it had occurred so often just before) was probably written here contractedly, "T," which the compositor might easily mistake for "I." Act iv. sc. 3. "Ant. S. Avoid then, fiend." "The manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, has it, 'Avoid, thou fiend!' which is probably accurate, but the change is trifling." Collier's Notes and Emendations, &c. p. 62. An Here the Manuscript-corrector has anticipated me. On the margin of the Varior. Shakespeare, I noted down what follows several years ago. "The word 'then' seems uncalled for by any thing that Dromio has just said: tipholus had already declared that the lady was 'Satan' and 'the devil:'-surely, the right reading is 'Avoid thee, fiend!" I must add, first, that "thee" is preferable to "thou," because it comes nearer the old reading 66 then ;" and secondly, that "Avoid thee, fiend!" is much more common than "Avoid, thou fiend !" (the former occurs frequently even in modern writers; e.g. "Avoid thee, fiend! with cruel hand Shake not the dying sinner's sand," &c. Scott's Marmion, c. vi.) Act iv. sc. 4. "Ant. E. You minion, you; are these your customers ?” "A customer is used in Othello for a common woman. Here it seems to signify one who visits such women.' MA LONE. This is the only note on the passage; and a surprising note it is." Your customers" means nothing more thanthe people who frequent your house. ("Auentore, a custo mer, a commer or a frequentor to a place.". Florio's Dict.) Act v. sc. 1. "The place of depth and sorry execution.' "Is amended in manuscript in the folio, 1632, to 'The place of death and solemn execution.' Collier's Notes and Emendations, &c. p. 63. That "depth" was a misprint for "death," I did not require the authority of the Manuscript-corrector to convinte me; but I am glad that he has pronounced it to be so, because the probability of any future editor retaining it is thereby considerably lessened. (Even Mr. Collier, who gave "death" in his text, was afterwards troubled with great doubts whether he had done rightly: see the "Additional Notes" to his Shakespeare, i. cclxxxv.) According to Mr. Hunter, "The place of depth' means, in the Greek story, the Barathrum, the deep pit, into which offenders were cast. So Jonson, 'Opinion! let gross opinion sink As deep as Barathrum.' Every Man in his Humour, ed. 1601." I do not perceive the appositeness of this quotation from Jonson.* In it "Barathrum" undoubtedly means hell. Compare Dekker's Knights Conjuring, 1607; “In *It is incorrectly cited above. In the quarto, 1601, it stands thus ; Sig. M. raged at which, he flung away, and leapt into Barathrum." Sig. c 3. Taylor's Worlds Eighth Wonder; "Thus all blacke Barathrum is fill'd with games, and his Bawd; p. 67,-Workes, ed. 1631. "Cocitus Monarch, high and mighty Dis, Those Kingdomes which men Barathrum doe call." p. 92 (second),-Ibid. Act v. sc. 1. "Serv. O mistress, mistress, shift and save yourself! Whose beard they have sing'd off with brands of fire; Great pails of puddled mire to quench the hair : Warburton saw that, in the last line, the true reading was "scotch;" but this obvious emendation has been treated with contempt by his successors. "Scorch,' says Steevens, "I believe, is right. He would have punished her as he had punished the conjurer before ;"—which must have E been by singing off her beard!-The folio has the very same misprint in Macbeth, act iii. sc. 2 ; "We have scorch'd [read "scotch'd"] the snake, not kill'd it.” So, too, have all the old editions of Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle, act iii. sc. 4; "Re-enter GEORGE, leading a second Man, with a patch over his nose. George. Puissant Knight, of the Burning Pestle hight, See here another wretch, whom this foul beast Hath scorcht [read "scotch'd"] and scor'd in this inhuman wise !" Act v. sc. 1. “I think, you all have drunk of Circe's cup." Malone writes; “ The Duke means to all are out of your senses; so below;— I think you say, 'I think you are all mated, or stark mad.' Circe's potion, however, though it transformed the companions of Ulysses into swine, and deprived them of speech, did not, it should seem, deprive them of their reason; for Homer tells us that they lamented their transformation. However, the Duke's words are sufficiently intelligible, if we consider them as meaning-Methinks you all are become as irrational as beasts." But Malone forgets Virgil; who evidently meant us to understand that those whom Circe had transformed were deprived of reason;" 66 "Hinc exaudiri gemitus iræque leonum, Vincla recusantum, et sera sub nocte rudentum ; Setigerique sues, atque in præsepibus ursi Sævire, ac formæ magnorum ululare luporum." En. vii. 15. "Resembling those Grecians, that, with Vlysses, drinking of Circes drugges, lost both forme and memorie." Greene's Neuer too late, sig. G 4, ed. 1611. Act v. sc. 1. "The following lines," says Mr. Collier, "as they are printed in the folio, 1623, have been the source of considerable cavil: 'Thirty-three years have I but gone in travail Of you, my sons, and till this present hour That the above is corrupt there can be no question; and in the folio, 1632, the printer attempted thus to amend the passage: 'Thirty-three years have I been gone in travail Malone gave it thus: 'Twenty-five years have I but gone in travail The manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, makes the slightest possible change in the second line, and at once removes the whole difficulty: he puts it,— |