In other words, Troilus says of Cressida's hand, that ‘to its soft clasp and exquisite sensibility, the cygnet's down is as harsh and hard as the hand of a ploughman.' SCENE 2. "Cres. Achievement is command: ungain'd beseech." Incomprehensible is the tampering of the editors with this very plain, thought not very accurately constructed line in the original. Mr. Collier's MS. folio makes it, "Achiev'd men still command; ungain'd, beseech." Mr. Collier himself would read, “Achiev'd men us command; ungain'd, beseech," and Mr. Harness and Mr. Singer are with him. But consider the context, and it is obvious that not only is no change needed, but that these proposed changes make Cressida say what she did not mean to say: -"more in Troilus a thousand fold I see, Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing: Men prize the thing ungain'd more than it is: That she was never yet, that ever knew Who can read this and hesitate a moment as to the signification, which Steevens thus correctly, but, me judice, most superfluously, explained ?—“ Men after possession become our commanders; before it, they are our suppliants." Upon this line Mr. Singer remarks, "The line being in italics, with inverted commas in the old copies, is evidently a quotation." Not "evidently;" and not at all. Mr. Dyce has conclusively shown, in his remarks upon a note of Mr. Knight's upon Polonius' advice to Laertes (Hamlet, Act I. Sc. 3), that maxims, apophthegms, &c., i. e. the gnomic portions of dramas and poems, used to be printed in inverted commas. Mr. Dyce quotes instances from several plays and poems contemporaneous with Shakespeare, and to these numberless others might be added. I will point out but one, which is in Shakespeare's own works; and which is of such a nature, and occurs in such a situation, that it incontestably is the production of Shakespeare, and was written for the passage in which it appears. In Measure for Measure, Act II. Sc. 4, within two lines of the conclusion of her soliloquy after her ineffectual attempt to turn Angelo from his purpose against her brother's life and her honor, Isabella exclaims: the last line of which being a moral sentiment, the passage appears thus in the original: Then Isabel liue chaste, and brother, die "More then our Brother, is our chastitie." Italic letters and quotation marks were used convertibly and sometimes together for this purpose; and the practice obtained even at a late day. To a misunderstanding of it, is doubtless due the opinion that Sterne's beautiful thought, "God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb," is a quotation. That apophthegm is printed in the first and few subsequent editions of Sterne's Sentimental Journey, in italic letters; but only to mark it, according to custom, as an apophthegm. Cressida's "Achievement is command," &c., is printed in italic letters and quotation marks, because, as she herself says, it is a “maxim.” Doth valour's show, and valour's worth divide, Than by the Tiger: but when the splitting wind Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks, And flies fled under shade. Why, then, the thing of courage, As rous'd with rage, with rage doth sympathize, And, with an accent tun'd in self-same key, The original gives the hemistich "Retires to chiding fortune," an obvious misprint. Pope suggested returns, which is the generally received reading. Hanmer's proposal, replies, which is also that of Mr. Collier's folio, seems much more consonant with the spirit of the passage. But Mr. Dyce, in his recently published Few Notes &c., p. 107, asks "did not Shakespeare write' Retorts to chiding fortune?"" Unquestionably, in my judgment. The conjecture seems to me to be one of the best among the many good, which have received the sanction of the taste, learning and discrimination of that gentleman. "Returns" is tame and meagre as applied to "to the thing of courage, roused with rage; " especially after the vigorous preceding lines. About four years ago it occurred to me that retorts was the only word in the language, which would at once. worthily fill the place and correct with probability the typographical error; and it has been upon the margin of my Shakespeare since that time. Having Mr. Dyce's support I do not hesitate to say that it should be received into the text. I cannot allow another change proposed by Mr. Singer in this Scene to pass unchallenged, in spite of its speciousness and seeming unimportance. Ulysses says, "And therefore is the glorious planet Sol In noble eminence enthron'd and spher'd Mr. Singer would read, "Amidst the ether," and says, "Amidst the other,' is surely not what the poet wrote. The classical reader will be reminded of a passage in the Somnium Scipionis: Medium fere regionem SoL obtinet, dux et princeps, et moderator luminum reliquiorum, mens mundi, et temperator,' &c.; and of the lines of Lucretius on Epicurus, which have been applied to Shakespeare: 'Qui genus humanum superavit et omneis Restinxit, stellas exortus uti ætherius SoL.'" Text of Shakespeare Vindicated, p. 192. But, in spite of Mr. Singer and his quotations, the context shows that "amidst the other" is exactly what the poet did write. Ulysses is enforcing his opinion that Troy "had been down And the great Hector's sword hath lack'd a master But for these instances. The speciality of rule hath been neglected," &c. He goes on to show the necessity of subordination: "The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre, Insisture, course, proportion, season, form, And therefore is the glorious planet Sol -the other planets, of course; for, he continues, "whose med'cinable eye Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil And posts like the commandment of a king, It is not Sol's place in the ether, but his supremacy "amidst the other" heavenly bodies, which Ulysses wishes to impress upon his hearers. The tenor of his entire speech shows this, beyond a question. Mr. Singer's quotations, too, are singularly unfortunate; for the first shows Sol as dux et princeps," and the second asserts that "genus humanum superavit." This may seem like wasting much labor on a trifle; but I am anxious to show that nothing is to be gained by changing the original text when it is comprehensible. The same remark will apply to Mr. Singer's proposal to read pace for "place" in the following lines from Nestor's approving comment on the third speech of Ulysses in this Scene: "Ajax is grown self willed, and bears his head As broad Achilles: " -and again to his proposing, |