SCENE XII.

P. 478. To change "disposed" to composed in the line,You did suspect

She had disposed with Cæsar

would be to adopt modern phraseology for that of the poet's time; when to dispose would have been the word used for to make arrangements.

SCENE XIII.

Ib. The alteration of "conclusion to condition in what Cleopatra says of Octavia seems quite unnecessary, although the words might easily be mistaken for each other. Still conclusion is moral judgment conveyed, not in words, but by mute demure expression of countenance.

P. 479. "A good deal of doubt has been occasioned by Cleopatra'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 monu

"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 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."

This is indeed a most extraordinary attempt at emendation! It would astonish me, and many more, if Mr. Collier should succeed in finding port used for "a load or weight" in the whole range of English literature. As for the instance he cites from Milton of ported, is he to be told that it is there. used in the sense of borne or carried? A very slight alteration of the misprinted word sport will give us what is probably the true reading :

Here's support indeed! How heavy weighs my lord!

Our strength is all gone into heaviness,

That makes the weight.

By the word sport, Boswell imagined that Cleopatra may be supposed to contrast the melancholy task in which they are now engaged with their former sports.

is

ACT V. SCENE I.

P. 480. The adoption of the reading suggested by Steevens:

Go to him, Dolabella; bid him yield.

Being so frustrate, tell him that he mocks

The pauses that he makes

very inferior to the accepted reading of Malone, in which the words us by were supplied at the end of the line,

tell him he mocks us by

The pauses that he makes.

Steevens no doubt proposed his reading in mere opposition to Malone, a motive that often governed him.

Ib. The alteration of "split" to splitted, and the interpolation of the words self noble in the following account Dercetas gives of Antony's death :

But that self hand,

Which writ his honour in the acts it did,

Hath with the courage which the heart did lend it,

Splitted the heart. This is his sword

I robb'd the wound of it, &c.

is entirely unwarranted. The pause in the line of eight syllables makes it quite unnecessary to interpolate the line,

Split the self-noble heart. This is his sword.

Mr. Collier knows that lines of eight syllables are often used for effect as well as to vary the cadence of the metre, by Shakespeare. And we are not to re-write his lines.

SCENE II.

P. 481. The adoption of Warburton's reading of dug for dung" was, I think, judicious in the correctors, although it did not find favour in the judgment of Steevens and Malone, or of Mr. Collier, who passes over the old reading dung without comment, although he now sees "the impropriety of talking of palating 'dung,' and afterwards calling that 'dung' the beggar's nurse and Cæsar's.""

Ib. I cannot say that the correctors were judicious in following Hanmer's substitution of accessary for "necessary" in the passage where Cleopatra tells Proculeius that she will take all means to 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 correctors, following the commentators, have misunderstood the passage. The line "If idle talk will once be necessary" is parenthetical, and means "If idle talk be any time necessary about my purposes." Shakespeare uses once for one time, any time; and will be, as Johnson remarks, is often used without relation to the future. All that we have to do, therefore, is to mark the second line as a parenthesis. The word once has often been misunderstood by the commentators.

P. 482. Judgment is shown by the correctors in sympathizing with Mr. Collier in his adoption of the late Mr. Barron Field's emendation of "suites" to smites, which was a very good conjecture; but Mr. Collier should not have omitted to mention the circumstance, and leave the reader to believe that it was an entire new reading, now first brought forth.

Ib. The alteration of "spirits" to spirit, and "my chance" to mischance, as Mr. Collier says, "can hardly be said to be necessary," but the notice serves to swell the catalogue of the one thousand and one new readings.

P. 483. The adoption of Theobald's reading of assur'd for "absurd" I can also approve, and think with Mr. Collier that there was no necessity to alter "fool" to foil:

The remaining few corrections of the flagrant misprints, which had already been made in all editions, scarcely deserved notice on the part of Mr. Collier, and may well be passed over without notice by me, as there was neither merit nor demerit in the deed. I presume they form part of the one thousand new readings!

CYMBELINE.

ACT I. SCENE I.

P. 485. "The mode in which the person who made the emendations 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 courtiers imitate the king: as the king frowns, so all others look gloomy. There cannot be a doubt that this is the right reading."

The correctors have of course sympathised with Mr. Collier

in adopting Tyrwhitt's reading. But there is perhaps no necessity for departing from the old copy, except in the pointing; we should read :

You do not meet a man but frowns: our bloods

No more obey the heavens, than our courtiers
Still seem as does the king's.

Our bloods (i. e. our dispositions or temperaments) are not more regulated by the heavens, by skyey influence, than our courtiers follow in appearance the king's disposition, when he frowns every man frowns. The word seem is emphatic, for the speaker a little after says,

But not a courtier,

Although they wear their faces to the bent

Of the king's looks, hath a heart that is not
Glad of the thing they scowl at.

Ib. To read "fond of's issue" for the perfectly intelligible old reading" fond of issue," would be a mark of very bad taste. What a disagreeable elision is of's for of his, one always to be avoided where possible, and it is not at all required here.

Mr. Collier says "the correction is of little importance. "Correction," indeed! It is of no little importance to avoid such.

SCENE II.

P. 486. To change "would'st" for would in the passage,—

Thou took'st a beggar, would'st have made my throne

A seat for baseness:

is a parallel case, introducing an ellipsis where none existed. How Mr. Collier can imagine a question was intended, or a note of interrogation necessary in the old authentic reading, I cannot conceive. The king says to Imogen, "you took a beggar; would have made my throne a seat for baseness!" What question is there in this? Imogen's reply is naturally consecutive," No; I rather added a lustre to it." Here corrector and expositor are both sympathetically at fault.

SCENE V.

Ib. The substitution of, and her dolours for "under her colours," in Iachimo's observation respecting the marriage of