70 ERRATA RECEFTA. 



gedy of Locrine," a piece already referred to as, possibly, a juvenile 

 essay of Shakspeare's, Albanact is supposed, somewhat unnaturally, 

 to utter as he dies : — 



" Nox caeci regina poll, furialis Erinnys." 



Act a., sc. Y. 



The word that causes the trouble in the received text, as possessing in 

 the place no tolerable meaning, is ' runaways.' I account for the ap- 

 pearance of such a singular expression in some such way as this : By 

 the careless blunder or provincial pronunciation of an ill-educated 

 reader or prompter, ' Erinnys,' or, perhaps, as it ought to be, " Erin- 

 nys' s," was, on some occasion, made to sound as though it had been 

 ' runaways.' As such, or rather, according to the old mode of spel- 

 ling, as ' runawaies,' it was committed to paper, in jest or in earnest ; 

 which paper unfortunately became, at last, part of the ' copy ' from 

 which the Folio of 1623 was printed. — The suggestion of the Manu- 

 script corrector of the Folio of 1632 is ' enemyes,' which will give a 

 certain sense, especially if 's be attached to the preceding particle 

 'that:' "That's enemyes' eyes," for "That his enemyes' eyes." 

 But * Erinnys,' to my thinking, was the^ word employed here by 

 Shakspeare. Let the passage, read with this correction, speak for 

 itself. 



2. The two hundred-and-ninety-ninth line in Scene 1. of the Fifth 

 Act of Hamlet, is one of the ' still-vext ' places of Shakspeare, I 

 feel sure that it should be read, 



" Woo't drink up Iv'ilus ? eat a crocodile? " 



Indistinctness of writing, perhaps the wrong orthography of a y for 

 an i, and an accidental transposition of syllables in the printing-office, 

 have, together, converted the original word (as I believe) Nilus, into 

 Eysell, Misil, or Esil (in these several ways the modern text is given) 

 conjectured, by the commentators, to be, variously, esil (that is, per- 

 haps, vinegar in the sense of poison), or vessels (that is, huge cal- 

 drons), or, inasmuch as the word, from its being printed in Italics in 

 the Folio, and beginning with a capital letter, must needs be a proper 

 name, Yssel, Issell, Oesil, Weisel, all names so humored in the writ- 

 ing as to denote rivers which a Prince of Denmark might be supposed 

 to know. — One editor, however (Hanraer), came very near the truth 

 in suggesting Nile ; but Nilus did not strike him. He was, conse- 

 quently, obliged to eke out the line with an " or " in addition, and so 

 he marred the characteristic abruptness of Hamlet's rapid queries, by 



