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there at the pridge," &c.; and Mr. Knight gives, “There is an ancient there at the pridge," &c. But Mr. Collier prefers the reading of the folio, and points the words thus (p. 514), "There is an ancient, lieutenant, there at the pridge," &c.— a punctuation which makes "lieutenant" apply to the person addressed by Fluellen, viz. Gower, who throughout the play is repeatedly termed "captain"! Mr. Knight (p. 351) asks, "is the blunder of ancient lieutenant' that of Fluellen, or of the printer?" The probability is, that the transcriber had originally written by mistake "lieutenant," for which he had afterwards substituted" ancient;" and that, the word "lieutenant" being imperfectly deleted, the printer retained it as well as the correction.

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Boy. As duly, but not as truly, as bird doth sing on bough.”

It may be doubted whether the boy's speech be a continuation of the song just cited by Pistol; but there can be no doubt that it is a portion of some song, and that it ought therefore to be printed (as Mr. Knight gives it at Douce's suggestion) as verse.

SCENE 2.-C. p. 504.

'I knew by that piece of service the men would carry coals."

"The origin of the expression was probably the low occupation of colliers in former times, which rendered collier' a term of abuse." COLLIER.

This expression contains an allusion, not to colliers, but to carriers of coals. In the royal residences and great houses the lowest drudges appear to have been selected to carry coals to the kitchens, halls, &c.; see note on Jonson's Works, ii. 169, by Gifford, who afterwards (p. 179) observes, "From the mean nature of this occupation it seems to have been somewhat

hastily concluded, that a man who would carry coals would submit to any indignity." In Lyly's Midas mention is made of "

one of the Cole house" (sig. F 4, ed. 1592), i. e. one of the drudges about the palace of King Midas.

"Gow. Captain Fluellen, you must come presently to the mines: the duke of Gloster would speak with you.

Flu. To the mines; tell you the duke," &c.

I should have supposed that the erroneous pointing in Fluellen's speech,—which ought to stand, "To the mines! tell you the duke," &c.,—was only a printer's mistake (like that which occurs in a subsequent speech of Fluellen, where a comma is interposed between a noun and its immediately following verb,-" fortune, is an excellent moral," p. 514), had not various other passages in this edition (see, for instance, the fourth speech of Orleans at p. 523) indicated something like a systematic rejection of the exclamation-point.

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SCENE 7.-C. p. 521.

"" in your strait trossers."

The old copy (as Malone states) reads strossers. tion was made by Theobald," &c. COLLIER.

The correc

"The correction"! We repeatedly find the form strosser in our early writers.

"Nor the Danish sleeve sagging down like a Welch wallet, the Italian's close strosser, nor the French standing collar."

Gull's Hornbook, p. 40, reprint, 1812.

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Dekker's

Or, like a toiling usurer, sets his son a-horseback in cloth-ofgold breeches, while he himself goes to the devil a-foot in a pair of old strossers." Middleton's No Wit, No Help like a Woman's, act ii. sc. 1,-Works, v. 40, ed. Dyce.

ACT IV.

SCENE 5.-C. p. 546.

Shame, and eternal shame, nothing but shame!
Let us die :-in !—Once more back again," &c.

6

"Thus the line stands in the folio, and seems to require no alteration. Bourbon is urging his companions to return to the battle, 'Let us die in!' that is, let us in,' and once more back to the fight.' The line consists, it is true, of only nine syllables, but we have many such in Shakespeare; and the time is amply made up by the proper pauses after the exhortations, 'Let us die :-in!'-Theobald reads very lamely, 'Let us die instant;' and Malone very needlessly, ‘Let us die in fight."" COLLIER.

This is not the only note in Mr. Collier's edition to which the remark of a very learned and judicious critic might be well applied; "An interpreter, who can make his way through such a difficulty as this, will scarcely find anything in language to arrest his course." (Eurip. Iphig. in Aul. p. 169, ed. Cant. 1840.)

In the folio the line stands thus (without the colon, breaks, and exclamation-point, which Mr. Collier has added in the vain attempt to render it intelligible);

"Let vs dye in once more backe againe,”

a word being evidently omitted; and several years have now elapsed since the true reading,

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Let us die in honour: once more back again,"

was restored by Mr. Knight (in his Pictorial Shakspere) from the corresponding scene of the quarto, where we find;

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Lets dye with honor, our shame doth last too long."

See Mr. Knight's very satisfactory note ad loc.

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ACT V.

SCENE 1.-C. p. 563.

Pist. Doth fortune play the huswife with me now?
News have I, that my Doll is dead i' the spital

Of malady of France;

And there my rendezvous is quite cut off."

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"So the folio, confirmed by the quarto editions. Modern editors (some without any notice) substitute Nell for Doll.' It was much more likely that Doll Tearsheet would follow the army to France, than Nell Quickly, who had been left in England to manage the business of the tavern during Pistol's absence." COLLIER.

In the Second Part of King Henry IV., when the Drawer announces that Pistol is below, Doll Tearsheet fires at the very name of" the swaggering rascal;" soon after his entrance, she assails him with a torrent of abuse; nor is she satisfied till he has been thrust down stairs (act ii. sc. 4). In the present play Pistol figures as the husband of " the quondam Quickly;" he calls her "MY NELL" (act ii. sc. 1); scornfully bids Nym espouse Doll Tearsheet (ibid.); and takes a very affectionate leave of his own wife on departing for France (act ii. sc. 3). All this, however, the enmity between Doll Tearsheet and Pistol, and the marriage of Pistol and Mrs. Quickly,—weighs nothing with Mr. Collier, and he here deliberately replaces "Doll" in the text!

From the earlier scenes of this play it is quite evident that neither Doll nor Nell had ever quitted England; and I can only suppose that when Mr. Collier made his strange remark about Doll's " following the army to France," he had forgotten that "malady of France" (morbus Gallicus) was a term commonly used, not only in our own country, but all over Europe. In short, Pistol means that he has received from England the news of Mrs. Quickly's death, and that consequently he has no longer a home at the comfortable tavern in Eastcheap.

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SCENE 2.-C. p. 565.

'Her vine, the merry cheerer of the heart,
Unpruned dies: her hedges even-pleached,
Like prisoners wildly over-grown with hair,
Put forth disorder'd twigs: her fallow leas
The darnel, hemlock, and rank fumitory,
Doth root upon, while that the coulter rusts,
That should deracinate such savagery :
The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth
The freckled cowslip, burnet, and green clover,
Wanting the scythe, all uncorrected, rank,
Conceives by idleness, and nothing teems,
But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burs,
Losing both beauty and utility;

And all our vineyards, fallows, meads, and hedges,
Defective in their natures, grow to wildness.

Even so our houses, and ourselves, and children,
Have lost, or do not learn, for want of time,
The sciences that should become our country,
But grow, like savages,-
-as soldiers will,

That nothing do but meditate on blood,—

To swearing, and stern looks, diffus'd attire,

And every thing that seems unnatural."

"The folio has 'all,' which modern editors, from not attending to the old punctuation, have needlessly changed to as.”

COLLIER.

According to the monstrous reading and punctuation which are here brought back into the text, Burgundy first dwells on the wretched state of the country,- of its vines, hedges, fallow leas, and meads, and then, AS IF HE HAD NEVER EVEN MENTIONED THEM, adds;

"And all our vineyards, fallows, meads, and hedges,

Defective in their nature, grow to wildness"!!!

That the following is the shape in which the passage came from the pen of Shakespeare, who, except Mr. Collier, will for a moment doubt?

"And as our vineyards, fallows, meads, and hedges,
Defective in their natures, grow to wildness;

Even so our houses, and ourselves, and children,

Have lost, or do not learn, for want of time,

The sciences that should become our country," &c.

The alteration of "all" to "as" was first made by Roderick, a fellow of Magdalen College, Cambridge, and a friend of Edwards, the author of the Canons of Criticism.

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