however, right then in his preference, as the whole context shows; a breath was a breathing, or mere act of exercise, the poet's constant sense of the word, which occurs again in Act ii. Sc. 3 of this play. Why therefore now treat breach as an emendation?

ACT V. SCENE I.

P. 342. " Nobody has attempted to explain why Thersites, when he calls Patroclus the male varlet' and 'masculine whore' of Achilles, ends by wishing a list of loathsome diseases (part of which only are mentioned in the folios) to afflict such preposterous discoveries.' What can be the meaning of discoveries' so applied? The old corrector has it' such preposterous discolourers;' and perhaps rightly, the allusion being to the painting and discolouring of nature by Patroclus, like a female prostitute."

Is it reasonable to think that the allusion was to Patroclus and his being painted, when, from what immediately follows, we are assured that the curses were not imprecated against him? Thus it is when we disregard the context and spirit of any passage. The corrector's suggestion of discolourers seems to me to want common sense. It is possible that we should read discoverers instead of discoveries, which would give the required personification. But, as Iago says in Othello," the blood and baseness of our nature would conduct us to most preposterous conclusions," discoveries here may have the same meaning, and Thersites imprecates the curses ironically on those who had made such discoveries, or come to such conclusions. It has been suggested that for "male varlet,” we should read "male harlot."

SCENE II.

P. 343. What shall we say to the wanton attempt upon the passage where Thersites says of Cressida," any man may sing her, if he can take her cliff; she's noted:" or to Mr. Collier's notion that' any man may find her, if he can but take her clefft, seems preferable" to the undoubted reading of the quartos !

Ib. The substitution of lord for la, in Cressida's speech, is

only another example of unnecessary and impertinent meddling, and of this Mr. Collier is at least half conscious, for he says, "Still the earliest impressions may be right, and Cressida may merely have used 'la' as a feminine expletive." I cannot, however, agree with him that "it is not a point of importance." It is of the highest importance to prevent all wanton and uncalled-for alterations of the text of our great poet.

SCENE III.

P. 343. "Andromache's speech to Hector only consists of these words in the amended folio, 1632:

O! be persuaded: do not count it holy
To hurt by being just.

"The rest is struck through with a pen, as if the person who introduced the manuscript-emendations could make nothing of the passage either by guess or guide. This, therefore, is one of the places in which we are still left in the dark, not, indeed, as to the meaning of the poet, since that is pretty obvious, but as to the precise form in which he expressed that meaning."

The correctors then here had not access to better authority than we possess, or this difficult passage would not have been got rid of in the easy way of striking it out. Mr. Collier tried his hand upon it in his edition of Shakespeare unsuccessfully. I adhere to the emendation of it given in vol. 2 of Notes and Queries, p. 386. The passage stands thus in the folios :

O, be persuaded, doe not count it holy,
To hurt by being iust; it is as lawfull:

For we would count give much to as violent thefts,
And rob in the behalfe of charitie.

The third line is evidently a nonsensical jumble, and has probably been printed from an interlineation in the copy that the printer used; two words being evidently transposed, and one of them at the same time glaringly mistaken. The poet would never have repeated the word count, which occurs in the first line, in the sense given to it either by Mr. Collier or Mr. Knight.

Preserving every word in the old copy, it should be read

thus,

O! be persuaded. Do not count it holy
To hurt by being just: it is as lawful as—

(For we would give much)-to commit violent thefts,
And rob in the behalf of charity.

To count violent thefts here would be sheer nonsense; and when we recollect how easy it is to mistake comit, as written in old manuscript, for count, we may suppose that the printer mistook and misplaced commit, and transposed as, probably following an interlineated copy. The emphasis should be laid on for, commencing the parenthesis, we would give much; for stands there for cause, and commit should be accented on the first syllable.

SCENE IV.

Of a piece with other substitutions and interpolations, is the conceited attempt of the correctors to improve upon Shakespeare, by altering the words "th'other" to sleeveless, in the speech of Thersites,

Soft! here comes sleeve and th' other;

and the word "sleeve" is altered to sleeveless, in the next speech of Thersites, to countenance the first falsification! If such liberties were allowed and approved, every line of the poet might be vitiated to suit the caprice of the innovators.

P. 345. The alteration of "brother lackey" to brothel lackey having been made in the third folio, and in some other editions, was doubtless thence derived, for it has also been adopted by the corrector of my second folio. There cannot, however, be a doubt that "Hence! broker! lackey!" is the true reading as given by the quartos and the first folio. Collier once thought so, although he now thinks brothel a change for the better!

Mr.

207

CORIOLANUS.

ACT. I. SCENE I.

P. 346. "The earliest manuscript-emendation cannot be called a necessary one; but still it seems, taking the context into account, a considerable improvement, and may, perhaps, be admitted on the evidence of the corrector of the folio, 1632. It occurs in the speech of 1 Citizen, where he is referring to the wants of the poor, and to the superfluities of the rich :

But they think we are too dear; the leanness that afflicts us, the abjectness of our misery, is an inventory to particularize their abundance; our suffering is a gain to them.

"For abjectness, the common reading has been object 'the object of our misery;' that is to say, the sight of our misery; but the speaker has talked of the leanness' of the poor citizens of Rome, and he follows it up by the mention of the abjectness of their misery. This substitution could hardly have proceeded from the mere taste or discretion of the old corrector, but still it is hardly wanted."

Hardly wanted, indeed! How could object be mistaken for abjectness? Their misery was the object which served by comparison to make the Patricians the more satisfied with their own abundance, and thus the sufferings of the Plebs were a gain to them. What should we gain by the adoption of this needless piece of pragmatic interference? The correctors never think of the poet, but of their own ingenuity in finding faults where none exist.

Ib. "We encounter an important change in one part of Menenius' apologue, where the belly admits that it is the general receiver of food, adding, as the passage has always been given,

But, if you do remember,

I send it through the rivers of your blood,

Even to the Court, the heart, to the seat o' the brain,
And through the cranks and offices of man.

"It is evident that the last line but one is not measure; and

we are instructed to read it, and the next, in a way that not only cures this defect, but much improves the sense, by following up the figure of the court, the heart,' and completing the resemblance of the human body to the various parts of a commonweath :

:

Even to the Court, the heart, the Senate, brain;
And through the ranks and offices of man.

"Tyrwhitt thought the seat o' the brain' a very languid expression;' and Malone agreed with him in taking 'seat' to mean royal seat. When seat' was written seate, the mistake for senate was easy; and the change (which never occurred to any commentator) is supported both by what precedes, and by what follows it, going through the various degrees in a state-the court, the senate, persons of different ranks, the holders of offices, &c."

Perhaps there was never a more perverse and impertinent attempt made to alter the true language of the poet. The authority Shakespeare followed for the fable, was Plutarch. Camden's Remaines, where it is also related, the heart is made the seat of the brain, or understanding; and there is no doubt that seat means the royal seat,-the throne; for in a previous passage, (which Mr. Collier, as well as his predecessors, gives to one of the Citizens, although it evidently belongs to Menenius,) we have

The kingly crowned head, the vigilant eye,

The counsellor heart.

The alteration of "cranks" to ranks is equally unwarranted. What could the ranks signify here?

I send it through the rivers of your blood,

Even to the Court, the heart,-to the seat o' the brain;
And through the cranks and offices of man,

The strongest nerves, and small inferior veins,
From me receive that natural competency
Whereby they live.

cranks and offices were certainly the words of the poet; cranks are sinuosities, the meandrous ducts of the human body; and offices the functionary parts, as Shakespeare himself will show. Thus, in Cymbeline, Act v. Sc. 5: