_He that has a little tiny wit,--
With heigh ho, the wind and the rain;
Must make content with his fortunes fit,
Though the rain it raineth every day_]
I fancy that the second line of this stanza had once a termination that
rhymed with the fourth; but I can only fancy it; for both the copies
agree. It was once perhaps written,
With heigh ho, the wind and the rain _in his way_.
The meaning seems likewise to require this insertion. "He that has wit,
however small, and finds wind and rain in his way, must content himself
by thinking, that somewhere or other _it raineth every day_, and others
are therefore suffering like himself." Yet I am afraid that all this is
chimerical, for the burthen appears again in the song at the end of
_Twelfth Night_, and seems to have been an arbitrary supplement, without
any reference to the sense of the song. (see 1765, VI, 84, 6)
III.ii.80 (402,8) I'll speak a prophecy ere I go] [W: or two ere] The
sagacity and acuteness of Dr. Warburton are very conspicuous in this
note. He has disentangled the confusion of the passage, and I have
inserted his emendation in the text. _Or e'er_ is proved by Mr. Upton to
be good English, but the controversy was not necessary, for _or_ is not
in the old copies. [Steevens retained "ere"]
III.ii.84 (403,1) No heretics burnt, but wenches' suitors] The disease
to which _wenches' suitors_ are particularly exposed, was called in
Shakespeare's time the _brenning_ or _burning_.