The folio has "be a practise."-Compare the preceding speech of the Duke. (In both places, of course, "practice" means-stratagem, conspiracy.)

Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector substitutes "on my truth;" and Mr. Singer "on my troth:"-why?

Walker (Crit. Exam. &c. vol. iii. p. 23) would read "a strong fever.”—The late Mr. W. W. Williams (The Parthenon for Nov. 1, 1862, p. 849) observes; "In Beaumont and Fletcher's play of A King and No King I find Mardonius saying,

'His fit begins to take him now again;

"Tis a strange fever, and will shake us all anon,' &c.

proving, as I submit, incontestably, that the old text in Measure for Measure is right."

The folio has "your face."-Corrected in the second folio.

P. 515. (167)

"We'll touse you

Joint by joint, but we will know your purpose.—” The folio has " his purpose;" which Boswell defends (I now think, most preposterously) on the ground that "the close of the sentence is addressed to the by-standers."-Hanmer substituted " this purpose."-The alteration of Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector, which I have adopted, appears to be the least objectionable.-Malone says, "I believe the passage has been corrected in the wrong place; and would read,

P. 516. (168)

- we'll towse him joint by joint But we will know his purpose'."

"Hark, how the villain would gloze now, after his treasonable abuses!” The folio has " would close now," &c. (We frequently find that the letters c and g at the beginning of words are confounded by early printers,

most probably in consequence of their having been capitals in the Mss. Again, in The Comedy of Errors, act ii. sc. 2, the folio has "My bloud is mingled with the crime of lust," &c.)-The emendation "would gloze now" was first printed by Mr. Halliwell, from a Ms. correction in a copy of the third folio, in a note ad l. to Tallis's Shakespeare, and about two years previous to its appearance in Mr. Collier's one-volume Shakespeare 1853 ;—so much for Mr. Collier's assertion that I "silently purloined" it from his Ms. Corrector. Indeed, to any one who carefully considers the passage it is an obvious enough emendation: Mr. Grant White (Shakespeare's Scholar, &c. p. 172) never imagined that he was not proposing it for the first time, when in a note on the passage he observed, "Why 'close'? The word is plainly, in my judgment, a misprint for 'gloze'," &c.; and long before Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector was heard of, or before Messrs. Halliwell and Grant White were known as critics, I had altered "close" to "gloze" in my copy of the Variorum Shakespeare.—Mr. Staunton, speaking of the present passage, in the "Addenda and Corrigenda" to his Shakespeare, says; "close,' and not gloze, despite of all Mr. Collier can adduce in favour of the latter, is the genuine word. In proof of this take the following unanswerable quotations; 'It would become me better than to close,

In terms of friendship with thine enemies.' Julius Cæsar, act iii. sc. 1. 'This closing with him fits his lunacy.'

Titus Andronicus, act v. sc. 2.

'I will close with this country peasant very lovingly.'

Webster's Works, Dyce's ed. p. 281.

'Thus cunningly she clos'd with him, and he conceaves her thoughts.'

Warner's Albion's England."

Now I could very easily cite several passages exactly similar to those cited by Mr. Staunton (e. g.

"And I'll close with Bryan till I have gotten the thing

That he hath promis'd me," &c.

Peele's Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes,—
Works, p. 503, ed. Dyce, 1861);

but what then? Those passages are totally different from the passage of
our text as given by the folio; inasmuch as the expression "close WITH" is
totally different from the simple "close" and I seriously think that if Mr.
Staunton had wished to show that "close" is not the true reading here, he
could hardly have done so more effectually than by bringing forward those
"unanswerable quotations."

P. 516. (169)

The folio has "mad'st."

P. 517. (170)

"made"

"Make rash remonstrance of my hidden power"

Here to "remonstrance" we may apply what Gifford says of the same word in the following passage of Shirley's Imposture,—viz. that it "is sufficiently catachrestic;".

VOL. I.

"make

Each garden a remonstrance of this battle." Works, v. 190.
NN

Compare, too, Shirley's Hyde Park;

"so much

Remonstrance of her husband's loss at sea."

Works, ii. 461.

Malone proposed to read " Make rash demonstrance," &c.; which Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector also gives.-Since the preceding part of this note was written, Walker's Crit. Exam. &c. has been published, wherein (vol. ii. p. 240), after mentioning the emendation "demonstrance," and quoting the passage from Shirley's Imposture with Gifford's note, he asks, "May not the word have been in use in the sense of exhibition? so that to make rash remonstrance of one's power would be to exhibit it unadvisedly.”—In his recent edition of Shakespeare Mr. Grant White remarks that "remonstrance" is here "used in its radical sense of 'showing again.'"

P. 517. (171) "That brain'd my purpose :—but now peace be with him !” The "now" was inserted by Hanmer.-"Possibly 'purposes;' yet an old writer would scarcely have used the plural. Qu. 'but, God's peace be with him!' the name of God having been omitted in deference to the well-known act." Walker's Crit. Exam. &c. vol. i. p. 263.—Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector reads " but all peace be with him!"

Altered by Hanmer to "in :" but I believe, with Malone, that the old reading is one of Shakespeare's "inaccuracies."

The folio has "confutation."-Corrected in the second folio.

P. 520. (175)

"[Unmuffles Claudio."

"It is somewhat strange that Isabel is not made to express either gratitude, wonder, or joy, at the sight of her brother." JOHNSON. To this remark Boswell rejoins, foolishly enough, "Shakespeare, it should be recollected, wrote for the stage, on which Isabel might express her feelings by action."— In an "acting copy" of the play now before me, I find;

"[Claudio discovers himself-Isabella runs and embraces him-Angelo falls on his knees.

The folio has "Is he pardon'd."-Hanmer printed "He's pardoned;" and Capell gave "Is he too pardon'd" (which is objectionable on account of the "too" in the next line but one).

"That is," says Johnson, "her value is equal to your value, the match is not unworthy of you."-Hanmer printed “her worth works yours;" Heath proposed. "her worth's worth yours;" and Walker (Crit. Exam. &c. vol. i. p. 295) conjectures "her worth work yours."

P. 520. (178)

Wherein have I deserved so of you,
That you extol me thus ?"

The folio has "Wherein haue. I so deseru'd of you," &c.-I adopt Pope's emendation, which at least restores the metre.-Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector reads

"Wherein have I so well deserv'd of you,
That you extol me thus ?"

Walker (Crit. Exam. &c. vol. i. p. 151) conjectures

P. 520. (179)

"Wherein have I so undeserv'd of you,
That you extol me thus ?"

"Is any woman"

The folio has "If any woman."-The usual modern reading is "If any woman's" but I prefer that of the Cambridge Editors.

The folio has "that."-Corrected in the second folio.

END OF VOLUME FIRST.

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