The reading which I have given from the folio seems chosen at the
revision, to avoid the repetition of the word _bounties_ [273].
V.i.5 (118,1) Thou crusty batch of nature] _Batch_ is changed by
Theobald to _botch_, and the change is justified by a pompous note,
which discovers that he did not know the word _batch_. What is more
strange, Hanmer has followed him. _Batch_ is any thing _baked_.
V.i.19 (119,3) Male-varlet] HANMER reads _male-harlot_, plausibly
enough, except that it seems too plain to require the explanation which
Patroclus demands.
V.i.23 (119,4) cold palsies] This catalogue of loathsome maladies ends
in the folio at _cold palsies_. This passage, as it stands, is in the
quarto: the retrenchment was in my opinion judicious. It may be
remarked, though it proves nothing, that, of the few alterations made by
Milton in the second edition of his wonderful poem, one was, an
enlargement of the enumeration of diseases.
V.i.32 (119,5) you ruinous butt; you whoreson indistinguishable cur]
Patroclos reproaches Thersites with deformity, with having one part
crowded into another.
V.i.35 (119,6) thou idle immaterial skeyn of sley'd silk] All the terms
used by Thersites of Patroclus, are emblematically expressive of
flexibility, compliance, and mean officiousness.
V.i.40 (119,7) Out, gall!] HANMER reads _nut-gall_, which answers well
enough to _finch-egg_; it has already appeared, that our author thought
the _nut-gall_ the bitter gall. He is called _nut_, from the
conglobation of his form; but both the copies read, _Out, gall_!
V.i.41 (120,8) Finch egg!] Of this reproach I do not know the exact
meaning. I suppose he means to call him _singing bird_, as implying an
useless favourite, and yet more, something more worthless, a singing
bird in the egg, or generally, a slight thing easily crushed.
V.i.64 (121,2) forced with wit] Stuffed with wit. A term of cookery.--In
this speech I do not well understand what is meant by _loving quails_.
V.i.73 (121,3) spirits and fires!] This Thersites speaks upon the first
sight of the distant lights.
V.ii.11 (124,1) And any man may sing her, if he can take her cliff] That
is, her _key_. _Clef_, French.
V.ii.41 (125,2) You flow to great distraction] So the moderns. The folio
has,