275

KING LEAR.

i. 1,

"Sir, I do love you more that words can wield the matter." The folio omits do [which appears in the quartos.-Ed.] Qu.,

S. V., Art. viii. But this, I think, sounds very harsh.

Ib.,

Read little-seeming.

Ib.,

that little, seeming substance."

"It is.no vicious blot, murder, nor foulness," &c. What has murder to do here? Read umber. Vice versa, in Pericles, iv. 6 (Art. lxxxix.). I have restored murderer for number. Jonson, Cynthia's Revels, v. 2, Gifford, vol. ii. p. 349,-"There's ambre in the umber." (See context.) Gifford's note,—" There's ambergris in the dye. The gloves, I suppose, were of a brown colour." Malone on "umber'd face," King Henry V. iv. Chorus,-"Umber is a dark yellow earth, brought from Umbria in Italy, which, being mixed with water, produces such a dusky yellow

.

colour as the gleam of fire by night gives to the countenance. Our author's profession probably furnished him with this epithet; for, from an old manuscript play in my possession, entitled the Telltale, it appears that umber was used in the stage exhibitions of his time. In that piece, one of the marginal directions is,—' He umbers her face."" In Cymbeline, i. 7,—

rr

the twinn'd stones

Upon the number'd beach,"

can Shakespeare have written th' enumber'd, i.q., the umber'd? I fear not; it seems intolerably harsh.

Ib.,

"The jewels of our father, with wash'd eyes

Cordelia leaves you."

Compare for the construction, Julius Cæsar, v. 3,— "The last of all the Romans, fare thee well!"

Browne, Brit. Past. B. ii. Song ii. ed. Clarke, p. 205, if I construe right; addressing Sydney,

"The admired mirror, glory of our isle,

Thou far-far more than mortal man, whose style
Strikes more men dumb to hearken to thy song,
Than Orpheus' harp or Tully's golden tongue."

(Read, "Strikes men more dumb" &c., and two lines below, "For honour, value, virtue, excellence"; valour.) 3 King Henry VI. v. 5,

"Take that, the likeness of this railer here."

Spenser, Sonnet prefixed to the History of Scanderbeg, Todd, vol. viii. p. 181,

"The scourge of Turkes, and plague of infidels,

Thy acts, O Scanderbeg, this volume tells."

Romeo and Juliet, v. 3, is perhaps something like,

O give me thy hand,

One writ with me in sour misfortune's book!"

4,

there's a great abatement of kindness appears as

well in the general dependants," &c. Dependance?

ii. 2,

To the great love I bear you,

'Pray you, content.

What, Oswald, ho!-You, sir, more knave than fool,
After your master."

"Thou out of heaven's benediction com❜st

To the warm sun!"

This proverb occurs as late as Swift, Polite Conversation, Dialogue i. ed. 1784, vol. viii. p. 313, speaking of a woman who had married a fool,—“ Well, she's got out of God's blessing into the warm sun.”

Ib., near the end. We should point surely,—

All weary and o'erwatch'd!

Take vantage, heavy eyes," &c.

3, ad fin., rhymes,

'

Poor Turlygood! poor Tom,

That's something yet ;-Edgar I nothing am."

So King Richard II. v. 1, near the end, short-heart. What extent of licence did Shakespeare allow himself in his rhymes?

4,—

"That, sir, which serves and seeks for gain,
And follows but for form,

Will pack, when it begins to rain,

And leave thee in the storm."

دو

Note, too, sir

What has the neuter that to do here? thee. Write, "That Sir, which serves &c. The folio's That Sir, which &c. may be either. The change, perhaps, was made by some one who supposed that which after sir, was bad grammar.

Ib. Arrange,

"To fall and blast her pride!

(Fol.,-'To fall and blister.'

Possibly blast her.)

Reg. O the blest gods!-so will you wish on me,

When the rash mood is on.

Lear. No, Regan," &c.

Ib.,

"You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need!" I would expunge the second patience; or perhaps adopt Ritson's second suggestion,—

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

iii. 2, 1. 5,—“ vaunt-couriers." Strachey, on Jonson's Sejanus, Gifford's Jonson, vol. i. p. cccxvii., "a vauntcourring blow;" see context.

4,-"Now a little fire in a wild field," &c. Read wide; see context. And so the 1770 edition of King Lear, "col

1 This some one was the editor of the fourth folio. Modern editors vary. From Mr. Dyce's punctuation, it is clear that he agrees with Walker.-Ed.

lated with the old and modern editions;" with a note,

All editions read wild; but wide is better opposed to little." Two Noble Kinsmen, i. 5, Dirge,

"And clamours through the wild air flying;"

wide; wild is in the manner of modern, not of Elizabethan poetry. Herrick, ed. Clarke, vol. i. p. 136, ccxxv. Bubble,

"To my revenge, and to her desperate fears,
Fly, thou made bubble of my sighs and tears.
(i.e., 'thou bubble made of my' &c.)

In the wild air when thou hast roll'd about,
And, like a blazing planet, found her out;
Stop, mount, pass by to take her eye," &c.

The

Here wild is clearly out of place. Crashawe, Steps to the Temple, &c. Lines on Mr. Staninough's death; ed. 1670,

p. 96,

thou

Huge emptiness! contract thy bulk, and shrink

All thy wild circle to a point!"

Wide. Winter's Tale, ii. 1,

"Yet, for a greater confirmation,

(For in an act of this importance, 't were

Most piteous to be wild,) I have despatch'd in post,
To Delphos' temple," &c.

Wide; i.e., "wide of the truth." Two Gentlemen of
Verona, ii. 7,

"And so by many winding nooks he strays,

With willing sport, to the wild ocean."

I suspect wide.

vol. vi. p. 439.

Shirley, Epithalamium, Gifford and Dyce,
See context,-

2 So, too, the Old Corrector. On such points however, old correctors, and old copies are of little weight; the context is every thing.-Ed.