SCENE III. P. 336. This is not made a new scene by the corrector; and very possibly it was not so, when the play was acted of old, in order to avoid too frequent changes of the kind. It is also much shortened by the erasure of the two long passages, in which Andronicus shows his distraction, and Publius humours it. Scene III., as marked in manuscript, is Scene IV., according to the modern divisions. SCENE IV. P. 339. Rowe amended the following line by the clumsy insertion of "as do " in the middle of it : "My lords, you know, as do the mightful gods;" but the emendation in the folio, 1632, shows that words had not dropped out in the middle of the line, which was not so likely, but at the end of it, and they were, of course, not what Rowe conjectured: "My lords, you know, the mightful gods no less." Six lines afterwards, "wreaks" is plausibly altered to freaks, in connexion with "fits" and "frenzy." P. 341. The Clown, presenting the letter, does it in ridiculous verse, as we find it represented by alterations in the folio, 1632, "God and saint Stephen Give you good even. I have brought you a letter And a couple of pigeons, for want of better." The text has been, "good den" for "good even," but why was St. Stephen introduced but for the sake of rhyming? The fourth line (it is arranged as prose in all editions) has hitherto consisted only of the words, " And a couple of pigeons here." The same character rhymes again afterwards; and they are not confined to him, for Tamora begins one of her speeches to Saturninus in this way: "King, be thy thoughts imperious as thy name : Is the sun dimm'd, that gnats do fly in's flame?" "That gnats do fly in it," is the ordinary text. The last line of this act presents us with two variations,— "There go incessantly, and plead 'fore him," i. e. plead without ceasing before Andronicus for the recall of his son Lucius. ACT V. SCENE I. P. 345. There can be no doubt, on the evidence of the old corrector of the folio, 1632, that the words, "Get me a ladder," belong to Lucius, and not to Aaron, whose speech begins with, "Lucius, save the child." A manuscript stagedirection proves that a ladder was brought, and that the Moor made all his subsequent speeches standing upon it. Before he ascends it, he tells the Goths that he will disclose "Complots of mischief, treason, villainies, "Piteously perform'd" must be the reverse of what he means, and there can be no hesitation in printing the last line in future, as we are instructed by an emendation,— "Ruthful to hear, despiteously perform'd." SCENE II. P. 349. The old introduction to this scene is, Enter Tamora and her two Sons disguised; and in manuscript we are informed that the characters they assumed were those of Revenge, Rape, and Murder. Andronicus, when they call him, opens his study door above, i. e. in the balcony over the back of the stage, from whence he comes down, and joins them below, to converse about vengeance for the sufferings of himself and the rest of the Andronici. Such appears to have been the mode in which the scene was managed in the time of the corrector, and, perhaps, from the first production of the tragedy. The epithet old is omitted where Tamora addresses Titus, and the absence of it ruins the line, "Old Titus, I am come to talk with thee." P. 355. When Andronicus cuts the throats of Demetrius and Chiron, Lavinia catcheth the blood in a basin she had procured: there seems little occasion for this addition to the usual stage-direction, as we are previously told the part she is to play in the transaction; but the writer of the manuscript notes was anxious to be most explicit. The rhymes restored are frequent in this part of the tragedy, but the other emendations are neither numerous nor important. SCENE III. P. 358. There is a remarkable discordance between the quartos and folios regarding the speech beginning,— "Lest Rome herself be bane unto herself:" the quartos strangely assign it to a Roman Lord; and the folios, most absurdly, to a Goth. It seems evident from what precedes, where Marcus says, "O! let me teach you how to knit again," &c. that the whole belongs to him; and the corrector of the folio, 1632, has, therefore, put his pen through the prefix Goth, and made the next twenty-three lines run on as the continuation of what Marcus delivers, P. 362. Lucius, speaking of his father, says to his young son, "Shed yet some small drops from thy tender spring, Friends should associate friends in grief and woe. Do him that kindness, and take leave of him." "And take leave of him," besides marring a rhyming couplet, sounds very tamely and weakly, and is, in another form, a mere repetition of "Bid him farewell," of the preceding line. We may, therefore, on all accounts, be prepared to acquiesce in the subsequent manuscript-emendation:— "Bid him farewell; commit him to the grave; Do him that kindness-all that he can have." It will excite surprise how rhymes like these escaped; they must have been more impressed upon the memory of the actor; and, even if we suppose them to have been abandoned, on account of the advance made by blank-verse on the stage, that advance had not long occurred when "Titus Andronicus" was first printed, supposing it to have appeared in 1593 or 1594, in pursuance of the entry in the Stationers' Registers. Moreover, in the instance before us, and in others, the original lines (supposing them to have been such) were much better adapted to the occasion, and to the person who pronounced them. ROMEO AND JULIET. ACT I. SCENE I. P. 375. A manuscript-emendation in the folio, 1632, so far makes it certain that "civil," in the following portion of Sampson's speech, is a misprint:-"When I have fought with the men, I will be civil with the maids; I will cut off their heads." "Civil" is struck out, and cruel inserted instead of it. Malone and others have rightly preferred cruel. P. 378. The corrected folio, 1632, gives one line differently from any other authority: it is a reading which may be right, but which ought not, perhaps, to have weight enough to induce us to alter the received and very intelligible text. It is met with in the Prince's reproof of Montague and Capulet, for allowing the quarrels of their followers to disturb the public peace: the universal reading has been,— "Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word," &c. For "ayery word" (so spelt in the folios) the substitution is angry word." P. 382. Romeo (after inserting Benvolio's name in his first line for the sake of the measure), describing love, remarks, "Love is a smoke, made with the fume of sighs; Being purg'd, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes." Johnson, Steevens, Reed, and others, have contended that "purg'd" cannot have been the poet's language; and they suggest urg'd, in the sense of excited. This emendation might answer the purpose, if no better were offered, but in |