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the ground that, whatever really was the case, Arthur evidently believed that the coal was not burning when he spoke.

SCENE 2.

"Pem. If, what in rest you have, in right you hold,
Why then your fears (which, as they say, attend
The steps of wrong,) should move you to mew up
Your tender kinsman, and to choke his days
With barbarous ignorance, and deny his youth
The rich advantage of good exercise?

A moment's consideration of the construction of this passage makes it plain that it is corrupt. As it stands, though it is pointed as a question, it is an assertion; and an assertion, too, which involves a contradiction. The obvious transposition in Mr. Collier's folio obviates all difficulty.

"Why should your fears (which, as they say, attend
The steps of wrong) then move you to mew up,
Your tender kinsman!" &c.

"K. John. How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds, Makes deeds ill done! Had'st thou not been by,

A fellow by the hand of nature mark'd,

Quoted, and sign'd to do a deed of shame,

This murder had not come into my mind: "

Can any one read the whole of this passage, and question for an instant the propriety of Mr. Knight's change?

"How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds

Makes ill deeds done!"

SCENE 3.

"Sal. The King hath dispossess'd himself of us:

We will not line his thin bestained cloak."

"Thin bestained cloak," is most probably a misprint for "Sin bestained cloak," as the corrector in Mr. Collier's folio conjectures.

"Pem. All murders past do stand excus'd in this:

And this, so sole, and so unmatchable,

Shall give a holiness, a purity,

To the yet unbegotten sin of times,

And prove a deadly bloodshed but a jest,
Exampled by this heinous spectacle."

It is very plain to me that "the yet unbegotten sin of times" is a misprint for "the yet unbegotten sins of time,” as Pope suggested. Pembroke says that,—all murders past stand excused in this; and this shall excuse all other crimes to be committed. "Sin," it is true, might be used collectively; but then at least we should read "sin of time." In lifting the 'matter,' the s was evidently transferred from one word to the other. Read:

"Shall give a holiness, a purity

To the yet unbegotten sins of time."

"Bast.

ACT V. SCENE 1.

O inglorious league!

Shall we, upon the footing of our land,

Send fair play orders, and make compromise?"

The correction, "Send fair play offers," made in Mr. Collier's folio, seems to be a necessary correction of a probable misprint.

SCENE 4.

"Sal. My arm shall give thee help to bear thee hence,

For I do see the cruel pangs of death

Right in thine eye."

Some commentators, being unable to understand "right in thine eye," proposed to read fright, and others "fight in thine eye." But, as Steevens says, "right" signifies here 'immediate.' He adds,-three quarters of a century ago,"It is now obsolete." But it has survived in America, and is in constant and common use in the phrase 'Right away,' for 'on the instant,' 'immediately,' which our somewhat overweening cousins sneer at, as an Americanism. The language of the best educated Americans of the Northern States is more nearly that of Shakespeare's day than that of the best born and bred English gentlemen who visit them; although the advantage on the score of utterance is generally on the side of the Englishman.

It is somewhat from the subject of this volume, but I will notice here one gross and radical error of language into which all Englishmen of the present day fall, without exception. Oxford-men and Cambridge-men speak it; and all English authors, Mr. Macaulay and Mr. Landor not excepted, write it. They say that one thing is different to another. Now, this is not an idiom, or a colloquialism : it is radically, absurdly wrong. They might as well say that two things converge from each other. Difference implies a figurative divergence,—a motion from, not to. One thing is different from another. Spenser, Shakespeare,

Bacon, Milton, and the translators of the Bible, wrote 'different from;' and in America this is the only expression of the idea ever heard among those who have even the least pretensions to education.

KING RICHARD II.

ACT II. SCENE 1.

"Gaunt. More are men's ends mark'd, than their lives before. The setting sun, and music at the close,

As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last,

Writ in remembrance more than things long past."

This is, to say the least, very confused. How inept the assertion, that "the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last! " and what a slender and even doubtful connection the last line has with the preceding part of the passage! What is writ in remembrance? As the sentence now stands, "writ" has no nominative. Monck Mason's punctuation makes the passage perfectly clear.

"More are men's ends mark'd than their lives before.

The setting sun, and music at the close

(As the last taste of sweets is sweetest) last,

Writ in remembrance more than things long past."

That is, the setting sun and music at the close are lasting, are writ in remembrance, just as the last taste of sweets is sweetest.

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