will swear they love their mistress,
Would hazard lives and fortunes," &c.

Read thus:--

"Nay, some will swear they love their mistress so,
They would hazard lives and fortunes to preserve
One of her hairs brighter than Berenice's,
Or young Apollo's; and yet, after this," &c.

"They would hazard"--furnishes an anapaest for an _iambus_. "And yet," which
must be read, _anyet_, is an instance of the enclitic force in an accented
monosyllable. "And yet," is a complete _iambus_; but _anyet_ is, like
_spirit_, a dibrach u u, trocheized, however, by the _arsis_ or first
accent damping, though not extinguishing, the second.

"Wit At Several Weapons."

Act i. Oldcraft's speech:--

"I'm arm'd at all points," &c.

It would be very easy to restore all this passage to metre, by supplying a
sentence of four syllables, which the reasoning almost demands, and by
correcting the grammar. Read thus:--

"Arm'd at all points 'gainst treachery, I hold
My humour firm. If, living, I can see thee
Thrive by thy wits, I shall have the more courage,
Dying, to trust thee with my lands. If not,
The best wit, I can hear of, carries them.
For since so many in my time and knowledge,
Rich children of the city, have concluded
_For lack of wit_ in beggary, I'd rather
Make a wise stranger my executor,
Than a fool son my heir, and have my lands call'd
After my wit than name: and that's my nature!"

_Ib._ Oldcraft's speech:--

"To prevent which I have sought out a match for her."

Read--

"Which to prevent I've sought a match out for her."

_Ib._ Sir Gregory's speech:--

... "_Do you think_
I'll have any of the wits hang upon me after I am married once?"

Read it thus:--

... "Do you think
That I'll have any of the wits to hang
Upon me after I am married once?"

and afterwards--

... "Is it a fashion in London
To marry a woman, and to never see her?"

The superfluous "to" gives it the Sir Andrew Ague-cheek character.

"The Fair Maid Of The Inn."

Act ii. Speech of Albertus:--

... "But, Sir,
By my life, I vow to take assurance from you,
That right hand never more shall strike my son,

Chop his hand off!"

In this (as, indeed, in all other respects, but most in this) it is that
Shakespeare is so incomparably superior to Fletcher and his friend,--in
judgment! What can be conceived more unnatural and motiveless than this
brutal resolve? How is it possible to feel the