ACT. V., SCENE I.

P. 233. And bid him speak to me of patience.— So Hanmer, Ritson, Walker, Collier's second folio, and Dyce. The old text omits to me.

P. 233. If such a one will smile, and stroke his beard,

Bid sorrow wag, cry hem when he should groan,

Patch grief with proverbs, &c. -The old copies read "And sorrowe wagge, crie hem," &c., out of which it is hardly possible to make any sense. Various changes of the text have been printed and offered. The one here adopted is Capell's, which Dyce pronounces "incomparably the best yet proposed."-Of course wag means be gone.

P. 235. Claud.

Leon.

Who wrongs him?

Who!

Marry, thou wrong'st me; thou dissembler, thou.— The exclamative Who! in Leonato's speech is wanting in the old copies. Supplied by Walker, and justified on grounds both of sense and of metre. old copies also have "thou dost wrong me," instead of "thou wrong'st me."

The

P. 236. Come, follow, boy; come, sir boy, follow me. — - The old text gives this line thus: "Come follow me boy, come sir boy, come follow me." Yet the whole speech is printed there as verse, and was evidently meant to be such.

P. 237. Go anticly, show outward hideousness.—The old copies have "and show," to the spoiling of the metre. The context has so many ands, that the word might easily get repeated once too often. The correction is Spedding's.

P. 237. Gentlemen both, we will not wake your patience. — Hanmer changed wake to rack; and Dyce pronounces wake "a most suspicious lection, though defended by several commentators." Nevertheless wake is most probably right. An image of sleep is implied, and aptly implied, in regard to patience. See foot-note 9.

P. 241. But, soft you! let me pluck up my heart, and be sad. — Here the original text has a very strange reading, "let me be, plucke up my heart," &c. This has commonly been changed to let be: pluck up, my heart," Dyce and White print "let me be:

66

pluck up, my heart."

The reading here given was proposed by Malone. It clears the passage of obscurity at least, and, I think, reduces it to tolerable English. See foot-note 16.

P. 241. Secondarily, they are slanderers. So Walker; the old copies, slanders. Possibly slanders may have been intended as a blunder of Dogberry's; but I think not, as this would be rather overloading the speech in that kind; and Walker cites various examples of similar errors.

ACT V., SCENE 2.

P. 246. To have no man come over me! Why, shall I always keep men below stairs?—The old copies read "shall I always keep below stairs?" omitting men. This seems to defeat the passage of all suitable meaning. Steevens proposed to insert men. Singer proposes

them.

P. 247. Let me go with that I came for. — For, which is necessary to the sense, is wanting in the old copies. Supplied by Pope.

P. 249. I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes. - Collier says, "The Rev. Mr. Barry suggests to me, that the words heart and eyes have in some way changed places in the old copies."

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ACT V., SCENE 3.

P. 250. Graves, yawn, and yield your dead,

Till death be utteréd

Heavily, heavily. So the quarto: the folio reads Heavenly, heavenly," though it has "Heavily, heavily "three lines before. Hereby hangs a long tale of critical discussion. Knight, Verplanck, Staunton, and White follow the folio; Dyce and various others, the quarto. Upon the folio reading Walker puts something very like an extinguisher, thus: "The folio and Knight read Heavenly, heavenly; a most absurd error, generated (ut sæpe) by the corruption of an uncommon word to a common one. So in Hamlet, ii. 2, — 'it goes so heavily with my disposition,' the folio has heavenly; as Dyce has also noticed. My note, however, was suggested by the sense of the passage. The explanation of uttered, as signifying ousted, is one of the many unfortunate exhibitions of half-learning to which our Poet has given occasion." See foot-note 3.

P. 250. Clau.. Now, unto thy bones good night !·

Yearly will I do this rite. - In the old copies these two lines are assigned to Lord. Corrected by Rowe.

P. 250. And Hymen now with luckier issue speed's. The old text has speeds. Speed's is a contraction of speed us, designed to rhyme with weeds, in the second line before. The Poet has many such contractions, and some even bolder than this. Thirlby makes the following apt note upon the passage: "Claudio could not know, without being a prophet, that this new proposed match should have any luckier event than that designed with Hero. Certainly, therefore, this should be a wish in Claudio; and, to this end, the Poet might have wrote speed's, that is, speed us: and so it becomes a prayer to Hymen.”

P. 252. Ant. This same is she, and I do give you her. So Theɔbald. The old editions assign this speech to Leonato; which is clearly wrong, as it contravenes the arrangement expressly made before.

P. 253. One Hero died defiled; but I do live,

And, surely as I live, I am a maid. - So the quarto. The folio omits defiled, and leaves a gap in the verse; perhaps because the Editors judged that word to be unfitting, and did not see what to substitute. Collier has proposed to read "One Hero died reviled"; and urges it on the ground that Hero had, in truth, been reviled, but had not really been defiled, and that she would naturally shrink from applying that word to herself. But, as she represents herself to be "another Hero," and is supposing the reputed defilement and death of the first Hero to have been real, I doubt whether this objection will hold. See foot-note 3.

P. 253. Why, then your uncle, and the Prince, and Claudio Have been deceived; for they swore you did. The word for is wanting here in the old copies. Perhaps we ought to read, as in the third speech after, "Are much deceived ·

The reading in the text is Capell's.

they did swear you did."

In the old editions,

P. 255. Bene. Peace! I will stop your mouth.

this speech is absurdly assigned to Leonato. Corrected by Theobald.

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