"I kneel before thee, and unproperly

Show duty, as mistaken all this while
Between the child and parent;"

mistaking is written in the margin for "mistaken," the word in all impressions, and requiring no alteration. The emendator seems to have been rather too fond of the active participle.

P. 256. Shakespeare has always been hitherto represented as guilty here of a grammatical blunder, little less than ridiculous:

"Making the mother, wife, and child to see
The son, the husband, and the father tearing
His country's bowels out. And to poor we,
Thine enmity's most capital."

Here the punctuation of the old copies leads to the detection of two typographical errors, "to" for so, and "enmities" for enemies :

"And the father tearing

His country's bowels out; and so poor we
Thine enemies most capital,"

i. e. and so poor we are thy most capital enemies. These small and natural changes at once remove the solecism. In Volumnia's preceding speech the old corrector reads, “that if we fail in our request;" and the change seems natural, though certainly not inevitable.

P. 258. The additions to the stage-directions in this play are not many, nor of much consequence; but we here encounter one that requires notice, because it serves to show the manner of the old actor of the part of Coriolanus at this point of the noblest scene, perhaps, in the whole range of dramatic literature. After Volumnia's grand and touching appeal, beginning, "Nay, go not from us thus," we are informed, in the ancient editions, that Coriolanus holds her by the hand silent; and the following descriptive addition is made in manuscript, long, and self-struggling. After this protracted strife, which shook the whole fabric of the hero, he yields, with the exclamation,

"O mother, mother!

What have you done?" &c.

P. 259. We do not insist upon the change, but we are told, in the speech of Aufidius aside, to substitute "a firmer for

tune" for "a former fortune." We think the emendation extremely admissible.

SCENE V.

P. 263. An alteration occurs where Aufidius is descanting on the manner in which he had "served the designments" of Coriolanus to his own injury: the passage in all editions has stood as follows:

"Serv'd his designments

In mine own person; holp to reap the fame
Which he did end all his."

Rowe printed make for "end," and he was followed by several editors, who did not see how sense could be extracted from "end." Shakespeare, if we rely upon the old corrector, is here only using a metaphor which he has often employed before, and for "end" we ought to read ear, which means, in its derivation as well as in its use, to plough: therefore, when Aufidius says that he had

"holp to reap the fame

Which he did ear all his;"

he may mean that Coriolanus had ploughed the ground, intending to reap the whole of a crop of fame, which Aufidius had assisted him to harvest. The use of the word "reap" seems to prove what was in the mind of the poet; but we may doubt whether the real word was not in for "end"— "which he did in all his." To in a harvest was technical, and is so even now.

:

P. 266. It is a mistake, in note 7 on this page, to state that Malone (Shakespeare, by Boswell, xiv. p. 225) reads voices he prints it Volces, which is strictly right, although all the old copies have Volscians. The folio, 1632, like that of 1623, has, "flattered your Volscians in Coriolus;" but the corrector of the former has altered "flatter'd" to flutter'd, by striking out the a, and placing u in the margin. Flutter'd is the word in the folio, 1664, and so it has continued ever since: "Volcians" is altered to Volces in no old copy.

Lower down, where All People is the prefix to various exclamations by different citizens against Coriolanus, the figures 1, 2, 3, 4, are placed in manuscript in the margin to show that the speeches, "He killed my son-my daughterhe killed my cousin Marcus-he killed my father," were utB b

tered by different people, whose families Coriolanus was charged with having thinned.

P. 267. In the old impressions, when the Conspirators assail Coriolanus and kill him, the stage-direction is, Draw both the Conspirators, and kill Martius; but we have already seen (p. 262) Aufidius instructing at least three Conspirators. Perhaps, in the economy of our old stage, only two were so employed at the time the hero was actually struck, and that the actor, who had earlier played a third Conspirator had other duties to perform in the busy last scene of the drama. We have before said that the stage-directions are little added to or altered in this play; but, at the very close, some words are subjoined which require notice: the old printed stagedirection is, Exeunt bearing the body of Martius. A dead march sounded; to which the following words are appended in manuscript-whiles they leave the stage, marching round: the dead march was, therefore, continued to be played, until the whole procession had passed round the stage, in order, doubtless, to render the ceremonial more distinct and impressive. This, we believe, is a traditional practice, which has since been continued.

TITUS ANDRONICUS.

ACT I. SCENE I.

P. 275. There can be little difficulty in admitting the subsequent emendation of an evident misprint near the opening of this play, where Bassianus says,—

'Keep then this passage to the Capitol,
And suffer not dishonour to approach

Th' imperial seat, to virtue consecrate,
To justice, continence, and nobility."

There is no reason why the Capitol should be said to be consecrate to "continence," especially when, in the preceding line, it is stated to be consecrate to "virtue:" the corrector of the folio, 1632, therefore, alters the last line thus:

"To justice, conscience, and nobility."

Besides, "continence," read as a tri-syllable, is too much for the verse.

A couplet, in the preceding speech, is altered to the following:

"I am the first-born son of him, the last

That wore the imperial diadem of Rome."

P. 277. For the imperfect line of Saturninus,"Open the gates, and let me in,"

we have in the writing of the old corrector,—

"Open the brazen gates, and let me in."

The epithet was, doubtless, accidentally omitted.

SCENE II.

P. 279. Rhymes, whether lost by a change in the practice of the stage, by carelessness of recitation, copying, printing,

or otherwise, are restored in more places in this tragedy than it is, perhaps, necessary to point out: the earliest instance of the kind occurs at the end of one of the speeches of Titus, where he tells Tamora that her son must be slain as a sacrifice for his dead sons; the rhyme seems so inevitable, that we can hardly suppose it relinquished excepting by design:

"To this your son is mark'd; and die he must

To appease their groaning shadows that are dust.'

The printed copies rather poorly read "gone" for dust.

P. 282. When the people wish to elect Titus for their Emperor, he declines on account of age and infirmity:—

"What! should I don this robe, and trouble you?

Be chosen with proclamations to-day,

To-morrow yield up rule, resign my life,

And set abroad new business for you all."

"Proclamations" may be right, but acclamations is the word written in the margin instead of it; and for "set abroad," the more natural reading is set abroach, which is also written in the folio, 1632. When, lower down, Marcus says,—

"Titus, thou shalt obtain and ask the empery,"

the words "and ask are on every account too much, and are therefore struck out.

P. 288. We have here a proof that the old corrector may have resorted to the quarto copies of this play, where only, and not in the folios, in the following line,

"That slew himself, and wise Laertes' son,"

the epithet "wise" is found. It is possible, however, that the necessary word was obtained from recitation, or even from some independent authority, written or printed.

ACT II. SCENE I.

P. 292. Warburton was right, if we may trust the old corrector, in putting will for "wit" in the ensuing line,