SCENE VI.

P. 124. Johnson tells us, that

"O sweet suggesting love! if thou hast sinn'd,

Teach me, thy tempted subject, to excuse it,"

means, "Oh, tempting love! if thou hast influenced me to sin;" but, when Proteus is lamenting the breach of his vows to Julia, it seems much more natural for him to say, "if I have sinn'd," and so it is given by the corrector of the folio, 1632. Further on, in the same soliloquy, he reads, "precious to itself" for " precious in itself," which is quite consistent with the context,

"I to myself am dearer than a friend,
For love is still most precious to itself."

SCENE VII.

P. 126. The epithet wide substituted by the corrector of the folio, 1632, seems more appropriate in the following lines, but it has been uniformly printed "wild:" Julia is speaking of a current that "with gentle murmur glides" between its banks,

“And so by many winding nooks he strays
With willing sport to the wide ocean."

This is, of course, one of the cases in which either reading may be right if we prefer wide, it is mainly because the old corrector had some ground for adopting it.

P. 128. There is a misprint in the following line, as pointed out by the corrector of the folio, 1632 ;—

"To furnish me upon my longing journey."

Julia is about to travel in male attire in search of the object of her devoted regard, Proteus, and desires her maid to provide her with all the apparel necessary, and to come with her to her chamber

"To take a note of what I stand in need of
To furnish me upon my loving journey."

"Loving journey," in reference to the purpose of it, seems to recommend itself.

ACT III. SCENE I.

P. 131. There are several oversights as to the place of action in this comedy. For instance, in Act II. Scene V. (p. 122), Speed welcomes Launce to Padua instead of Milan; and here we find the Duke telling Valentine

"There is a lady in Verona here,"

when it ought also to be Milan. Again, in Act V. Scene IV. (p. 168), Valentine is made to speak of Verona, when he means Milan. In the two last places three syllables are necessary for the verse; and Pope and Theobald resorted to different contrivances to obviate the difficulty: in one case Pope interpolated "Sir," and in the other Theobald read behold for "hold." The manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, has shown how both these changes may be avoided, by only supposing that Shakespeare, instead of speaking of Milan, as it is called in our language, inserted Milano, the Italian name of the city. Milano suits the measure just as well as Verona, and it is more likely that the printer or copyist were in fault, than the poet.

SCENE II.

P. 141. On the same authority, "some" ought to be printed sure in the following line, where the Duke is about to employ Proteus most confidentially:

"For thou hast shown some sign of good desert."

Sure is written in the margin, and "some" struck out, because Proteus had already given undoubted proofs of fidelity to the Duke, and of treachery to Valentine. In the next page, "weed," as it stands in the folios, and in subsequent editions, reads like an error of the press, and doubtless it was so, since "weed" was displaced by the corrector of the folio, 1632, and wean, a word much better adapted to the situation, inserted :—

"But say, this wean her love from Valentine,

It follows not that she will love Sir Thurio."

A third mistake of the same kind is pointed out on p. 146,

in the first scene between Valentine and the Outlaws, where the whole body having chosen him captain, the third Outlaw exclaims,

"Come, go with us: we'll bring thee to our crews,

And show thee all the treasure we have got."

For "crews" we ought to read cave, in which the treasure was deposited: cave is therefore written in the margin, and crews erased: the "crews (so to call them) were present on the stage, and Valentine needed not to be brought to them.

"

ACT IV. SCENE II.

P. 148. In the song, "Who is Silvia?" &c., there is a repetition of "she" in the third line, as the rhyme to "she" in the first line; and although such a licence was by no means unprecedented, still it was usual for writers not to avail themselves of it. If the corrector of the folio, 1632, give the song as it was written by Shakespeare, the inelegance to which we refer was avoided by the adoption of an epithet which our great dramatist has elsewhere employed with reference to female simplicity and innocence ("Twelfth Night,” Act II. Scene IV.). The first stanza of the song, as corrected in the folio, 1632, is this:—

"Who is Silvia? what is she,

That all our swains commend her?

Holy, fair, and wise as free;

The heaven such grace did lend her,
That she might admired be.”

SCENE III.

P. 153. We have here a very important emendation, supplying a whole line, evidently deficient, and yet never missed by any of the commentators. It is in one of the speeches of Sir Eglamour, wherein he consents to aid Silvia in her escape. Until now, it has run :—

"Madam, I pity much your grievances;

Which since I know they virtuously are plac'd,

I give consent to go along with you."

Here there is no connexion between the first and the second lines, because Sir Eglamour could not mean that the 'grievances," but that the affections of Silvia were "virtuously placed." Shakespeare must, therefore, have written what we find in an adjoining blank space of the folio, 1632, which makes the sense complete :

"Madam, I pity much your grievances,

And the most true affections that you bear;
Which since I know they virtuously are plac'd,

I give consent to go along with you."

We shall hereafter see that other passages, more or less valuable, are supplied by the corrector of the folio, 1632. These were, probably, obtained from some better manuscript than that used by the old printer.

SCENE IV.

P. 155. Proteus having sent a little dog as a present to Silvia, meets Launce, and learns that the latter, having lost the little dog, had offered to the lady his own huge cur. Proteus asks him,

"What! didst thou offer her this cur from me?"

The word cur being derived from the manuscript of the corrector, and necessary to the completion of the line. Besides this novelty, there is an emendation of Launce's reply, which explains a point never yet properly understood. The folio, 1623, reads:—

Ay, sir: the other squirrel was stolen from me by the hangman's boys in the market-place," &c.

The folio, 1632, gives the hangman only one boy,-" by the hangman's boy in the market-place;" but the true reading seems to be that of the corrected folio, 1632, where 'a hangman boy" is used just in the same way that Shakespeare elsewhere speaks of a gallows boy,-"Ay, sir: the other squirrel was stolen from me by a hangman boy in the market-place ;"—that is, by a rascally boy.

P. 157. We give the following to show how Shakespeare's verse has probably been corrupted. Julia, presenting Silvia with a paper, says,—

"Madam, please you peruse this letter:"

a line which requires two additional syllables, naturally, and most likely truly, furnished by the corrector of the folio, 1632:

66

Madam, so please you to peruse this letter."

Two little words, not absolutely necessary to the sense, but absolutely necessary to the measure, were omitted by the copyist, or by the old printer.

P. 159. It is worth notice that Julia, descanting on Silvia's picture, says, in the first folio, that "her eyes are grey as glass," which may be right; but which the second folio alters to "her eyes are grey as grass," which must be wrong. The manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, converts "grey" into green" her eyes are green as grass ;" and such we have good reason to suppose was the true reading.

ACT V.-SCENE II.

P. 162. The sudden entrance of the Duke is not marked in the old copies, and is supplied in manuscript in the folio, 1632, Enter Duke, angerly; and his first speech is there thus corrected:

"How now, Sir Proteus! How now, Thurio!
Which of you saw Sir Eglamour of late?"

The folio, 1623, gives the last line,—

"Which of you saw Eglamour of late?"

And the folio, 1632, before it was corrected in manuscript,— "Which of you, say, saw Sir Eglamour of late?"

There is no note when the Duke goes out, but Exit in haste, is written in the margin. The additional stagedirections in the corrected folio, 1632, are very numerous throughout this play; but they are, in general, merely explanatory of what may be gathered from the text, so that it is seldom necessary to remark upon them. They must have been intended to make what is technically termed the stage-business quite intelligible.

P. 164. Two passages in the speech of Valentine, as they