worse than far-fetched—itis ludicrously despicable. Conceive Shakespeare saying that "a parcel of drouthy Frenchmen shall no more daub the lips of England with the blood of her own children"! What renders this reading all the more inexcusable is, that Steevens perceived what the true and obvious meaning was, although he had not the steadiness to stand to it. He adds—"or Shakespeare may mean the thirsty entrance of the soil for the porous surface of the earth through which all moisture enters, and is thirstily drunk or soaked up." Shakespeare's words cannot by any possibility mean anything except this. "Porous surface," as must be obvious to all mankind, is the exact literal prose of the more poetical phrase, "thirsty entrance." Yet obvious as this interpretation is, Malone remained blind to it, even after Steevens had pointed it out. He prefers Steevens' first emendation. He says, "Mr Steevens' conjecture (that is, his suggestion of entrants for entrance) is so likely to be true, that I have no doubt about the propriety of admitting it into the text." In spite, however, of these vagaries, we believe that the right reading, as given above, has kept its place in the ordinary editions of Shakespeare. This instance may show that our MS. corrector is not the only person whose wits have gone a-woolgathering when attempting to mend the language of Shakespeare.
Before returning to Mr Collier's corrector, we wish to make another digression, in order to propose a new reading—one, at least, which is new to ourselves, and not to be found in the variorum edition 1785. The king says, in reference to the rising in the north, which has been triumphantly put down—
"Ten thousand bold Scots,—two-and-twenty knights,
Balked in their own blood, did Sir Walter see
On Holmedon's plains."
For "balked" Stevens conjectured either "bathed" or "baked." War-ton says that balk is a ridge, and that therefore "balked in their own blood" means "piled up in a ridge, and in their own blood." Tollet says, "'balked in their own blood,' I believe, means, lay in heaps; or hillocks in their own blood. We propose—
"Ten thousand bold Scots,—two-and-twenty knights,
Bark'd in their own blood, did Sir Walter see
On Holmedon's plains."
"Barked," that is, coated with dry and hardened blood, as a tree is coated with bark. This is picturesque. To bark or barken is undoubtedly an old English word; and in Scotland, even at this day, it is not uncommon to hear the country people talk of blood barkening, that is, hardening, upon a wound.
Act I. Scene 3.—The following line present a difficulty which the commentators—and among them our anonymous scholiast—have not been very successful in clearing up. The king, speaking in reference to the revolted Mortimer and his accomplices, says—
"Shall we buy treason, and indent with fears,
When they have lost and forfeited them-selves?
No, on the barren mountains let him starve."
There is no difficulty in regard to the word "indent;" it means, to enter into a compact—to descend, as Johnson says, to a composition. But what is the meaning of" to indent, or enter into a compact, with fears"? Johnson suggests "with peers"—that is, with the noblemen who have lost and forfeited themselves. But this is a very unsatisfactory and improbable reading. The MS. corrector proposes "with foes;" and Mr Collier remarks, "it seems strange that, in the course of two hundred and fifty years, nobody should ever have even guessed at foes for fears." It is much more strange that Mr Collier should be ignorant that "foes" is the reading of the Oxford editor, Sir Thomas Hanmer—a reading which was long ago condemned. Mr Singer adheres rightly to the received text; but he is wrong in his explanation of the word "fears." He says that it means "objects of fear." But surely the king can never have regarded Mortimer and his associates as objects of fear. He had a spirit above that. He had no dread of them. Steevens is very nearly right when he says that the word "fears" here means terrors: he would have been quite right had he said that it signifies cowardice, or rather, by a poetical licence, "cowards"—(fearers, if there were such a word.) The meaning is, shall we buy treason, and enter into a
