such as are condemned for pride, scorn, and contempt, their reputation suffers, their glory dies." When we can make perfectly good sense of the old text, such sweeping changes come under the category of impertinent assumption. The corrector thought he could improve upon Shakespeare !

ACT IV. SCENE I.

P. 72. Chid I for that at frugal nature's frame.

"Frugal nature's frame," says Mr. C., "puzzled the commentators, and they endeavour to reconcile us to the word frame in various ways; but they never seem to have supposed, as now appears to be the case, that frame had been misprinted for frowne."

I should have much wondered if they had; frame stands here for framing, contrivance, order, disposition of things, as Steevens has well observed. "The frugality of nature that so ordained it." Frown is a much less likely word to have been used by the poet; and here, as elsewhere, the meddling of the corrector is mischievous.

P. 73. And salt too little that may season give
To her soul-tainted flesh.

"Hero's flesh," says Mr. Collier, "was tainted to the soul by the accusation just made against her"!

The original has "foul tainted flesh."

How her flesh could be tainted to the soul requires a stretch of imagination beyond the comprehension of common sense! I have no objection to the change of foul for soul, as it is a probable error of the printer, but it must have a better expositor than Mr. C. has here shown himself to be.

P. 74.

Whose spirits toil in frame of villanies. “The corrector changes frame of to fraud and :—

Whose spirits toil in fraud and villanies,

which seems a much more easy and natural expression than frame of villanies; but in this way the commentators have sometimes vindicated one corruption by another.' Nothing can be clearer than the old text.

Frame is here

again used for framing, contrivance, and the interference of the corrector in both instances is impertinent and uncalled for. Mr. C. is obliged himself to admit that "the fabrication of villanies may be meant!"

Ib. But they shall find, awak’d in such a kind,
Both strength of limb and policy of mind.

The corrector would substitute,

But they shall find awak’d in such a cause.

Mr. Collier's exposition is, " The cause in which his strength and policy were to be awaked, was, of course, that of his daughter, should it turn out that she had been traduced. The taste of the corrector may here have come in aid of the change."

I do not hesitate to pronounce it very bad taste, and such as must tend to throw suspicion around all that he does. Kind is nature, and this is Shakespeare's common use of the word.

The whole tenor of Leonato's speech shows that he means to say, Time hath not so dried this blood of mine; nor age impaired my faculties;

But they shall find awak'd in such a kind [i. e. nature].
Both strength of limb and policy of mind.

SCENE II.

P. 75. When Dogberry, to show his importance, says that he is "a rich fellow enough, go to; and a fellow that hath had losses," it has naturally puzzled some persons to see how his losses could tend to establish that he was rich. Here in truth we have another misprint: leases was often spelt of old -leasses, and this is the origin of the blunder; for according to the corrector of the folio, 1632, we ought to read, "a rich fellow enough, go to; and a fellow that has had leases." To have been the owner of leases might very well prove that Dogberry was" a rich fellow enough."

If anything more were wanted to show how utterly incapable the corrector, whoever he may have been, was to enter into the spirit of Shakespeare, this might suffice. To make poor Dogberry speak consistently, would be to destroy the very spirit of this humorous scene. But still to have had losses, he

must have had property to lose, and to bear those losses he might consider, in his simplicity, sufficient evidence that he was a rich fellow. Leases certainly never entered into the mind of the sagacious constable. How they came into the mind of the sagacious corrector I know not.

There are some other capricious and unnecessary attempts to improve upon the old readings, but for the present I pass them by, but on p. 79 Mr. Collier has the following remark.

ACT V. Scene IV.

P. 79. "The old editions assign Peace! I will stop your mouth' to Leonato; but most modern editors following the example of Theobald, have transferred it to Benedick. So does the corrector."

This was of course right; but Mr. Collier, in his edition of Shakespeare, says, "It may be very well as a piece of stageeffect to make Benedick kiss Beatrice at this juncture, but there is no warrant for it in any old stage-direction;" and the speech is restored to Leonato !

LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST.

ACT I. SCENE I.

P. 81. A man in all the world new fashion planted.

"Planted," says Mr. C., " yields but a poor sense, and the corrector reads,

A man in all the world-new fashions flaunted;

that is, a man flaunted, or decked out, in all the world-new fashions. Shakespeare elsewhere uses the substantive 'flaunts,' but not the verb."

Even could Mr. Collier succeed in finding this word, with the meaning he attaches to it, which I am persuaded he never will, it would be inapplicable. Armado's jargon is alluded to, as what follows evidently shows. He was "a man of fire-new words, that hath a mint of phrases in his brain." We may be assured, therefore, that planted was the poet's word, and that the corrector here improves upon him in vain.

Ib.

A high hope for a low hearing

"Theobald," says Mr. C. "congratulated himself on the change of heaven' to having in this passage. A high hope for a low heaven: God grant us patience.' He was most likely wrong."

The corrector's substitution of hearing for heaven is wrong. Theobald's correction having is much more to the purpose. In 1842 Mr. C. had told us "he was probably right"! Mr. Collier's attempt to support the corrector is unfortunate, for in the passage he quotes, " to hear or forbear hearing," that word is a misprint for laughing, as the answer of Longaville plainly shows.

SCENE II.

P. 83. The correction of Armado's speech, "Most pretty and pathetical" to poetical, would spoil the humour of it, by destroying his affected jargon,

ACT III. SCENE I.

P. 85. The same may be said of changing Moth's reply "By my penny of observation" to "my pain of observation." Which even Mr. Collier himself cannot defend.

P. 87. We may be assured that to change Biron's depreciating description of his mistress from "a whitely wanton with a velvet brow" to "a witty wanton," must be wrong, for Biron's whole tirade is disparaging, and followed as it is by " with a velvet brow," it can never have been his expres

sion.

ACT IV. SCENE I.

Ib. "The Princess good-humouredly rebukes the Forester for flattering her, and exclaims,

O, heresy in fair, fit for these days!

A giving hand, though foul, shall have fair praise.

The corrector has it,

O, heresy in faith, fit for these days!"

Thus destroying the antithesis and play upon the word which pervades the whole scene! It is scarcely necessary to mention that by fair beauty is meant.

Pp. 87-8. We are favoured with a line of the corrector's composition in Costard's rhyming Soliloquy, which, of course, Mr. Collier accepts as genuine and necessary. So do not I. There is also some busy meddling with Sir Nathaniel's doggrel, but still more needless. No true admirer of Shakespeare will be satisfied with such barefaced patch-work.

SCENE III.

P. 89. "Two transpositions, one of them of some moment, are pointed out by the corrector: the first occurs in the line where night of dew,' (strangely justified by Steevens,) is altered to' dew of night.' The second is only thou dost for 'dost thou,' in the 15th line of the King's sonnet.'

And these two transpositions are as strangely and perversely printed by Mr. Collier in his edition of Shakespeare !

P. 90. "When Jaquenetta and the Clown enter with Biron's letter, the King, according to all the copies of the play, asks them,

What present hast thou there?

when he had no reason whatever to think that they had brought any present.' The mistake has been the printing of "present' for peasant. Costard was a clown or peasant. The corrector points out the blunder,

What, peasant, hast thou there?"

I know not what Mr. Collier's notion of the clowns in Shakespeare's dramas may be, but Costard was the Court-fool, the "minnow of the King's mirth." The King would certainly not so address him; but, seeing the letter in his hand, may be supposed to ask him,—

What presentment hast thou there?

Taking it for a memorial or petition of some kind. The syllable ment was most probably omitted by accident at press.

ACT V. SCENE II.

P. 93. "The commentators have been puzzled by the following line in the folios :

So pertaunt like would I o'ersway his state.