"Good phra

But

not Mr. Justice Shallow's authority for it? ses are surely, and ever were, very commendable." Shakespeare had no respect for less common words, as such; and so he makes the Bishop say "forbid," even in the solemn opening of this speech. There is not a single instance in his authentic works, in which he uses 'forfend.' Unlike his editors, he clings to the more common word.

KING HENRY IV. PART I.

ACT I. SCENE 1.

"K. Hen. No more the thirsty entrance of this soil Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood."

"The thirsty entrance of this soil," has given much trouble to the editors and critics, who perpetrate three pages of comment and conjecture upon it, in the Variorum Edition. Monck Mason's ingenious substitution of Erinnys for "entrance," is set aside by Boswell, Knight, and Collier. Steevens, Mason and Knight quote Virgil, Lucan, and Ovid in favor of the correction. The following lines, from an English contemporary and townsman of Shakespeare, seem to me to be much more to the purpose:

"Spightfull ERINNIS frights Me with her Lookes,
My man-hood dares not with foule ATE mell,

I quake to looke on HECAT's charming Bookes," &c.

Drayton's Sonnets, No. 39. Ed. 1619.

These sonnets were first published in 1594, under the title Idea's Mirrour, Amours in Quatorzains: The first part of Henry IV. was written in 1596 or 1597. This, to show that Shakespeare was not obliged to go to Lucan, Virgil, or Ovid for the name or the functions of Erinnys.

But there is not the slightest justification for a change in the original text. Steevens perceived the obvious meaning, but true to the spirit of his day, shirked it. He says:-"Shakespeare may mean the thirsty entrance of the soil for the porous surface of the earth, through which all moisture enters, and is thirstily drunk or soaked up." Nothing could be plainer or more pertinent.

"K. Hen. Ten thousand bold Scots, two and twenty knights Balk'd in their own blood, did Sir Walter see

On Holmedon's plains."

How can there be the least hesitation in changing the obvious misprint "balk'd" for bath'd, which is at once the word for which it would be most easily mistaken, and that which would most naturally occur in the passage?

SCENE 3.

Northum. Why, what a wasp-stung and impatient fool
Art thou, to break into this woman's mood," &c.

This, the reading of the first quarto, seems to me unquestionably the true one. The later editions give wasptongue instead of "wasp-stung;" a phrase, which in this place, seems to me to be utterly without meaning, but which is construed by Malone to mean "having a tongue as peevish and mischievous as a wasp." But this makes the Earl call his son "a wasp-tongue and an impatient fool," which is not a Shakesperian or an admissible mode of joining epithets. The advocates of wasp-tongue evidently suppose it, as well as "impatient," to be an adjective belong

ing to "fool;" but in that case it would have been wasptongued.' It is needless to point out the particular parts of Hotspur's conduct in this scene which justify his father in likening him to one stung by a wasp. The confusion of these epithets is the easiest imaginable. It is difficult to discriminate in speech between 'wasp-stung' and 'wasptongue,' and not difficult to mistake them for each other in manuscript.

ACT II. SCENE 1.

"Gads. I am joined with no foot land-rakers, &c., but with nobility and tranquillity &c., burgomasters and great-oneyers."

Mr. Collier's folio changes "tranquillity" to sanguinity, which is beneath notice, and "great-oneyers" to great ones -yes, which is quite as bad, but which attracts some attention because the word has given work to the editors and commentators. The obvious signification of the original word seems to me to be 'great ones' for which "great oneyers' is a vulgarism. It is common enough to hear 'ers' appended to words by those who are altogether without intelligence and education; and it is quite natural that Gadshill should affect their phrase under the circumstances. This view was ably advocated in Blackwood's Magazine (Sept. 1853). But why should so obvious a construction need advocacy? Answer, Commentators of the Augustan age.

"P. Hen.

SCENE 4.

-and when you breathe in your watering they cryhem! and bid you play it off."

By a perhaps laudable, but certainly much overstrained effort for delicacy, "breathe in your watering," is interpret

ed to mean to 'take breath in your drinking.' But in Shakespeare's day, as well as in Henry IV.'s, not much water was drunk, especially in taverns; and why should the drawers cry "hem!" in such a case, and commend the drinker to "play it off?" Watering," evidently does not refer to the absorption of fluid, or "breathe" to the inspiration of air. The obvious signification of the passage is the just one, and that which is most in keeping with the characters alluded to, particularly at the time of Shakespeare.

ACT III. SCENE 1.

"Mort. I understand thy looks: that pretty Welsh Which thou pours't down from these swelling heavens."

The substitution of welling for "swelling" in Mr. Collier's folio, is pretty and plausible; but I am far from being confident as to the necessity for a change.

"Glend. She bids you on the wanton rushes lay you down."

This line was altered by Steevens to,

"She bids you

Upon the wanton rushes lay you down."

The alteration has been generally followed; and upon the lines in this condition, Coleridge remarks, that "the imperfect line 'She bids you,' is one of those fine hair strokes of exquisite judgment peculiar to Shakespeare ;thus detaching the lady's speech, and giving it the indivi