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tion "[To the Guard below:" but by "sirs" Cleopatra means Charmian and Irasin act v. sc. 2, she says, "Sirrah Iras, go." That in former days women were frequently so addressed, is proved by numerous passages of our old writers: e. g. in Beaumont and Fletcher's Coxcomb, act iv. sc. 3, the Mother says to Viola, Nan, and Madge,

"Sirs, to your tasks, and show this little novice

How to bestir herself," &c.;

and presently after, Nan and Madge call each other "Sirrah." Again, in A King and no King, by the same dramatists, act ii. sc. 1, we find

"Spa. I do beseech you, madam, send away

Your other women, and receive from me

A few sad words, which, set against your joys,
May make 'em shine the more.

Pan. Sirs, leave me all.

[Exeunt Waiting-women."

P. 584. (194)

"Being so frustrate, tell him he mocks

The pauses that he makes."

Here Hanmer printed "Being so frustrate, tell him he but mocks," &c.; Steevens conjectured that either "frustrate" should be changed to “frustrated," or that we might read "Being so frustrate, tell him that he mocks," &c. (Capell gave "frustrated," and Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector inserts "that"); while Malone's alteration is,

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Walker (Shakespeare's Versification, &c. p. 9) says, "Can a good sense be made out of the original reading? the play of words seems a very strong argument in its favour; indeed, it seems impossible that this should be accidental :" and he cites the following examples of “frustrate” used as a trisyllable;

"The law that should take away your old wife from you,

The which I do perceive was your desire,

Is void and frustrate; so for the rest :

There has been since another parliament

Has cut it off."

Massinger, Middleton, and W. Rowley's Old Lan,—
Massinger's Works, iv. 573, ed. Gifford, 1813.

"Confirm his banishment with our hands and seals.
Lan. What we confirm the king will frustrate.
Y. Mor. Then may we lawfully revolt from him."
Marlowe's Edward 11.,-Works, p. 187, ed. Dyce, 1858.

P. 584. (195)

"A greater crack: the round world

Should have shook lions into civil streets," &c.

Something would certainly seem to have dropped out here.—Hanmer printed "A greater crack in nature: the round world," &c.-Theobald altered the arrangement of the lines, and "in" to "Into," thus ;

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"A greater crack: the round world should have shook
Lions into civil streets, and citizens

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So the second folio.-The first folio omits "a."-In the preceding act "tidings" has occurred as a noun singular; "this tidings," p. 579.

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The folio has "Dol. ;" and it prefixes "Dola." to the next speech but one.

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Altered by Rowe (and Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector) to "Weigh'd." — The second folio has "Way."

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Walker (Crit. Exam. &c. vol. iii. p. 311) proposes to add "What?"—Capell

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The folio has “leaue;" which Southern (in his copy of the fourth folio) and Pope altered to "live."-I adopt the correction made by Tyrwhitt in his copy of the second folio in the British Museum.

P. 586. (202)

"Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, and IRAS." When the play was originally acted, they no doubt entered here (as in scene xv. of the preceding act) on what was called the upper-stage: but how the business of the present scene was managed after the seizure of Cleopatra, I cannot pretend to determine.

P. 586. (203)

"and never palates more the dug, The beggar's nurse and Cæsar's."

So Warburton (and Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector).-The folio has

"and neuer pallates more the dung, The beggers," &c. ;

which is the usual modern text, "dung" being explained "gross and terrene sustenance;" while we are told that "The beggar's nurse and Cæsar's" means "Death."-To me the word "nurse" is almost alone sufficient evidence that “dung” is a transcriber's or printer's mistake for "dug;” which was the more liable to be corrupted, as it was formerly often spelt “dugge”

(so the folio has, in Romeo and Juliet, act i. sc. 3, "on the nipple of my Dugge").-The sense I conceive to be, "and never more palates that dug which affords nourishment as well to the beggar as to Cæsar."-Johnson observes; "The difficulty of the passage, if any difficulty there be, arises only from this, that the act of suicide, and the state which is the effect of suicide, are confounded."

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The folio has "Pro. ;" which the editor of the second folio altered to "Char."

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This stage-direction (founded on North's Plutarch) is by Malone.

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Hanmer alters "necessary" to "accessary;" and so Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector (between whom and Hanmer there is frequently an unaccountable agreement).

P. 588. (207)

"Lay me stark-nak'd, and let the water-flies" Here"nak'd" is generally altered to "naked," though the author evidently used the word as a monosyllable: and so it was often used by his contemporaries; e.g.

"Good Menelaus slew

Accomplisht Thoas, in whose breast (being nak`d) his lance he threw, Aboue his shield, and freed his soule."

Chapman's Homer,-Iliad, B. xvi. p. 224, ed. fol. "Stript nak't her bosome, shew'd her breasts," &c. Id. B. xxii. p. 300.

P. 588. (208) "And he hath sent me for thee: for the queen,"

I proposed this correction in a note on my former edition, and before the appearance of Walker's Crit. Exam. &c., in which (vol. i. p. 8 and vol. iii. p. 311) the same correction is suggested.-The folio omits " me."-The editor of the second folio printed" And he hath sent for thee: as for the Queene."

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Theobald's correction.-The folio has "An Anthony it was."

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So Tyrwhitt in his copy of the second folio in the British Museum, Capell, and Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector, Barron Field, and Walker (Crit. Exam, &c. vol. iii. p. 311).—The folio has "suites."

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The folio has "seele my lippes;" and several editors have retained "seel," understanding it to mean-close up my lips as effectually as the eyes of a hawk are closed,-to seel hawks being a technical term :-so in p. 560 of this play we have "the wise gods seel our eyes," &c. But here the spelling of the folio goes for little in King Lear, act iv. sc. 6, the folio has "the power to seale th' accusers lips ;" and in The Sec. Part of Henry VI, act i. sc. 2, "Seale vp yours Lips," &c.

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"I suppose, means here tame, subdued by adversity." MALONE. - Walker (Crit. Exam, &c. vol. ii. p. 300) would read "weak;" which Pope gave.

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Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector substitutes "Ye gods!" which Mr. Singer adopts in his Shakespeare, 1856.—But compare "O me, the gods," Coriolanus, act ii. sc. 3; "O the gods!" Troilus and Cressida, act iv. sc. 2, Coriolanus, act iv. sc. 1, Cymbeline, act i. sc. 1; “O the blest gods!" King Lear, act ii. sc. 4; and "O the good gods!" in the present play, p. 593.

P. 592. (216)

"the cinders of my spirits

Through th' ashes of my chance :"

Walker cites this passage with the reading "my spirit" (rightly perhaps); and bids us read "change" for "chance." Crit. Exam, &c. vol. iii. p. 312.— Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector also reads " my spirit," but alters". to "mischance," as Hanmer does.

my chance"

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Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector reads "And therefore to be pitied;" very unnecessarily. In the last clause of a sentence Shakespeare (like other old writers) sometimes omits "and."

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Qy. "prison"?-Johnson says, "I once wished to read 'poison';" which Hanmer had printed.

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The folio has "mine Nailes."-Corrected in the second folio.

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Altered by Theobald to "Their most assur'd intents;" so too Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector." I have preserved the old reading. The design certainly appeared absurd enough to Cleopatra, both as she thought it unreasonable in itself, and as she knew it would fail." JOHNSON.

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See note 193. (Nearly all the modern editors wrongly put a comma between these words.)

P. 595. (222)

[Kisses them. Iras falls and dies."

A modern stage-direction.—“ Iras must be supposed to have applied an asp to her arm while her mistress was settling her dress, or I know not why she should fall so soon." STEEVENS,

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The folio has " In this wilde World?"—The correction was made by Capell, who saw (what is plain enough) that "vilde" had been by mistake transformed into "wilde." (The folio, with its usual inconsistency of spelling, has in some places “vild” and “vilde,”-in others “vile.”)

1865. Here, in the second edition of his Shakespeare, Mr. Collier observes; "The epithet is 'wild' in all the early editions, and there is not the slightest pretext for altering it to the commonplace phrase, 'In this vile world,' as has been done under the supposition that vile having been of old often misprinted vilde (a form to which the Rev. Mr. Dyce strangely adheres), it was in this place mistaken for 'wild.' Charmian might well call the world' wild,' desert, and savage, after the deaths of Antony, Cleopatra, and others whom she loved. If any change were made, we should prefer here wide to vile; but in truth it is an offence against all just rules of criticism to attempt an emendation where none is required. Rowe properly retained wild world.'"

.....

On the above note I have to remark;

First, That I no longer "adhere" to the old spelling vild: see both my former and my present edition of Shakespeare passim.

Secondly, That the passages in early books where vild (i. e. vile) is misprinted wild are so very numerous, that there can be no doubt of the same error having been committed in the passage now under consideration. We meet with the following examples in the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher; "I will not lose a word

To this wild [read vild=vile] woman," &c.

The Maid's Tragedy, act iii. sc. 1. "that now dares say

I am a stranger, not the same, more wild [read vild = vile]," &c. The Faithful Shepherdess, act iv. sc. 4. "To do these wild [so the first 4to, the later 4tos rild, folio 1679 vile] unmanly things."

The Scornful Lady, act iii. sc. 1.

"Or am I of so wild [read vild=vile] and low a blood," &c.

The Little French Lawyer, act iii. sc. 5. Thirdly, That "vile world," which Mr. Collier terms a commonplace phrase," occurs in a passage of The Sec. Part of King Henry VI. act v. sc. 2,-a passage which (as it is not found in The First Part of the Contention, &c.) we may confidently ascribe to Shakespeare ;

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