"To do that thing that ends all other deeds, Which shackles accidents, and bolts up change; Which sleeps, and never palates more the dung. The beggar's nurse and Caesar's." The word "dung" ending the third line, was so evidently _dug_, or nipple, that I thought no man to whom it was pointed out could have a doubt about it. MR. COLLIER remarks in his recent volume, "This emendation may, or may not, have been conjectural, but we may be pretty sure it is right." I doubt if MR. COLLIER would have accepted any authority other than that of his own folio, although Shakspeare has frequently used the word _dug_ as a synonym for nipple, as see _Romeo and Juliet_, Act I. Sc. 3.: "_Nurse._ And she was wean'd,--I never shall forget it,-- Of all the days of the year, upon that day: For I had then laid wormwood to my dug. . . . . . . --but, as I said, When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple Of my dug, and felt it bitter, pretty fool, To see it tetchy, and fall out with the dug!" This quotation proves clearly, I consider, that dug was meant by Cleopatra, and not _dung_; and so I considered before the old manuscript correction of MR. COLLIER'S appeared. The words "an awful" are as clearly to my mind _and lawful_. I doubt, however, if they will be so acknowledged, as the use of the words "an awful," it may be contended, are countenanced by other passages in Shakspeare; I quote the following. _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, Act IV. Sc. I.-- "_3rd Outlaw._ Know then, that some of us are gentlemen, Such as the fury of ungovern'd youth Thrust from the company of _awful_ men." The word "awful" is surely, in this place, _lawful_; an outlaw would be little inclined to consider men as "awful," but the contrary. Read the last line as under-- "Thrust from the company of _lawful_ men," and the meaning is simple and clear. The outlaws were thrust from the company of _lawful men_, that is, men who obeyed the laws they had broken in "the fury of ungovern'd youth." In _King Richard II._, Act III. Sc. 3., the following use of the words _lawful_ and _awful_ occurs: "_K. Rich._ We are amazed; and thus long have we stood To watch the fearful bending of thy knee, [_To Northumberland._ Because we thought ourself thy lawful king; And if we be, how dare thy joints forget To pay their awful duty to our presence?" The meaning in this case is no doubt clear enough, and the words "awful duty" may be the right ones; but had they stood _lawful duty_ in any old copy, he should have been a bold man who would have proposed to substitute _awful_ for _lawful_. _Second Part of King Henry IV._, Act IV. Sc. 1.-- "_Arch._ To us, and to our purposes, confin'd: We come within our _awful_ banks again, And knit our powers to the arm of peace."