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An alteration which the last Editors have properly rejected. But I differ from them in their explanation of the passage: they say, that the obvious meaning of it is, May your goodness be rewarded! and a continuance of it render you deserving of greater fortune. But they forget, that to deserve does not mean merely to be worthy of reward, but to have a claim to it.

Page 265. LOPEZ........

Do you see how he fumbles with the sheets? The Editors suppose, that this is intended as a sneer against Shakespeare, but I cannot consider it in that light. I have been told, by an experienced physician, that fumbling with the sheets is one of the symptoms of approaching dissolu tion.

Page 269. BARTOLUS-Baffled and boared.

Instead of boared, we should read bored. To bore a man's nose is, at this day, a common expression; and means, to make a fool of him. Page 271. MILANES........

He would have chosen, such a wolf, a canker,

A maggot, rat, to be his whole executor?

The old and true reading is maggot-pate, which Seward has changed to maggot: rat without any reason. A maggot-pate, may mean a fellow who has many maggots in his brain; and is an happy description of a roguish attorney.

Page 273. LOPEZ........

See where the sea comes? how it foams and brustles? The great leviathan of the law, how it tumbles? To make Bartolus, at the same time, both the leviathan and the sea in which it tumbles, would be too nonsensical: but Lopez first compares him to a seal; and then, rising in his comparison, calls him the great leviathan of the law. The reading of seal, is an amendment of Symp.

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And still I push'd him on, as if he had been coming. This must be wrong, because it is nonsense. The last Editors despair of amending it; but Seward reads--

I push'd him on, as he'd been the woman.

Asserting, that it is the custom abroad for servants to walk before, not after, their mistresses; and that, therefore, Amarantha means to say, that instead of his clearing the way for her, she was forced to push him forward, or he would have lagged behind her, as if he had been the woman. But how his amendment can possibly express his own meaning, I am at a loss to know; nor can I conceive how it can express any meaning, unless we suppose that it was the fashion in Spain to push the women forward; the reverse of which, he tells us, was the practice,

I have no doubt but the true reading is---
Or if he were conning.

That is, as if he were studying some lesson, and did not mind what he was about. A similar expression occurs in Massenger's Great Duke of Florence, p. 111. where Calaminta, speaking. of Calendrino, says--

How the fool stares!

FIERENDA........And looks as if he were
Conning his neck-verse.

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Talk of your bawling law, your appellations, &c. The grammar and sense require that we should

read-

Talk'd of your bawling law, &c.

Page 283. BARTOLUS........

They have play'd their prizes with me,

And with their several flirts they've lighted dangerously.

Seward reads, they've lighted danger; but declares himself not satisfied with his own conjecture.

The last Editors retain the old reading, and attempt to explain it, by supposing that lighted means trifled; but they have not attempted to shew how the word lighted can bear that signifi cation. The present reading I believe to be right. Bartolus means to say, that they had succeeded in the several flirts, and that to his prejudice. To light, is here used in a neutral sense, and signifies

signifies to hit, or fall upon. The metaphor is taken from the flight of an arrow. So, in the second Act of Macbeth, Malcolm says--

The murderous shaft that's shot,

Has not yet lighted; and your safest way
Is to avoid the aim.

Page 283. BARTOLUS........I am of opinion,
I shall take off the edges of their appetites,
And
grease their gums, for eating heartily.
That is, to prevent their eating heartily.

Page 286. BARTOLUS........

'Tis somewhat tough, sir;

But a good stomach will endure it easily.

This passage is sense as it stands; but I suspect that we ought to read--

A good stomach will endue it easily.

To endue, is a term of falconry, and means to digest. The same expression occurs in Love's Pilgrimage, where the Bailiff says--

Cheese, that would break the teeth of a new hand-saw, I could endue like an ostrich.

And in that passage, the same mistake was made in some of the old copies; which read endure, instead of endue.

Page 286. LOPEZ........

A warrant to appear before the judges!

This speech, which in all the editions is given to Lopez, evidently belongs to Diego, Lopez had

had his dish before, in a strong citation. If this speech also belongs to Lopez, Diego, the principal offender, escapes unpunished.

Page 288. BARTOLUS........

Not a bell to knell for thee,

Or sheet to cover thee, but that thou stealest,

Stealest from the merchant; and the ring he was buried with, Stealest from his grave.

In all these lines, we should read stealedst, instead of stealest; for Bartolus is speaking of past transactions, and the very offence for which Diego was summoned to appear before the judge.

VOL. II.

WIT WITHOUT MONEYAN

Page 304. LANCE........

The counter's full of thorns and brakes, (take heed, sir,) And bogs: you'll quickly find what broth they're made of.

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That is, what stuff they're made of; but as Lance is speaking of bogs, he uses the word broth, as a more ludicrous expression.

Page 305.

VALENTINE........
Travelling on Sundays,

For being quelled by carriers.

That is, to avoid being quelled by carriers.

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