VARIOUS READINGS.

"Than Julius Cæsar, or bright Cassiope." (ACT I., Sc. 1.)

This is the reading of the MS. Corrector.

Pope suggested (the notion looks like a joke) to fill up the line thus:

"Than Julius Cæsar, or bright Francis Drake ;"

and Monck Mason gravely upholds the reading. Johnson

read

would

'Than Julius Cæsar, or bright

Berenice."

In the original the line is ter minated with four hyphens, thus (----), a point which is several times used in the same play to mark an interrupted speech.

"He being in the rearward, plac'd behind,

With purpose to relieve and follow them." (ACT I., Sc. 1.)

The original has vaward-the

van.

It is possibly a misprint.

Steevens and Monck Mason explain the passage in the following manner:-"When an army is attacked in the rear, the van becomes the rear in its turn, and of course the reserve."

"For I will touch thee but with reverent hands,

And lay them gently on thy tender side.

I kiss these fingers for eternal peace."

Suffolk exhorts Margaret not to fear, or fly.

The original reading continues: "For I will touch thee but with

reverent hands.

I kiss these fingers for eternal

peace,

And lay them gently on thy tender side."

Capell suggested the reading which is usually followed; and the transposition of the lines is

Suffolk says

(ACT V., Sc. 3.)

"Do not fear, nor fly;

For I will touch thee but with reverent hands."

He then adds, kissing the lady's fingers,

"I kiss these fingers for eternal

peace,

And lay them gently on thy tender side,"

accompanying the words by a cor responding action. He takes the

found in the MS. Corrections. Malone says, that by the original reading, "Suffolk is made to kiss his own fingers, a symbol of peace, of which there is, I believe, no example."

lady's hand, but, instead of seizing it as the hand of a prisoner, he replaces it, having kissed it, on her tender side.

"Speak, Winchester, for boiling choler chokes

The hollow passage of my poison'd voice." (ACT V., Sc. 4.)

The above is the reading of the original.

Pope suggested prison'd, which is also found in the MS. correc tions. It is a decided emendation.

A-mort is dejected, dispirited. See Taming of the Shrew.' APPREHENSION. Act II., Sc. 4.

"To scourge you for this apprehension."

Apprehension is opinion-for apprehending it thus.

BALEFUL. Act V., Sc. 4.

"By sight of these our baleful enemies."

Bale is grief, trouble, mischief. Baneful is now generally used.

BLOOD. Act IV., Sc. 2.

"If we be English deer, be then in blood."

In blood was a term of the chace, for the deer in full vigour. BREAK. Act I., Sc. 3.

"Break up the gates."

To break up is to open. In the Winter's Tale' (Act III. Sc. 2), speaking of a letter, we have "break up the seals and read;" and in Hall's 'Chronicle,' he says the Kentish-men "brake up the gates of the King's Bench and Marshalsea."

CENSURE. Act II., Sc. 3, and Act V., Sc. 5.

"To give their censure of these rare reports." Act V., Sc. 5.

"If you do censure me by what you were."

To censure is to give an opinion, to judge, though now usually implying to find fault with, to reprove.

CHEER. Act I., Sc. 2.

"Methinks your looks are sad, your cheer appall'd." Cheer is countenance.

"As cognizance of my blood-drinking hate." Cognizance is the badge by which he might be known. COLOURS. Act II., Sc. 4.

"I love no colours; and, without all colour."

Colours is here used ambiguously for deceit; as in 'Love's Labour's Lost (Act IV., Sc. 2), "I do fear colourable colours."

CONSENTED. Act I., Sc. 1.

"That have consented unto Henry's death!"

Malone thinks that consented is here used in its ordinary sense, as also in the 5th Scene of this Act

"You all consented unto Salisbury's death."

But Steevens, and we think he is right, believes that the word should be spelt concented. To concent is to be in harmonyto act together. See 'Henry V.,' Act I., Sc. 2.

"I fear there is conveyance."

Conveyance is a term for theft. In the Merry Wives of Windsor' (Act I., Sc. 3) we have-" Convey, the wise it call."

COURT OF GUARD. Act II., Sc. 1.

"Let us have knowledge at the court of guard."

The court of guard is the place where a guard is held, in which the guard-room is situated, and not the guard-room itself, as Steevens explains it.

DISEASE. Act II., Sc. 5.

"And, in that ease, I'll tell thee my disease." Disease, in the sense of uneasiness, un-ease.

DUE. Act IV., Sc. 2.

"That I, thy enemy, due thee withal."

Due is to pay as due, to endue.

ESPIALS. Act I., Sc. 4.

66

The prince's espials have informed me.”

Espials are spies.

EXEMPT. Act II., Sc. 4.

"Corrupted, and exempt from ancient gentry?” Exempt, in the sense of excluded.

EXIGENT. Act II., Sc. 5.

"As drawing to their exigent."

Exigent, used in the sense of end.

FANCY. Act V., Sc. 3.

"Yet so my fancy may be satisfied."

Fancy is here used by Shakspere, as in several other passages,

for love.

GIGLOT. Act IV., Sc. 7.

"To be the pillage of a giglot wench."

Giglot is a strumpet or wanton. Shakspere has used it in this sense in Measure for Measure,' and in Cymbeline;' and Chaucer under the form of gigges.

GIMMERS. Act I., Sc. 2.

"I think, by some odd gimmers or device.

Gimmer is used here for some mechanical contrivance. Bishop Hall uses the word in the same sense :-" When I saw my precious watch taken asunder.. so as here lay a wheel, there the balance, here one gimmer, there another; straight my ignorance was ready to think when and how will all these ever piece together again in their former order?"

GIRD. Act III., Sc. 1.

"The bishop hath a kindly gird."

A kindly gird is a reproof or reproach given in kindness. In 'Coriolanus' (Act I., Sc. 1), we have—

"Being moved, he will not spare to gird the gods."

HAUGHTY. Act III., Sc. 3.

"These haughty words of hers."

Haughty is used in the sense of lofty, spirited. In Act IV.,
Sc. 1, it is used in the same sense-

"Valiant and virtuous, full of haughty courage."

HEAVENS. Act I., Sc. 1.

"Hung be the heavens with black."

As the covering, or internal roof, of the theatre was anciently termed the heavens, it has been supposed that this is an allusion to it; and Mr. Whiter maintains that several of

the poetical images of Shakspere are derived from this association.

ILL. Act II., Sc. 5.

"Or make my ill the advantage of my good."

Ill is here used for ill-usage.

IMMANITY. Act V., Sc. 1.

"That such immanity and bloody strife."

Immanity, says Phillips, is "savageness, wildness, outrageous cruelty."

INKHORN. Act III., Sc. 1.

"To be disgraced by an inkhorn mate."

An "inkhorn mate" is a pedant. Wilson, in his 'Art of Rhetoric' (1553), describes one as using "inkhorn terms."

LIES. Act II., Sc. 2.

"To visit her poor castle where she lies."

Lies is used in the sense of dwells.

LITHER. Act IV., Sc. 7.

"Winged through the lither sky."

Lither is here used for soft or pliant, from lithe, but this form of the adjective is not common. Lither is used by Chaucer for wicked.

LOWTED. Act IV., Sc. 3.

"And I am lowted by a traitor villain."

A lowt was a mean unmannerly fellow, and Malone thinks the term here means, "I am treated with contempt like a lowt." MAD. Act V., Sc. 3.

"Mad, natural graces that extinguish art."

The epithet mad, as Steevens thinks, is here used for wild; perhaps rather capricious.

MISCONSTER. Act II., Sc. 3.

"Be not dismay'd, fair lady; nor misconster."

Misconster is the word of the original folio, but it is usually printed misconstrue, which it undoubtedly means. Phillips in his World of Words,' has "To construe or conster-to interpret or expound;" and in the quarto edition of 'Othello' (Act IV., Sc. 1), we have

"And his unbookish jealousy must conster."

MISER. Act V., Sc. 4.

"Decrepit miser; base ignoble wretch."

Miser is here used in the sense of wretch, miserable creature.