Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 074.djvu/202

196 that they will be a severe aggravation of her pain. "A dear expense" here means a painful purchase, a bitter bargain. "If I have thanks, the sacrifice which I make in giving Demetrius this information will be doubly distressing to me." Of course she would much rather that Demetrius, her old lover, did not thank her for setting him on the traces of his new mistress. Thanks would be a mockery in the circumstances, and this is what Helena means to say. Such is manifestly the meaning of the passage, as may be gathered both from the words themselves, and from their connection with the context, which is this—

The sight of Demetrius, and not his thanks, was to be Helena's recompense.

''Act II. Scene 1''.—The corrector is unquestionably wrong in his version of these lines. Of Titania it is said by one of the fairies, that

The MS. corrector reads "all" for "tall," and "cups" for "coats," to the manifest deterioration of the text. Mr Singer thus explains the matter, to the satisfaction, we should think, of all readers. "This passage has reference to the band of gentlemen-pensioners in which Queen Elizabeth took so much pride. They were some of the handsomest and tallest young men of the best families and fortune, and their dress was of remarkable splendour—their coats might well be said to be of gold. Mr Collier's objection that 'cowslips are never tall,' is a strange one. Drayton in his Nymphidia thought otherwise, and surely a long-stalked cowslip would be well designated by a fairy as tall."

''Act II. Scene 3.—The alteration of "conference" into "confidence" in the following lines is an improvement, most decidedly, for the worse''. Lysander and Hermia are going to sleep in the wood. She says to him—

That is, love puts a good construction on all that is said or done in the "conference," or intercourse of love. "Confidence," the MS. correction, makes nonsense.

''Act III. Scene 2''.—The margins seem to be right in changing "What news, my love?" into "What means my love?" in the speech in which Hermia is appealing passionately to her old lover Lysander.

Act V. Scene 1.—But we cannot accept the substitution of "hot ice and wondrous seething snow" for the much more Shakespearian "hot ice and wonderous strange snow." The late Mr Barron Field's excellent emendation of the following lines is borne out by the MS. correction—

"Fell" means skin. The old reading was—

This ought to go into the text, if it has not done so already.

— Act I. Scene 1.—In the following passage the margins make rather a good hit in restoring "when" of the old editions, which had been converted into "who," and in changing "would" into " 'twould."

''Act II. Scene 1''.—The Prince of Morocco says—

Altered by the MS. corrector into "burning sun," which, says Mr Collier, "seems much more proper when the African prince is speaking of his black complexion as the effects of the sun's rays." Mr Collier will excuse us: the African Prince is doing nothing of the kind. He is merely throwing