Shakespearian Criticism. 



Bishop Warburton may next amuse or enrage us. The bishop 

 evinced the great variety of his knowledge in his commentary on this 

 passage in King John : 



" 0 Lewis, stand fast ! the devil tempts thee here, 



" Un trimmed," he says, " signifies unsteady. The term is taken 

 from navigation." Perhaps the bishop found support for his notion 

 that a bride was a ship, in Antonio's speech to Bassanio, where he 

 laments the loss of his ships, and says, " My ships have all miscarried.'' 

 But again : 



" One inch of delay is a South Sea of discovery. 

 This is stark nonsense! We must read off discovery." Dr. Johnson 

 made this all right, however : " This sentence is rightly noted by the 

 commentator as nonsense, but not so happily restored to sense. I 

 read thus : 'One inch of delay is a South Sea. Discover, I prithee, 

 tell me, etc. ' " After this, who shall say that two heads are better 

 than one ? This will do for Warburton — and for Johnson. 



One example will answer for the corrector of Mr. Collier's folio. 

 Imogen says : 



That run i' the clock's behalf." 

 The corrector would read.: 



"Nimbler than the sands 



That run i' the clocks, by half! " 

 Of Mr. Monck Mason we get a taste in his commentary o 

 ing passage in Anthony and Cleopatra : 



That yarely frame their office." 

 Mr. Mason would read " tended her i' the guise," and construe " their 

 bends" to mean the graceful curves of their tails ! For this reading 

 the letter b would seem superfluous— "their ends" would answer every 

 purpose. Mr. Collier's folio corrector has his say on this passage. He 

 reads, "Smell with the touches of those flower-soft hands." Even 

 Mr. White seems a little astray here, for he says: "If Mr. Collier 

 must be literal, does he not know that cordage will swell with hand- 

 ling ?" Now to relapse for a moment into soberness, is not this the 



