Act iii. sc. 4. "Oli. I have said too much unto a heart of stone, And laid mine honour too unchary out." In this passage "out" is Theobald's correction for "on't" of the old editions,-a correction adopted by all succeeding editors, except Mr. Collier and Mr. Knight. Mr. Collier's note is; "ON'T] i. e. On the heart of stone: 'bestowed my honour too incautiously on a heart of stone.' Theobald changed 'on't' to out, but without reason." Mr. Knight's is; "Unchary on't. So in the original. The ordinary reading is 'unchary out.' Douce is unwilling, as we are, to disturb the old reading. Olivia has laid her honour too unchary (uncharily) upon a heart of stone." Though what I say will perhaps carry little weight with Mr. Collier, because I did not happen to exist about the year 1632; and though Mr. Knight is averse to the voice of criticism, whether it proceeds from the living or the dead; I must yet exclaim against their thrusting back into the text an obvious error of the press. The misprint of "on't" for "out" is common enough. So the quarto 1640 of Fletcher's Bloody Brother, act iv. sc. 1, has, "Princes may pick their suffering nobles on't, And one by one employ them to the block," &c.— where the other old copies have, as the sense requires, "out." So, too, in Fletcher and Shakespeare's Two Noble Kinsmen, act i. sc. 4, the quarto 1634 has "Y'are ont of breath," where the second folio (the play is not in the first folio) gives "out." With the passage of Shakespeare now under consideration compare the following lines by a nameless dramatist; "Keepe her from the Serpent, let her not gad For there is blushing modestie laide out," &c. Act v. sc. 1. "Clo. Marry, sir, lullaby to your bounty, till I come again." In The Shakespeare Society's Papers, vol. iii. 35, Mr. Halliwell observes that "lullaby is sufficiently unusual as a verb to justify an example;" and he adduces one. Here is another; "Sweet sound that all mens sences lullabieth." Anthony Copley's Fig for Fortune, 1596, p. 59. Act v. sc. 1. "Re-enter FABIAN with MALVOLIO." "When Malvolio is brought upon the scene by Fabian, we meet with a very particular stage-direction, obedience to which must have been intended to produce a ludicrous effect upon the audience: Enter Malvolio, as from prison, with straw about him; in order to show the nature of the confinement to which the poor conceited victim had been subjected." Collier's Notes and Emendations, &c. p. 180. On the modern stage, Malvolio, in this scene, always enters with some "straw about him ;" and such probably has been the invariable custom since the play was first produced. I well remember that, when Twelfth-Night was revived at Edinburgh* many years ago, Terry, who then acted Malvolio (and acted it much better than any one I have since seen in the part) had "straw about him," on his release from durance: nor is the straw omitted by the present representative of Malvolio at the Princess's Theatre. 66 * That revival is immortalised by Sir W. Scott: Flora Mac-Ivor bore a most striking resemblance to her brother Fergus; so much so, that they might have played Viola and Sebastian, with the same exquisite effect produced by the appearance of Mrs. Henry Siddons and her brother [William Murray] in those characters." Waverley, vol. i. 317, third ed., 1814. THE WINTER'S TALE. Act i. sc. 2. "Leon. To bide upon't,-thou art not honest; or, If thou inclin'st that way," &c. Here" To bide upon't" is equivalent to- My abiding opinion is. Compare Beaumont and Fletcher's King and No King, act iv. sc. 3; and Potts's Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster, 1613; "the wife of the said Peter then said, to abide upon it, I thinke that my husband will neuer mend," &c. Sig. T 4. Act iv. sc. 3. "O Proserpina, For the flowers now, that, frighted, thou let'st fall (i. e. Dis's chariot.) So Barnaby Barnes in his Divils Charter, 1607 (which in all probability preceded The Winter's Tale); "From the pale horror of eternall fire Am I sent with the wagon of blacke Dis," &c. Sig. M 2. Act iv. sc. 3. "Pol. This is the prettiest low-born lass, that ever Ran on the green-sord." So all the old copies. The modern editors print "greensward;" but the other was undoubtedly Shakespeare's form of the word. Milton also wrote it "sord;” "I' the midst an altar as the land-mark stood, Rustic, of grassy sord." Par. Lost, xi. 433. (where Fenton substituted "sod;" but Newton and Todd restored the old reading.) And Pope, in one of his earliest pieces, has, "So featly tript the light-foot ladies round, The knights so nimbly o'er the greensword bound," &c. January and May,-(Tonson's Miscellany, 1709, vol. vi., where it originally appeared). Coles, in his English-Latin Dict. (sub Sword), gives; "The green sword, Cespes." Would I were dead, but that, methinks, already What was he that did make it ?-See, my lord, "One of those highly-important completions of the old, and imperfect, text of Shakespeare, consisting of a whole line, where the sense is left unfinished without it, here occurs. Warburton saw that something was wanting, |