him not," means,- My countryman by his dress, but yet, at this distance, I know him not, cannot distinguish his features;' and is, of course, spoken before the entrance of Rosse.)

Again, in Othello;

"Enter OTHELLO.

Look, where he comes! Not poppy, nor mandragora,

Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,

Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep

Which thou ow'dst yesterday.

Oth.

Ha ha! false to me? to me?"

Act iii. sc. 3, vol. vii. 571.

(Mr. Knight is the only editor who has rightly placed the entrance of Othello after "Which thou ow'dst yesterday.") And in the same play;

As he shall smile, Othello shall go mad;

And his unbookish jealousy must construe

Poor Cassio's smiles, gestures, and light behaviour,
Quite in the wrong.-How do you now, lieutenant ?”

(The proper arrangement is, of course,

"Quite in the wrong.

Act iv. sc. 1, p. 589.

Re-enter CASSIO.

How do you now, lieutenant?")

It may be worth adding, that in old dramas we frequently find, not only the entrances marked much too soon, but also stage-directions, concerning things which may be required for the scene, set down long before the said articles are to be used so in Beaumont and Fletcher's Little French Lawyer, (act iii. sc. 4, of my ed.), according to the first folio;

"Din. Why doe you speake so lowd? I pray'e goe in. Sweet Mistris I am mad, time steales away,

And when we would enjoy

Lam. Now fy, fy servant,

Wine.

Like sensuall beasts, shall we enjoy our pleasures?

Din. Pray doe but kisse me then.

Lam. Why, that I will, and you shall find anon, servant—

Din. Softly for heavens sake, you know my friend's engag'd,

A little now, now; Will you goe in againe ?

Lam. Ha, ha, ha, ha.

Din. Why doe you laugh so lowd? pretious, Will you betray me? ha my friends throat cut? Lam. Come, come, I'le kisse thee again.

Cham. Will you so? you are liberall,

p. 64.

Din. What's this?

Lam. Wine, wine, a draught or two."

(The stage-direction " Wine," opposite the first speech of Lamira, was intended to warn the property-man to have wine in readiness against the entrance of the Nurse.)

SCENE 2.-C. p. 26; K. p. 303.

"Pan. I'll be with you, niece, by and by.

Cres. To bring, uncle,—

Pan. Ay, a token from Troilus."

The modern editors appear not to have understood this passage: they have no notes on it; and, in opposition to the old copies, erroneously put a break, as Mr. Collier does, at the end of Cressida's speech, supposing it to be incomplete.

When Pandarus says, "I'll be with you, niece, by and by," Cressida catches at the words "I'll be with you," and subjoins "to bring,"-just as Pandarus catches at "to bring," and adds, "Ay, a token," &c.

The expression, to be with a person to bring, is one of which I can more easily adduce examples than explain the exact meaning its import, however, may be gathered from the following passages;

66

And I'll close with Bryan till I have gotten the thing
That he hath promis'd me, and then I'll be with him to bring:
Well, such shifting knaves as I am, the ambodexter must play,
And for commodity serve every man, whatsoever the world say."
Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes,-Peele's Works,
iii. 44, ed. Dyce.

And, Balthazar, I'll be with thee to bring,

And thee, Lorenzo," &c.

Kyd's Spanish Tragedy, act iv. - Dodsley's Old

Plays, iii. 163, last ed.

“E. Love. I would have watch'd you, sir, by your good patience,

For ferreting in my ground.

Lady. You have been with my sister?

Wel. Yes, to bring.

E. Love. An heir into the world, he means."

Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady, act v. sc. 4.

(The modern editors of B. and F., like those of Shakespeare, erroneously deviate from the old eds. in placing a break after "to bring.")

SCENE 3.-C. p. 29; K. P. 306.

“and such again,

As venerable Nestor, hatch'd in silver," &c.

On this passage, where a note is positively required, neither Mr. Collier nor Mr. Knight says a single word. See the present work, pp. 76, 77.

SCENE 3.-C. p. 30.

"When that the general is not like the hive,

To whom the foragers shall all repair,
What honey is expected?"

"The meaning,' says Johnson, 'is,—When the general is not to the army like the hive to the bees, the repository of the stock of every individual, that to which each particular resorts with whatever he has collected for the good of the whole, what honey is expected? what hope of advantage?' Johnson's explanation may possibly be doubted, and in this passage, as in others, in Measure for Measure,' Vol. ii. p. 42, and in Hamlet,' A. ii. sc. 2, 'Twas caviare to the general,' the word 'general' might be taken for the general body of the people. Ulysses may mean to ask, what advantage can be expected when the subjects of a king are not like bees, which, after foraging among flowers, all repair to the hive with their honey." COLLIER.

How could Mr. Collier hazard an interpretation so utterly at variance with the following passage, towards the end of the

same speech,

a passage, too, which proves that Johnson has

rightly explained the earlier one?

The reading of the 4tos, now brought back into the text, is neither English nor sense.

Achilles echoes the "well" of Thersites. It is impossible that "well" when followed by "why" can be a term of admission.

SCENE 1.-C. p. 44.

"Ther. There's Ulysses, and old Nestor, whose wit was mouldy ere your grandsires had nails on their toes,-yoke you like draught oxen, and make you plough up the war.

Achil. What? what?

Ther. Yes, good sooth: to, Achilles, to Ajax, to—

Ajax. I shall cut out your tongue."

The punctuation of the words which I have marked in Italics is so extravagantly wrong, that even the most acute reader, if previously unacquainted with the passage, would

find some difficulty in attaching to them anything like a meaning. The proper pointing is,

"to, Achilles! to, Ajax! to!"

Thersites is urging the supposed oxen to their tasks.

SCENE 2.-C. p. 47; K. p. 325.

"He brought a Grecian queen, whose youth and freshness
Wrinkles Apollo's, and makes pale the morning."

"The folio reads, makes stale the morning,' which cannot be right." COLLIEr.

Though Mr. Collier declares that "stale" cannot be right, I think that Mr. Knight has done well in adopting it: "stale" is more properly opposed to "freshness" than "pale;" and compare the following lines of Lyly's Maydes Metamorphosis, 1600;

O, thou great thunder-darter of Olympus! forget that thou art Jove the king of gods; and, Mercury, lose all the serpentine craft of thy Caduceus, if ye take not that little, little, less-than-little wit from them that they have; which short-armed ignorance itself knows is so abundant scarce, it will not in circumvention deliver a fly from a spider, without drawing their massy irons and cutting the web."

This passage contains an obvious misprint, which, however, none of the editors have noticed: the right reading is undoubtedly" short-aimed" ignorance,-i. e. ignorance whose aim is short. In Coriolanus we find,