P. 48. (85)

"Rebellion's head, rise never,"

The folio has "Rebellious dead, rise neuer.”—Theobald printed "Rebellious head," &c.; i. e., he says, "let Rebellion never make head against me till," &c.-But Hanmer's reading, "Rebellion's head," &c. (which Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector also gives), is evidently the right one; though Capell (Notes, &c. vol. ii. P. iii. p. 22) gravely assures us that it "impairs harmony, and ruins poetry," &c. (In Richard II. act iii. sc. 2, the old eds., with the exception of the two earliest quartos, have the misprint "Shall falter vnder foule rebellious armes.")

6

"Read your high-plac'd Macbeth.' See Walker's Crit. Exam, &c. Art. xlvi." W. N. LETTSOM.

The modern alteration "air" certainly receives some support from a passage in The Winter's Tale, act v. sc. 1;

"Were I but twenty-one,

Your father's image is so hit in you,

His very air, that I should call you brother,
As I did him."

P. 49. (88)

"Now"

Has been amended to "Nay, now" and to "Ay, now.”

Here the two Ms. Correctors-Mr. Collier's and Mr. Singer's-alter "sights" to "flights;" and the same alteration occurred to Mr. Grant White (Shakespeare's Scholar, &c. p. 105).—"The Ms. Corrector proposes flights; and not without some show of reason. Macbeth has just been informed that Macduff has fled to England, and the escape has evidently discomposed him, as placing beyond his reach his most deadly enemy. Accordingly he is supposed by the Ms. Corrector to exclaim, 'No more flights! I must take care that no more of that party escape me.' But, on the other hand, Macbeth, a minute before, has been inveighing against the witches. He says,

'Infected be the air whereon they ride,

And damn'd all those that trust them!'

So that 'But no more sights' may mean, I will have no more dealings with these infernal hags [who have just been showing him a succession of sights, -apparitions; the last of which drew from him the exclamation, "Horrible sight!"]. The word 'But' seems to be out of place in connection with 'flights' and therefore we pronounce in favour of the old reading." Blackwood's Magazine for Oct. 1853, p. 461. In my opinion the word "But" makes not a little against the new lection.-1865. Mr. Grant White, in his edition of Shakespeare, prints “But no more sprites,”—most unhappily, I think.

Hanmer prints "And do not know't ourselves," and so Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector.

The folio has "thou shagge-ear'd Villaine,”—“ ear’d" being a corruption of "hear'd," which is an old spelling of "hair'd:" so in King John the folio has "vn-heard" for "unhair'd;" see note 124, vol. iv. p. 96.—Of the many examples which might be adduced of "hear" for "hair," I subjoin, "But now in dust his beard bedaubd, his hear with blood is clonge."

Phaer's Virgil's Eneidos, Book ii. sig. C vii. ed. 1584.

"We straight his burning hear gan shake, all trembling dead for dreede.", Id. sig. D v.

P. 53. (93)

"our down-fall'n birthdom :"

The folio has "our downfall Birthdome."

P. 54. (94)

"You may deserve of him through me; and wisdom
To offer up"

So Theobald. The folio has "You may discerne of him," &c.-Hanmer prints

but I see no objection to "and wisdom," an elliptical expression for "and it is wisdom."

P. 54. (95)

"But I shall crave your pardon ;"

Walker (Crit. Exam. &c. vol. i. p. 77) would read "But 'crave your pardon" (the earlier modern alteration being "I crave your pardon"); and, in the next speech of Malcolm, he would alter " 1 66 pray you" to 'Pray you :" but the latter line seems to be faulty, not from the redundant "I," but from the omission of some word or words.

"Corrected in the third folio [to 'dares']." MALONE.

The folio has "The title," &c.: but Malone's alteration of "The" to "Thy" is hardly to be doubted. Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector makes the same change.

Warburton reads "summer-teeming ;" Blackstone proposes summer-seeding;" and Mr. Staunton "summer-seaming.”

"Read Uproot.'" W. N. LETTSOM.-I believe the old reading is right.

P. 56. (100) "Died every day she lived. Fare thee well!" In my former edition I printed, with the folio, "Died every day she liv'd," at the bidding of Walker (Shakespeare's Versification, &c. p. 139), who, considering "Fare" to be used here as a dissyllable, observes, "Certainly not 'lived;' Shakespeare would as soon have made 'died' a dissyllable." But the late Mr. W. W. Williams (see The Parthenon for Nov. 1, 1862, p. 849) has since shown that Walker is wrong, by the following quotation from Julius Caesar, act iii. sc. 1;

"Thou art the ruins of the noblest man

That ever lived in the tide of times."

The folio has "they heere approach."—Corrected in the second folio.

Has been altered, most improperly, to "All ready at a point.”

"Did you say all?-O hell-kite !—All ?"

O vulture! hell-kite!-All?" Walker's Crit. Exam. &c.

P. 60. (103)

Perhaps ".

vol. ii. p. 15.

P. 60. (104)

So the second folio.-The first folio has

Bring thou,"

"But gentle Heauens,

which I should have retained, under the idea that, since we have before had "heaven" used as a plural (see note 10, vol. iv. p. 184), we might here accept "heavens" as a singular,-were it not that in Macduff's preceding

speech we have “heaven look on" and "heaven rest them now," and at the conclusion of the present speech "Heaven forgive him too!"

The folio has "This time goes manly;" which is retained by Mr. Knight. "Gifford," he says, "has shown, in a note on Massinger, that the two words were once synonymous, in a musical acceptation; and that time was the more ancient and common term." Who, except Mr. Knight, will suppose that Gifford would have defended the reading "time" in such a passage as this?

"A misprint, probably, for 'Good God," says Mr. Staunton, not being aware that such was Hanmer's reading.

P. 63. (107)

"He cannot buckle his distemper'd course"

So Walker (Crit. Exam. &c. vol. i. p. 302) and Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector. -The folio has ". his distemper'd cause," &c. (A critic in Blackwood's Magazine for Oct. 1853, p. 461, says that "'cause' fits the place perfectly well, if taken for his affairs generally, his whole system of procedure." But will the context allow us to take it in that sense?) The words "course" and “cause” are often confounded by printers: see note 162, vol. vi. p. 378.

P. 64. (108)

"This push

66

Will chair me ever, or dis-seat me now."

The folio has "Will cheere me euer, or dis-eate me now." (The second folio or disease me now.")-That "cheere" is a mistake for "chaire," I should have felt confident, even if I had never known that the latter word was substituted both by Percy and by Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector. (Chair, in the sense of throne, was very common. So in our author's King Richard III, act v. sc. 3,

"A base foul stone, made precious by the foil
Of England's chair, where he is falsely set."

So too in Peele's David and Bethsabe,

"The man of Israel that hath rul'd as king,
Or rather as the tyrant of the land,
Bolstering his hateful head upon the throne
That God unworthily hath bless'd him with,
Shall now, I hope, lay it as low as hell,
And be depos'd from his detested chair."

66

Works, p. 478, ed. Dyce, 1861.)—

Mr. Halliwell, who retains the old reading "cheer," remarks (taking “push" in its literal sense) that "a push does not usually chair a person, though it may disseat him." Does Mr. Halliwell, then, think that "a push usually cheers a person"?

66

my way of life"

P. 64. (109) Johnson and Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector would read "my May of life;" and Walker (Crit. Exam. &c. vol. ii. p. 301) says, "the true correction is undoubtedly May."-But Gifford has the following memorable remarks on this passage; "For 'way of life' Johnson would read 'May of life;' in which he is followed by Colman, Langton, Steevens, and others: and Mr. Henley, a very confident gentleman, declares that he has now no doubt that Shakespeare wrote May of life;' which is also the 'settled opinion' of Mr. Davies. At a subsequent period Steevens appears to have changed his opinion, and acquiesced in the old reading, 'way of life,' which he interprets, with Mr. M. Mason, 'course or progress,' precisely as Warburton, whom every mousing owl hawks at,' had done long before them. Mr. Malone follows the same track; and if the words had signified what he supposed them to do, nothing more would be necessary on the subject. The fact, however, is, that these ingenious writers have mistaken the phrase, which is neither more nor less than a simple periphrasis for life,' as 'way of youth' in the text [of Massinger's Very Woman] is for 'youth.' A few examples will make this clear." Gifford then cites " way of youth" from Massinger's Roman Actor, way of justice' from Beaumont and Fletcher's Thierry and Theodoret, 'way of death or life' from Shakespeare's Pericles, &c. &c. He concludes thus; "To return to Macbeth: the sere and yellow leaf is the commencement of the winter of life or of old age; to this he has attained, and he laments, in a strain of inimitable pathos and beauty, that it is unaccompanied by those blessings which render it supportable. As his manhood was without virtue, so he has now before him the certain prospect of an old age without honour." Note on Massinger's Works, vol. iv. p. 309, ed. 1813.

P. 65. (111) "Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff" Walker (Crit. Exam. &c. vol. i. p. 278) cites this passage as containing a corruption, "stuff;" but he suggests no word to supply its place.-Steevens proposed “Cleanse the foul bosom of that perilous stuff" (quoting, in support of his emendation, from As you like it, act ii. sc. 6, "Cleanse the foul body of th' infected world").—Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector changes "stuff" to "grief."-Mr. Staunton conjectures either "clogg'd bosom" or "perilous load."

So Rowe. The folio has "Cyme."-In a note on the second edition of his Shakespeare, Mr. Collier says; "The Rev. Mr. Dyce tells us ( Remarks,' p. 201) that the 'Rates of Merchandizes'. . . . contains no such drug as cyme: we should have been astonished if it had." Here I have to convict Mr. Collier of misrepresentation, -or of something more. Mr. Knight having expressed some doubts about the word "senna" in this passage, I