"her death itself,-which could not be her office to say is come, was faithfully confirmed by the rector of the place."

ACT V. SCENE 1.

We owe to Mr. Collier's folio two acceptable emendations in this play. For the stage direction, "Enter a gentle Astringer," in this Scene, it has "Enter a gentleman, a stranger." The context shows that he was a stranger to Helena, although she knew him by reputation. When he afterward appears at the court of the French king, where he is known, he is announced-“ Enter a gentleman."

King

SCENE 3.

She hath that ring of yours.

Ber. I think she has: certain it is, I liked her,
And boarded her i' the wanton way of youth.
She knew her distance, and did angle for me,
Madding my eagerness with her restraint,
As all impediments in fancy's course
Are motives of more fancy; and, in fine,
Her insuit coming with her modern grace,
Subdued me to her rate: she got the ring;
And I had that, which any inferior might
At market-price have bought."

"Insuit coming" is utterly incomprehensible, and has baffled the ingenuity of all the editors and commentators. Mr. Collier's folio substitutes infinite cunning, which is the reading, beyond a doubt. The words are so like in manuscript that they might easily be mistaken for each other; and the context not only admits, but requires them. This is a fine example of proper conjectural emendation,

and is one of the most successful efforts in Mr. Collier's folio. But it should be remarked that no better copy or "authoritative" manuscript was needed for it, it having been discovered by Mr. Thomas Walker, the author of The Original, a series of essays published twenty years before the discovery of Mr. Collier's folio. It should be constantly kept in mind, in considering the worth of that volume, that all its most remarkable and acceptable emendations have been discovered by the conjectural ingenuity of thoughtful readers of Shakespeare; which shows that their existence in the folio is no proof that its correctors had better sources of information than we have. The entirely original emendations are, with very rare exceptions, the thousand which are worse than worthless.

TWELFTH NIGHT.

ACT I. SCENE 1.

“Duke. That straine agen;—it had a dying fall:
O, it came ore my eare like the sweet sound
That breathes vpon a banke of Violets
Stealing, and giuing Odour."

Thus this beautiful passage stands in the original. Rowe changed "sound" to wind, and Pope substituted for it, South, in which he is followed by the editor of every edition since his day, except Mr. Knight. But what right had Pope to change "sound" to South, more than Rowe had to change it to wind? Would either have been willing to own that he could not understand,

"O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound
That breathes upon a bank of violets."?

Upon what ground did they then presume to change it? Because wind or South were better words, in their estimation, than "sound ?" Mr. Knight says the question between these words in effect is, "which is the better word ?" There is no such question up for discussion. If, in place of "sound," there were some word without meaning, or even with a meaning incongruous with the tone of

the passage, and both wind and South were proposed as substitutes, then there would be a question, between wind and South, as to which is the better word. But "sound" is in the original text. It is, to say the least, a comprehensible and appropriate word; and until Rowe, Pope, and their successors, have taken out letters patent to improve the text of Shakespeare, would it not be better for them to confine themselves to editing it? The carelessness of the printers of the authentic folio, or their inability to decipher the manuscript furnished to them by Shakespeare's friends and partners, affords a field for conjecture wide enough for the reasonable ambition of any editor, without his attempting to improve those passages which are comprehensible. I wonder that Pope did not perfect his change, and read,

"O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet South.—

That breeze upon a bank of violets

Stealing, and giving odour."

He certainly had as much right to change "breathes" to breeze, and to call the south wind 'that breeze,' as to change "sound" to South.

But did Pope, or the editors who have followed him, ever lie musing on the sward at the edge of a wood, and hear the low sweet hum of the summer air, as it kissed the coyly-shrinking wild flowers upon the banks, and passed on, loaded with fragrance from the sweet salute? If they ever did, how could they make this change of "sound" to South? and if they never did, they are unable to appreciate the passage, much less to improve it. As Mr. Knight has well remarked, Shakespeare never makes the South an odorbringing wind. He speaks only of "the foggy South," "the contagion of the South," "the spungy South," "the dewdropping South" expressions, these, not at all descriptive

of the wind which the love-sick Duke thought of when he

said,

"the sweet sound

That breathes upon a bank of violets,

Stealing, and giving odor."

"Duke. O when mine eyes did see Olivia first
(Methought she purg'd the air of pestilence)
That instant was I turned into a hart;

And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds,
E'er since pursue me.—

"

What need of this parenthesis, which is not in the original? Yet it is inserted by some of the editors, among them Mr. Knight, who remarks that "the line is certainly parenthetical." Not at all. Orsino says that when he first saw Olivia, he thought she made the air around her pure; and then goes on to say, that, on the instant, his desires pursued him as Acteon's dogs their master. Read:

"Duke.

O, she, that hath a heart of that fine frame,

To pay this debt of love but to a brother

How will she love, when the rich golden shaft

Hath kill'd the flocks of all affections else

That live in her! when, liver, brain, and heart,
Those sovereign thrones, are all supplied, and fill'd

(Her sweet perfections) with one self king!"

Much jarring comment on this passage, both as to "sweet perfections" and "self king," which in the second.