sionally found even in мss. of Shakespeare's time: hence the greater probability of the word being mistaken by a compositor for shop.)

Act v. sc. 1.

"For what is inward between us, let it pass :-I do beseech thee, remember thy courtesy ;-I beseech thee, apparel thy head."

So the passage is given in all copies ancient and modern. Malone saw that the addition of the word "not" was absolutely necessary for the sense; and yet he did not venture to introduce it into the text! Nothing can be more evident than that Shakespeare wrote, "remember not thy courtesy." Holofernes had taken off his hat; and Armado condescendingly says,-Don't stand on courtesy, apparel thy head.

Act v. sc. 2.

"A lady wall'd about with diamonds !"

It may be noticed that Marlowe, in his Dido, had made Ganymede describe himself as "wall'd in with eagle's wings." Works, ii. 366, ed. Dyce.

Act v. sc. 2.

"Ros. 'Ware pencils! How? let me not die your debtor," &c.

So the line stands in all editions.

I have no doubt that we ought to print, "Ware pencils, ho!"--the "how" of the early copies being merely

the old spelling of "ho." It would be easy to adduce many instances of that spelling. So, in the last scene of The Taming of a Shrew, ed. 1594, the Tapster, finding Sly asleep, calls out, "What how [i. e. ho], Slie! awake for shame" (which in the later eds. is erroneously altered to "What now," &c.). So too in The History of Stukeley, 1605,

"Are the gates shut alreadie? open how [i. e. ho!].”

Sig. E 3.

and afterwards, "Some water, water howe [i. e. ho!]." Sig. L.

See also my remarks on Anthony and Cleopatra, act i. sc. 2, in this volume.

In the present passage "ho" is, of course, equivalent to cease, stop,—a meaning which formerly it often bore.

Act v. sc. 2.

"King. Farewell, mad wenches: you have simple wits.
Prin. Twenty adieus, my frozen Muscovites.

Exeunt King, Lords, &c."

So the modern editors. But they ought to have followed the old copies, which here (and here only) have, for the sake of exact rhyme, "Muscovits."

Those who are well read in our early poets will recollect the strange liberties which some of them take with words when a rhyme is required.

Act v. sc. 2.

"Biron. This jest is dry to me.-Fair, gentle sweet, Your wit makes wise things foolish.”

H

"Fair" (which Malone altered to "My," and which Mr. Knight rejects) is adopted from the second folio by Mr. Collier; and in all probability it was the word here used by Shakespeare. So in Day's Law-Trickes, 1608, we find, "God saue, faire sweete." Sig. B 4.

Act v. sc. 2.

"Judas was hang'd on an elder."

See Marlowe's Jew of Malta (and note), Works, i. 329, ed. Dyce.

"The passage," observes Mr. Collier, "is corrupt, and the manuscript alteration made in the folio, 1632, thus sets it right, and renders the sense distinct;

'The extreme parting time expressly forms

All causes,' &c."

Notes and Emendations, &c. p. 96.

The Manuscript-corrector's alteration is ingenious: that it restores the original reading, I am far from convinced.

Strange to say, the commentators seem to have been puzzled by the word "loose." The only note on that word in the Variorum Shakespeare is the following one;

"At his very loose may mean at the moment of his parting, i. e. of his getting loose, or away from us. So, in some ancient poem, of which I forgot to preserve either the date or title [the poem is Drayton's Fifth Eglogue, p. 449, ed. 1619];

'Envy discharging all her pois'nous [poys'ned] darts,

The valiant mind is temper'd with that fire,
At her fierce loose that weakly never parts [starts],
But in despight doth force her to retire.""

STEEVENS.

Loose is properly the act of discharging an arrow; "the archers terme, who is not said to finish the feate of his shot before he giue the loose, and deliuer his arrow from his bow." Puttenham's Arte of English Poesie, 1589, p. 145. Compare A Warning for Faire Women, 1599;

"Twice, as you see, this sad distressed man,

The onely marke whereat foule Murther shot,
Just in the loose of enuious eager Death,
By accidents strange and miraculous,
Escap't the arrow aymed at his hart."

and Beaumont and Fletcher's Cupid's Revenge;

Sig. E 3.

"But he shall know ere long that my smart loose
Can thaw ice, and inflame the wither'd heart

Of Nestor."

Act ii. sc. 1.

In a famous passage of Midsummer-Night's Dream we have the verb,-" loos'd" (on which the commentators give no note);

"And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow,

As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts."
Act ii. sc. 2.

"Descocher une fleiche. To shoote, loosse, or send an arrow from a bow." Cotgrave's Dict.