Could he mean to rank the subtle devices of war in the same class with the worst of crimes?

We find the word stratagem in the true chronicle history of King Lear, page 417, where Regan says to the messenger,

Hast thou the heart to act a stratagem, and give a stab or two, if need require.

MESSENGER....I have a heart compact of adamant,
Which never knew what melting pity meant.
I weigh no more the murd'ring of a man,
Than I respect the cracking of a flea,
When I can catch her biting on my skin;

If

you will have your husband, or your father; Or both of them, sent to another world,

Do but command me do it, it shall be done,

It is evident that Regan's stratagem, or subtle device, was assassination.

RICHARD THE THIRD.

ACT I.-Sc. 3.
MARGARET...

Did York's dread curse prevail so far with heaven,
That Henry's death, my lovely Edward's death,
Their kingdom's loss, my woeful banishment,
Could all but answer for that peevish brat?

This is the reading of all the editions, yet I have no doubt but we ought to read,

Could all not answer for that peevish brat?

The sense seems to require this amendment, and there are no words so frequently mistaken for each other as not and but.

ACT IV.-Sc. 4.

RICHARD...

Stay, Madam, I must speak a word with you.

Johnson says, that part of the subsequent dialogue is ridiculous, and the whole of it improbable, but I cannot agree with him in this opinion, I see nothing ridiculous in any part of it, and with respect to probability, it was not unnatural, that Richard, who by his art and wheedling tongue, had prevailed upon Lady Anne to marry him, in her heart's extremest grief, should hope to persuade an ambitious, and, as he thought her, a wicked woman, to consent to his marriage with her daughter, which would make her a queen, and aggrandize her family.

ACT V.-Sc. 3.

Let not our babbling dreams affright our souls; I should suppose that this, and the three following lines were spoken by Richard to himrelf, and not addressed to his officers.

CORIOLANUS.

ACT IV.-Sc. 6.

MENENIUS.

He and Aufidius can no more atone,

Than violentest contrariety.

I should read, than violentest contrarieties.

ACT IV.-Sc. 7.

AUFIDIUS..

But he has a merit

To choke it in the utterance, &c.

Steevens agrees with me in thinking, that those words in the utterance do not allude to Coriolanus himself, but the high encomiums pronounced on him by his friends. A sentiment of a similar nature is expressed by Adam in the second scene of the second act of As You Like It, where he says to Orlando,

Your praise is come too swiftly home before you,
Know you not, master, to some kind of men,

Their graces serve them but as enemies;

No more do your's; your virtues, gentle master,
Are sanctified, and holy traitors to you.

ACT V.-Sc. 1.

MENENIUS.....

A pair of tribunes that have rack'd for Rome,
To make coals cheap.

I cannot understand this passage, notwithstanding Mr. Steevens's explanation of it, which appears to me to be forced and unnatural.-I should read it thus:

A pair of tribunes, that have wreck'd fair Rome,
To make coals cheap,

It has been supposed that Shakspeare dictated some parts of his plays to an Amanuensis, in that case, the words wreck and rack might easily have been mistaken for each other, as they agree precisely in sound.

It is possible that a similar mistake has taken place in the Tempest, and that where Prospero says,

And, like this unsubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind.

The true reading might have been wreck, or wrack as it was formerly spelt.

AUFIDIUS. Name not the God, thou boy of tears.
CORIOLANUS. Ha!

AUFIDIUS. No more!

Tyrwhitt observes that these words, no more, should rather be given to the first Lord, as it was not the business of Aufidius to put a stop to the altercation; but it appears to me that Aufidius means by those words, not to put a stop to the altercation, but to tell Coriolanus, that he was no more than a boy of tears.

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.

ACT II.-Sc. 1.

POMPEY....Can from the lap of Egypt's widow pluck The ne'er-lust-wearied Antony.

Both Mr. Steevens and myself have mistaken the meaning of this passage; Pompey calls Cleopatra Egypt's widow, because she had been ac tually married to her brother Ptolemy.

ACT II.-Sc. 2.

ENABARBUS... Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,
So many mermaids 'tended her in the eyes,
And made their bends adornings: at the helm
A seeming mermaid steers.

I had determined in this publication not to enter into a controversy with the editors on the subject of any of my former comments; but I cannot resist the impulse I feel, to make a few remarks on the strictures of Mr. Steevens, both on the amendment I proposed in this passage, and my explanation of it; for if I could induce him to accede to my opinion, it would be the highest gratification to me. His objection to the amendment I have proposed, that of reading in the guise instead of in the eyes, is, that the

H