Mr. Collier says that "there is undeniable error in the subsequent lines at the end of Scrope's speech in Henry IV., Part 2, Act IV. Sc. 1.

"So that this land, like an offensive wife
That hath enrag'd him on to offer strokes,
As he is striking, holds his infant up,
And hangs resolv'd correction in the arm
That was uprear'd to execution."

"To whom," asks Mr. Collier, "does "him' refer? Indisputably to the husband," and he sustains his folio in reading the second line,

"That hath enrag'd her man to offer strokes."

But "him" refers to King Henry; as is evident from the context, in which Scrope distinctly points out the king's perplexity, which his simile of the "offensive wife" but illustrates :

"For full well he knows,

He cannot so precisely weed this land,
As his misdoubts present occasion:
His foes are so enrooted with his friends,
That, plucking to unfix an enemy,
He doth unfasten so, and shake a friend,
So that this land, like an offensive wife,
That hath enrag'd him on to offer strokes,
As he is striking, holds his infant up," &c.

In Act III. Scene 5, of Romeo and Juliet, Juliet having been informed by Lady Capulet of the projected marriage with Paris, refuses the match indignantly. The conclusion of her speech, and her mother's reply, are as follows:

"I will not marry yet; and when I do, I swear

It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate,

Rather than Paris:-These are news indeed!

Lady C. Here comes your father; tell him so yourself," &c.

This passage, Mr. Collier's folio changes, by giving Juliet's last exclamation to her mother, and omitting "I swear! " Thus :

"I will not marry yet; and when I do,

It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate,
Rather than Paris.

Here comes your father; tell him so yourself, &c."

The new arrangement is called "judicious 'judicious" by Mr. Collier, who also justifies the omission of "I swear!" on the ground that the oath is "hardly consistent with the delicacy of her [Juliet's] character, and certainly destructive to the measure." But both the MS. corrector and Mr. Collier forget that Lady Capulet leads to the announcement of the projected marriage by promising Juliet pleasant news, about which the poor ignorant girl at once expresses curiosity. She has just affected such a hatred of Romeo as to profess to be willing to mix a poison for him, if some man could be found to give it to him: her mother replies:

"Find thou the means, and I'll find such a man.
But now I'll tell thee joyful tidings, girl.

Jul. All joy comes well in such a needy time;
What are they, I beseech your ladyship?"

Lady Capulet, in reply, tells her of the negotiated marriage; at which she at once expresses her disgust and surprise, and exclaims, as well she may, "These are news indeed!" She has learned her mother's "joyful tidings," as we say, 'with a vengeance.' The exclamation palpably belongs to her; and there is not the slightest pretext for giving it to her mother. As to "I swear" being inconsistent with the delicacy of Juliet's character, Mr. Collier seems to have forgotten, that like most young ladies of her

country and her time, she had a pretty free tongue of her own that she calls her nurse "a devil," and Romeo, in her contending emotions on the death of Tybalt, "a damned saint," and her nurse again, an "ancient damnation," simply because that easy-going old person advises her to marry the County Paris. Compared with these expressions, Juliet's "I swear," which was but a solemn asseveration, natural under the circumstances, is venial; especially when we consider how freely ladies talked in Shakespeare's day. Here, then, in a single passage we find displayed a neglect of the context, a want of appreciation of character as Shakespeare has portrayed it, and an ignorance or disregard of the manners of his time.

Much delight has been expressed by some persons, intelligent people, too, at the substitution of boast for "beast' in a speech of Lady Macbeth's. She says, as Macbeth expresses a fear to murder Duncan,

"What beast was't, then,

That made you break this enterprise to me?"

The MS. corrector makes this,

"What boast was't, then,

That made you break this enterprise to me?"

altogether forgetting that Macbeth had but just said,

"I dare do all that may become a man.

Who dares do more, is none,"

and that Lady Macbeth, at once catching at his phrase, instantly replies, "what beast was't, then," [since it was unworthy of a man] "that made you break this enterprise to me?"-and, besides, Macbeth had made no boast.

Several other glaring instances, establishing the fact that the corrections were made in entire ignorance or disregard

of the context, are indicated on my memoranda; but these are sufficient; and we must pass on to consider a specimen or two of the many changes which show that a long time had elapsed between the writing of the plays, and the MS. alteration of the text. The first I shall notice is a MS. stage direction in Act. IV. Sc. 3, where Biron has read his sonnet, and, seeing the king approaching with a paper, wishes to hide himself. Mr. Collier says:

"When at this juncture, Biron conceals himself, the printed stage direction is only He stands aside, but that is obliterated, and He gets him in a tree, is put in its place in manuscript. When, too, Biron interposes some remarks to himself, it is added that he is in the tree," &c.

It is strange that the historian of the English Stage did not see that these stage directions-for there are several such--are fatal to the pretence of his folio to "authority.” Why was the printed direction only "He stands aside," in the second folio as well as in the first? Because, when the play was written and printed, painted scenery, and above all, 'practicable' trees did not exist upon our stage. When they represented the field of Agincourt, as in the Chorus to the fourth Act of Henry V., Shakespeare himself tells us they did,

"With three or four most vile and ragged foils

Right ill dispos'd in brawl ridiculous,"

Scenery

it was useless to direct a man to mount a tree. of that sort was not introduced until after the Restoration ; and the direction "in the tree," appended to Biron's remark to himself, shows that it was actually in use on the stage when these MS. alterations were made.t

*For instance, in Much Ado About Nothing, Act II. Scene 3, where the stage direction in Mr. Collier's folio for Benedick, is, “Retires behind the trees."

I cannot if I would, reproduce all my authorities for minor and well

In the second scene of the Induction to the Taming of the Shrew, Sly, insisting upon his tinkership, says,

Ask Marian Hacket, the fat alewife of Wincot, if she know me not: and if she say I am not fourteen pence on the score for sheer ale, score me up for the lyingest knave in Christendom."

This passage has presented a difficulty to all the English editors of Shakespeare, which could never have occurred even to an American boy. The trouble is in the expresHear Mr. Collier:

sion "sheer ale."

6

"Malone did not know what to make of sheer ale,' but supposed that it meant shearing or reaping ale, for so reaping is called in Warwickshire. What does it mean? It is spelt sheere in the old copies, and that word begins one line, Warwick having undoubtedly dropt out at the end of the preceding line. The corrector of the folio 1632, inserted the missing word in manuscript, and made the last part of the sentence run

'If she say I am not fourteen pence on the score for Warwickshire ale, score me up for the lyingest knave in Christendom.'

Wincot, where Marian Hacket lived, is some miles from Stratford-upon-Avon. It was formerly not at all unusual to spell 'shire' sheere; and Sly's 'sheer ale' thus turns out to have been Warwickshire ale, which Shakespeare celebrated, and of which he had doubtless often partaken at Mrs. Hacket's."

To this, add Mr. Singer's perplexity. He says:

"Sheer ale' is altered to Warwickshire ale,' an unwarrantable license, and a very improbable name to have been given to Sly's liquor. Sheer ale was most likely, ale which the Tinker had drunk at his own charge on Sheer Tuesday, a day of great comfort to the poor from the doles or distribution of clothes,

established points. The reader who desires to examine the facts and doeuments which establish the time of the introduction of scenery upon the English Stage, will find them fully set forth in Malone's History of the English Stage,-in the Variorum Shakespeare, Vol. iii., p. 79 to p. 109.