schoolboy.
To substantiate that assertion, and rescue the disputed word "Britaine"
henceforth for ever from the rash tampering of the meddlesome sciolist, I
beg to advertise the ingenuous reader that the clause,--

"For being now a favourer to the Britaine,"

is in apposition with _Death_, not with Posthumus Leonatus. In a note
appended to this censure, referring to another passage from L. L. L., I
averred that MR. COLLIER had corrupted it by chancing the singular verb
_dies_ into the plural _die_ (this too done, under plea of editorial
licence, without warning to the reader), and that such corruption had
abstracted the true key to the right construction. To make good this last
position, two things I must do first, cite the whole passage, without
change of letter or tittle, as it stands in the Folios '23 and '32; next,
show the trivial and vulgar use of "contents" as a singular noun. In Folio
'23, thus:

"_Qu._ Nay my good Lord, let me ore-rule you now;
That sport best pleases that doth least know how.
Where Zeale striues to content, and the contents
Dies in the Zeale of that which it presents:
Their forme confounded, makes most forme in mirth
When great things labouring perish in their birth."
Act IV. p. 141.

With this the Folio '32 exactly corresponds, save that the speaker is
_Prin._, not _Qu_.; _ore-rules_ is written as two words without the hyphen,
and _strives_ for _striues_. I have been thus precise, because criticism is
to me not "a game," nor admissive of cogging and falsification.

I must now show the hackneyed use of _contents_ as a singular noun. An
anonymous correspondent of "N. & Q." has already pointed out one in
_Measure for Measure_, Act IV. Sc. 2.:

"_Duke_. The _contents_ of this is the returne of the Duke."

Another:

"This is the _contents_ thereof."--Calvin's 82nd _Sermon upon Job_, p.
419., Golding's translation.

Another:

"After this were articles of peace propounded, y^e _contents_ wherof
was, that he should departe out of Asia."--The 31st _Booke of Justine_,
fol. 139., Golding's translation of Justin's _Trogus Pompeius_.

Another:

"Plinie writeth hereof an excellent letter, the _contents_ whereof is,
that this ladie, mistrusting her husband, was condemned to die,"
&c.--_Historicall Meditations_, lib. iii. chap. xi. p. 178. Written in
Latin by P. Camerarius, and done into English by John Molle, Es