SCENE IV.-page 286. LORENZO. When you shall please to play the thieves for wives, Though Sir Thomas Hanmer's emendation gives this verse its due measure; by a slight transposition, the Author's words will have the same effect. I would read: When you shall please to play the thieves for wives, SCENE VIII.-page 294. SALARINO. And for the Jew's bond, which he hath of me, Three errors appear in this passage, all owing to the loss of ta, which having dropped out of the page in its metal state, left two words remaining instead of one; and this error occasioned a second in the word of. The original, unquestionably, read: And for the Jew's bond, which he hath of me, Meaning: Let not the Jew's bond dwell upon your memory, so as to intervene between you and happiness, or draw your attention off love; but, be merry; and employ your chiefest thoughts to courtship. SCENE VIII.-page 296. SALANIO. I pray thee, let us go, and find him out, Antonio, as yet, is ignorant of any loss; why then should he embrace heaviness? The transcriber certainly mistook the word, and for impressed, wrote embraced. let us go, and find him out, And quicken his impressed heaviness. Meaning: Let us introduce him where, by some delight or other, the heavy impression may be removed. SCENE IX.-page 301. ARRAGON. Take what wife you will to bed, Dr. Johnson observes: "Perhaps the Poet had forgotten, that he who missed Portia was never to marry any woman." In my opinion, the Poet had not so treacherous a memory; but, the compositor, because a bed was introduced, deemed it necessary to place a wife therein.-The Poet wrote: Take what wise you will to bed, i.e. Go to bed in what manner you will, a blinking idiot's head will rest upon your pillow: politely, calling the Prince of Arragon, a blinking idiot, for not choosing the valuable casket. BASSANIO. ACT III. SCENE II.-page 318. But her eyes, How could he see to do them? having made one, The artist must finish one eye in a painting, before he can give corresponding beauty to the other. This is the figure which strikes Bassanio; he wonders, when the painter had made one eye, that its beauty did not steal both his, And leave it's self unfurnish'd. Meaning-Its fellow eye. By the word unfurnish'd, he means, the ornaments of the eye-the eye-brows, &c. In this blunder there is some apology for the transcriber, who wrote as another person read to him; no ear can distinguish itself from its self, unless a short pause be observed between its and self. The delicate idea which this passage now conveys, is, I believe, original; I do not recollect meeting, in our Author's works, its similitude. SCENE IV.-page 333. PORTIA. Bring them, I pray thee, with imagin'd speed Which trades to Venice:-waste no time in words, &c. This passage would certainly have defied my penetration, had it not been for the light I received from part of Mr. Malone's note, which is as follows: "Twenty miles from Padua, on the river Brenta, there is a dam, or sluice, to prevent the water of that river from mixing with that of the marches of Venice. Here the passage-boat is drawn out of the river, and lifted over the dam by a crane. From hence to Venice the distance is five miles." A crane, thus particularized, and but five miles from Venice, whither Portia is going, becomes, not only an object of curiosity, but a guide to travellers on the road to Venice. It is immediately connected, or adjoining the ferry which receives the boats when drawn out of the river Brența. It requires then no great skill to develop the Author's meaning, his text having been, originally, sufficiently clear. Bring them, I pray thee, with imagin'd speed Unto the crane, next to the common ferry Which trades to Venice:-waste no time in words, &c. Mr. Malone's note is a clear elucidation: and if the old crane, next to the common ferry, be not there at present, no doubt a new one has been erected. The compositor having composed the word crane, forgot the ne of next, from having just composed the same letters; which making cranext, the person who read for the press, not knowing such a word, made it tranect, which proved equally incapable of illustration. I cannot but testify some surprise, that Mr. Malone, with this knowledge of the crane, should have overlooked the necessary correction; and yet so perfectly was it veiled from him, that he supposed "some novel-writer of Shakspeare's time might have called the dam by the name of the tranect." Mr. Rowe changed tranect to traject, which, though it made gross tautology, was adopted by all the subsequent Editors. SCENE V.-page 338. LORENZO. Goodly lord, what a wit-snapper are you! False punctuation has rendered this passage corrupt; we should read: Goodly-lord, what a wit-snapper are you! Launcelot says, "they have all good stomachs."Ay, goodly, says Lorenzo:-meaning, goodly stomachs. This is a common ellipsis. SCENE V.-page 339. LORENZO. Yet more quarrelling with occasion! Some strokes of wit pass between master and man, but I perceive no quarrelling: nor can I make any reasonable sense out of the passage. The transcriber seems to have mistaken two words: I read Or, Yet more quibbling:-What occasion? Yet more quibbling without occasion! Lorenzo thinks Launcelot has quibbled too much on words. A hungry man, awaiting his dinner, disapproves unnecessary loquacity. SCENE V.-page 339. LORENZO. O dear discretion, how his words are suited! If Lorenzo does not mean the contrary, we should read-sorted. Launcelot had sorted out an army of good words, and now misapplies them. ACT IV. SCENE I.-page 344. SHYLOCK. Some men there are, love not a gaping pig; Some, that are mad, if they behold a cat; And others, when the bag-pipe sings i'the nose, This passage has afforded more than common scope for controversy, and is deemed by all my predecessors as peculiarly difficult: Some Commentators mistress it; others master it; but still, it has mastered all their ingenuity. Mr. Rowe has-masterless; yet, after all, by changing a single letter-a t for an s, the error being merely a misprint, we gain the Author's word. The old copies read: "And others, when the bag-pipe sings i'the nose, Cannot contain their urine for affection. Masters of passion, sways it to the mood Of what it likes or loaths." The reader will observe that, according to the reading of the old editions, there is no point after the word urine, and that a full point is placed after affection. F |