The 4to 1603 reads, "I'll _shrowd_ myself behind the arras." Hanmer and Hunter read '_sconce_ me,' and we have, "I'll _ensconce_ me behind the arras" (Mer. Wives, iii. 3). Still no change is required. * * * * * "A slave that's not _a_ twentieth part the tithe." * * * * * "_Enter_ Ghost _in his night-gown._" I have given this stage-direction from the 4to 1603, as it is quite incongruous to suppose that the Ghost appeared in armour in a room of the palace; and as Hamlet says, "My father in his _habit_ as he lived!" As the Ghost makes but one short speech, I think, if it could be so managed, it would be more psychologic and effective for him to remain invisible, except to Hamlet mentally, and his voice only be heard by the audience. * * * * * "Lest with this piteous action you convert My stern effects." I read, with Singer, _affects_. See on Meas. for Meas. iii. 1. * * * * * "That monster Custom, who all sense doth eate Of habits, devil is angel yet in this." The verb 'eate' here could never have come from the poet's pen; for it makes pure nonsense. I read _create_ with the greatest confidence, of which the two first letters must have been effaced in the MS. We have an exact parallel in _smell_, 'all' (Tim. i. 2). See also on All's Well, i. 1, ii. 1. 'Sense' seems here, as in M. for M. iv. 4, to signify kind, manner, way. * * * * * "And either master the Devil or throw him out." So 4to 1604, but omitting 'master'; while 4to 1600 and the undated omit 'either.' Malone read _curb_ for 'master'--a most needless alteration. * * * * * "One word more, good _my_ lady." * * * * * "Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib." I read gib-_cat_, as 'gib' never occurs alone. We surely would not say _a tom_ for a tom-cat, _a jack_ for a jackass, a jackdaw, etc. See Introd. p. 58. ACT IV. SC. 1. "_So haply Slander_, Whose whisper o'er the world's diameter," etc. The happy suppliance of Theobald, universally adopted with the change of his _for_ to _so_. * * * * * SC. 3. "Pays homage to us--thou mayest not coldly set _by_." * * * * * SC. 4. "I'll be with you straight. Go _on_ a little before." * * * * * "But greatly to find quarrel in a straw." 'But' here is somewhat ambiguous. We may take it as yet, nevertheless, or in its original sense of save, except; in which last case 'to find' would be finding. * * * * * SC. 5. "Which bewept to the grave did not go."