We have a similar sentiment in Cymb. v. 1. As _of ice_ and _of vice_ are pronounced exactly alike, we may safely assume the latter to be the true reading. The whole difficulty then lies in 'brakes.' A brake was certainly, as we are told, a frame to confine restless or vicious horses in when shoeing; but when it is added that it is also an instrument of torture, I become somewhat dubious. At any rate no one would say a rack or a gibbet of vice; so why a brake of vice? I incline then, but with hesitation, to think that we should read _wreaks o' vice_. We have "wreak the love" (R. and J. iii. 5); "wreak our wrongs." (Tit. And. iv. 3.) I put the ambiguous _o'_, because _wreak_ takes _on_ rather than _of_ after it. * * * * * "I thought by the readiness in the office, you had," etc. For 'by the,' the usual correction (which I have followed) is 'by _your_.' Mr. Collier thinks 'by _this_' might be better; for _this_ and _your_ were used promiscuously. Either might easily be confounded with _the_. (See Introd. p. 68.) * * * * * SC. 2. "But you might do it, and do the world no wrong." This apparently necessary transposition was made by S. Walker. The folio reads "But might you." * * * * * "May call it _back_ again. Well, believe this." Here _back_ is the proper addition made in the 2nd folio. * * * * * "Becomes them not with half so fair a grace As mercy does. If he had been as you, And you as he, you would have slipped like him, But he, like you, would not have been so stern." * * * * * "Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once." As the first 'were' may have been caused by the second, I would, like Warburton, read for it _are_. In "We cannot cross the cause why we were born" (L. L. L. iv. 3), the folio reads '_are_ born.' * * * * * "If the first that did th' edict infringe." So it stands in the folio, and Pope was, it may be, right in reading 'If the first _man_,' but we might also read, and perhaps better, as I have done, 'the edict did.' * * * * * "Either now, or by remissness new-conceiv'd." For 'now' I felt inclined to read _new_, with Pope, but I prefer 'now _born_,' and so I have printed it. (See on All's Well, ii. 3.) * * * * * "Are now to have no successive degrees But here they live to end." We should for 'here' either read _where_, or better, with Hanmer, _ere_. * * * * * "Would use his heaven for thunder; nothing but thunder! Merciful Heaven!" * * * * * "Than the soft _yielding_ myrtle; but man, proud man!" "That soft and _yielding_ mind should not be in him." Lyly, Campaspe, ii. 2.