ACT 1., SCENE 4.

- So Davenant and Collier's

P. 147. Sir, make me not your scorn. second folio. The original has storie instead of scorn.

That from the seedness the bare fallow brings

To teeming foison. — I do not, myself, see any great difficulty here, though, to be sure, seedness is used in a manner somewhat peculiar. Several changes have been made or proposed; among them, the following by Dr. Wagner: "As blossoming-time, That forms the seed, next the bare," &c. See foot-note 3.

ACT II., SCENE I.

P. 150. Or that the resolute acting of your blood.—The original has our instead of your. Corrected by Rowe.

P. 150. Whether you had not sometime in your life

Err'd in this point where now you censure him.

Instead of where, the old text has which; a reading defensible perhaps, but hardly, while such misprints are frequent.

P. 151. Well, Heaven forgive him! and forgive us all!
Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall;

Some run from brakes of vice, and answer none;

And some condemned for a fault alone. This is, to me, one of the most perplexing passages in Shakespeare; and I am quite unable to work my mind out of suspense concerning it. I strongly suspect the two couplets to be an interpolation, or at least the work of some other hand than Shakespeare's. The original prints the second line in Italic type, as if to mark it either as a quotation or as a proverbial saying. The original also reads "brakes of Ice," and here lies the crux. "Brakes of vice" is Rowe's correction, and is commonly received: though I feel constrained to let it stand as a sort of provisional reading, still I have not found, nor can I give, any clear and conclusive explanation of it. The best I have been able to do in this line is set forth in foot-note 8. The old reading has been generally held to be altogether out of court, until, recently, Dr. C. M. Ingleby adduced

some apparently just and probable reason for thinking it may be right, after all. He quotes from Chapman two instances of the word brake used certainly in a very peculiar way, and where the meaning appears to be such as may cohere with ice so as to yield a fitting and intelligible sense. The two plays from which he quotes were published, respectively, in 1607 and 1608. In Bussy D'Ambois, i. 1, we have the following:

Or, like a strumpet, learn to set my looks
In an eternal brake, or practise juggling,
To keep my face still fast, my heart still loose.

Dr. Ingleby regards the two phrases, "set my looks in an eternal brake," and "keep my face still fast," as equivalent, or as meaning the same thing; so that “to set any thing in a brake is to keep it fast and fixed." In other words, "brake is here a fixed form." Again, in Byron's Tragedy, iv. 1, we have Byron and his friend D'Auvergne commenting as follows on the estranged and averted looks of the courtiers, after he (Byron) has incurred the displeasure of the King:

D'Au. See, see, not one of them will cast a glance

To cast in admiration on the King;

For from his face are all their faces moulded.

D'Au. But, when a change comes, we shall see them all

Changed into water, that will instantly

Give look for look, as if they watch'd to greet us;

Or else for one they'll give us twenty faces.

Byron. Is't not an easy loss to lose their looks

Whose hearts so soon are melted?

Upon this, Dr. Ingleby comments thus: "Here we have the people's faces set in brakes, which, as soon as their hearts are melted, thaw too, and change into water. What are these but brakes of ice'? What

do such faces but run from brakes of ice,' and turn to water, which can take any shape?"- Chapman's words and metaphors often seem thrown off rather loosely, and sometimes almost at random; but here we have brake in a sense that draws in apparent harmony with ice. And as the general meaning of the text is, that some get off with impunity from a long course of crime, while others are severely punished for a single fault; so brakes of ice may possibly mean fixed, confirmed, and, so to speak, chrystallized or congealed forms of sin, or criminal propensities consolidated into character. And if brake was thus used to signify a thing that might consist of solidified water, it is intelligible that, when the time of melting came, the ice should run off as water, in which form its identity would elude perception; so that the water could not be held to answer for what was done by the cakes of ice. Yet, with all this explanation, the metaphor seems to me so harsh and strained, that I still hold back from affirming the genuineness of the old text; this, too, notwithstanding the difficulties that beset the reading commonly received.

P. 159. If this law hold in Vienna ten year, I'll rent the fairest house in it after three-pence a bay. - Pope and Collier's second folio substitute day for bay. The change is plausible: but, if the Poet had written day, would he not have used at instead of after? Dyce supports the old reading by quoting from Parker's Concise Glossary of Architecture: Bay, a principal compartment or division in the architectural arrangement of a building, marked either by the buttresses or pilasters on the walls, by the disposition of the main ribs of the vaulting of the interior, by the main arches and pillars, the principals of the roof, or by any other leading features that separate it into corresponding portions." See, also, foot-note 24.

P. 159. I thought, by your readiness in the office, &c.- -"By the readiness" in the old copies. Pope's correction.

ACT II., SCENE 2.

P. 161. Prov. God save your Honour!

Ang.

[Offering to retire.

Stay a little while.

[To ISAB.] You're welcome: what's your will? — I here adopt the reading and arrangement proposed by Walker. The origi nal omits God at the beginning of the Provost's speech. As the name

is fairly required both by the sense and the verse, Walker justly sets this down among the instances where it was stricken out in pursuance of the well-known statute against profaneness.

P. 162. To fine the fault, whose fine stands in record. - The old copies having faults instead of fault. The context amply justifies the change; and Walker abundantly shows that no misprint is more frequent in the old copies than that of singulars and plurals for each other.

P. 163. But you might do't, and do the world no wrong. — The original transposes, thus, "But might you do't." Corrected by Walker, so as to accord with Isabella's second speech before.

P. 163. Too late! why, no; I, that do speak a word,

May call it back again. — Back, wanting in the first folio, was added in the second.

P. 164. If that the first that did th' edict infringe

Had answer'd for his deed.·

So Walker; the old copies, "If the first that did," &c. As a syllable is here wanting to the metre, Pope reads "If the first man"; White, "If but the first." I prefer Walker's reading, as more in the Poet's manner.

P. 164.

That shows what future evils,

Either new, or by remissness new-conceived,
And so in progress to be hatch'd and born, —

Are now to have no successive degrees,

But, ere they live, to end. - The old copies have now instead of new, and here instead of ere. The first change was made by Pope; the second by Hanmer, and also in Collier's second folio. Both changes are approved by Walker. Instead of ere, Lettsom prefers Malone's where.

P. 165.

O, 'tis excellent

To have a giant's strength, but tyrannous

66

To use it like a giant. — So, Dyce says, most probably Shakespeare wrote." The original reads "O, it is excellent," and "but it is tyrannous"; thus defacing the verse in both lines, without helping the sense. The reading 'tis is Pope's; the omission of the second it is, Hanmer's.

P. 165. Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt

Splitt'st the unwedgeable and gnarlèd oak

Than the soft myrtle: but man, proud man,

Drest in a little brief authority, &c.— In the third of these lines we have a defect of metre where I can hardly think any defect was meant. To fill up the verse, the second folio printed " O, but man"; which does not indeed sound right; yet my ear will have it that something has dropped out. Perhaps "but a man." Or would this make the speech too pointed?

P. 166. We cannot weigh our brother with yourself :

Great men may jest with saints. So Warburton and Collier's second folio. Instead of yourself, the original has ourself, which I can hardly strain to any congruent sense. See foot-note 12.

P. 167. Ang. At any time 'fore noon.

Isab. God save your Honour !— Here, again, the original omits God, probably for the same reason as that mentioned in the first of the Critical Notes on this scene. Yet, in Isabella's second speech above, we have "Heaven keep your Honour safe!" By comparing the quartos of such plays as were printed in that form with the folio copies, we learn that sometimes God was simply erased, and sometimes Heaven substituted.

ACT II., SCENE 3.

P. 169. Who, falling in the flames of her own youth,

Hath blister'd her report. —The original has flawes instead of flames. Corrected from Davenant. We have many instances of m and w misprinted for each other.

P. 170. Showing we would not spare Heaven as we love it,

But as we stand in fear. Collier's second folio substitutes serve for spare. The change is at least plausible, as, in the preceding scene, we have "shall we serve Heaven with less respect," &c. Pope reads "would not seek Heaven." It seems not unlikely that the text is corrupt: see, however, foot-note 3.

P. 170. God's grace go with you! -So Walker. Another instance of the same thing mentioned in the third note above. — The original