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

duality and entireness of a little poem, while he draws attention to it." Perhaps such an arrangement would have been a stroke of exquisite judgment, had Shakespeare made it; though that is not so obvious to me, even after Coleridge's setting forth; but Shakespeare did not make it. The arrangement is a mere mechanical consequence of Steevens' finger-counting propensity. It is amusing to see the great critic deceived, with his dwarf predecessors and successors, into giving Shakespeare credit for that which was not in his thought. We may all take warning from it.

Malone says that "the old copies" give the line,

"She bids you on the wanton rushes lay you down,"

and Mr. Knight, that "all the old copies give this as one line." They are both wrong. It is one line in all the quartos; but it appears in the first folio, and also in the second, thus:

"Glend. She bids you,

On the wanton Rushes lay you downe."

This seems at first to favor Coleridge's fancy; but it does not, in reality. For there is conclusive evidence that the text of the folio was printed from that of one of the later quartos. The break in the line was merely for typographical convenience. Steevens' printing of the passage,

"She bids you

Upon the wanton rushes," &c.,

was not justified by the folio, and, upon his own confession, was an arbitrary arrangement.

"Fal.

SCENE 3.

but the sack that thou hast drunk me would have bought me lights as good cheap at the dearest chandler's in Europe."

The commentators give various instances of the use of the phrase "good cheap" for 'a low price;' but none of them seem to me to be so pertinent as the following, from the old Morality Hycke-Scorner:

Fre-wyll. Even now and ye go thyder, ye shal fynde a grete hepe, And you speke in my name, ye shal have good chepe."

There has been much perplexity caused by the word "read" in this passage. Some say "read" means 'to see,' others that it is used in its old signification to discover or unravel,' as, 'A rede my riddle.' But is it well to speak of either seeing or discovering by a desperate battle "the bottom and the soul of hope, the list and utmost bound of fortune?" In case of such a battle, the bottom and the soul of hope, the list and utmost bound of fortune, are not seen, not discovered, not read; but they are reached. "Reade," as the word stands in the folio, is an evident and a very easy misprint for reach. In much manuscript ch resembles even d; and in more than half of that which goes to the

press, even nowadays, it could be determined only by the context whether the author meant ch or de. Read therefore:

The folio and two of the early quartos read "take a muster," and though the misprint would seem obvious, both Mr. Knight and Mr. Collier retain it. They probably forgot the following lines, in the Induction of Part II.

"And who but Rumour, who but only I,

Make fearful musters, and prepar'd defence?"