mine own marring. But to the purpose, and so to the venture. Be it known to you, (as it is very well,) I was lately here in the end of a displeasing play, to pray your patience for it, and to promise you a better. I did mean, indeed, to pay you with this; which, if, like an ill venture, it come unluckily home, I break, and you, my gentle creditors, lose. Here, I promised you, I would be, and here I commit my body to your mercies: bate me some, and I will pay you some, and, as most debtors do, promise you infinitely.

If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me, will you command me to use my legs? and yet that were but light payment, to dance out of your debt. But a good conscience will make any possible satisfaction, and so will I. All the gentlewomen here have forgiven me; if the gentlemen will not, then the gentlemen do not agree with the gentlewomen, which was never seen before in such an assembly.

One word more, I beseech you. If you be not too much cloyed with fat meat, our humble author will continue the story, with sir John in it, and make you merry with fair Katharine of France: where, for anything I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already he be killed with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man. My tongue is weary; when my legs are too, I will bid you good night: and so kneel down before you :—but, indeed, to pray for the queen.

VARIOUS READINGS.

"The rugged'st hour that time and spite dare bring."

Theobald introduced rugged'st, instead of ragged'st of the old copies. Mr. Collier's MS. corrections have the same reading.

(ACT I., Sc. 1.)

We find the epithet "ragged several times in Shakspere. In this play we have—

"A ragged and forestall'd remission."

It means something brokenwanting consistency and cohesion.

"A careful leader sums what force he brings
To weigh against his opposite."

The line in italic is introduced for the first time in Mr. Collier's MS. corrections. We must give the whole passage of the original, to test the value of this addition: "When we mean to build, We first survey the plot then

draw the model;

(ACT I., Sc. 3.)

This is a long speech. But is there a point dropped? Is there not the most perfect carrying out of one idea, the comparison of building a house and building a kingdom? What would an actor do with this speech, who had no great reverence for his author? He would break the long sentence into two sentences, without mucli care, so that he got a new start. And so has our "Corrector" done. He puts a full stop after "undergo," and thrusts in this line,"A careful leader sums what force he brings

"To

To weigh against his opposite."
It is a "new connecting line,"
says Mr. Collier. We say it is a
new disconnecting line.
weigh against his opposite," is to
weigh against the king's strength
opposite; and in the speech which
immediately follows Hastings

says,

Question surveyors; know our own estate,

How able such a work to undergo
To weigh against his opposite; or
else

We fortify in paper, and in figures,
Using the names of men, instead

of men;

Like one who draws the model of a house

Beyond his power to build it," &c.

"I think we are a body strong
enough,

Even as we are, to equal with
the king."

There are minor corrections in Mr.
Collier's version. In line 7,"last"
is put for "least;" in line 11, "the
plot, the situation," takes the place
of the plot of situation—a plot
meaning a plan of a site; and in
line 12,"consult" for "consent ”—
consent meaning agreement.

"A hundred mark is a long score for a poor lone woman to bear.” (ACT II., Sc. 1.)

66

The original has a hundred mark is a long one," &c. Score certainly improves the sense. The common reading is "a long loan."

But does the Hostess talk sensibly? Was there not some confusion in her mind between mark and score? Or did she not, having before said "he's an infinitive thing upon my score," advert to the word she had before uttered?

"Led on by bloody youth, guarded with rage.”

So the original. Mr. Collier's MS. has "guarded with rags."

(ACT IV., Sc. 1.)

This is unquestionably the true reading, and we willingly adopt it.

"Turning your books to graves, your ink to blood."

The original has graves. Mr.

Collier's Corrector gives glaives.

(ACT IV., Sc. 1.)

We adopt Steevens' suggestion

of greaves-armour; a word used
by Milton.

"Your pens to lances, and your tongue divine,

To a loud trumpet and report of war."

(ACT IV., Sc. 1.)

In "Waverley," we have the following passage:—

"The trumpets and kettledrums of the cavalry were next heard to perform the beautiful and wild point of war, appropriated as a signal for that piece of nocturnal duty." Of course, when Walter

1

Turning your books to greaves,

your ink to blood, Your pens to lances, and your

tongue divine

To a loud trumpet and a point of war?"

Mr. Collier says, "Here 'point of war' can have no meaning. The above ought to be printed thus, on the authority of the Corrector,

'Your tongue divine To a loud trumpet and report of

war.

Scott wrote this passage, he was
deceived by the "no-meaning" of
the common Shaksperes. Had the
word become obsolete when the
Corrector changed it to "report?'
or was the Corrector a caterer for
the public taste himself, or one who
waited upon the caterers to regis-
ter their "emendations," in all
cases where it was desirable to
popularise Shakspere, to be intel-
ligible to the ears of the ground-
lings? It was intelligible in the
days of 'Tatler.' "On a sudden
we were alarmed by the noise of
a drum, and immediately entered
my little godson, to give us a point
of war."

"And all my friends, which thou must make thy friends,
Have but their stings and teeth newly ta'en out;

By whose fell working I was first advanc'd,
And by whose power I well might lodge a fear
To be again displac'd: which to avoid,

I cut some off."

The original has "thy friends." Tyrwhitt suggested "my friends;" and so Mr. Collier's folio.

The original has "I cut them off." The substitution of some for them, was made by Mr. Mason, who says, "As the passage stands, the King is advising the Prince to make those persons his friends whom he has already cut off;" and so he reads some. The MS. Corrector has the same change.

(ACT IV., Sc. 4.)

The real meaning of the passage appears to us to have been misconceived when these changes were made. The King, in the previous line, has said,-" Thou art not firm enough." He then shows the Prince how to render himself "firm." The Prince has friends, so-called; but he must make them friends. It is not that he must accept his father's friends-my friends-but compel the friends of the house to be surely his friends, by persevering in the policy which will keep them harmless. "Their stings and teeth were the instruments "whose fell workings" advanced the King; and, to prevent their power being turned against him, he "cut them off." He ther continues his advice how to ergage them in "foreign quarrels."

"

ADDRESSED. Act IV., Sc. 4.

"Our navy is address'd."

Address'd is ready, prepared.

ANCIENT. Act II., Sc. 4. See 'Henry IV., Part I.'
AWAY. Act III., Sc. 2.

"She never could away with me."

A phrase expressive of dislike or aversion, common in Shakspere's time, and not obsolete in the time of Locke, who uses it in 'The Conduct of the Understanding.'

AWFUL. Act IV., Sc. 1.

"We come within our awful banks again."

Awful has been supposed to mean here lawful, but we think that it is used in the sense of reverential; that those now opposed to the king will return within the bounds of awe towards him when their grievances are redressed.

BEAVERS. Act IV., Sc. 1.

"Their armed staves in charge, their beavers down." Beaver is sometimes used by Shakspere for a part of the helmet, and sometimes for the helmet itself, as in 'Henry IV., Part I.' Properly it was a movable part of the covering of the lower portion of the face, while the visor covered the upper portion. Both moved upward, and when both were down the face was covered.

BUCKLE. Act I., Sc. 1.

"Like strengthless hinges, buckle under life."

Buckle here means to bend, and in the present day is used in the same sense, when speaking of a horse, whose "weaken'd joints, like strengthless hinges," are said to buckle.

CALIVER. Act III., Sc. 2.

"Put me a caliver into Wart's hand."

A caliver was a hand-gun, smaller than a musket, and fired without a rest.

CALM. Act II., Sc. 4.

"Sick of a calm."

Calm is one of Mrs. Quickly's perversions for qualm.

CANNIBALS. Act II., Sc. 4.

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Compare with Cæsars and with Cannibals."

Pistol means Hannibals; his learning is upon a par with Mrs.
Quickly's.

CHEATER. Act II., Sc. 4.

"A tame cheater, he."

The receivers of the escheats of the crown were escheators, and