Read, with Malone and Mr. Knight, "plurisy" (from plus, pluris). Pleurisy (from πλevρîτis) is a distinct word.

The present passage is imitated by Massinger in The Unnatural Combat, act iv. sc. 1;

"Thy plurisy of goodness is thy ill;"

i. e., Gifford observes, "thy superabundance of goodness."

ACT V.

SCENE 1.-C. p. 323.

Go, get thee to Yaughan; fetch me a stoop of liquor."

It is just possible that 'Yaughan' was a mis-spelt stage-direction to inform the player that he was to yawn at this point." COL

LIER.

If Martinus Scriblerus, instead of exercising his acuteness on the text of Virgil, had employed it on that of Shakespeare, he could hardly have offered a more felicitous conjecture than this. A fastidious reader, however, may object—that in the stage-directions of early dramas we find nothing of the kind,— nothing about coughing, sneezing, hiccupping, &c.

is quite wrong.

SCENE 1.-C. p. 325; K. p. 146.

A pick-axe, and a spade, a spade,

For -and a shrouding sheet :

O! a pit of clay for to be made

For such a guest is meet.”

The break after "For," inserted by all the modern editors, "For and" in the present version of the stanza, answers to " And eke” in that given by Percy (Rel. of A. E. P. vol. i. 192, ed. 1812);

"And eke a shrowding shete."

Compare the following passages (to which many others might be added);

"Syr Gy, Syr Gawen, Syr Cayus, for and Syr Olyuere."

Skelton's Sec. Poem Against Garnesche,—
Works, i. 119, ed. Dyce.

"Your squire doth come, and with him comes the lady,
For and the Squire of Damsels, as I take it."

Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the Burning
Pestle, act ii. sc. 3.

(a passage with which the modern editors made sad work.)
"A hippocrene, a tweak, for and a fucus."

Middleton's Fair Quarrel, act v. sc. 1.

When Mr. Collier inserted, from the folio, the words "Let me see," he ought to have placed the stage-direction "Takes the Scull" after them; for it is very evident that while Hamlet speaks these words, he has not yet taken the scull.

SCENE 2.-C. p. 336; K. p. 155.

"But I am very sorry, good Horatio,
That to Laertes I forgot myself,

For by the image of my cause I see

The portraiture of his: I'll count his favours."

Rowe reads court for count,' with considerable plausibility: however, 'count' may be the word in the sense of count upon." COL

LIER.

So also Messrs. Malone and Knight.

I have no doubt that Rowe gave what Shakespeare wrote. Steevens's defence of "count" (in reply to M. Mason) is a beautiful specimen of trifling.

SCENE 2.-C. p. 337; K. p. 156.

Sir, his definement suffers no perdition in you; though, I know, to divide him inventorially, would dizzy the arithmetic of memory; and yet but raw neither, in respect of his quick sail."

The quarto of 1604 has yaw for 'raw,' which itself may be a misprint: Warburton would read slow for 'raw.'" COLLIEr.

Mr. Collier is the only editor who has noticed that the quarto of 1604 has "yaw;" and he ought at once to have perceived from the context that it is the genuine reading. Nothing, I think, can be more certain than that the passage should stand thus ;

"though, I know, to divide him inventorially would dizzy the arithmetic of memory, and it [which was often mistaken by our early printers for "yet," perhaps because it was written "yt”] but yaw neither in respect of his quick sail."

"To yaw (as a ship), huc illuc vacillare, capite nutare.” Coles's Dict.

The substantive "yaw" occurs in Massinger;

"O, the yaws that she will make !

Look to your stern, dear mistress, and steer right,
Here's that will work as high as the Bay of Portugal."
Massinger's Very Woman, act iii. sc. 5,-
Works, iv. 297, ed. 1813.

where Gifford remarks;

A yaw is that unsteady motion which a ship makes in a great swell, when, in steering, she inclines to the right or left of her course."

SCENE 2.-C. p. 340; K. p. 158.

"Thus has he (and many more of the same breed, that, I know, the drossy age dotes on) only got the tune of the time, and outward habit of encounter, a kind of yesty collection, which carries them through and through the most fond and winnowed opinions; and do but blow them to their trial, the bubbles are out."

"The quarto, 1604, has the most prophane and trennowed opinions,' and trennowed was altered in later quartos to trennowned, which affords no better sense. Our reading is that of the folio.” COLLIER.

The common interpretation of the passage is (I use the words of Caldecott), "which carries them (i. e. enables them to pass current) through and through the most fond and win

nowed opinions (i. e. all judgments, not the simplest only, but the most sifted and wisest)," &c.

Now, to suppose that "the most fond and winnowed opinions" could mean "all judgments, NOT the simplest ONLY, BUT the most sifted and wisest," is little short of insanity. The admirable emendation of Warburton (which is not even mentioned by Messrs. Caldecott, Collier, and Knight!) evidently restores the genuine reading,—" the most fand (fanned) and winnowed opinions." That "fanned” and “winnowed" occur together in other writers, and that Shakespeare has "the fan and wind of your fair sword" in Troilus and Cressida (act v. sc. 3), has been observed by Tollet.

SCENE 2.-C. p. 346.

"O God!-Horatio, what a wounded name,

Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me?"

Here Mr. Collier, like Malone, wrongly puts an interrogation-point instead of an exclamation-point.

Edm. I shall offend, either to detain or give it.

The contents, as in part I understand them,

Are to blame."

This speech of Edmund is (like all the rest of the present dialogue between him and his father) prose, and so given by Messrs. Malone and Knight.

SCENE 2.-C. p. 371; K. p. 32.

"I would unstate myself to be in a due resolution."

"We should hardly have thought a note here necessary, if Warburton, Johnson, Mason, and Steevens, had not disputed regarding the meaning, which seems only to be, I would be content to sacrifice my rank, if I could but arrive at a thorough conviction as to his design.'" COLlier.

Mr. Collier's explanation is no doubt the right one, except that instead of "my rank," he should have said “my state" (i. e. both my rank and fortune).

Mr. Knight gives the various interpretations of this passage by Steevens, &c. without stating his own opinion, and concludes his note by observing that "Tieck [again! see p. 192] inclines to Johnson's explanation," — which is the most flagrantly wrong of all.

With checks; as flatteries, when they are seen, abus'd."

Mr. Collier's punctuation of the last line is most erroneous. Messrs. Malone and Knight give it rightly, thus;