_Mr. Collier's "Notes and Emendations:" Passage in "The Winter's
Tale."_--At p. 192. of MR. PAYNE COLLIER'S new volume, he cites a
passage in _The Winter's Tale_, ending--
"... I should blush
To see you so attir'd, sworn, I think
To show myself a glass."
The MS. emendator, he says, reads _so worn_ for _sworn_; and adds:
"The meaning therefore is, that Florizel's plain attire was 'so
worn,' to show Perdita, as in a glass, how simply she ought to
have been dressed."
Now MR. COLLIER, in this instance, has not, according to his usual
practice, alluded to any commentator who has suggested the same
emendation. The inference would be, that this emendation is a novelty.
This it is not. It has been before the world for thirty-four years, and
its merits have failed to give it currency. At p. 142. of Z. Jackson's
miscalled _Restorations_, 1819, we find this emendation, with the
following note:
"_So worn_, i. e. _so reduced_, in your external appearance,
that I should think you intended to remind me of my own
condition; for, by looking at you thus attired, I behold myself,
as it were, reflected in a glass, habited in robes becoming my
obscure birth, and equally obscure fortune."
{379}
Jackson's emendations are invariably bad; but whatever may be thought of
the sense of Florizel being _so worn_ (instead of his dress), it is but
fair to give a certain person his due. The passage has long seemed to me
to have this meaning:
"But that we are acquiescing in a custom, I should blush to see
you, who are a prince, attired like a swain; and still more
should I blush to look at myself in the glass, and see a peasant
girl pranked up like a princess."
_& more_, in MS., might very easily have been mistaken for _sworn_ by
the compositor. Accordingly, I would read the complete passage thus:
"... But that our feasts
In every mess have folly, and the feeders
Digest it with a custom, I should blush
To see you so attir'd, and more, I think,
To show myself a glass."