ACT III. SCENE 1.-C. p. 51; K. p. 423. Nips youth i' the head, and follies doth enmew As falcon doth the fowl." "The old reading is emmew." COLLIER. And Mr. Collier, I think, ought, like Mr. Knight, to have retained it see Richardson's Dictionary and Nares's Gloss. "In princely guards.” A guard in old language (observes Malone correctly) meant a welt or border of a garment,'' because (says Minsheu) it guards and keeps the garment from tearing.' These guards were afterwards sometimes taken for ornaments, and the word is so used by Shakespeare in The Merchant of Venice,' act ii. sc. 2." COLLIER. Not a single passage, I apprehend, could be cited, where guard, when a garment is spoken of, has any other sense than that of ornament. 66 SCENE 1.-C. p. 54. Angelo had never the purpose to corrupt her; only he hath made an essay of her virtue, to practise his judgment with the disposition of natures." Why alter here the "assay" of the old eds. to "essay"? Again, in The Comedy of Errors, act v. sc. 1, vol. ii. 168, Mr. Collier gives "essaying," and in As you like it, act i. sc. 3, vol. iii. 26, "essay'd;" while in All's well that ends well, act iii. sc. 7, vol. iii. 274, in the First Part of King Henry VI. act v. sc. 4, vol. iv. 329, in the Third Part of King Henry VI. act i. sc. 4, vol. v. 248, in Hamlet, act iii. sc. 1, vol. vii. 258, and in other plays, he prints " assay." ACT IV. SCENE 3.-C. p. 78. "Then is there here one Mr. Caper, at the suit of master Threepile the mercer. Then have we here young Dizzy, and young Mr. Deep-vow, and Mr. Copper-spur, and Mr. Starvelackey," &c. "So printed [Mr.'] in the old copies, and probably to be pronounced mister, because when Three-pile the mercer' is mentioned, he is called master at length: Shakespeare seems to have intended to make a distinction between gentlemen and tradesmen." COLLIER. No such distinction was ever dreamed of by Shakespeare. A hundred passages from early MSS., and as many from early books, might be adduced to prove that Mr. and Master were put indiscriminately by transcribers and printers. In the first folio of Beaumont and Fletcher's Works, among the headings to the Commendatory Verses, we find; "Vpon Mr. John Fletcher's Playes." Sig. b 2. Sig. b 3. "On the Dramatick Poems of Mr. John Fletcher." Sig. c 2. Upon the report of the printing of the Dramaticall Poems of "To Mr. Francis Beaumont (then living)." Sig. E. 'Upon Master Fletchers Incomparable Playes." Ibid. A comedy, written by one of Shakespeare's contemporaries, furnishes the following passage,—in which Master is applied both to "gentlemen and tradesmen ;' "Ruff. What Gallants use to come to your house? Fle. All sorts, all nations, and all trades: there is first Master Gallant your Britaine, Master Metheglins your Welchman, Mounsieur Mustroome [sic] the Frenchman, Segniour Fumada the Spaniard, Master Oscabath the Irishman, and Master Shamrough his Lackey; O, and Master Slopdragon the Dutchman. Then for your Tradesmen, there comes first Master Saluberrimum the Physitian, Master Smooth the silkeman, Master Thimble the Taylor, Master Blade the Cutler, and Master Rowell the Spurrier; but Master Match the Gunner of Tower-hill comes often." The Fleire (by Sharpham), act iii. sig. F 4, cd. 1610. SCENE 4.-C. p. 84. Ang. In most uneven and distracted manner. His actions show much like to madness: pray heaven, His wisdom be not tainted! And why meet him at the gates, and re-deliver Escal. I guess not. Ang. And why should we Proclaim it in an hour before his ent'ring, They should exhibit their petitions In the street?" These speeches, which stand good prose in the old eds., ought not to have been tortured by Mr. Collier into what is verse only to the eye. ACT V. SCENE 1.-C. p. 99. Stand like the forfeits in a barber's shop." "Formerly with us (observes Warburton), the better sort of people went to the barber's shop to be trimmed, who then practised the under parts of surgery: so that he had occasion for numerous instruments, which lay there ready for use; and the idle people, with whom his shop was generally crowded, would be perpetually handling and misusing them. To remedy which, I suppose, there was placed up against the wall a table of forfeitures adapted to every offence of this kind; which, it is not likely, would long preserve its authority.' This may be true, but it wants proof." COLLIER. 66 Steevens observes (ad loc.) that "the metrical list of forfeits, published by the late Dr. Kenrick, was a forgery." But it appears to have been so only in part. Upwards of forty years ago," says Moor, "I saw a string of such rules at the tonsor's of Alderton, near the sea. I well recollect the following lines to have been among them; as they are also in those of Nares [i. e. those cited from Kenrick by Nares in his Gloss.], said to have been copied in Northallerton, in Yorkshire; 66 First come, first serve-then come not late," &c. Suffolk Words, &c. (1823), p. 133. THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. [Vol. ii. COLLIER; vol. i. KNIGHT.] ACT I. SCENE 1.-C. p. 118. "To seek thy help by beneficial help." "Perhaps Shakespeare wrote, To seek thy hope by beneficial help,' That is, to seek what you hope by beneficial help to acquire-money for your ransom." COLLIER. A very unnecessary conjecture. Malone well observed that "the jingle has much of Shakespeare's manner." ACT II. SCENE 2.-C. p. 131; K. p. 157. "Would'st thou not spit at me, and spurn at me, And hurl the name of husband in my face, And tear the stain'd skin off my harlot-brow, Mr. Knight prints; "And tear the stain'd skin of my harlot brow;" observing, "So the folio: Steevens unnecessarily substituted off." Before Mr. Knight publishes a fourth edition of Shakespeare, he had better read over with attention the following passages; Thou, Martius, art so warlike, that thou wouldest cut of the wish with a sworde." Lyly's Midas, sig. C. ed. 1592. "Hands of, commaunded Hercules, for horse I am no hay." Warner's Albions England, p. 57. ed. 1596, ib. ed. 1612. "Thinkst thou Cleanthes will come agayne to have his head chopt of so soone as he comes," &c. Chapman's Blinde Begger of Alexandria, 1598, sig. D 4. "Take heed the thornes teare not the hornes of my Cowe hides, as thou goest neare the hedges." Heywood's Edward the Fourth (Part First), sig. E 2. ed. 1619. "You are a thousand women of [so all the seven old eds.] her in worth." Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady, act v. sc. 1. and these, which occur in a single play; Sirra, I must cast of thy company." Timon, p. 20 (printed for the Shakespeare Society). "Stand of." Id. p. 24. "Ile putte my shoes of, leaste they make a noyse." Id. p. 39. "Pull of my doublette." Id. p. 46. 66 Well, cast mee of, I say." Id. p. 49. "Leaue of complaints." Id. p. 58. "Shaue of th' exorbitant haires of my bearde." "Thy masters daughter hath cast of Timon." "Putte of fonde feare." Id. p. 71. Id. Id. p. 70. Keep then fair league and truce with thy true bed; I live disstain'd, thou undishonoured.” "i. e. unstained. The use of the word in this sense is, if not solitary, very uncommon." COLLIier. Mr. Knight prints (like Malone) "dis-stain'd," and gives, without any comment, the gloss-"unstained." Here all the old eds. have "distain'd:" and it is really amusing to find the modern editors inventing a new spelling of the word. If the reader will carefully examine my remarks at pp. 20, 21, he will be convinced that in the present passage "distain'd" is a misprint for "unstain'd." ACT III. SCENE 1.-C. p. 140; K. p. 166. "Bring it, I pray you, to the Porcupine." So afterwards, in the next scene (p. 146), Mr. Collier prints; "I thought to have ta'en you at the Porcupine." and in act v. sc. 1 (pp. 172, 173); "Promising to bring it to the Porcupine." Sir, he dined with her, there, at the Porcupine." |