ACT I., SCENE II.

P. 89. It is no small happiness, therefore, to be seated in the -So the folio. The quartos have "no mean happiness." I prefer to be without the jingle of mean and mean.

mean.

P. 90. Will, no doubt, never be chosen by any rightly, but one who shall rightly love. So the first quarto has the latter clause. The other old copies read "who you shall rightly love."

P. 90. And he makes it a great appropriation to his own good parts, that he can shoe him himself. -Collier's second folio reads “approbation of his own good parts." Shakespeare has no other instance of appropriation; but he uses approbation for proof; and in that sense the word certainly accords well with the context.

P. 91. If a throstle sing, he falls straight a-capering. - The old copies have Trassell for throstle. Is trassell an old form of throstle? Probably th was sounded like t, in the latter word, and, in the former, a as in what or in chap: so that trassell and trostle would be but putting different letters for the same sound.

P. 92. What think you of the Scottish lord, his neighbour? So the quartos. The folio substitutes other for Scottish; doubtless on account of King James. It may be worth noting that Collier's second folio substitutes Irish for other.

ACT I., SCENE III.

P. 95. There be land-rats and water-rats, land-thieves and water-thieves, - I mean pirates. — So Collier's second folio; the old copies, "water theeves, and land theeves"; which would naturally mean that the land-thieves were pirates.

How much we would.

One of the quartos and the folio. read "How much he would"; the other quarto, "How much ye would." The correction is Walker's.

P. 98. Was this inserted to make interest good?-Collier's second folio substitutes inferred for inserted. The Poet uses infer for bring in or introduce, and that meaning fits the context well. See foot-note 15.

P. 98. A goodly apple rotten at the heart:

O, what a godly outside falsehood hath! - So Rowe and Walker. Instead of godly, the old copies have goodly, the word having probably been repeated by mistake from the preceding line. And Walker remarks that "goodly and godly, and, in like manner, good and God, have been confounded in various passages of our old writers."

P. 101. Whose own hard dealing teaches them suspect. - So the second folio. The originals have “hard dealings teaches." Confusion of singulars and plurals is among the commonest misprints.

ACT II., SCENE I.

P. 102. The shadow'd livery of the burning Sun. - So Collier's second folio; the old copies, "the burnisht Sun." Modern editions print "burnish'd Sun,” but the epithet is surely an odd one, to say the least.

P. 103. But, if my father had not scanted me,

And hedged me by his will.—The old copies read "by his wit"; and wit has been explained" sagacity and power of mind." The word was indeed used in a way to include that meaning; but wit is here undoubtedly a misprint for will, which was often written wil. The change is approved by several expressions used in i. 2: “Curb'd by the will of a dead father;" and "perform your father's will;" and 'by the manner of my father's will." Corrected by Capell.

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ACT II., SCENE II.

P. 108. Do you not know me, father?— Here not is wanting in the old copies, but is indispensable to the sense of the passage. Supplied by Dyce.

P. 112. Nay, you must not deny me: I must go

With you to Belmont. The old copies print this speech as prose, and are without Nay at the beginning of it. But the speech was clearly meant to be verse, and Nay completes it as such. It was added by Hanmer and Capell.

ACT II., SCENE IV.

P. 115. And whiter than the paper that it writ on

Is the fair hand that writ. So Hanmer. In the first line, that is wanting in the old copies, and is fairly required for the verse.

Laun. I'll go before you, sir. - So Walker. The old copies read "I will go before, sir." Hanmer rectified the metre by printing " Sir, I will go before."

P. 119. How like a younker or a prodigal. - So Rowe. Instead of younker, the old copies have younger; a palpable misprint.

P. 120. I'll watch as long for you then. Come, approach. Come is Pope's insertion; justifiable, probably, on the score of metre. I suspect that Ritson was right in proposing to read "I'll watch as long for you. -Come, then, approach."

ACT II., SCENE VI.

P. 125. Gilded tombs do worms infold. - So Johnson and Collier's second folio; the old copies, "Gilded timber doe," &c.

ACT II., SCENE VII.

P. 127. And even then, his eye being big with tears.

Instead

of then, the old copies have there; doubtless repeated by mistake from

the line before. Corrected by Dyce.

ACT II., SCENE VIII.

P. 130. I will assume desert. — Give me a key,

And instantly unlock my fortunes here. The old copies read "Give me a key for this, And instantly," &c. As the words for this are plainly superfluous both for sense and for metre, and as Hanmer, Ritson, Steevens, and Dyce concur in thinking them an interpolation, I have struck them out.

P. 131. So be gone, sir; you are sped. So the second folio; the earlier editions omit sir.

ACT III., SCENE İ.

P. 136. Good news, good news! ha, ha!- Where? in Genoa? - Instead of where, the old copies have here. Evidently wrong. Corrected by Rowe.

ACT III., SCENE II.

P. 139. There may as well be amity and league

'Tween snow and fire, as treason and my love. -So Walker. The old text has "amity and life." The latter is certainly a strange word for the place, and is made still more unfitting by what the same speaker says a little after, — “Promise me life,” &c.

P. 140. How begot, how nourished? [Reply.

It is engender'd in the eyes, &c.—So Hanmer and Johnson, following the old editions, all of which, both quarto and folio, print Reply in the margin, and in the same line with "How begot," &c. Other modern editions, generally, print "Reply, reply" in a separate line, between the two lines here quoted, and thus make it a part of the song itself. It is true, the old copies repeat the word," Replie, replie"; but the word was evidently meant as a stage-direction. And it seemed to me that so the arrangement ought to be, long before I knew the printing of the old copies. Perhaps I ought to add that, in the second line, the quartos have eye instead of eyes, the reading of the folios.

P. 141. There is no vice so simple, but assumes

Some mark of virtue on his outward parts. -So the second folio. It is well-nigh superfluous to note that, instead of vice, the originals have voice; which is readily corrected from virtue in the next line.

P. 141. How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false

As stayers of sand, wear yet upon their chins, &c. - So the folio. Modern editions generally print stairs; for what reason, or with what propriety, is, I think, not very apparent: for, surely, stayers, in the sense of props, supports, or stays, agrees much better with the context. And in most other places, if not in all, the folio has stairs spelt staires.

P. 142. Thus ornament is but the guilèd shore

To a most dangerous sea; the beauteous scarf
Veiling an Indian feature; in a word,

The seeming truth, &c.

- Instead of "guiled shore," which is the reading of the quartos and the first folio, the second folio has "guilded shore." This is merely an old way of spelling gilded, which is Rowe's reading. I am apt to think that so we ought to read. Lettsom has "little doubt that the Poet was thinking of Raleigh's 'Discovery of Guiana,' and wrote guilded." See, however, foot-note 21.- - In the third line, the old editions read "Vailing an Indian beautie; in a word," &c. With this reading I believe all modern editors are dissatisfied, as indeed they well may be. Hanmer reads "Indian dowdy," and Walker conjectures "Indian gipsy." Collier's second folio undertakes to heal the difficulty by changing the punctuation, thus: "Veiling an Indian: beauty, in a word," &c. But the corruption is in the word beauty, which clearly has no business there, and probably crept in by a sort of contagion from beauteous in the preceding line. The Cambridge Editors propose “Indian beldam"; which seems to me well worth considering. Lettsom conjectured favour, which suggested to me the reading in the text. After having settled upon feature, I was glad to find that Mr. Spedding had anticipated me in that conjecture. It has some advantage over the others in the ductus literarum, as it involves a substitution of only two letters. And Shakespeare repeatedly uses feature in a sense well suited to the place. See foot-note 22.