(As poisonous tongued, as handed) hath prevail'd

On thy too ready hearing?"

So every old copy: every modern edition, 'What monster's her accuser? Surely no variation from the ancient text is required.” COLLIER.

The last letter of " accuser" had evidently been omitted in the first folio by mistake. The reading

"What monsters her accuse?"

must be wrong; because, in the first place, we cannot suppose that Shakspeare would have employed here such an awkward inversion as "her accuse;" secondly, because we have in the next line but one, "What false Italian," &c.; and, thirdly, because it leaves the metre imperfect.

SCENE 5.-C. p. 202.

"Please you, sir,

Her chambers are all lock'd; and there's no answer

That will be given to the loud noise we make."

"The preposition of is mistakingly inserted after 'loud' in the folio, 1623 it is clearly needless to the sense, and injurious to the metre; but modern editors have usually printed the passage (without notice), 'to the loud'st of noise we make,' in order to preserve what in fact ought on all accounts to be removed." COLLIER.

The passage, when thus mutilated by Mr. Collier, does not afford the meaning which the poet certainly intended, viz. that the very loudest noise which they could make drew forth no answer. The text of the folio, "the loud of noise" is manifestly a misprint for "the loud'st of noise.”

[Exit CLOTEN.

Pisanio, thou that stand'st so for Posthumus,
He hath a drug of mine: I pray, his absence
Proceed by swallowing that, for he believes
It is a thing most precious."

Could Mr. Collier possibly suppose that

Pisanio, thou that stand'st so for Posthumus,
He hath a drug of mine,"

was one sentence? The other modern editors rightly give the first of these lines as an exclamation, thus ;

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Pisanio, thou that stand'st so for Posthumus!-
He hath a drug of mine," &c.

SCENE 6.-C. p. 209.

"Great men,

That had a court no bigger than this cave,

That did attend themselves, and had the virtue

Which their own conscience seal'd them, (laying by
That nothing gift of differing multitudes)

Could not out-peer these twain.”

"Some dispute has arisen respecting the word 'differing' in this line, but no commentator has taken what appears to be the plain sense of the author: 'differing multitudes,' does not mean 'deferring multitudes,' with Theobald, Hanmer, and Warburton; nor many-headed, with Johnson; nor unsteady, with Monck Mason and Steevens ; but merely, as it seems to us, differing in respect of rank from the persons upon whom the multitudes bestow the 'nothing gift' of reputation. The poet is contrasting, in a manner, the givers with the person[s] to whom the gift is made." COLLIER.

In act iv. sc. 2, p. 212, Imogen says,

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clay and clay differs in dignity Whose dust is both alike":

but the difference there spoken of, is in the present passage so decidedly implied by the very terms "great men" and "multitudes," that the addition to the latter word of the epithet "differing" in the sense of differing in respect of rank would be altogether superfluous, to say nothing of the ridiculous baldness of the expression. When Monck Mason cited the following line from the Induction to the Second Part of King Henry IV., he pointed out the true meaning of " differing" in the present speech,

"The still discordant, wavering multitude.”

S

ACT IV.

SCENE 1.-C. p. 211; K. p. 280.

"the lines of my body are as well-drawn as his; no less young, more strong, not beneath him in fortunes, beyond him in the advantage of the time, above him in birth, alike conversant in general services, and more remarkable in single oppositions: yet this imperseverant thing loves him in my despite."

"Imperseverant' must be taken in the sense of perseverant, (as Steevens remarks) like impassioned, &c.; unless we suppose Cloten to mean imperceptive, or imperceiving, as regards his advantages over Posthumus. Hanmer reads ́ ill-perseverant.' COLLIER. "The im is a prefix to perseverant; in the same way as impassioned." KNight.

The right reading (according to modern orthography) is undoubtedly "this imperceiverant thing," i. e. 'this thing without the power of perceiving my superiority to Posthumus.' -A passage of The Widow (by Jonson, Fletcher, and Middleton) stands as follows in the old copy;

" methinks the words

Themselves should make him do't, had he but the perseverance
Of a Cock sparrow, that will come at philip,
And can nor write nor read, poor fool!"

Act iii. sc. 2.

where, of course, “ perseverance” is, with our present spelling, “perceiverance,”—i. e. ' power of perceiving.'

SCENE 2.-C. p. 221; K. p. 290.

"the ruddock would,

With charitable bill," &c.

Mr. Knight remarks (in "Illustrations of Act iv.") that

"the redbreast has always been a favourite with the poets, and 'Robin the mean, that best of all loves men,'

as Browne sings, was naturally employed in the last offices of love," &c.

The line just cited from Browne brings to my recollection a passage of Chapman, which I have never seen quoted, and which is so singularly beautiful that it deserves to be better known;

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And yet, when Peace came in, all heauen was cleare;
And then did all the horrid wood appeare;

Where mortall dangers more then leaues did growe;
In which wee could not one free steppe bestowe
For treading on some murtherd Passenger,
Who thither was by witchcraft forc't to erre;
Whose face the bird hid, that loues Humans best,

That hath the bugle eyes and Rosie Breast,

And is the yellow Autumns Nightingall.”

Euthymia Raptus, or The Teares of Peace, &c. 1609, sig. E 4.

SCENE 2.-C. p. 223.

You were as flowers, now wither'd; even so

These herb'lets shall, which we upon you strew.”

Read, with the other modern editors, "strow"; for a rhyme was as certainly intended here as at the conclusion of the speech; The ground that gave them first has them again :

Their pleasures here are past, so is their pain."

That transcribers were in the habit of writing "strew" and 'strow" indifferently, is beyond a doubt.

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SCENE 4.-C. p. 230; K. p. 297.

"Pray, sir, to the army:

I and my brother are not known; yourself,

So out of thought, and thereto so o'ergrown,
Cannot be question'd."

Neither Mr. Collier nor Mr. Knight explains " o'ergrown." The only note on the word in the Variorum Shakespeare is the following one by Steevens;

"o'ergrown] Thus, Spenser;

oergrown with old decay,

And hid in darkness that none could behold

The hue thereof."

Now, when Steevens cited these lines from Spenser (and he might have cited with equal propriety any other passage of any poet where the word "o'ergrown" happens to be found),

did he understand in what sense Shakespeare here employs "o'ergrown"? I think not. Its meaning is sufficiently explained by what Posthumus afterwards says of Belarius;

"who deserv'd

So long a breeding as his white beard came to.”

p. 235.

ACT V.

SCENE 4.-C. p. 240.

"Sici. Thy crystal window ope; look, look out:

No longer exercise,

Upon a valiant race, thy harsh

And potent injuries."

A glaring error of the first folio silently brought back into the text!!-Read, with the three later folios and the other modern editors,

"Sici. Thy crystal window ope; look out."

A word is omitted here.-Read, with all the old copies and all the other modern editions,

"This man is better than the man he slew."