lowing reading, but must confess that I should now be disposed to print the passage as it stands in the first folio, with the exception of retaining my correction of stale for pale, which is unquestionably right. This ornament is but the gilded shore To a most dangerous sea: the beauteous scarf The seeming truth which cunning times put on Nor none of thee, thou stale and common drudge Those who are desirous of seeing the arguments pro and con upon the disputed readings of this passage, I must refer to the 5th and 6th volume of Notes and Queries. P. 118. "Bassanio, descanting on the portrait of Portia, thus expresses his admiration of the eyes: How could he see to do them? having made one, Methinks, it should have power to steal both his, The corrector has it,' And leave itself unfinish'd,' which reads extremely well, if we suppose that the word applies to the portrait, and not to the eye alone. Unfurnish'd,' if it refer to the fellow eye, reads awkwardly, and Shakespeare would scarcely have left the expression of what he intended so imperfect." It is a trite saying that "second thoughts are best." Mr. Collier, in a note on the passage in his edition of Shakespeare, says: "Steevens doubted if Shakespeare's word were not 'unfinish'd;' but 'unfurnish'd' would seem to refer to the other eye in the counterfeit,' or portrait, the one the painter had completed not being furnished with a fellow." I cannot think that Mr. Collier's second thoughts here are his best, and regret that in his zeal for his new acquaintance, the corrector, he should abandon his common sense view of the passage, and become the advocate of a vicious and uncalled for corruption of the text, which had long since been proposed and rejected. ACT IV. SCENE I. P. 119. "We here meet," says Mr. C.," with an emendation which must, in all probability, have been derived from some good authority; certainly better than any resorted to for all the printed editions, judging from the result. The commentators have been at fault respecting an epithet applied by Shylock to a bagpipe: As there is no firm reason to be render'd Mr. C. proceeds to state, that Hawkins and Steevens proposed the plausible correction swollen. "As to the meaning they were right, though wrong as to the word. Shakespeare's word unquestionably was bollen,' from the Anglo-Saxon, which means swollen. He avails himself of it in his Lucrece. Here one, being throng'd, bears back, all boll'n and red. It was, therefore, a word with which he was well acquainted, and there can be no doubt that in future the passage ought to be so printed." Now what do we gain by this brilliant discovery, “ derived from some good authority?" That Shakespeare was well acquainted with the word bollen, and better acquainted with the word swollen, that they both signify the same thing; but that one is more obsolete than the other, and was used by the poet in his youthful poem, but that in his dramas he uniformly uses swollen, and therefore bollen is mightily preferable! Parturiunt montes, nascitur ridiculus mus. Let us hear Mr. Collier's argument against either of these readings, "WOOLLEN bagpipe.-This is the reading of every ancient copy; and as we know at this day the bag is usually covered with woollen, the epithet is perfectly appropriate, without adopting the alteration of Steevens to swollen"! P. 120. Or even as well use question with the wolf, Such is the reading of the folio, 1632. The first folio omits the words "when you behold." The corrector transposes these words to the beginning of the line. But the reading of the 4to. by Roberts, and some copies of the 4to. by Heyes, adopted in the variorum edition of Shakespeare, is far preferable, and of undisputed authority: You may as well use question with the wolf, Why he hath made the ewe bleat for the lamb. P. 121. "The change of a word in the subsequent passage, seems, if not required, probable : If thou tak'st more Or less than a just pound,-be it so much The usual reading has been in the substance,' but the addition by the heroine,— Nay, if the scale do turn renders it likely that balance was the right text." Why? Because the corrector thought he could improve Shakespeare's language! The corrector's substitution would require us to alter Or at the commencement of the next line to By. And his interference with a perfectly intelligible passage is as impertinent as it is uncalled for. ACT V. SCENE I. P. 122. We have here another instance of the busy unwarrantable meddling of the corrector, who had substituted beasts for trees, in the line, trees. Therefore the poet Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, floods, &c. But he subsequently found that he was wrong, and replaced Can we for a moment imagine that he had access to "better authority than we possess?" P. 123. The corrector changes contain for retain in the line : Or your own honour to contain the ring. But contuin and retain are words used with the same meaning in the poet's time. Thus Bacon, in his Essays, 4to. 1627, p. 327: "To containe anger from mischiefe, though it take hold of a man, there be two things." Interference here, therefore, to alter the poet's language was entirely unnecessary. There are two or three other corrections of a like character, which I pass over, not to tire the patience of the reader. P. 125. THE AS YOU LIKE IT. ACT I. SCENE I. "As HE first correction here noticed was suggested nearly a century ago, by Sir W. Blackstone, and was long since adopted by me in my edition of Shakespeare in 1826. I remember Adam it was upon this fashion:-He bequeathed me by will but a poor thousand crowns." This is another of the numerous coincidences. In the two next instances words were added or omitted without the slightest necessity, merely to satisfy the capricious conceit of the corrector, who thought he could amend the language of the poet. SCENE II. P. 126. There is another capricious amendment of the poet's language, substituting spot for sport, for which there is not the slightest ground. The gracious mystification of Le Beau by Celia is obvious enough, without interference with the text. The substitution of shorter for taller, is a less probable amendment than Malone's smaller, which much more nearly resembles the old word. SCENE III. P. 127. "We are rejoiced to find Coleridge's delicate conjecture fortified, or rather entirely justified, by the folio, 1632, as amended in manuscript: Celia asks, But is all this for your father? and Rosalind replies, as her answer has always been printed,— No, some of it is for my child's father, which turns out to be an unnecessary piece of coarseness. The passage, as it stands with the change in manuscript, is merely this; No, some of it is for my father's child." Can it be possible that Mr. Collier did not know that this judicious transposition was made by Rowe? or that Mr. Knight, among other editors, had the good sense to adopt it; while he himself adhered to the old form of the line! This is another of the corrector's coincidences. Pp. 127, 128. Here are several other trifling changes of the text proposed, but not one of them can be deemed such improvements as to warrant interference with the old authentic text, which here stands in no need of any of these so-called corrections. P. 128. ACT II. SCENE I. Here feel we not the penalty of Adam, And churlish chiding of the winter's wind, &c. The sentence is improved by a very small restoration by the corrector, who reads, "The seasons' difference, or the icy fang, &c." This "restoration" is far from being an "improvement;" as stands here for such as. The churlish chiding of the winter's wind was one of the differences of the seasons. But was substituted for not by Theobald. The inclemency of nature and the seasons' difference are manifestly exponents of the penalty of Adam-the former unclothed and happy denizen of Eden. These physical inconveniences the Duke admits that he is exposed to in his forest home,-but they are merely physical, and their very harshness favourably contrasts with the smooth flatterers and disingenuous counsellors,-the moral pests of a |