what is to the full as unintelligible, the text of the quarto, 1597-" the flattering eye of sleep." The real truth (not the flattering truth") seems to be, that the old compositor was confounded between "trust," in the first part of the line, and death near the end of it, and printed a word which he compounded of the beginning of the one word, and of the end of the other. Sleep is often resembled to death, and death to sleep; and when Romeo observes, as the correction in the folio, 1632, warrants us in giving the passage,

"If I may trust the flattering death of sleep;"

he calls it "the flattering death of sleep" on account of the dream of joyful news from which he had awaked: during this "flattering death of sleep," he had dreamed of Juliet, and of her revival of him by the warmth of her kisses.

Two lines lower, the folio, 1623, has a remarkable corruption,

"And all thisan day an vccustom'd spirit,"

which the folio, 1632, prints, in order to remedy the defect,— "And all this winged unaccustom'd spirit."

Whence it obtained winged does not appear, but the true reading has been the common text,

"And, all this day, an unaccustom'd spirit:"

to which the folio, 1632, is amended in manuscript. On the next page, "Then, I deny you, stars," is also properly altered to "Then, I defy you, stars."

SCENE III.

P. 485. The corrector makes a change, not authorised by any extant authority, in the speech of the Page attending Paris, whom his master has told to lie all along on the ground under some yew-trees: the line, as always printed, is,—

"I am almost afraid to stand alone;"

but Paris has expressly ordered him to lie down, with his ear close to the ground, that he might listen: therefore, the following alteration seems most proper, and is, doubtless, what the poet wrote:

"I am almost afraid to stay alone

Here in the churchyard; yet I will adventure."

P. 486. Numerous stage-directions are written in the margins of the folio, 1632. In this scene, Romeo's Man (“ Peter” is erased) enters with a torch; and we are previously informed that the Monument of the Capulets, or some stage-property to represent it, is seen by the audience, and that Paris brings with him a basket of flowers. When he and Romeo fight, Paris falls, and Romeo puts him in the monument. Printed stage-directions are entirely wanting, and no note is even made when Romeo drinks the poison, or dies. These, and others in subsequent parts of the tragedy, are supplied.

P. 489. The words "Shall I believe," which are mere surplusage, are struck out, as well as the whole passage, obviously foisted in by some strange mistake, beginning, "Come, lie thou in my arms," and ending, "Depart again."

P. 494. The Prince of Verona, in the midst of the confusion and dismay, tells the people,

"Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while,

Till we can clear these ambiguities."

Perhaps "outrage" is to be taken in the general sense of disturbance; but the manuscript-corrector gives the word differently,

"Seal up the mouth of outcry for a while."

The necessity for this change is not very apparent; but, nevertheless, Lady Capulet has exclaimed on entering,—

"O! the people in the street cry Romeo,

Some Juliet, and some Paris; and all run
With open outcry toward our monument."

P. 497. The last emendation in this play certainly looks as much like the exercise of taste on the part of the old corrector as any alteration hitherto noticed: it is where old Montague declares his intention to raise a statue of Juliet "in pure gold:"

"There shall no figure at such rate be set,

As that of true and faithful Juliet."

The words "true and faithful" are indisputably tautologous,

сс

and it is not unlikely that Shakespeare left the last line as we read it with the change introduced in the margin of the folio, 1632:

"As that of fair and faithful Juliet.”

We can suppose "true and faithful," a corruption introduced on the frequent repetition of this popular performance, although the alliteration of "fair and faithful" may seem more impressive upon the memory. We are previously told, in manuscript, that the heads of the two hostile houses shake hands over the dead bodies of their children.

TIMON OF ATHENS.

ACT I. SCENE I.

P. 506. After giving the obviously corrupt passage,—

"Our poesy is as a gown, which uses

From whence 'tis nourished,"

in this manner, as indeed Pope recommended,

"Our poesy is as a gum, which issues

From where 'tis nourished,"

the old corrector of the folio, 1632, puts his pen through the rest of the Poet's speech, excepting the final question, "What have you there?" This is certainly an easy method of getting over a difficulty; but, perhaps, the writer of the emendation here had no other. Johnson suggested oozes for "uses," which is, perhaps, hardly as good as "issues," with reference to the process of poetical composition; and Shakespeare no where else employs ooze as a verb, and whenever it occurs as a substantive it is spelt, in the old copies, ooze, and

never use.

P. 507. It seems improbable that Shakespeare, who, like other dramatists of his day, cared little about representing correctly the customs of the time or country in which he laid his scene, should make the Poet speak thus of the new work he was about to present to Timon:

Why "in a wide sea of wax ?" Admitting that not only the

ancients, but that the English, at a very early date, wrote upon waxen tablets (and such is the forced explanation of Hanmer, Steevens, and Malone), it would scarcely be understood by popular audiences before whom this drama was originally acted. "Wax," of old, was commonly spelt ware (although it is "wax" in the folios), and confiding, as we are disposed to do, in a representation in the margin of the folio, 1632, the compositor must have read "waxe" for a word not very dissimilar in form, but much more appropriate and intelligible:

"My free drift

Halts not particularly, but moves itself
In a wide sea of verse.'

in course,

verse,

and there is no ap

The Poet's work was, of parent reason why Shakespeare should not have employed that word instead of "wax," which looks something like a sort of pedantry, of which he would certainly be the last to be guilty.

P. 513. The following answer by Apemantus has produced much dispute:

“That I had no angry wit to be a lord."

It is introduced as follows: Apemantus exclaims,

"Heavens, that I were a lord!

Tim. What would'st do then, Apemantus?

Apem. Even as Apemantus does now; hate a lord with my heart.
Tim. What, thyself?

Apem. Ay.

Tim. Wherefore?

Apem. That I had no angry wit to be a lord."

Though a meaning, as Johnson says, may be extracted from these last words, yet nearly all editors have agreed that some corruption has crept into the text. Warburton proposed, "That I had so hungry a wit to be a lord;" and Monk Mason, "That I had an angry wish to be a lord." The restoration offered in the folio, 1632, is the same as parts of both these suggestions, and at once renders the sense evident "That I had so hungry a wish to be a lord." Apemantus would hate himself for having entertained so strong a desire to be a lord. It thus seems that Warburton and Monk Mason were both right, and yet both wrong.