man went to Arthur's bosom. 'A made a finer cnd, and went away, an it had been any christom child; 'a parted even just between twelve and one, e'en at turning o' the tide; for after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, aad smile upon his fingers' ends, I knew there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and 'a babbled of green fields.

Mr. Collier's folio for "a babbled of green fields," gives on a table of green frieze. This is the unkindest cut of all. Unkind? it is cruel. If Mr. Collier even made the announcement of the change without a pang, his heart must be harder than the nether millstone.

In the original the passage is misprinted "a table of green fields." This, by a most felicitous conjecture of Theobald's, was changed to "a babbled of green fields," which reading is not only excellent in itself, but conforms to the style of the context immediately following:

"Nym. They say, he cried out of sack.

Quick. Ay, that 'a did.

Bard. And of women.

Quick. Nay, that 'a did not.

Boy. Yes, that 'a did; and said, they were devils incarnate.

Quick. 'A could never abide carnation: 'twas a color he never liked. Boy. 'A said once, the devil would have him about women. Quick. 'A did in some sort, indeed, handle women: but then he was rheumatick; and talked of the whore of Babylon.

But the emendation in Mr. Collier's folio, atrocious as it is, has found indorsers, one of whom thus speaks, though reluctant and ashamed, in Blackwood's Magazine (Sept. 1853):

"Our reasons are-first, the calenture, which causes people to rave about green fields, is a distemper peculiar to sailors in hot climates; secondly, Falstaff's mind seems to have been running more on sack than on green fields, as Dame Quickly admits

further on in the dialogue; thirdly, however pleasing the supposition about his babbling of green fields may be, it is still more natural that Dame Quickly, whose attention was fixed on the sharpness of his nose set off against a countenance already darkening with the discoloration of death, should have likened it to the sharpness of a pen relieved against a table, or background, of green frieze."

The first reason refers to Theobald's justification of his emendation, on the ground that when people are delirious with a calenture-an intense fever, "their heads run on green fields." But what need of all this talk about calenture, sack, and discolored faces? Falstaff had been a boy, like any other man, a merry boy surely, and an innocent one perhaps; and now, as the end of his ill-spent life rapidly approaches, amid his confused ravings about the dreadful future and the ill-spent past, come up visions of the green and sunlit meadows over which he chased his childhood's happy hours. There is not in so few words a passage of such tearful pathos in the language, as this, which shows a reflected gleam of pure and childish joy, piercing the gloom of the mortal hour of such a man as Falstaff.

ACT IV. SCENE 1.

"Pist. The fico for thee."

This can hardly be ordinary use of the word fig, as in 'I don't care a fig!'-Douce to the contrary notwithstanding. Pistol would then have said "a fico for thee." He evidently means "the fig of Spain," of which he speaks before-Act III., Scene 6.

SCENE 3.

"K. Hen. Mark, then, abounding valour in our English;

That, being dead, like to the bullet's grazing,

Break out into a second course of mischief,
Killing in relapse of mortality."

Mr. Collier's folio reads "rebounding valour," and Mr. Collier defends it, failing, it would seem, to see the pun which Shakespeare puts into Henry's mouth, and which the emendation destroys. Strangely enough this word is a stumbling block to the Variorum men, who read a bounding and abundant.

SCENE 4.

"Fr. Sol. Est il impossible d' eschapper la force de ton bras?
Pist. Brass, cur?"

Two pages of blunders inconceivable are perpetrated upon Pistol's reply by the commentators in the Variorum Sir William Rawlinson leads off after this fash

Edition.

ion :

"Brass, cur!'-Either Shakespeare had very little knowledge in the French language, or his over-fondness for punning led him, in this place, contrary to his own judgment, into an error. Almost every one knows that the French word bras is pronounced brau; and what resemblance of sound does this bear to brass, that Pistol should reply, Brass, cur?' The joke would appear to a reader, but could scarce be discovered in the performance of the play."

Samuel Johnson, LL. D., follows thus:

"If the pronunciation of the French language be not changed since Shakespeare's time, which is not unlikely, it may be suspected that some other man wrote the French scenes.

Samuel Farmer, D.D., who decided on the no-learning of Shakespeare, sustains his brother Doctor, the lexicographer and great moralist. Malone says that "the word bras was, without doubt, pronounced, in the last age, and by the English who understood French, as at present, braw;" and as to that language, he thinks Shakespeare's "knowledge of it was very slight." Douce has sense enough to see the triviality of the controversy, but passes the same judgment. And all this, because these very learned men did not know the first elements of French pronunciation, and Shakespeare did. The "English who understood French" in Malone's day, may have pronounced bras like braw; and from the remarks which Frenchmen make upon the pronunciation of their language by the English, this was very probably the case; but Frenchmen, and all Americans who have any pretence to French scholarship, pronounce bras as brah, which is surely similar enough in sound to "brass" for a stage pun upon the words.

KING HENRY VI. PART I.

ACT III. SCENE 2.

"Bur. Warlike and martial Talbot, Burgundy Enshrines thee in his heart."

For the tautological "Warlike and Martiall Talbot" of the original, Mr. Collier's folio plausibly suggests, "Warlike and matchless Talbot."

ACT IV. SCENE 5.

Young Tal. You fled for vantage, every one will swear;
But if I bow, they'll say it was for fear.”

For "bow" Mr. Singer proposes flew, instigated thereto by a MS. correction on the margin of a copy of the second folio in his possession. But did Mr. Singer ever see 'flew' used as the præterite of 'fly,' meaning 'to run away?' If I do not err, 'flew' is exclusively confined to the action of wings, except when it is used figuratively, to picture rapidity and eagerness of motion, as, he flew to her relief,' the soldiers flew to arms.' But when we wish to say, in English, that a man ran away, we say that he 'fled.'