SCENE III. P. 392. Of the alterations in Timon's speech when he enters the wood; the first, Raise me this beggar and decline that lord, instead of deny't, is not at all necessary. The construction is "Raise me this beggar to great fortune and deny it to that lord." Of the second "Rother's sides for Brother's sides," I must of course approve, as I suggested it some years since, and Mr. Collier has been pleased to say that it is one of the most valuable emendations in his edition. Idol-votarist for idle votarist is quite an uncalled-for change; by no idle votarist Timon means to say no insincere or inconstant suppliant for gold; roots will satisfy me. Steevens has truly said, however, that “the condition in which this play was transmitted to us, is such as will warrant repeated doubts in almost every scene of it." Ib. "There are few instances where mishearing on the part of the scribe has been the origin of a corruption of the text more striking, than the blunder we are now about to point out, and set right, on the authority of the annotator of the folio, 1632. It is where Phrynia and Timandra entreat Timon to give them some of his gold, and ask if he has more he replies, Enough to make a whore forswear her trade, "Johnson strives hard to extract sense from this last clause, for of course the meaning of the first is very evident: it is in the hemistich that the error lies, for we ought beyond dispute to read, Enough to make a whore forswear her trade, And to make whores abhorr'd. "Whoever read, or recited, to the copyist dropped the aspirate, and induced him, merely writing mechanically and without attending to the sense, to put 'a bawd' for abhorr'd." R Why should abundance of gold make whores abhorr'd? Mr. Collier may rely on it, although he thinks this alteration "beyond dispute," that the old copy is right, and that Johnson did not strive in vain when he explained it, "That is enough gold to make a whore leave whoring, and a bawd leave making whores." But forswear cannot here mean renounce, it means promise to renounce, as appears by the rest of Timon's speech; and this meaning fits the clause as interpreted by Johnson. P. 393. The substitution of meadows for "marrows" is specious, but marrows seems to have a relation to unctuous, in a following line, which forbids us to alter it. It is more probable that thy is a misprint for your: Dry up your marrows, (ye) vines and ploughtorn leas. Ib. "Timon reproaches Apemantus with his base origin, and tells him that he had never known luxury, adding,— Hadst thou, like us, from thy first swath, proceeded The sweet degrees that this brief world affords To such as may the passive drugs of it Freely command, thou would'st have plung'd thyself "The passive drugs' of the world surely cannot be right. Timon is supposing the rich and luxurious to be, as it were, sucking freely at the 'passive dugs' of the world; and an emendation in manuscript, which merely strikes out the superfluous letter, supports this view of the passage, and renders needless Monck Mason's somewhat wild conjecture in favour of drudges." The corrector of my second folio has also struck out the r in drugges, yet it is most probable that the old reading drugges, is right, and that Monck Mason's conjecture was not so "wild," for drudge is constantly spelt drugge. Thus Huloet, “A drudge or drugge, a servant which doth all the vile services." In the same speech lower down we have ragge printed for rogue, as is evident from the context :— If thou wilt curse,-thy father, that poor ragge, This Johnson proposed to correct, but was opposed by Steevens and Malone. Ib. It is very doubtful whether the interpolation of him would not be to violate the poet's language, the "falling-from of friends" is quite intelligible without it. P. 394. The substitution of "load our purses" for "load our purposes" is a violent and uncalled-for innovation, although Mr. Collier says, the original reading! is very like nonsense; but in a supplemental note he admits that it may mean "the poet and the painter came to have their designs loaded." SCENE IV. Ib. There was no great merit in the adoption of Warburton's correction in the line, Some beast rear'd this; there does not live a man. Ib. The last substitution of is't not severe for "it is not square" in the passage: All have not offended; For those that were, it is not square to take On those that are, revenge. Mr. Collier is himself obliged to acknowledge " is certainly not one of the changes that must be adopted." I do not think any one will be found to differ with him, for a more absurd piece of meddling is hardly to be found among the number that his volume furnishes. ACT V. SCENE III. There is a passage in this scene which has escaped the correctors, where Steevens remarks, “I am fully convinced that this and many other passages have been irretrievably corrupted by transcribers or printers, and could not have proceeded, in their present state, from the pen of Shakespeare; for what we cannot understand in the closet, must have been wholly useless on the stage. The awkward repetition of the verb made, very strongly countenances my present observation." The passage stands thus in the folios : Messenger. I met a currier, one mine ancient friend, Whom though in generall part we were oppos'd, We should probably read,— met a courier, one mine ancient friend, When, though on several part we were oppos'd, The sense and grammar require When for "Whom"; in generall was an easy mistake of the printer for on feuerall, and the repetition of the word made was evidently caught from the succeeding line instead of had. Several is very frequently used by Shakespeare for separate, as on this occasion. If the correctors, as Mr. Collier would have us suppose, had access to "better authority than we possess," there can be no doubt that this passage would not have been passed over in silence. F the substitution of walls for "walks," in the line : OF That her wide walks encompassed but one man Mr. Collier himself says, "strictly speaking a change is not necessary," and yet it is not an improbable misprint, and therefore much more plausible than many he feels more confident about. P. 397. The substitution of such for "these" is of course a matter of "discretion," but "these" could hardly be a misprint for such; and perhaps to read which for "as" would be a more probable change, if it were allowable to interfere with the grammatical construction of the poet's language. SCENE III. Ib. "A note in the margin of the folio, 1632, will, probably, settle a dispute carried on at considerable length, and with some pertinacity, between Johnson, Steevens, and Ma lone, regarding a word in a couplet thus printed in the folio, 1623: Against the Capitol I met a lion Who glaz'd upon me, and went surly by. "Pope was the first to read glar'd for 'glaz'd,' and Johnson poorly substituted gaz'd: in the folio, 1632, the second line stands, Who glaz'd upon me, and went surely by; "there can be no doubt about the last error, and that, as well as the first, is set right by striking out the e in surely, and by converting 'glaz'd' into glar'd.” This correction is no doubt suggested by some one of the more recent editions. Surly is the reading of the first folio, and Steevens corrected "glaz'd" to glar'd: as the passage has long been set right in all editions, even in Mr. Collier's, there seemed no motive for placing it among the coincidences of the correctors, unless to swell the catalogue. P. 398. The same observation applies to the obvious correction of the misprint Is to "In," which has also been made in all editions. ་ ACT II. SCENE I. Ib. The correction of "make" to mark is plausible, and as a probable misprint admissible. Ib. The mention of the adoption of the reading of the first folio, Caius Ligarius doth bear Cæsar hard, in place of the variation of the second folio, hatred, has most probably been suggested as in other cases, by some more recent edition; for it is the received reading, and the variation was not even deemed worthy of notice by Mr. Collier in his edition ! Ib. The transposition of "honey-heavy” to “heavy honeydew of slumber," is judicious, and has also been made by the corrector of my second folio. |