"Thus ornament is but the _guiled_ shore To a most dangerous sea, the beauteous scarfe Vailing an Indian _beautie_; In a word, The seeming truth which cunning times put on To intrap the wisest. Therefore then, thou gaudie gold, Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee, Nor none of thee, thou _pale_ and common drudge Tweene man and man; but thou, thou meager lead, Which rather threatnest than doth promise ought, Thy palenesse moves me more than eloquence, And here choose I, joy be the consequence."
The word _guiled_ in the first line is printed _guilded_ in the second folio, the form in which _gilded_ appears often in the old copies. I have no doubt that this is the true reading, and it would obviate the difficulty of supposing that Shakspeare wrote guil_ed_ for guil_ing_.
In Henry Peacham's _Minerva Britanna_, 1612, p. 207., of _deceitful_ "court favour" it is said:
"She beares about a holy-water brush, Wherewith her bountie round about she throwes Fair promises, good wordes, and gallant showes: Herewith a knot of _guilded_ hookes she beares," &c.
Notwithstanding your correspondent's ingenious argument to show that _beautie_ in the third line may be the true reading, I cannot but think that it is a mistake of the compositor caught from _beauteous_ in the preceding line; and that _gypsie_ was the word used by the poet, who thus designates Cleopatra. The words in their old form might well be confused. For "thou _pale_ and common drudge," in the seventh line, I unhesitatingly read "thou _stale_ and common drudge;" and, by so doing, avoid the repetition of the same epithet to silver and lead. It is evident that the epithet applied to silver should be a depreciating one; while _paleness_ is said to _move more than eloquence_. The following passage in _King Henry IV._, Part I. Act III. Sc. 2. confirms this reading:
"So _common_ hackney'd in the eyes of men, So _stale_ and cheap."
To obviate the repetition, Warburton altered _paleness_ to _plainness_, but _paleness_ was the appropriate epithet for lead. Thus, Baret has, "_Palenesse or wannesse_ like lead. Ternissure."
And in _Romeo and Juliet_, Act II. Sc. 5., we have:
"Unwieldly, slow, heavy and _pale as lead_."
With these simple and, most of them, obvious corrections, I submit the passage to the impartial consideration of those who with me think that our immortal poet, so consummate a master of English, has been here, as elsewhere, rendered obscure, if not absurd, by the blunders of the printer. It will then run thus: