note of the kind is found, even where it is most wanted), inveighs against lust and hypocrisy :

Behold yond' simpering dame,

Whose face between her forks presageth snow;
Who minces virtue, and does shake the head
To hear of pleasure's name.

"Malone
says that who minces virtue' means whose virtue
consists in appearance;' but that is the meaning of the poet,
rather than of the words imputed to him; for it does not fol-
low that'a lady who walks mincingly along,' as Malone has
it, means thereby to affect virtue. Minces,' in truth, is a
lapse by the printer for mimics-'a dame that mimics virtue;'
that is, who puts on the externals of modesty :-

Who mimics virtue, and does shake the head

To hear of pleasure's name.

"Unless it can be shown that 'minces' means the same as mimics, this emendation must surely hereafter form part of the text of Shakespeare."

There is not the slightest necessity to change the language of the text, which is assuredly that of the poet. Minces, i. e. puts on an outward seeming of virtue. Thus Cotgrave, in v. "Mineux-se, outward seeming, also squeamish, coy, that minces it exceedingly." To mimic is a much less appropriate expression.

P. 444. There is not the slightest degree of probability in the conjecture of the correctors that we should read ""Tis a good plot," in Lear's incoherent, wandering preachment. Mr. Collier represents the commentators as "puzzled" to explain why Lear starts away with the words "This a good block." This is hardly just, for Steevens has certainly given a very ingenious and probable explanation of it. And while so good and well supported an interpretation can be offered of the old authentic text, according to Mr. Collier's own axiom, "we have no right to alter it." I hold the "authority" of his correctors cheap in comparison with that of the old copies, which all agree in the established reading.

Ib. "After reading Goneril's letter to Edmund, Edgar exclaims, as the words have always been printed after the folios,

O, undistinguish'd space of woman's will!

A plot upon her virtuous husband's life;
And the exchange my brother!

"Editors have speculated differently as to the meaning of the first line; but they reasoned upon false premises, since it does not by any means represent the poet's language, if we may put faith in the alteration introduced in the folio, 1632, or if we may trust to common sense. Edgar is struck by the uncontrollable licentiousness of the desires of woman :

O, unextinguished blaze of woman's will!

"Blaze' is to be taken for fire, and 'will' for disposition; and the scribe misheard, or miswrote, unextinguish'd blaze as undistinguish'd space,' making nonsense of a passage which, properly printed, is as striking as intelligible. Malone's explanation was particularly unfortunate, viz. that there was no distinguishable space between the likings and loathings of women: the meaning clearly is, 'Oh, the blaze of woman's licentiousness, which can never be extinguished!'"

What can possibly be the meaning of "unextinguished blaze of woman's will"? Surely not what Mr. Collier attaches to it? Could this have been derived from better authority than we possess? The quartos read: "O undistinguisht space of woman's wit." The folios have all the singular misprint of indinguish'd, and will instead of wit; and as evidently this must have been very careless work on the part of the compositor, we may therefore presume that space is also a corruption. Without changing many letters in the first word we may read undisguised, and by only a transposition of the letters of space, substituting o for a, we get scope; this will afford us a very good reading, possibly what was intended by the poet. From what precedes it is evident that Edgar apostrophizes the letter after having read it, and exclaims,

If we were to

might read :

O, undisguised scope of woman's will!

adopt the reading wit from the quartos, we

O, undisguised scape of woman's wit!

and the following passage from Donne will illustrate it. A scape was a wile or trick :

Having purpos'd falsehood, you

Can have no way but falsehood to be true;
Vain lunatick! against these scapes I could
Dispute, and conquer if I would.

These are offered merely as conjectures.

SCENE VII.

P. 445. "Cordelia urges Kent to put off his humble disguise, but he answers,—

Pardon me, dear madam;

Yet to be known shortens my made intent.

"For 'made intent,' Warburton would substitute laid intent;' but Johnson contends that made intent' is only another word for formed intent. Both were wrong: 'main intent' was miswritten 'made intent,' and hence the doubt. Kent refers to the chief purpose for which he had disguised himself, which would be anticipated and defeated, if he were too soon known:

Yet to be known shortens my main intent.”

There is no necessity for change; Johnson is right, for, as he observes, we still say to make a design, and to make a resolution. Made and main have little typographical resemblance.

Ib. The insertion of good after "make," and the omission of it is a very doubtful change, but as the quartos afford the unequivocal reading "prove," we may conclude that to make was used in the folios as an equivalent expression, to avoid the repetition of prove in the line:

If none appear to prove it on thy person.

Ib. The substitution of skill for "place" without the slightest reason or necessity is another impertinent attempt to improve upon the language of the poet.

P. 446. "When Lear enters, bearing the dead Cordelia, he asks for a looking-glass :—

Lend me a looking-glass;

If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,
Why then she lives.

"The looking-glass was not 'stone,' and a manuscript-correction substitutes shine, as having been misprinted' stone:'

If that her breath will mist or stain the shine;

"i. e. the polish of the looking-glass. 'Stain' and 'stone' read awkwardly in juxta-position, and the error might easily be committed. Of old, mirrors were made of steel, and Gascoigne wrote a well-known satire called by the contradictory title of 'The Steel-glass :' hence it would not have surprised us if the poet's word had been steel for 'stone.'”

Both the correctors' shine and Mr. Collier's suggested steel would be absurd readings. Stone may surely have been used in the same metaphorical manner that we now term glass chrystal? The word however was most probably same,Lend me a looking-glass;

If that her breath will mist or stain the same,

Why then she lives.

Ib. The substitution of light for sight is another piece of pragmatic interference with the undoubted language of the poet; which needs no improvement. Dull is the appropriate epithet to sight and not to light. Thus Huloet "To waxe dulle of sight, Hebetesco;" and Baret, " Dulle eie-sight, Hebes, acies oculorum." Add to this that Lear has just before, "Who are you? Mine eyes are none of the best." How Mr. Collier can countenance and advocate such mischievous attempts to disturb the true text of the poet, I am at a loss to conceive.

P. 448.

THE

OTHELLO.

ACT I. SCENE I.

HE first "striking emendation" in this tragedy, the substitution of" learn'd in forms and usages of duty" instead of "trimm'd in forms and visages of duty," Mr. Collier very wisely deems "unsafe to be received into the text," and therefore he does not here urge that it was derived from some "authority" unavailable to us. He may be assured that its adoption would be ruinous to the sense, and for the credit of his correctors it would have been as well to have suppressed it.

Ib. "We should feel no hesitation in altering 'timorous' to clamorous in the following passage, where Iago tells Roderigo to awake and alarm Brabantio :

Do; with like timorous accent, and dire yell,
As when by night and negligence, the fire
Is spied in populous cities.

"Here 'timorous,' even taking it as frightened, seems quite out of place, when coupled with 'dire yell;' and we may, therefore, fairly conclude that the poet wrote, as the old corrector states,

Do; with like clamorous accent, and dire yell," &c.

Is Mr. Collier to be told that the old synonym of timorous is not "frightened" but feareful, and that Shakespeare always uses it in that sense? We have it in the Dictionaries of the poet's time, "Timerous, feareful, Meticulosus, Horridus, Formidolosus." Meddling here would therefore be mischievous.

P. 449. "Roderigo informs Brabantio that his daughter had made a gross revolt,'

Tying her duty, beauty, wit, and fortunes

In an extravagant and wheeling stranger.

"Here the commentators have notes upon 'extravagant,' but pass overwheeling' without explanation, although very un