"he being thus _lorded_
Not only with what my revenue yielded," &c.,
is degraded into "he being thus _loaded_," &c. Can there be a moment's
doubt that "lorded" was the word used by Shakspeare? It is completely in
his style, which was on all occasions to coin verbs out of substantives, if
he could. "He being thus _lorded_," i. e. _ennobled_ "with what my revenue
yielded," is surely a far superior expression to "being thus _loaded_,"--as
if the poet were speaking of a costermonger's donkey!
Again, in p. 10.:
"Wherefore _this_ ghastly looking?"
or, this ghastly appearance? Who will venture to say, that the substitution
of "_thus ghastly_ looking" is not decidedly a change for the worse?
In the Merchant of Venice, p. 118.:
"and leave itself _unfurnished_,"
is altered to "leave itself _unfinished_!" I confess I cannot see the
slightest warrant for this change. The words--
"having made one,
Methinks IT should have power to steal _both his_,"
distinctly show that the author was alluding to the _eye_ only, and not to
the _portrait_ and how could the eye (already _made_) describe itself as
_unfinished_? Surely the sense is _unfurnished_, that is, _unfurnished_
with its companion, or probably with the other accessories required to
complete the portrait.