safest haste" are addressed, is allowed ten days to take herself off in.
Act II. Scene 3.—When Orlando, speaking of his unnatural brother, in whose hands he expresses his determination to place himself, rather than take to robbing on the highway, says,
"I will rather subject me to the malice
Of a diverted blood, and bloody brother,"
the language is so strikingly Shakesperian, that nothing but the most extreme obtuseness can excuse the MS. corrector's perverse reading—
"Of a diverted, proud, and bloody brother."
"Diverted blood," says Dr Johnson, means "blood turned out of the course of nature;" and there cannot be a finer phrase for an unnatural kinsman.
Act II. Scene 7.—The following passage is obviously corrupt. Jacques, inveighing against the pride of going finely dressed, says—
"Doth it not flow as hugely as the sea,
Till that the very very means do ebb?"
The MS. correction is—
"Till that the very means of 'wear do ebb."
Mr Singer suggests, "Till that the wearer's very means do ebb." The two meanings are the same: people, carried away by pride, dress finely, until their means are exhausted. But Mr Singer keeps nearest to the old text.
Act III. Scene 4.—"Capable impressure" must be vindicated as the undoubted language of Shakespeare, against the MS. corrector, Mr Collier, and Mr Singer, all of whom would advocate "palpable impressure."
"Lean but on a rush
The cicatrice and capable impressure,
Thy palm a moment keeps."
"Capable impressure" means an indentation in the palm of the hand sufficiently deep to contain something within it.
Act IV. Scene 1.—Both the MS. corrector and Mr Collier have totally misunderstood Rosalind, when she says. "Marry, that should you, or I should think my honesty ranker than my wit." The meaning, one would think, is sufficiently obvious.
Act V. Scene 4.—And equally obvious is the meaning of the following line, which requires no emendation. Orlando says that he is
"As those who fear they hope, and know they fear."
That is, he is as those who fear that they are feeding on mere hope—hope which as not to end in fruition—and who are certain that they fear or apprehend the worst:—a painful state to be in. The marginal correction, "As those who fear to hope, and know they fear," is nonsense.
The Taming of the Shrew.— Induction. Scene 1.—We agree with the margins in thinking that the following line requires to be amended, by the insertion of "what" or "who." In the directions given about the tricks to be played off on Sly, it is said—
"And when he says he is, say that he dreams."
The MS. corrector reads, properly as we think—
"And when he says what he is, say that he dreams."
Scene 2.—There is something very feasible in the corrector's gloss on the word "sheer-ale." For "sheer" he writes "Warwickshire," and we have no doubt that "shire (pronounced sheer) "is the true reading.
Act I. Scene 1.—One of the happiest and most undoubted emendations in Mr Collier's folio, and one which, in his preface, he wisely places in the front of his case, now comes before us—"ethics" for "checks," in thee lines in which Tranio gives advice to his muter Lucentio—
"Let's be so stoics, nor no stocks, I ray,
Or so devote to Aristotle's checks,
As Ovid be an outcast quite abjured."
We have no hesitation in condemning "checks" as a misprint for "ethics," which from this time henceforward we hope to see the universal reading. It is surprising that it should not have become so long ago, having been proposed by Sir W. Blackstone nearly a hundred years since, and staring every recent editor in the face from among the notes of the variorum Mr Singer alone had the good taste to print it in his text of 1826.
Lotus bore bestow a passing com-
