386 SOME NEW EMENDATIONS IN SHAKESPEARE. 
minds of many of the English rulers of Ireland since King Richard’s 
day.! 
Turn we now to what Professor Dowden calls the “dark and 
bitter” comedy of Measure for Measure, a play which enjoys the 
unenviable distinction of having more manifestly corrupt passages 
than any other of Shakespeare’s plays, excepting perhaps ‘“ Cymbe- 
line.” Claudio when deprecating the cruelty of the Duke’s Deputy 
in enforcing against him the penalty of an obsolete statute, in con- 
sequence of his having had a child by Juliet says, Act I. s. 3: 
** And the new Deputy now for the Duke, 
Whether it be the fault and glimpse of newness, 
Or whether, &c.” 
The meaning of glimpse in this line I fail to see, and would suggest 
that Shakespeare must have written not glimpse but gloss—gloss of 
newness 18 most natural in speaking of the sudden accession of new 
dignity to the Deputy. It is worth noting too that in several other 
passages ‘ gloss” and ‘‘new” are brought into close conjunction by 
Shakespeare. 
In Much Ado, we have “new gloss of your marriage ;” in 
Macbeth, ‘‘ be worn now in their newest gloss ;’ in Othello, ‘ con- 
tent to slubber the gloss of your new fortunes.” 
Gloss written or printed with the long s might readily be mis- 
taken for glimpse, especially when the former word was spelt with 
an e at the end, as it certainly was by Shakespeare. 
In Claudio’s speech, immediately preceding the one in which this. 
line occurs, I would suggest the omission of “the” in the fourth 
line, which now stands: 
** Save that we do ¢he denunciation lack.” 
“The” is not necessary here for the sense and spoils the rythm of 
the line, and I believe we are justified in suspecting any line in 
Shakespeare which is unrythmical as being corrupt. 
1 Since writing the above my attention has been called to some passages from the literature 
of Shakespeare’s time. which certainly support the present reading. 
“That Irish Judas, 
Bred in a country where no venom prospers 
But in his blood.” 
Dryden. 
And in Pier’s Ploughman we have 
“ Of all freting venymes, the vilest is the Scorpion,” 
Where ‘‘venym” is clearly used as the animal not the poison. 
