Though yet she speak not. Mark a little while.
Please you to interpose, fair madam kneel

And pray your mother's blessing. Turn, good lady; 120 Our Perdita is found.

Her.

You gods, look down,

And from your sacred vials pour your graces

Upon my daughter's head! Tell me, mine own,

Where hast thou been preserved? where lived? how

found

Thy father's court? for thou shalt hear that I,
Knowing by Paulina that the oracle

Gave hope thou wast in being, have preserved
Myself to see the issue.

Paul.
Lest they desire upon this push to trouble
Your joys with like relation. Go together,
You precious winners all; your exultation
Partake to every one. I, an old turtle,
Will wing me to some wither'd bough and there
My mate, that's never to be found again,
Lament till I am lost.

There's time enough for that;

Leon.

O, peace, Paulina !

Thou shouldst a husband take by my consent,
As I by thine a wife: this is a match,

125

130

135

And made between's by vows. Thou hast found mine;
But how, is to be question'd; for I saw her,

As I thought, dead; and have in vain said many
A prayer upon her grave. I'll not seek far,-
For him, I partly know his mind,-to find thee
An honourable husband. Come, Camillo,

121 [Presenting Perdita, who kneels to

Her. Rowe.

122 vials] Pope. viols Ff.

127, 128 Gave... Myself] One line in

Steevens (1793).

128 There's] There is F4.
129 Lest] FF4 Least F1F2.
133 bough] bow F4.

140

And take her by the hand, whose worth and honesty
Is richly noted and here justified

By us, a pair of kings. Let's from this place.
What! look upon my brother: both your pardons,
That e'er I put between your holy looks
My ill suspicion. This your son-in-law,
And son unto the king, whom heavens directing,
Is troth-plight to your daughter. Good Paulina,
Lead us from hence, where we may leisurely
Each one demand, and answer to his part
Perform'd in this wide gap of time, since first
We were dissever'd: hastily lead away.

144 by the] om. Collier, ed. 2 (Collier MS.).

147 [To Her. Hanmer.

149 This] This' Dyce, ed. 2 (S. Walker conj.). This is Hudson.

[Exeunt.

145

150

155

150 whom heavens directing,] from heav'n's directing, Hanmer. who, heavens directing, Capell. (whom heavens directing,) Malone.

155 We were] F1F2. Were F3F4.

NOTES.

NOTE I.

1. 2. 42. Warburton, who reads 'good heed' with the later Folios, says that Mr Theobald, not understanding the phrase, altered it to 'good deed.' In reality Theobald recalled the reading of the first Folio, which Warburton had not taken the trouble to collate.

NOTE II.

I. 2. 154. 'Methoughts' is of course a form grammatically inaccurate, suggested by the more familiar 'methinks.' It occurs, however, sufficiently often in the old editions to warrant us in supposing that it came from the author's pen. We therefore retain it.

I. 2. 272.

read thinke it.'

NOTE III.

Mr Collier tells us that some copies of the second Folio I have been unable to find any copy of the second Folio which justifies this statement, and I believe that it was entirely due to the note of Steevens on the passage, who says, 'The folio, 1623, omits the pronoun it, which is supplied from the folio, 1632.' Mr Collier, finding in his annotated copy of the second Folio 'it' inserted in MS., qualified Steevens' statement so far as to limit it to 'some copies.' As it is well known that in books printed at this period there are variations in different copies, I do not undertake to say that no copy of the ed. of 1632 has ‘it,' but I very much doubt it. Her Majesty's Librarian informs me that Steevens's own copy, which formerly belonged to Charles I., and is now in the Royal Library at Windsor, reads 'thinke' and not 'thinke it.' I have personally examined two copies here in Trinity College Library, two in the British

Museum, and one in the possession of Mr J. E. Johnson, Cambridge. For the reading of the copy formerly belonging to Dr Roger Long, now in Pembroke College Library, I am indebted to the kindness of Mr R. A. Neil. Mr F. Madan examined the two copies in the Bodleian. Mr J. T. Clark, keeper of the Advocates' Library, assures me that the copy under his custody, as well as those in the Signet Library and in the Library of the University of Edinburgh, omit it.' My enquiries with regard to the copy which formerly belonged to the late Mr F. W. Cosins, and the copies now in the possession of Dr Horace Howard Furness of Philadelphia, U.S.A., of Mr Alfred Huth, and of the Birmingham Free Library through Mr Samuel Timmins, have led to the same result. The kind intervention of Dr Justin Winsor, Librarian of Harvard College, has enabled me to obtain through Mr S. H. Scudder the readings of two copies in the possession of Miss Blatchford of Cambridge, U.S.A., of the copy belonging to Mr L. Z. Leiter, and of one in the Newberry Library, Chicago, through the Librarian Dr W. F. Poole. At Dr Winsor's request also, Mr Henry G. Denny of Boston, U.S.A., has sent me the reading of his copy. To all those who have rendered me such valuable service I take this opportunity of expressing my sincerest thanks. It appears from this examination of twenty-two copies of the second Folio, including the annotated volume, which formerly belonged to Mr Collier and is now in the Library of the Duke of Devonshire, that there is not one which bears out the original statement of Steevens or the qualified assertion of Mr Collier. But so profound is my conviction of the vitality of error that I confidently expect to see them repeated in subsequent editions of Shakespeare.

NOTE IV.

1. 2. 459. Johnson says: 'Dr Warburton's conjecture is, I think, just; but what shall be done with the following words of which I can make nothing? Perhaps the line, which connected them to the rest, is lost.' In fact we should have expected Polixenes to say that his flight without Hermione would be the best means not only of securing his own safety but of dispelling the suspicions Leontes entertained of his queen.

NOTE V.

II. 1. 136. The Folios spell 'than' and 'then' indifferently 'then.' In this passage Malone was inclined to restore 'then.'

NOTE VI.

II. 1. 143. If 'land-damn' be the right reading it has not yet received a satisfactory explanation. The word 'lamback,' which in his first edition Mr Collier offered as a conjecture, he afterwards found in the corrected copy of the second Folio. But with the sense which he assigns to it 'to beat,' it seems an anticlimax after the threat contained in the line preceding. We omitted to record in our note that Dr Nicholson proposes to read 'Lent-damn.' [Withdrawn in favour of land-dam (N. & Q., June 1, 1867).]

NOTE VII.

II. 3. 177. 'It,' as a possessive pronoun, is found again in this play (111. 2. 98). In the latter place Rowe was the first to substitute 'its.' In The Tempest (11. 1. 157), as here, the change is made by the third Folio. See our note on that passage. It is remarkable that the only Comedies in which this ancient usage occurs, viz. The Tempest and The Winter's Tale, are among the latest of our author's works.

Mr Staunton has mentioned the following instances in the Histories and Tragedies: King John, II. 1, Timon of Athens, v. 1, King Lear, 1. 4, Hamlet, 1. 2 and v. 1. 'It' occurs besides in 2 Henry IV. 1. 2, Henry V. v. 2, Cymbeline, III. 4, Romeo and Juliet, I. 3, and twice in Antony and Cleopatra, II. 7.

In Hamlet, 1. 2, the first Quarto has his, the first Folio, published twenty years later, has it. In the same play, v. 1, one of the Quartos has it's. Professor Craik quotes also from the Quarto, ith or it in King Lear, IV. 2. But the two Quartos of 1608 in Capell's collection both read it. 'Its' is found in The Tempest, 1. 2. 95, 393, Measure for Measure, 1. 2. 4, Winter's Tale, 1. 2. 151, 152, 157, 266, III. 3. 46, 2 Henry VI. III. 2. 393, Henry VIII. 1. 1. 18.

III. 2. 10.

NOTE VIII.

The first Folio prints 'silence' in italics, like a stagedirection. The subsequent Folios have 'Silence. Enter,' also in italics. Rowe printed it, as we have done, as part of the officer's speech. Capell