ludicrous effect upon the audience: Enter Malvolio, as from prison, with straw about him; in order to show the nature of the confinement to which the poor conceited victim had been subjected.

P. 418. In the speech of the Countess there appear to be two errors of the press in these lines, as they are contained in all editions:

"It was she

First told me thou wast mad; then cam'st in smiling,
And in such forms which here were presuppos'd

Upon thee in the letter."

According to corrections in the margin of the folio, 1632, the passage should be printed thus:

"It was she

First told me thou wast mad: thou cam'st in smiling,
And in such forms, which here were preimpos'd

Upon thee in the letter."

Both emendations seem required: thou was easily misprinted "then," and "presuppos'd upon thee" is little better than nonsense.

P. 419. Olivia adds insult to injury when she thus laments Malvolio's ill-treatment:

"Alas, poor fool, how have they baffled thee!"

What Shakespeare made her say was merely compassionate, if we may believe the old corrector :

"Alas, poor soul, how have they baffled thee!"

Soul being written with a long s was very likely to be confounded with "fool." Lower in the page, the Clown is made to repeat Maria's letter correctly, "Some have greatness thrust upon them," not "thrown upon them," as it erroneously stands in all the folios.

P. 420. The Clown sings his song at the end to pipe and tabor, the usual musical instruments of such personages; and in the first scene of Act III. he enters, playing on his pipe and tabor, two stage-directions only found in the manuscript additions to the folio, 1632. There can be no doubt that he was furnished on both occasions with these accessories. The fourth stanza of his "song" is thus altered by the manuscript-corrector :

182

TWELFTH NIGHT; OR, WHAT YOU WILL. [ACT V.

"But when I came unto my bed,

With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
With toss-pots still I had drunken head,
For the rain it raineth every day."

Modern editors have rightly put "bed" and "head" in the singular, instead of the plural as in the old impressions; but the insertion of the pronoun in the third line is new, and necessary, unless we can suppose it to be understood. We may presume, perhaps, that it was not understood in the original manuscript.

THE WINTER'S TALE.

ACT I. SCENE I.

P. 430. The word so seems to have been accidentally omitted where Camillo is speaking of the friendly intercourse kept up between Leontes and Polixenes, while at a distance in their separate dominions: he says: "Their encounters, though not personal, have been so royally attorney'd, with interchange of gifts, letters, loving embassies, that they have seemed to be together, though absent," &c. The manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, adds so in the margin, and puts gifts in the plural, which is in the singular in that edition.

SCENE II.

P. 431. The subsequent passage in the speech of Polixenes has given trouble to the commentators :

"That may blow

No sneaping winds at home, to make us say,
This is put forth too truly.""

The allusion seems unquestionably to be to the putting forth of buds or blooms in spring, when they may be cut off by "sneaping," or nipping winds; and the alteration of "truly" to early, as we find it in the corrected folio, 1632, seems to remove great part of the difficulty; there is also an emendation at the commencement, which renders the whole intelligible; we there read as follows:

"May there blow

No sneaping winds at home, to make us say,
"This is put forth too early.'

At all events, the above is not "nonsense," which Warburton calls the original, as first printed in the folio, 1623.

P. 432. We learn from a manuscript stage-direction, that Leontes walked apart, as if not paying particular attention, while Hermione was using arguments to prevail upon Polixenes to stay.

P. 433. There is no doubt that we ought to amend the words of the old copies, "What lady she her lord,” to “ What lady should her lord," not merely because it so stands corrected in the folio in Lord Ellesmere's library, but because precisely the same alteration is made in the margin of the folio, 1632, in our hands. Two concurrent and independent authorities must be decisive.

P. 435. The line given to Hermione,—

"With spur we heat an acre.

But to the goal,”

is to be read, as in no edition it has been yet given; the context, as always printed, is,

The Queen first speaks of the facility with which women may be won by kindness to do any thing; and from thence she proceeds to advert to the two "good deeds" which Leontes admitted she had done. The changes recommended by the corrector of the folio, 1632, are singularly to the purpose:

"With spur we clear an acre. But to the good:"

that is, women may be made to go a thousand furlongs for a kiss, while by spurring they can hardly be made to clear an acre. In the first part of the line, clear was misprinted "heat;" and in the last, good was misprinted "goal." Hermione is reverting to the good her husband had admitted she

had twice done, and calls upon him to name her first good deed as well as her last. "But to the good," is as much as to say, "But come to the good deeds which you admit I have

done."

P. 436. Malone was well warranted by the old corrector in supposing that in the following line we ought to substitute "bounty's fertile bosom" for

"From heartiness, from bounty, fertile bosom;"

from which, however, sense may be extracted.

P. 437. An expression used by Leontes, usually printed, "As o'er-dyed blacks," is shown on the same authority to be an error of the press: it occurs where the King is speaking of the falsehood of women, which he likens to the false show of mourning often put on at funerals, and then technically called "blacks:"

"But they were false

As o'er-dyed blacks, as wind, as waters."

The commentators fancied that the allusion was to the want of permanence in over-dyed blacks, or blacks that were dyed too much; some of them properly took "blacks" to mean funeral mourning, but they stumbled at "o'er-dyed." The corrector, by a slight change, shows the precise meaning of the poet :"But they are false

As our dead blacks, as winds, as waters."

"Our dead blacks," were blacks worn at the deaths of persons whose loss was not at all lamented. This emendation may have been derived from a better manuscript, or, perhaps, from a better recitation; but, nevertheless, the obscure conclusion of this speech, from "Affection? thy intention," &c., is crossed out in the folio, 1632.

P. 438. A stage-direction, Holding his forehead, proves that Hermione's observation,

"You look,

As if you held a brow of much distraction,"

is to be taken literally.

P. 444. The dispute whether to read "her medal" or "his medal," is set at rest by the assurance of the old corrector