Shakespearian Criticism. 



men "runaways," judging from the standard of the modern police. 

 "Unawares" would answer, but is inferior in beauty to "rumor's 

 eyes," especially when it is remembered that Virgil depicts Rumor 

 with as many eyes and tongues as feathers. 



Or take the passage in " Cymbeline," where Imogen is excusing her 

 husband's injustice- to her, and says, " some jay of Italy, whose mother 

 was her painting, hath betrayed him." We have had, instead of this, 

 " who smothers her with painting; " " whose feather was her paint- 

 ing;" and "whose muffler was her painting." All agree that by 

 "jay" is intended a courtesan, and it seems to me that the poet sim- 

 ply meant to say " whose mother was just like her." 



The scholar who shall suggest a better reading for either of these 

 passages will earn the solid gratitude of all students of literature. 



Another passage upon which a great deal of gratuitous stupidity has 

 been bestowed is the famous passage in Macbeth, " withered murder 



* * with his stealthy pace, with Tarquin's ravishing strides, 

 moves like a ghost." Nothing can be more felicitous than this descrip- 

 tion of the long, eager, stealthy steps with which the murderer or 

 ravisher steals upon his victim. The word " strides " originally stood 

 " sides," and the emendation is Pope's. Eowe, Malone and Knight 

 however preserve " sides." Knight says it is a verb meaning to match, 

 to balance ; that " ravishing" is a noun ; and that the meaning is, 

 murder, with his stealthy pace, matches Tarquin's ravishing. Dr. 

 Johnson says a ravishing stride is an action of violence, incompatible 

 with a stealthy pace, and he would read, " with Tarquin ravishing, 

 slides," etc. A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine says of this: 

 " Macbeth was treading on a boarded floor, up one pair of stairs, prob- 

 ably in a passage or lobby, which made a cracking noise, which obliged 

 him, in his alarm, to take long and cautious steps. This granted, we 

 may pretty safely adopt the word slides." Of course it immediately 

 occurs to the reader that the castle probably had a stone floor, and a 

 few lines further on Macbeth cautions the earth not to hear his steps, 

 "for fear the very stones prate of my whereabouts." White says, 

 " Pope's emendation will seem happy to every cautious person who has 

 stepped through a sick chamber, or any apartment in which there 

 were sleepers whom he did not wish to wake, and who remembers how 

 he did it" 



Again, where Macbeth says the blood on his hand would "the mul- 

 titudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red," some have 

 related " one" to "green," and made the passage stand, "making the 

 green-one red." It is to be remarked that the poet has just spoken of 

 " seas " in the plural, and of course he would not speak of them in the 



