"Rich. Art thou content to breath?

[Fight & part once or twise." A Pleasant Commodie, called Looke about you, 1600, sig. I 3.— (Here the quartos have "Enter Edmund with his rapier drawne, Glocester, the Duke and Dutchesse;" while the folio has "Enter Bastard, Cornewall, Regan, Gloster, Seruants," the entrances, as is often the case in copies of early plays, being marked en masse: but it is evident that the persons in question enter as I have made them enter in my text.)

P. 279. (49) "The messengers from our sister and the king."

On this line Mr. Collier observes, "All the old copies have 'messengers,' but Oswald is the only one upon the stage."-The old copies are quite right-Oswald is the messenger "from our sister," Kent the messenger "from the king."

1865. In the second edition of his Shakespeare, Mr. Collier silently prints 'messengers." But Mr. Grant White, to my surprise, gives "messenger," observing that "the old copies add a superfluous s to the word."

P. 280. (50)

"smooth every passion That in the natures of their lords rebel ;" See note 114 on Love's Labour's lost, vol. ii. p. 251.

A line slightly mutilated.-The usual modern emendation is "As knowing naught," &c.-Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector reads " And knowing naught," &c.

P. 282. (52)

"Come, bring away the stocks!

[Stocks brought out."

In the folio the stage-direction "Stocks brought out" is placed two lines earlier (as it no doubt stood in the prompter's book, that the stocks might be in readiness); and so it is given by the modern editors, without any regard to the present speech.-Here the quartos have no stage-direction. -1865. Mr. Staunton, Mr. Grant White, and the Cambridge Editors (Globe Shakespeare) place this stage-direction rightly.

P. 282. (53)

"Is such as basest and contemned'st wretches"

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So Capell here corrected the quartos, which have "Is such, as basest and temnest wretches."-This passage, from "His fault is much" to "Are punish'd with" inclusive, is not in the folio (where, in consequence of that omission, the words "The king must take it ill" are altered to "The King his Master needs must take it ill").

Of this obscure, and, it may be, corrupted passage, no satisfactory explana. tion or emendation has yet been given.

i. e. Strike into.-But Walker (Crit. Exam. &c. vol. ii. p. 36) proposes, with great probability, "Stick in."

So the quartos.-The folio has "Turlygod."-"Warburton would read Turlupin, and Hanmer Turluru; but there is a better reason for rejecting both these terms than for preferring either; viz. that Turlygood is the corrupted word in our language. The Turlupins were a fanatical sect that overran France, Italy, and Germany, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. They were at first known by the names of Beghards or Beghins, and brethren and sisters of the free spirit. Their manners and appearance exhibited the strongest indications of lunacy and distraction. The common people alone called them Turlupins; a name which, though it has excited much doubt and controversy, seems obviously to be connected with the wolvish howlings which these people in all probability would make when influenced by their religious ravings. Their subsequent appellation of the fraternity of poor men might have been the cause why the wandering rogues called Bedlam beggars, and one of whom Edgar personates, assumed or obtained the title of Turlupins or Turlygoods, especially if their mode of asking alms was accompanied by the gesticulations of madmen. Turlupino and Turluru are old Italian terms for a fool or madman; and the Flemings had a proverb, As unfortunate as Turlupin and his children." DOUCE.—“ Turlygood. Seemingly a name for the sort of beggar described in the preceding lines, which Shakespeare calls a bedlam-beggar. I cannot persuade myself that this word, however similar in meaning, has any real connection with turlupin, notwithstanding the authority of Warburton and Douce. It seems to be an original English term, being too remote in form from the other, to be a corruption from it." NARES'S Gloss.

Walker (Shakespeare's Versification, &c. p. 255), proposes to read "image"," marked as a plural.

P. 288. (60) "Dear daughter, I confess that I am old;'

[Kneeling."

The "[Kneeling" is not in the old eds. (which are generally sparing of stage-directions): but even if the present speech were not sufficient (and I think it is) to show that Lear, wishing to impress Regan with the utter absurdity of his asking forgiveness of her sister, drops upon his knees, the immediately following words of Regan would be decisive on the point,

"Good sir, no more; these are unsightly tricks.”—

Here Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector also inserts "Kneeling," in accordance with what was the stage-practice of his time, just as it is of ours, and as it will no doubt continue to be, in spite of what Delius has said to the contrary.

So the quartos.-The folio has "To fall, and blister;" a mere blunder (possibly for " To fall and blast her," as Walker observes, Crit. Exam. &c. vol. iii. p. 278); which, however, Mr. Knight finds a reason for preferring.1865. It will be understood that I quote what follows merely animi causa: "That the folio is right, I have no doubt, and that the quarto [which was printed FIFTEEN YEARS BEFORE THE FOLIO] Substituted 'to blast her pride' for 'blister,' from an inability to give to the latter expression an applicable signification. Now, the state of atmosphere caused by the falling fogs, renders us extremely obnoxious to skin diseases, and to none more so than to erysipelas-known in Shakespeare's time as St. Anthony's fire. The moisture drawn up by the sun, and held suspended by its influence during the day, condenses quickly when that influence is withdrawn, and falling again to the earth, causes a great and sudden degradation of temperature. The skin, excited by the previous heat, feels this rapid transition, and erysipelas follows, attacking for the most part the face, ‘infecting its beauty,' and covering it over with extensive vesications or blisters." Notes on Shakespeare, No. 11, by James Nichols, M.R.C.P., Eng., p. 1.

P. 289. (62)

"To be a comrade with the wolf and owl,-
Necessity's hard pinch !”

Mr. Collier prints, with his Ms. Corrector,

"To be a comrade with the wolf, and howl
Necessity's sharp pinch;"

and observes (Preface to the second edition of his Shakespeare, p. xxvii.) that "Mr. Dyce has an antipathy to the old corrector's aspirate, and declines to adopt the reading 'howl,' because in one of Beaumont and Fletcher's plays ('The Custom of the Country,' A. i. sc. 2), he allowed the laughable cockneyism me high to stand instead of 'my eye.'" Now, there can be no stronger proof of Mr. Collier's downright infatuation than his blindness to the glaring absurdity of "the old corrector's aspirate" in the present speech, -the alteration of "owl" to "howl," which will inevitably be treated by every future editor with the contempt it deserves.-The passage of Beaumont and Fletcher's Custom of the Country, in which, according to Mr. Collier, I" allowed a laughable cockneyism to stand," is this;

And bid the coy wench put on all her beauties,

All her enticements; out-blush damask roses,

And dim the breaking east with her bright crystals.

I am all on fire; away!

Char. And I am frozen.

[Exit with Servants.

Enter ZENOCIA with bow and quiver, an arrow bent; after her, ARNOLDO and RUTILIO, armed.

Zen. Come fearless on.

Rut. Nay, an I budge from thee,

Beat me with dirty sticks.

Clod. What masque is this?

What pretty fancy to provoke me high ?" &c.;

and I have no hesitation in asserting that the old reading "provoke me high" (i.e. excite me highly-"high" being used adverbially), is what the poet really wrote; and that Mr. Collier's "What pretty fancy to provoke my eye" is an emendation utterly uncalled for.

P. 291. (63)

"You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need !" Capell says this line "was to be altered of course [by the modern editors], for having a middle redundancy, and a repetition of which they saw not the meaning; and so its tame conclusion is this, in the four latter moderns

- give me that patience which I need, &c." Notes, &c. vol. i. P. ii. p. 162. -Other alterations have been suggested by Malone, Ritson, Mason, and Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector; nor would I assert, with Capell, that the old text is uncorrupted.—1865. "I would expunge the second patience;' or perhaps adopt Ritson's second suggestion,

'You heavens, give me patience !—that I need.””

P. 293. (64)

Walker's Crit. Exam. &c. vol. iii. p. 278.

"elements;"

So the folio. The quartos have "element;" which Malone adopts, explaining it, "the air." But compare, in the next scene, p. 295, "I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness."

The folio has "Thron'd."-This part of the speech is not in the quartos.

P. 293. (67) "Which are to France the spies and speculations" Mr. Collier prints, at his Ms. Corrector's bidding, "Which are to France the spies and spectators ;" and, to make the matter more laughable, seriously

tells us that the substituted word is to be pronounced "spéctătors."-Mr. Singer (Shakespeare Vindicated, &c. p. 272) says, "There can be no doubt that it should be speculators, as I find it corrected in my second folio; and Mr. Collier, in a supplemental note, has seen that this is most probably the true word." (Johnson too, in his Dict. sub v., suggested “speculators.”)— I must refer the reader to note 140 on Love's Labour's lost, vol. ii. p. 254.

Here the spelling of the folio is "pudder,"-which Mr. Knight retains, observing "this is always modernized into pother," &c. But one of the quartos (considerably less "modern" than the folio) has "powther :" and in Coriolanus, act ii. sc. 1, the folio has

"such a poother,

As if that whatsoever God," &c.;

where Mr. Knight prints "such a pother."

P. 296. (69)

"Thou perjur'd, and thou simular of virtue"

So the folio. The quartos have ".

thou simular man of vertue."-Theo

bald and Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector read "Thou perjure,"—a substantive which occurs in Love's Labour's lost, act iv. sc. 3.

So the quartos.-The folio has "I will looke him" (which is equally good sense: see note 141 on King Henry V. vol. iv. p. 529).

66

P. 299. (71) Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,"

Walker (Crit. Exam. &c. vol. i. p. 292) cites this line with a Qu.:" but I see no reason for supposing it to be corrupt.

P. 299. (72) "go to thy cold bed, and warm thee."

So the quartos: and the very same words (which appear to have passed into a sort of proverbial expression) occur in the Induction to The Taming of the Shrew; see foot-note, vol. iii. pp. 105-6.-Here the folio has only "goe to thy bed and warme thee;" and Delius, who, with the folio, omits “cold," conjectures that Shakespeare himself may have struck out the word, in order to get rid of the comic turn which it gives to the sentence :-if so, why did not Shakespeare also strike out what Edgar presently says about "eating cow-dung for sallets"? The fact is, the poet has studiously made the assumed madness of Edgar somewhat akin to the comic, that it might contrast the better with the real insanity of Lear.-Mr. Staunton observes; "The commentators, with admirable unanimity, persist in declaring this line 'go to thy cold bed, and warm thee'] to be a ridicule on one in The Spanish Tragedy [by Thomas Kyd], act ii. ;

'What outcries pluck me from my naked bed?'

But to an audience of Shakespeare's age there was nothing risible in either line. The phrase to go to a cold bed meant only to go cold to bed; to rise