G.458. W. 418.-be rather wiser.

Read: be rather wise.

Wise is opposed to mad, in the former part of the verse.

G. 459. W.419.-If the morn serve, some that are safe shall bleed. Read: If the moon serve, some that are safe shall bleed. Mr. Weber's corruption of this passage originates in ignorance. In our old almanacks, the days of the moon favourable to bleeding were always carefully pointed out: it is to this practice that the Duke alludes.

G.460. W.420.-Nay 'tis Bianca.-Go too, D'Avolos.
Bring us Mauruccio hither.

Read: Nay 'tis, Bianca, go to.-D'Avolos,
Bring us Mauruccio hither.

G 461. W. 421.—“ My lands and all I have is begg'd."
Here the Variorum supplies Mr. Weber with a note on
begging" the wardship of an idiot," to which practice, it
seems, Mauruccio alludes. But Mauruccio no more sus-
pected himself to be an idiot than the critic does-et c'est
beaucoup dire! What he feared was, the penalty of treason,
in consequence of the fate of Ferentes, who was murdered
in the Duke's presence; and accordingly he talks of being
hanged; and is finally glad to escape with the punishment
of a preposterous marriage.

G. 466. W.425.

but as for me,

Your fury or affection-judge the rest. Could not the critic see that he was printing mere jargon? but as for me,

Read:

Be record all my fate! I do detest

Your fury or affection:-judge the rest.

A whole line dropt!

G. 473. W.431.—The iron of laws of ceremony bar.
This does not savour much of poetry.

Read: The iron laws of ceremony bar.

G. 475. W. 432.-Do you see?

Read: Do you see? do you see, sir?

G. 479. W. 435.-Nor did I often urge the violence
Of my affection-

This, besides being contrary to the fact, makes nonsense of what follows.

Read Nor did I ofter urge the violence

:

G. 479. W. 436.

Of my affection, but as oft he urg'd

The same vows of faith.

the sum of all thy rained follies. Vained.] "This is a singular and perhaps unique phrase, and one for which Ford must probably be arraigned as the coiner. He means to employ it in the sense of raunted."

Why there's all the wit of a bell-wether now"! as the clown says. Had Ford meant vaunted, there was surely nothing, either in the measure or sound of the word, to preBut not to trifle-read: "the sum of all thy veined follies." i. e. ingrained, as

vent him from " employing it." employing it."

we say; follies that run in the blood.

G. 480. W. 436.

Would angels sing

A requiem at my hearse! But to dispense

With

my revenge on thee twere all in vain. "This seems to be merely a figurative way of saying, I

would I were dead!”

More matter for a May morning!

Read:

Would angels sing

A requiem at my hearse, but to dispense

With my revenge on thee, 'twere all in vain:
Prepare to die.

i. e.—if so plain a passage needs explanation—“ Could I secure a happy immortality by sparing thy life, I would not forego my revenge."

G. 481. W.437.-No tragedy to thee.] i. e. "no tragic fate." False and nonsensical.

Read: My tragedy to thee.

Bianca is enumerating her dying bequests: she bequeaths her tragedy to her husband, who had just poniarded her, her heart to her lover Fernando, and dies with the word on her lips.

The reader, who has seen and admired Mr. Weber's happy discovery of the great similarity between the Edgar of King Lear and the drivelling idiot of this play, will not be unprepared to find him detecting another wonderful resemblance between the chaste, faithful, broken hearted Calantha, and the shameless and abandoned character before us." In Love's Sacrifice," he says, "we have two very striking resemblances-Mauruccio is another Cuculus; and the identity of Bianca and Calantha will become more and more obvious, as we approach towards the catastrophe"! p. 396.-i. e. as the libidinous propensities of the former become more open and avowed!

G. 481. W.437.—I'll slake no time.

Read: I'll slack no time, i. e. I'll hasten.

G.482. W.438.

Read:

none of sprucest.

'tis none of the sprucest.

G. 402. W. 369. Thus bodies walk unsoul'd.

“A very quaint word coined by Ford."

It was a word in common use before Ford was born. Spenser has it in the Faery Queene

"Ne aught to see, but like a shade to ween.

Unbodied, unsoul'd, unheard, unseen."

And I could easily trace it down, through a variety of writers, to the present day. So much for this " quaint coinage of Ford's brain"!

It was not discovered, till the preceding sheet was printed off, that this passage had been dislocated from the note, p. cxxix.

k

G. 483. W. 439.-Duke. Stand, and behold thy executioner. This loses much of its effect from the total omission of the preceding speech.

Read: Nibrassa. Look to yourself, my lord! the Duke

comes.

[Enter Duke with his sword drawn.

Duke. Stand, and behold thy executioner.

G. 386. W.355.-Would tie the limits of our free effects.
For this nonsense, read—

Would tie the limits of our free affects, i. e. af

fections.

G. 488. W. 443.-Fellow, learn to new live the way to thrift. For thee, in grace, is a repentant shrift.

This is a strange passage.

Read:

Fellow, learn to new live. The way to thrift
For thee, in grace, is a repentant shrift.

i. e. The way for thee to thrive in grace, is, &c.

G. 489. W. 443.—“ Associate. i. e. companion.". No doubt.

G. 489. IV. 443.-" Else. i. e. otherwise."

Clearly; it stands so in "Daniel Fenning, Philomath."

G. 490. IV. 444.-Roaring oblations of a wounded heart
To thee, offended spirit.

Read Pouring oblations of a wounded heart

:

To thee, &c.

We have a similar expression in the Ladies Trial.

My sister shall to me stand an example

Of pouring pure devotions for your safety."

What is this, but pouring oblations, &c.?

G. 492. W.447.-" Period. i. e. end."

Very good; you have judiciously given us Shakspeare's authority for it; and all doubt is over.

VOL. II.

PERKIN WARBECK.

P. 3. Weber." Ford's play is founded upon the chronicles of the reign of Henry VII. and particularly upon the history of that monarch by the celebrated Lord Bacon, as appears from the beginning of the Dedication."

And this is all Mr. Weber says on the subject. It seems extraordinary that he should not once turn to the History from which this drama is confessedly taken; but such evidently is the case: he never opened the volume, and all he knows of the fact is contained in the short passage just quoted from the author.

Weber, 4.-" The excellence of this piece must have insured it good reception, and the praises of such a man as Dr. Donne were certainly not misapplied."

This is the fourth repetition of the ridiculous blunder noticed in the former volume. As Mr. Weber gets older he gets never the wiser. Dr. Donne died in the spring of 1631, and the editor has just informed us that this drama. did not appear till the year 1634, so that the praises of the good Doctor, like Bottom's dream, must have been sung three years" after death." The verses prefixed to this play were written by George Donne, (a person of no note whatever,) who leaves Mr. Weber no pretext for his gross ignorance, as he signs his name at full length. The celebrated Dean of St. Paul's, as every schoolboy knows, was John Donne.