[313] _mistress._ Oli. _A ... she_] _mistress, and his sister she_ Hanmer.
Re-enter F. with M.] Capell. Enter M. Ff. Enter M. with straw about him, as from prison. Collier MS.
[315] _you have_] _you've_ S. Walker conj.
[330] _and gull_] F1. _or gull_ F2 F3 F4.
[337] _presupposed_] _preimpos'd_ Collier (Collier MS.).
[346] _confess, myself_] Theobald. _confess myself,_ Ff.
[349] _against_] _in_ Rann (Tyrwhitt conj.).
[355, 356] S. Walker would end line 355 at _fool_.
[356] _fool_] _Foole_ F1 F2 F3. _Fool_ F4. _soul_ Collier (Collier MS.). _tool_ Anon. conj.
[360, 361] _remember? 'Madam, why_] Malone (Tyrwhitt conj.). _remember, Madam, why_ Ff. _remember, Madam,--'why_ Theobald.
_whirligig_] Capell. _whirlegigge_ F1. _whirle-gigge_ F2 F3. _whirl-gigg_ F4.
[368] _convents_] _consents_ Steevens conj. _convenes_ Anon. MS. apud Halliwell.
[370] _Meantime_] _In the mean time_ Hanmer.
[374] [Exeunt...] Dyce and Staunton. Exeunt. Ff.
[381] _knaves and thieves_] _knave and thief_ Steevens (Farmer conj.).
[387-389] _beds ... heads_] Ff. _bed ... head_ Hanmer.
_still had_] _I had_ Hanmer. _still I had_ Collier.
[391] _begun_] Rowe. _begon_ F1 F2. _be gon_ F3. _be gone_ F4.
[392] _With hey, ho_] F2 F3 F4. _hey, ho_ F1.
In our enumeration of the Dramatis Personæ we have omitted what Johnson calls 'the cant of the modern stage,' i.e. the unnecessary descriptions given by Rowe.
I. I. 26. Mr Knight reads 'years' heat,' but follows Malone in interpreting 'heat' as a participle. It is more probably a substantive.
I. 3. 48. Sidney Walker supposed that as the first Folio has no stop after 'acquaintance' it was intended that the sentence should be regarded as incomplete, and he therefore would read 'acquaintance--'. The real reason of the omission of the stop in F1 is that the word occurs so near the end of the line that there was no room for its insertion. It is found in all the other Folios.
I. 5. 192. Mr Dyce conjectures that something more than the speaker's name has been omitted in the Folios before 'Tell me your mind.' Capell proposed to omit these words, on the ground that, in addition to other objections against them, they cause the speech to end metrically. We leave the text undisturbed, because we think that there is some corruption which Hanmer's plausible emendation does not remove.