_, he augured, he says, that the true reading
was--

--"the scores of _whip-hand_ time."

Time having always the _whip-hand,_ the advantage; but he now reverts to
the other emendation; though, as he modestly hints, the epithet
_whip-hand_ (which he still regards with parental fondness) will perhaps
be thought to have much of the manner of Shakespeare.--Vol. i, p. 43.

"_Horatio_.--While they, distill'd
Almost to jelly with the act of fear,
Stand dumb, and speak not to him!"

We had been accustomed to find no great difficulty here: the words
seemed, to us, at least, to express the usual effect of inordinate
terror--but we gladly acknowledge our mistake. "The passage is not to be
understood." How should it, when both the pointing and the language are
corrupt? Read, as Shakespeare gave it--

--"While they _bestill'd_
Almost to _gelee_ with the act. Of fear
Stand dumb," &c.--that is, petrified (or rather icefied) p. 13.

"_Lear_. And my poor fool is hang'd!"

With these homely words, which burst from the poor old king on reverting
to the fate of his loved Cordelia, whom he then holds in his arms, we
have been always deeply affected, and therefore set them down as one of
the thousand proofs of the poet's intimate knowledge of the human heart.
But Mr. Becket has made us ashamed of our simplicity and our tears.
Shakespeare had no such "lenten" language in his thoughts; he wrote, as
Mr. Becket tells us,

"And my _pure soot_ is hang'd!"

Poor, he adds, might be easily mistaken for _pure_; while the _s_ in
_soot_ (sweet) was scarcely discernible from the _f_, or the _t_ from
the _l_.--p. 176.

We are happy to find that so much can be offered in favour of the old
printers. And yet--were it not that the genuine text is always to be
preferred--we could almost wish that the critic had left their blunder
as it stood.

"_Wolsey_.--that his bones
May have a tomb of orphans' tears wept on them."

A tomb of tears is ridiculous. I read--a _coomb_ of tears--a _coomb_
is a liquid measure containing forty gallons. Thus the expression,
which was before absurd, becomes forcible and just.--vol. ii, p. 134.

It does indeed!

"_Sir Andrew_. I sent thee six-pence for thy leman (mistress): had'st
it?" Read as Shakespeare wrote: "I sent thee sixpence for thy
_lemma_"--_lemma_ is properly an _argument_, or _proposition assumed_,
and is used by Sir Andrew Aguecheek for a story.--p. 335.

"_V