[That thou betray'dst Polixenes, 'twas nothing
That did but shew thee, of a fool, inconstant,
And damnable ungrateful]
[T: of a soul] [W: shew thee off, a fool] Poor Mr. Theobald's
courtly remark cannot be thought to deserve much notice. Or.
Warburton too might have spared his sagacity if he had remembered,
that the present reading, by a mode of speech anciently
much used, means only, _It shew'd thee_ first _a fool_, then _inconstant
and ungrateful_.
III.ii.219 (314,9) [I am sorry for't] This it another instance of
the sudden changes incident to vehement and ungovernable minds.
III.iii.1 (315,1) [Thou art perfect then] _Perfect_ is often used by
Shakeapeare for _certain, well assured_, or _well informed_.
III.iii.56 (317,2) [A savage clamour!--Well may I get aboard--This
is the chace] This clamour was the cry of the dogs and hunters;
then seeing the bear, he cries, _this is the chace_. or, the
_animal pursued_.
IV.i.6 (321,9) [and leave the growth untry'd Of that wide gap] [W:
gulf untry'd] This emendation is plausible, but the common reading
is consistent enough with our author's manner, who attends more to
his ideas than to his words. _The growth of the wide gap_, is some-what
irregular; but he means, the _growth_, or progression of the
time which filled up the _gap_ of the story between Perdita's birth
and her sixteenth year. _To leave this growth untried_, is _to leave
the passages of the intermediate years unnoted and unexamined. Untried_
is not, perhaps, the word which he would have chosen, but
which his rhyme required.