* * * * * "Come sing.--I will not sing.--'Tis the next way To turn tailor or be redbreast-teacher." So it should be arranged. * * * * * "By this our book is drawn; we'll but seal and then To horse immediately. With all my heart." As this is preceded by a couplet, and the scenes generally end with one, I would read 'then _start'_ for 'and then.' _Start_ being probably effaced, the printer added 'and' to complete the measure. See Introd. p. 67. * * * * * SC. 2. "As in reproof of many tales devis'd-- Which oft the ear of Greatness needs must hear-- By smiling pick-thanks and base news-mongers." The two last lines should, I think, be transposed. * * * * * "Mingled his royalty with carping fools." The 4to, 1598, reads _capring_, i.e. capering. The choice is difficult. * * * * * SC. 3. "Go, Poins, to horse, to horse!" Both 4tos and folio have _Peto_. Johnson made the change. * * * * * "At two o'clock in the afternoon." Something seems wanting here. I have added _precisely_. ACT IV. SC. 1. "He writes me hëre that _an_ inward sickness." * * * * * "It were not good; for therein should we read The very bottom and the soul of hope." I can make no sense of 'read'; we might read _reach_. * * * * * "All plum'd like estriches that with the wind _are fann'd_." It is plain that something has been lost here; it may be a line, but I think the slight addition I have made, and in the very place where the loss was most likely to occur, removes all difficulty. "The air of Paradise did _fan_ the house" (All's Well, iii. 2). The poet had in his mind the Prince's plume, which he supposes to have been worn by his companions also; and it is quite evident--or else there is no force in the comparison--that he also supposed that it was on his head the ostrich carried his long bending feathers. So Drayton also: "The Mountfords all in plumes, like ostriches were seen" (Polyolb. xxii.). The following line of Tasso gives us the exact image:--"E _ventolar_ sui gran cimier le penne" (Ger. Lib. xx. 28). Hanmer read '_and_ with the wind.' Rowe, who has been generally followed, read _wing_ for 'with'; but the verb _wing_ has but one sense in the poets, to fly, and the ostrich no more flies than the greyhound. Mr. Dyce, however, adopts this reading, which, he says, "affords a clear and good meaning," and he quotes in support of it these lines of Claudian, who, he thinks may, as a native of Egypt, be speaking as an eye-witness:--