"York. The king is come: deal mildly with his youth; For young hot colts, being rag'd do rage the more." Ritson substituted rein'd for "rag'd," and Mr. Collier's folio has urg'd. Mr. Singer gives preference to the former word, which is certainly much the better suited to the sense of the context. But why change the original? Is it not perfectly comprehensible and quite in Shakespeare's manner? York begs Gaunt to "deal mildly" with the young king, not to irritate or enrage him; because "Young hot colts being rag'd, do rage the more." ACT III. SCENE 2. "Scroop. -and boys, with women's voices, As a specimen of the fitness of the editors and critics of the last century for their task, I cannot forbear quoting the following comments upon this passage: "and clap their female joints-] Mr. Pope more elegantly reads and clasp-;' which has been adopted by subsequent editors. But the emendation does not seem absolutely necessary." "Clip would be still nearer than clasp." MALONE. RITSON. "Lee, in his Mithridates, has imitated this passage, Act IV.: "The very boys, like Cupids dress'd in arms, Clap their young harness'd thighs, and trust to battle." STEEVENS. Here we have four learned men, one of them a distinguished poet, unable to apprehend the graphic colloquialism of Scroop's relation, that boys were clapping their girlish limbs into armor, to fight against the king. Steevens' grave statement that Lee imitated this passage, in saying that boys clapped their thighs, has more food for laughter in it than most of his jokes have. SCENE 4. Queen. And I could sing, would weeping do me good, Pope changed "sing," which is the reading of all the old copies, into weep, and he has been followed by all his successors, except Mr. Knight. Why? The Queen's attendant offers to sing, and, the Queen replying that she would rather that she should weep, answers, "I could weep, madam, would it do you good." The Queen rejoins, that, 'if weeping were of any service she had wept enough to be able to sing herself.' Thus plainly says the text; and what reason is there for changing it ? Thus the authentic folio; but all the editors give "O, forfend it." Why? Because, Mr. Knight says, “we cling to the less common word." Of course we do. Is there "Good phra But not Mr. Justice Shallow's authority for it? ses are surely, and ever were, very commendable." Shakespeare had no respect for less common words, as such; and so he makes the Bishop say "forbid," even in the solemn opening of this speech. There is not a single instance in his authentic works, in which he uses 'forfend.' Unlike his editors, he clings to the more common word. KING HENRY IV. PART I. ACT I. SCENE 1. "K. Hen. No more the thirsty entrance of this soil Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood." "The thirsty entrance of this soil," has given much trouble to the editors and critics, who perpetrate three pages of comment and conjecture upon it, in the Variorum Edition. Monck Mason's ingenious substitution of Erinnys for "entrance," is set aside by Boswell, Knight, and Collier. Steevens, Mason and Knight quote Virgil, Lucan, and Ovid in favor of the correction. The following lines, from an English contemporary and townsman of Shakespeare, seem to me to be much more to the purpose: "Spightfull ERINNIS frights Me with her Lookes, I quake to looke on HECAT's charming Bookes," &c. Drayton's Sonnets, No. 39. Ed. 1619. These sonnets were first published in 1594, under the title Idea's Mirrour, Amours in Quatorzains: The first part of Henry IV. was written in 1596 or 1597. This, to show that Shakespeare was not obliged to go to Lucan, Virgil, or Ovid for the name or the functions of Erinnys. But there is not the slightest justification for a change in the original text. Steevens perceived the obvious meaning, but true to the spirit of his day, shirked it. He says:"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." Nothing could be plainer or more pertinent. "K. Hen. Ten thousand bold Scots, two and twenty knights Balk'd in their own blood, did Sir Walter see On Holmedon's plains." How can there be the least hesitation in changing the obvious misprint "balk'd" for bath'd, which is at once the word for which it would be most easily mistaken, and that which would most naturally occur in the passage? SCENE 3. "Northum. Why, what a wasp-stung and impatient fool Art thou, to break into this woman's mood," &c. This, the reading of the first quarto, seems to me unquestionably the true one. The later editions give wasptongue instead of "wasp-stung; " a phrase, which in this place, seems to me to be utterly without meaning, but which is construed by Malone to mean "having a tongue as peevish and mischievous as a wasp." But this makes the Earl call his son "a wasp-tongue and an impatient fool," which is not a Shakesperian or an admissible mode of joining epithets. The advocates of wasp-tongue evidently suppose it, as well as "impatient," to be an adjective belong |