P. 91. In Antony's brief character of Brutus, at the close of the tragedy, we meet with two material variations pointed out by the old corrector, which merit notice, and perhaps adoption the passage has hitherto appeared as follows: : "All the conspirators, save only he, Did that they did in envy of great Cæsar; And common good to all, made one of them." It must, we think, be admitted that the last two lines are improved if we read them as, we are told, they ought to be amended:: 66 “He only, in a generous honest thought Of common good to all, made one of them." "A general honest thought and common good to all,” is at least tautology; and to say that Brutus was actuated by a generous honest thought of common good to all" (i. e. a thought worthy of his rank and blood) is consistent with the disinterested nobility of his character, and an admission that might be expected from his great adversary. It is hardly requiring too much, in such a case, to suppose that the scribe misheard generous, and wrote general; but the propriety of introducing the change into the very intelligible text is a matter of discretion. Generous, in the sense of magnanimous, was of rather later use in our language. MACBETH. ACT I. SCENE I. P. 101. Although, as is stated in note 5, "quarry (so printed in the old copies) affords an obvious meaning, we find the old corrector substituting for it a word sounding very like it, for which it might be mistaken, and which, in fact, Johnson proposed. The line is as follows, and it relates to the rebellion of Macdonwald, who, having supplied himself with kerns and gallowglasses from the Western Isles, for a time had been successful: "And fortune on his damned quarry smiling." While they continued triumphant the rebels could hardly be called 66 a quarry," unless by anticipation; and the corrector of the folio, 1632, introduces this alteration: "And fortune on his damned quarrel smiling." Malone, who was well disposed to adopt the language of the early editions, here deserted them (mainly on the ground that at the end of this play, "quarrel" is used in the same way for the cause of quarrel), and this without any confirmatory authority, such as we now possess. P. 102. When Ross enters suddenly, with tidings of the victory by Macbeth and Banquo over the Norwegians, Lenox observes, "What a haste looks through his eyes! So should he look, that seems to speak things strange." Various commentators have here seen the difficulty of making Ross "seem to speak things strange" before he had spoken at all: it was, therefore, suggested that teems was the word E e instead of "seems;" but if the objection be not altogether hypercritical, it is entirely removed by the old annotator, who assures us that "seems" (spelt seemes in the folios) had been misprinted: "So should he look, that comes to speak things strange." Ross certainly came "to speak things strange," and on his entrance looked as if he did. SCENE III. P. 104. After the second and third Witches have bestowed winds the first, she says, upon "I myself have all the other; And the very ports they blow, I will drain him dry as hay," &c. All is in rhyme, excepting that "I' the shipman's card" has no corresponding line, and is evidently short of the necessary syllables. These are furnished by an emendation in the folio, 1632, which we can scarcely doubt (though a triplet) gives the words of the poet, by some carelessness omitted: "All the quarters that they know I' the shipman's card to show." Lower down, we meet with a proof that the ordinary confusion between the ƒ and the long s extended even to capitals: Banquo, in the folios, asks, "How far is't called to Soris?" instead of "Fores." In the manuscript used by the printer, "Fores" was most likely not written with a capital letter, and he read it soris; but, supposing it the name of a place, he printed it, as he fancied properly, Soris. The error is, of course, set right in the margin of the corrected folio, 1632. P. 106. The old impressions have,— "As thick as tale Can post with post." Rowe wished to read hail for "tale," but without warrant; but Can was unquestionably misprinted for "Came." Near the bottom of the next page, "That trusted home," of the folios, is changed to "That thrusted home." In modern times the word has been variously treated. P. 108. For "My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical" the proposed change is to "My thought, where murder yet is but fantastical." SCENE IV. P. 110. Duncan thus speaks of the merits of Macbeth in the folio, 1623: "Thou art so far before, That swiftest wing of recompense is slow To overtake thee." The folio, 1632, misprints the second line,— "That swiftest wine of recompense is slow;" and the corrector of that edition amends the decided defect, not by converting wine into "wing," but into winde, or wind, "That swiftest wind of recompense is slow." This may, or may not, have been the line as it came from the poet's pen: at all events, and for some unexplained reason, a person writing soon after 1632, seems to have preferred wind to "wing," when either would answer the purpose. Another emendation, in the passage which immediately succeeds the above quotation, seems in some degree warranted by the sense : "Would thou hadst less deserv'd, That the proportion both of thanks and payment Might have been mine," say the folios; "might have been more," says the annotator on the edition of 1632: Duncan wishes that his thanks and payment could have been more in proportion to the deserts of Macbeth. This change is doubtful. SCENE V. P. 113. A very acceptable alteration is made, on the same evidence, in Lady Macbeth's speech invoking night, just before the entrance of her husband: it is in a word which has occasioned much speculation : "Come, thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, Steevens, with reference to "blanket," quotes rug and rugs from Drayton; and Malone seriously supposes that the word was suggested to Shakespeare by the "coarse woollen curtain of the theatre," when, in fact, it is hardly known whether the curtain, separating the audience from the actors, was woollen, linen, or silk. What solution of the difficulty does the old corrector offer? As it seems to us, the substitution he recommends cannot be doubted : : "Nor heaven peep through the blankness of the dark The scribe misheard the termination of blankness, and absurdly wrote "blanket." In the next scene (VI.), for "where they must breed and haunt" of the folios, the correction is much for "must." SCENE VII. P. 116. The folio, 1632, omits some important words, consisting of nearly a whole line, where Macbeth is soliloquizing on the "bloody instructions" which "return to plague the inventor." They are added in manuscript in the margin, perhaps from the folio, 1623; but instead of "this evenhanded justice," the old corrector writes, "thus, even-handed justice," the propriety of which change was urged by Mason. P. 118. It is not easy to imagine a case in which the alteration of a single letter would make so important a difference as in the ensuing portion of the interview between Macbeth and his Lady, where he is irresolute, and she reproaches him with want of courage to execute the murder he was once ready to undertake: we give the text as it has peared in every edition, from the earliest in 1623 to our own day : "Macb. Lady M. Pr'ythee peace. I dare do all that may become a man; What beast was't, then, ap That made you break this enterprize to me? When you durst do it, then you were a man," &c. Surely it reads like a gross vulgarism for Lady Macbeth thus to ask, "What beast made him divulge the enterprize to her?" but she means nothing of the kind: she alludes to Macbeth's former readiness to do the deed, when he was pre |