Mr. Collier's note, above referred to, concludes thus: "Nevertheless, it may be urged that the Clown means that the Shepherdesses should ring off their peal at once, and then be silent"!

Mr. Hunter says, "Clamour your tongues.' This expression is not well explained; but as in words like this there is always a temptation to disturb the text, and in this particular instance it has been proposed to substitute charm; I add, that the same phrase is found in John Taylor (Works, 1630).

'He thus began; Cease friendly cutting throats,
Clamour the promulgation of your tongues,

And yield to Demagorgon's policy,

Stop the refulgent method of your moods.'

For my own part I am disposed to think that clamour is a vulgar depravation of an older word used in the same sense, and derived from the French chommer, which became chammer and chaumbre. It is used in this sense by Udall, in his Apophthegmes, p. 76, 1st Ed. From no sort of men whatever did he refreine or chaumbre the taunting of his tongue."

This is quite enough to show that it would be mischievous to interfere with the old reading, and clamour must remain.

That ever made eye swerve; had force and knowledge,

More than was ever man's, &c.

The corrector would substitute sense for "force," but it would be difficult to find a good reason for the change. Force and knowledge are terms that together express the accomplishments of youth :-All grace of person and all gifts of mind. The alteration would cut off half the definition. Are we to alter every word in the poet that does not suit our capricious fancies?

Know man from man? dispute his own estate?
Lies he not bed-rid?

"Dispute his own estate," says Mr. Collier, " may be reconciled to sense, but 'dispose his own estate' seems a much more likely expression, and the manuscript-corrector informs us that it was employed in this place."

If the corrector does so inform us, he must have better reasons than Mr. Collier advances for the change. The phrase is undoubtedly that of the poet, who has it again in Romeo and Juliet, Act iii. Sc. 3.

'Let me dispute with thee of thy estute."

P. 195. There are three minor alterations of the text here, none of which are necessary although specious.

"For 'holy,' which seems quite out of place," says Mr. Collier, "the corrector of the folio, 1632, writes noble in the margin, the right word having been misheard by the scribe. Precisely the same mistake was made in 'The Tempest,' and from the same cause"!

The scribe then was most probably deaf, for holy and noble do not sound much alike! But as it happens the epithet is in both instances peculiarly appropriate and emphatic, as applied to Gonzalo in the Tempest, and to Polixenes here, and simply means reverend.

SCENE III.

P. 197. "One of those highly-important completions of the old, and imperfect, text of Shakespeare, consisting of a whole line, where the sense is left unfinished without it, here occurs. Warburton saw that something was wanting; but in note 3" (Collier's Shakespeare, vol. 3, p. 539) “it is suggested that Leontes in his ecstasy might have left his sentence unfinished : such does not appear to have been the case. The passage has hitherto been printed as follows:

Let be, let be!

Would I were dead, but that, methinks, already-
What was he that did make it? &c.

"Let be, let be!' is addressed to Paulina, who offers to draw the curtain before the statue of Hermione, as we find from a manuscript stage-direction, and the writer of it, in a vacant

space adjoining, thus supplies a missing line, which we have printed in italic type :

Let be, let be!

Would I were dead, but that, methinks, already

I am but dead, stone looking upon stone.

What was he that did make it? &c.

"But for this piece of evidence, that so important an omission had been made by the old printer, or by the copyist of the manuscript for the printer's use, it might have been urged that, supposing our great dramatist to have written here no more elliptically than in many other places, his sense might be complete at already:' 'Would I were dead!' exclaims Leontes, but that methinks I am already;' in other words, it was needless for him to wish himself dead, since, looking upon the image of his lost queen, he was, as it were, dead already. However, we see above that a line was wanting, and we may be thankful that it has been furnished, since it adds much to the force and clearness of the speech of Leontes."

6

I cannot say that I feel any gratitude to the corrector, for putting such improbable words into Leontes' mouth. Warburton's note is much more to the purpose: "The sentence completed is:

--but that methinks, already I converse with the dead.— But here Leontes' passion makes him break off. The corrector's line,

I am but dead stone, looking upon stone,

is not a little absurd, for in the next breath Leontes says, 66 Would you not deem it breath'd? and that those veins did verily bear blood?" If a line were wanting, and that is more than doubtful, a much better one has been suggested:

but that, methinks, already

I am in heaven, and looking on an angel.

P. 198. The last important emendation of the corrector in this play is the omission of two words, by and the, in the line,

Come Camillo,

And take her by the hand, whose worth and honesty

Is richly noted and here justified.

Of which Mr. Collier says, "We may feel assured that the expletives by the,' obtained insertion without the participation of the pen of the author."

Had any one but Mr. Collier's corrector ventured upon this piece of superfluous meddling, they would have brought down his indignant censure upon them, and with some degree of justice.

P. 199.

"W

KING JOHN.

ACT I. SCENE I.

E cannot but approve of a change made in an important epithet in the reply of King John, where he despatches Chatillon with all haste, and tells him that the English forces will be in France before the ambassador can even report their intention to come. The reading has always been:

Be thou the trumpet of our wrath,

And sullen presage of your own decay.

"In the first place, the sound of a trumpet could not, with any fitness, be called a sullen presage;' and secondly, as Chatillon was instantly to proceed on his return, it is much more probable that Shakespeare wrote,—

Be thou the trumpet of our wrath,

And sudden presage of your own decay.

"The old corrector says that sudden' was the word of our great dramatist, and a scribe or a printer might easily mistake sudden and 'sullen." "

The corrector has an unreasonable dislike to this expressive word, for he would again change it as unwarrantably in Othello. But Shakespeare has also used it for sad, gloomy, in K. Richard II. and in the Second Part of K. Henry VI. Every poetical reader will remember Milton's use of it, "Swinging slow with sullen roar."

Ib. "Besides a misprint, there appears to be an error in

punctuation in this part of the Bastard's soliloquy, as given in modern editions:

For new-made honour doth forget men's names:
'Tis too respective, and too sociable

For your conversion. Now your traveller,

He and his tooth-pick at my worship's mess, &c.

"The corrector of the folio, 1632, informs us that we should point and read as follows:

For new-made honour doth forget men's names:
"Tis too respective, and too sociable.

For your diversion, now, your traveller,

He and his tooth-pick at my worship's mess, &c.

"It was common to entertain' picked men of countries,' for the diversion of the company at the tables of the higher orders, and this is what the Bastard is referring to in the last two lines, while the sense of the first two is complete at sociable."

The punctuation in the first folio is entirely against this innovation, which may probably have been suggested by Pope, who took the same erroneous view of the passage, and read “for your conversing." Malone's view of the old authentic reading is quite satisfactory. The Bastard means to say,-To remember the name of an inferior has too much of the regardful consideration which is paid to superiors, and of the social and friendly familiarity of equals, for your conversion, i. e. for your present condition, now converted from the condition of a common man to the rank of a knight.

P. 200. Whether we read,

Sir Robert could do well; marry, to confess,
Could he get me? Sir Robert could not do it.

or, as the corrector would have it,

Could not get me;

is a matter of perfect indifference; but the established reading is quite as probable and quite as good as the corrector's.