I.i.6 (4,2) [Long withering out a young man's revenue] [W: wintering]
That the common reading is not good English, I cannot perceive,
and therefore find in myself no temptation to change it.
I.i.47 (5,6) [To leave the figure, or disfigure it] [W: 'leve] I know
not why so harsh a word should be admitted with so little need, a
word that, spoken, could not be understood, and of which no example
can be shown. The sense is plain, _you owe to your father a being
which he may at pleasure continue or destroy_.
I.i.68 (6,8) [Know of your youth] Bring your youth to the question.
Consider your youth. (1773)
I.i.76 (7,9) [But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd] Thus all the
copies, yet _earthlier_ is so harsh a word, and _earthlier happy_ for
_happier earthly_, a mode of speech so unusual, that I wonder none
of the editors have proposed _earlier happy_.
I.i.110 (8,2) [spotted] As _spotless_ is innocent, so _spotted_ is wicked.
(1773)
I.i.131 (9,3) [Beteem them] give them, bestow upon then. The word is
used by Spenser.
I.i.157 (10,8) [I have a widow aunt, a dowager] These lines perhaps
might more properly be regulated thus:
_I have a widow aunt, a dowager
Of great revenue, and she hath no child,
And she respects me as her only son;
Her house from Athens is remov'd seven leagues,
There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee,
And to that place--_
I.i.169-178 (11,1) [Warburton had reassigned speeches here] This
emendation is judicious, but not necessary. I have therefore
given the note without altering the text. The censure of men,
as oftner perjured than women, seems to make that line more
proper for the lady.
I.i.183 (12,3) [Your eyes are lode-stars] This was a complement not
unfrequent among the old poets. The lode star is the _leading_ or
guiding star, that is, the pole-star. The magnet is, for the
same reason, called the _lode-stone_, either became it leads iron,
or because it guides the sailor. Milton has the same thought in
L'Allegro:
_Tow'rs and battlements he sees
Bosom'd high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps some beauty lies,
The_ Cynosure _of neighb'ring eyes._
Davies calls Elizabeth, _lode-stone_ to hearts, and _lode-stone_
to all eyes, (see 1765, 1,97,9)