the folio has " a very saint;" which the Var., I think, retains. Possibly also All's Well, &c. iii. 2 (so arrange),— "Ay, my good lady, he. Countess. A very tainted fellow, And full of wickedness ;" very ought to be expunged. 3 King Henry VI. iii. 2,— "Brothers, you muse what chat we two have had. Gloster. The widow likes it not, for she looks sad." Fol., “very sad." As You Like It, iii. 5,— "He is not very tall; yet for his years he's tall." Dele very with Steevens. Hamlet, ii. 2,— "Most welcome home! Polonius. This business is well ended." 104 The folio has " very well." Ib., "Hath there been such a time, (I'd fain know that,) When it prov'd otherwise? " The Hamlet of 1603 has,— "How? so my Lord, I would very faine know That thing that I haue saide 'tis so, positiuely, And it hath fallen out otherwise." XL. Metre affected by the pronunciation of ion final. Julius Cæsar, iii. 1,— "Look how he makes to Cæsar: Mark him. Cassius. Casca, be sudden, for we fear prevention." 104 The corrupt and imperfect quarto of 1603 has,— "This business is very well dispatched." The authentic quartos omit very, but otherwise agree with the folio.-Ed. The former line is incomplete, and the latter, to my ear, has not a Shakespearian flow. Arrange, Cassius. "Look how he makes to Cæsar: Mark him. Be sudden, for we fear prevention." And so in Measure for Measure, ii. 2,"Heaven keep your honour safe! Angelo. Amen : For I am that way going to temptation, arrange (and so it stands in some editions),— Am that way," &c. Amen; for I Casca, 1 King Henry VI. v. 4, perhaps; (see S. V. art. lii. p. 268), "Ay, ay; Away with her to execution." Romeo and Juliet, iv. 1,— "Hold, daughter; I do spy a kind of hope, As that is desperate which we would prevent." I suspect that an is an interpolation. King John, v. 2,— "My heart hath melted at a lady's tears, Being an ordinary inundation." Pronounce ordinary, ut sæpe; so card'nal. Inundation at the end of a line, with the tion undissolved, would not be admissible in this play. Beaumont and Fletcher, Elder Brother, iii. 3, Moxon, vol. i. p. 142, col. 2,— Charles. "She has (pron. Sh' has) a wide face then. She has a cherubin's, Cover'd and veil'd with modest blushes. Eustace, be happy, while poor Charles is patient." Arrange, "Cover'd and veil'd with modest blushes. Eustace On the other hand, Winter's Tale, iii. 2, ad fin., and tears, shed there, Shall be my recreation: So long as Arrange (with the folio) and write, "Shall be my recreation: So long as nature I daily vow to use it: Come and lead me And so Collier and Knight also have arranged, only retaining, with the folio and all the editions, "To these sorrows." XLI. Littlest; gooder and goodest; badder and baddest. Hamlet, iii. 2, "Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear; Where little fears grow great, great love grows there." 105 So also Mr. Dyce arranges. The second folio (the first does not contain this play) gives the passage as prose, following, I presume, the quartos. In the passage from the Winter's Tale, all the earlier editors, down to Capell inclusive, follow the arrangement of the first folio; but Capell, following Hanmer, inserted my before sorrows to supply the evident defect of the metre. I should think some adjective-untimely, for instance—would be better; but that something is defective, seems certain.-Ed. Beaumont and Fletcher, Queen of Corinth, iv. 1, Moxon, vol. ii. p. 39, col. 2,— to hold The poorest, littlest page in reverence," &c. One might compare parvissimus, which, I think, occurs in Lucretius ;" " 106 but littlest in the above passages is not a mere synonym of least. (Note, by the way, gooder and goodest, badder and baddest, in our old poets. Beaumont and Fletcher, Love's Cure, iii. 4, vol. ii. page 166, col. 2, ad fin., Saav. Good faith, sir, I shall prick you. In gooder faith I would prick you again." Jonson, Alchemist. i. 1, Gifford, vol. iv. p. 90,"It is the goodest soul!" Bartholomew Fair, iv. 2, near the end, p. 481,- -" And mistress Justice there, is the goodest woman!" Marston, Antonio and Mellida, P. i. iii. 2,-" "Tis even the goodest lady that breathes." In this last passage it is perhaps a piece of affectation; see context. Poems of Uncertain Authors, Chalmers, vol. ii. p. 431, col. 1, speaking of an illmatched wife and husband, "A badder match cannot betide." Heywood, Rape of Lucrece, i. 3,-"-you shall find the baddest legs in boots, and the worst faces in masks." Chaucer has badder. Canterbury Tales, 10538. "As lewed people demen comunly Of thinges, that been made more subtilly 106 i. 615, 621; iii. 199, ed. Lachmann.-Ed. "It likes us well: -Young princes, close your hands. Austria. And your lips too; for I am well assur'd That I did so, when I was first assur❜d." It is impossible that this repetition of the same word in a different sense-there being no quibble intended, or anything else to justify it can have proceeded from Shakespeare. Read "when I was first affied," i.e., betrothed. Taming of the Shrew, iv. 4, Where then do you know best, We be affied; and such assurance ta'en, As shall with either part's agreement stand ?" Beaumont and Fletcher, Four Plays in One, Moxon, vol. ii. p. 513, col. 2, "No law nor father hinders marriage there "Twixt souls divinely affied, as, sure, ours were." Spenser, F. Q. B. vi. C. iii. St. vii.,— "For she was daughter to a noble lord, Which dwelt thereby, who sought her to affy To a great pere." Note, by the way, that to affy is also used in the sense of the Latin fidere. Titus Andronicus, i. 1,— "Marcus Andronicus, so I do affy That I will here dismiss my loving friends," &c. Jonson, Sejanus, v. 10, Gifford, vol. iii. p.142, Tiberius in his letter to the Senate, "We affy in your loves and says VOL. I. 18 |
