For the last line, it is proposed to read,

“To make transgression bitter.'

But wonder at the hopeless obtuseness which could propose such a change, is lost in amazement at the reason which Mr. Collier gives for receiving it; which is, that “it was not oppression, but crime that was to be punished by" Hamlet. When such a veteran critic as Mr. Collier cannot see that Hamlet thought himself "a peasant slave,' "a dull and muddy mettl'd rascal," "a coward," and "pigeon-livered," because he lacked the gall which would make oppression bitter to himself-when Mr. Collier does not see this, what can we hope from the learning and devotion of any Shakesperian critic ?

In Cymbeline, Mr. Collier's corrector proposes a change of ludicrous tameness. Imogen, impatient to meet Posthumus, exclaims, "O for a horse with wings!" and, when Pisanio tells her that twenty miles a day is as much as she can accomplish, says,

"I have heard of riding wagers,

Where horses have been nimbler than the sands
That run i' the clock's behalf."

The MS. corrector makes Imogen speak of horses

"nimbler than the sands

That run i' the clock's, by half." !

Mr. Collier remarks that Imogen adds, "But this is foolery,' in reference, perhaps, to her own simile." Such might well have been the case were her simile that which Mr. Collier's folio would put into her mouth; but, as Shakespeare wrote the passage, she calls it "foolery" to stand talking of the speed of horses, when they should be using them. She says,

"But this is foolery,

Go bid my woman feign a sickness; say

She'll home to her father: and provide me, presently,
A riding suit," &c.

The most remarkable change made in Mr. Collier's folio, occurs in this play, in the fourth scene of Act III. Imogen, wounded to the quick at her husband's suspicion of her chastity, supposes that he has been seduced away from her by some Italian courtesan, and exclaims,

"Some jay of Italy,

Whose mother was her painting, hath betray'd him."

The figure in the second line is so very bold,-violent perhaps, that it is not apprehended at once by all readers; and this seems to have been the case with Mr. Collier's corrector, who changes the passage to,

"Some jay of Italy

Who smothers her with painting," &c.

The similarity of sound between the two phrases, and the simple statement of fact contained in the latter, have caused this emendation to be received with great favor by some readers of Shakespeare, and to be regarded by them as a strong evidence of the value of the volume in which it occurs. But it should be remarked that a change of the passage is not absolutely necessary, that the proposed change, like all those in this folio, is from poetry to prose; -and that the ground on which the emendation is thought desirable is not tenable, as far as the text of Shakespeare is concerned. For, the passage has an unmistakable meaning as it stands; and who has a right to substitute, for what it is, his idea of what it should be ?-the change puts a bald statement of a physical fact in the place of a suggestive, though very strong, figure of speech :-and the opinion of Mr. Collier that "Imogen would not study me

taphors at such a moment," is not sustained by the context, and his assertion that "it is an axiom that genuine passion avoids figures of speech" is at variance with Shakespeare's portraitures of passion; which, whether truthful or not, are all with which we have at present to deal.

Imogen, in this very speech, uses another very strong metaphor, one which has been thought to require learned notes to explain it. She says,

"Some jay of Italy,

Whose mother was her painting, hath betray'd him;

Poor I am stale, a garment out of fashion;

And, for I am richer than to hang by the walls,

I must be ripp'd:-to pieces with me!"

And this same Imogen when she wakes and finds at her side (as she supposes) her idolized lord beheaded by Pisanio, cries out,

"Damn'd Pisanio

Hath with his forged letters,-damn'd Pisanio,

From this most bravest vessel of the world

Struck the main top!"

As to similes in Shakespeare's pictures of passion, hear the passion of others than Imogen: hear Othello:

"Othello.

O, blood, Iago, blood!

Iago. Patience, I say; your mind, perhaps, may change.

Othello. Never, Iago. Like to the Pontick sea,

Whose icy current and compulsive course

Ne'er knows retiring ebb, but keeps due on

To the Propontick and the Hellespont;

Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace,

Shall ne'er look back, ne'er ebb to humble love,

Till that a capable and wide revenge

Swallow them up."

Hear Romeo, when he has just killed Paris, and finds Ju

liet dead in the tomb :

"Ah! dear Juliet,

Why art thou yet so fair? I will believe
That unsubstantial death is amorous;
And that the lean, abhorred monster keeps
Thee in the dark here, to be his paramour."

Hear the towering passion of Coriolanus, when, a few moments before he is slain by the infuriated rabble, some one calls him a "boy of tears:

"Boy! False hound!

If you have writ your annals true, 'tis there,
That like an eagle in a dovecote I
Flutter'd your Volces in Corioli."

Hear Constance, wailing for her lost Arthur :

"Grief fills the room up of my absent child,

Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me;
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,

Remembers me of all his gracious parts,

-

Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form," &c

Hear Claudio, with mingled grief and indignation, upbraiding Hero:

"Thou pure impiety and impious purity!
For thee I'll lock up all the gates of love;

And on my eyelids shall conjecture hang,

To turn all beauty into thoughts of harm," &c.

Hear Hotspur, maddened by King Henry :

"By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap,

To pluck bright honour from the pale fac'd moon;
Or dive into the bottom of the deep,

Where fathom line could never touch the ground,
And pluck up drowned honour by the locks," &c.

Well may Worcester say of him,

"He apprehends a world of figures here,

But not the form of what he should attend."

Could words be made more figurative than they are in all of these expressions of excited feeling, which are not a tithe of those which Shakespeare's dramas would afford, of a like kind? Claudio's "on my eyelids shall conjecture hang," is one of the strongest, as well as one of the most beautiful figures in the whole range of poetry. It has a bolder beauty than those two lovely lines of which it reminds us, in Spenser's description of Una:

"Upon her eyelids many graces sat,

Under the shadow of her even brows."

It is not true, I venture to assert, that passion avoids figures of speech. Its utterance is always direct and forcible; but sometimes the most direct and forcible medium of expression is to be found in a metaphor. So, at least, thought Shakespeare; which is all that, in this case, needs to be established.

With regard to the confusion of sounds which is supposed to account for the alleged error in the original line, Mr. Collier himself admits it "to be possible that the old corrector, not understanding the expression, Whose mother was her painting,' might mistake it for Who smothers her with painting!" This possibility is made certainty by a passage in Hamlet, which the able opponent of the new reading, Mr. Halliwell, who has made it the subject of a special pamphlet, has not noticed. In the second scene of Act I., Hamlet's mother asks him why a father's death seems so particular to him. He replies,

"Seems, madam! Nay, it is: I know not seem
"Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,

Nor customary suits of solemn black," &c.

Now, it is remarkable that in the fifth quarto impression of this play, published in 1611, these lines are printed thus: