' a cur's necessity,' or necessity imposed by a cur, Scotland being afterwards called 'the dog'"!

There is not the slightest necessity for interfering with the text of the folios, "A crush'd necessity" signifies a forced inference a strained or forced conclusion from premises that do not naturally make it a necessity. Exeter would say, " Your drift is, that it is necessary for the cat to stay at home; but such a necessity only follows by a crushing of the argument; since the cat is not our only protection, we can lock up, and set traps, and do without her." Where could Mr. Collier find authority for the corrector's notion of its meaning compelled? See the second sense of the word given in Dr. Richardson's most excellent Dictionary.

Ib. "In the last line but one of this page" (Collier's Shakesp. iv. 476)" for 'sorts' the plausible alteration is state :—

They have a king and officers of state."

The reading of the old copies is "officers of sorts," and it is

undoubtedly right. The "plausible" alteration of the corrector is as absurd as it is uncalled for, as a mere glance at the context will show; for it is bees that are spoken of :—

They have a king and officers of sorts; [i.e. various kinds.]
Where some, like magistrates, correct at home,
Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad,
Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings,
Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds; &c.

Ib. "The line, as it has always been printed,

Come to one mark; as many ways meet in one town

" is obviously overloaded, and the corrector of the folio, 1632, gives it, with the context, thus:—

As many arrows, loosed several ways
Come to one mark; as many ways unite;

As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea, &c.

"Thus the repetition of the word' meet' in two succeeding lines, is avoided; but it may still be a question, whether Shakespeare might not wish here to vary the regularity of his lines by interposing one of twelve syllables."

Unquestionably. The poet has frequently thus varied his metre; and it is rash and intolerable thus to rewrite his verses. By what possible accident could "meet in one town" be mistaken for the corrector's unite? But here as elsewhere his conceit made him imagine that he could improve upon Shakespeare! In this way every line might be rewritten and the poet submerged.

P. 255. To the substitution of soul for "sail," in the following lines of King Henry's speech, there is little objection, as the words might easily be mistaken for each other :

-

Ib. The same perhaps may be said of the substitution of seasonable for "reasonable," in the passage where the king

urges expeditious preparation for the invasion of France. Yet reasonable has never hitherto been doubted, as it answers every purpose.

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.

But had this change been proposed by any one else but Mr. Collier's corrector, it would not, I think, have obtained his prompt concurrence.

ACT II.

P. 256. The change in the third line of the chorus, "Now thrive" the armourers, to, " Now strive," is quite unnecessary, and the true word thrive expresses the same thought as the Latin multis utile bellum, although Mr. Collier says, "We feel convinced strive was the poet's word."

Ib. "Pope completed a defective line in the chorus as follows:

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."

Neither are these words, and so, to be found in any ancient copy; why then should they be preferable to Pope's? whose authority I hold as at least equal to that of the anonymous blundering corrector. The lines stand thus in the first folio,Linger your patience on, and wee'l digest Th' abuse of distance; force a play: &c.

Mr. Collier has the following note in his edition of Shakespeare: "This is the reading of the folio, 1623, excepting 'well' [wee'l] for 'we'll'; and though the measure be defective, we have no warrant for an arbitrary correction of it, especially when sense may be extracted without any addition"!

SCENE I.

P. 256. The adoption of Farmer's suggested reading of smites for "smiles" is merely another coincidence; and the substitution of jade, instead of the misprint of the folios" name,” for the undoubted" mare," as it stands in the quartos, Mr. Collier himself tacitly abandons; and well he may!

SCENE II.

Ib. "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."

Can there be " too earnest a desire to follow the old copies wherever perfect sense can be obtained from them without innovation? It is quite as probable that the drunkard when sober had expressed contrition, had "more advice:" his and our could hardly have been mistaken for each other. Thus in Measure for Measure, Act v. Sc. i.

Pardon me, my noble lord,

I thought it was a fault, but knew it not,
Yet did repent me after more advice.

P. 257. This consideration would make us reject at once the substitution of state for "late," in the King's inquiry

Who are the late commissioners?

Which Mason has shown clearly means the "lately appointed commissioners."

SCENE III.

P. 257. "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' bab