P. 161. Two small variations are made, both in speeches by Dromio, one where, alluding to the beating he had received, he says his "bones bear witness,"

"That since have felt the vigour of his rage."

The manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, here reads rigour for "vigour;" and lower down he makes Dromio exclaim,— "God and the rope-maker now bear me witness,"

instead of merely "bear me witness," which is not in the regular measure which Dromio just here employs.

ACT V. SCENE I.

P. 164. For "good sir, draw near to me," we are told to read, as seems natural, "good sir, draw near with me."

P. 167. Instead of the line,—

"In company I often glanced it :"

the manuscript-corrector reads, with apparent fitness,— "In company I often glanc'd at it."

In the speech of the Abbess the epithet "moody" is applied to "melancholy" in the folio, 1623, which is altered to muddy in the folio, 1632. The manuscript-corrector most properly restored "moody."

P. 168. The line in the Merchant's speech, as it is given in the folios,

"The place of depth, and sorry execution,"

is amended in manuscript in the folio, 1632, to

"The place of death, and solemn execution;"

both words, as we may suppose, having been misheard by the copyist.

P. 169. Adriana, speaking of her husband, who had been. seized as a madman, says,

"Anon, I wot not by what strong escape,

He broke from those who had the guard of him."

Strong" the corrector of the folio, 1632, converts into "strange," perhaps because all were astonished at the escape.

P. 173. Antipholus of Ephesus, describing the manner in which he had been seized, bound, and confined, observes,

"They fell upon me, bound me, bore me thence,
And in a dark and dankish vault at home

There left me, and my man, both bound together."

The corrector of the folio, 1632, alters it to "They left me," &c., which is clearly right, though not absolutely necessary.

P. 174. Ægeon, astonished at not being recognized by Antipholus of Ephesus, exclaims, in the reading of the first and other folios,

"O, time's extremity!

Hast thou so crack'd and splitted my poor tongue?" &c.

but we are told by the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, and can well believe, that the last line ought to be,— "Hast thou so crack'd my voice, split my poor tongue?"

P. 176. In the line,

"Besides her urging of her wreck at sea;"

the pronoun "her" is altered to his in both instances, and very justifiably.

P. 177. All copies agree in what appears to be a decided, though a small, error in reading,

"And thereupon these errors are arose."

"These errors all arose" has been suggested as the poet's words; and we find all in the margin of the corrected folio, 1632, while "are" is erased in the text. All is misprinted are e" in "The Tempest," Act I. Scene II.

P. 178. The following lines, as they are printed in the folio, 1623, have been the source of considerable cavil:

"Thirty-three years have I but gone in travail

Of you, my sons, and till this present hour
My heavy burden are delivered."

That the above is corrupt there can be no question; and in the folio, 1632, the printer attempted thus to amend the passage:

"Thirty-three years have I been gone in travail

Of you, my sons, and till this present hour

My heavy burdens are delivered."

Malone gave it thus:

"Twenty-five years have I but gone in travail
Of you, my sons; until this present hour

My heavy burden not delivered."

The manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, makes the slightest possible change in the second line, and at once removes the whole difficulty: he puts it,

"Thirty-three years have I been gone in travail

Of you, my sons, and at this present hour
My heavy burdens are delivered."

The Abbess means, of course, that she was, as it were, delivered of the double burden of her twin sons at the hour of this discovery of them. With such an easy and clear solution of what has produced many conjectural emendations, it is needless to notice the various proposals of Theobald and others, which are all nearly equally wide of the mark.

F

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

ACT I. SCENE I.

P. 188. In the stage-direction at the opening of the scene the manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, has expunged Innogen, his wife, as if the practice had not then been for her to appear before the audience in this, or in any other portion of the comedy; and it is certain that no word ever escapes from her in the dialogue. It has been supposed by some that, though merely a mute, she was seen by the spectators, but in what way she was to be known to them to be the mother of Hero, and the wife of Leonato, is not stated. Another change in the same stage-direction merits notice: it is that the word "Messenger" is converted into Gentleman, and the manner in which he joins in the conversation shows, that he must have been a person superior in rank to what we now understand by a messenger. Consistently with this notion, all the prefixes to what he says are altered from Mes. to Gent. In other dramas Shakespeare gives important parts to persons whom he only calls Messengers; and it requires no proof that in the reign of Elizabeth the Messengers who conveyed news to the Court from abroad were frequently officers whose services were in part rewarded by this distinction. It was in this capacity that Raleigh seems first to have attracted the favour of the Queen.

P. 195. For "he that hits me," the corrector of the folio, 1632, gives "he that first hits me," which supports the notion that the successful marksman was to be called Adam, as the first man. The allusion can hardly be to Adam Bell, because it is William of Cloudesley who, in the ballad, is

the principal archer, and who cleaves the apple on his son's head.

P. 197. There is certainly a misprint in the second line of Don Pedro's speech, where he is adverting to Claudio's reason for loving Hero:

"What need the bridge much broader than the flood?

The fairest grant is the necessity."

Here "grant" has little or no meaning, for Hero has not yet been even sounded upon the point; and the line ought to run in the manner in which the corrector of the folio, 1632, has left it,

"The fairest ground is the necessity."

The fairest ground for Claudio's love was the necessity of the case, which rendered needless any "treatise."

SCENE III.

P. 199. John the Bastard, telling Conrade of his melancholy, says There is no measure in the occasion that breeds," the pronoun it being wanting after the verb, which is found in the margin of the corrected folio, 1632. Lower, on the same page, Conrade remarks "You have of late stood out against your brother;" but they had been reconciled, and the expression ought to be, as we find it in the same authority, "You have till of late stood out against your brother."

ACT II. SCENE I.

P. 202. The speech of Beatrice requires father in the first clause as well as in the second, but all the folios are without it it is thus added in manuscript in the folio, 1632, "Yes faith; it is my cousin's duty to make courtesy, and say, Father, as it please you," &c. It so stands in the 4to, 1600.

P. 203. The drollery of Beatrice's description of the difference between "wooing, wedding, and repenting" is much injured by the omission of a pun just at the conclusion