Launce.—No, indeed, she did not. Here I have brought him back again.
Proteus—What! didst thou offer her this from me?
Launce.—Ay, sir, the other squirrel was stolen from me by the hangman's boys in the marketplace; and then I offered her mine own, who is a dog as big as ten of yours, and therefore the gift the greater."
The question is, whether the word "this "is better by itself, or whether it should be coupled with the word "cur," as the MS. emendator proposes. Our notion is, that the single pronoun is greatly the more expressive. "Did you offer her this" (of course pointing to the brute with an expression of indignation and abhorrence, which disdained to call him anything but this) "this!!! from me? The lady must think me mad!" In regard to the other corrections, we perceive no such force or propriety in any of them as might incline us to disturb, for their sake, the received text of "The Two Gentlemen of Verona."
The Merry Wives of Winsor.—In Act II. Scene 1, the commentators have all been gravelled by the word "an-heires," as it stands in all the early editions in the following page
"Host.—My hand, bully, thou shalt have egress and regress; said I well, and thy name shall be Brook. It is a merry knight—will you go, anheires?"
In place of this unintelligible word, various substitutes have been proposed. The MS. corrector would read—"Will you go on here?" This is very poor, and sounds to our ears very unlike the host's ordinary slang; and we have no hesitation in agreeing with Mr Dyce,[1] who gives the preference over the other readings to that of Sir John Hanmer, the editor of the Oxford edition: "Will you go on, mynheers?"—will you go on, my masters? The word is proved to have been used in England in the time of Shakespeare.
In Act II. Scene 3, this same host, who deals somewhat largely in the unknown tongue, again says—
"I will bring thee where Mistress Page is, at a farm-house feasting and thou shalt woo her. Cried game, said I well?"
This obsolete slang has puzzled the commentators sorely. Mr Dyce suggests "cried I aim," which means, it appears, "Did I give you encouragement?"—(vide Singer, p. 7.) We confess ourselves incompetent to form an opinion, except to this extent, that Mr Collier's corrector, who proposes "curds and cream," seems to us to have made the worst shot of any that have been fired.[2]
In Act IV. Scene I, we rather think that the MS. corrector is right in changing "let" into "get," in the following passage: "How now," says Mrs Page to Sir Hugh Evans the schoolmaster; "How now, Sir Hugh?—no school to-day?" "No," answers Sir Hugh; "Master Slender is let (read get) the boys leave to play." In Sir Hugh's somewhat Celtic dialect, he is get the boys a holiday.
In the following passage, Act IV. Scene 6, the received text is this—
" Simple.—I would I could have spoken with the woman herself. I had other things to have spoke with her, too, from him."
Falstaff.—What are they?—let us know.
Host.—Ay, come; quick.
Simple.—I may not conceal them, sir.
Falstaff.— Conceal them, or thou diest."
Good Dr Farmer thought that, in both instances, we should read "reveal"—not perceiving that the humour of the dialogue (such as it is) consists in reading "conceal," and in understanding "reveal." But the MS. emendator, with an innocence beyond even Dr Farmer's, would alter the passage thus-—
" Falstaff.—What are they?—let us know.
Host.—Ay, come quick.
Falstaff.—You may not conceal them, sir.
Host.—Conceal them, and thou diest."
- ↑ A Few Notes on Shakespeare, &c., p. 22.
- ↑ This expression, "to cry aim," occurs, in a serious application, in the following lines from "King John," Act II. Scene. 1:—
"K. Philip.—Peace, lady; pause or be more temperate:
It ill beseems this presence, to cry aim
To these ill-tuned repetitions"—
that is, to give encouragement to these ill-tuned wranglings.
