O, she is rich in beauty; only poor
That when she dies, with beauty dies her store]
Mr. Theobald reads, "_With_ her dies beauties _store_;" and is followed
by the two succeeding editors. I have replaced the old reading, because
I think it at least as plausible as the correction. _She is rich_, says
he, _in beauty_, and _only poor_ in being subject to the lot of
humanity, that _her store_, or riches, _can be destroyed by death_, who
shall, by the same blow, put an end to beauty.
I.ii.15 (17,2) She is the hopeful lady of my earth] _The lady of his
earth_ is an expression not very intelligible, unless he means that she
is heir to his estate, and I suppose no man ever called his lands his
earth. I will venture to propose a bold change:
She is the hope _and stay_ of my _full years_.
I.ii.25 (18,3) Earth-treading stars that make dark heaven light] [W:
dark even] But why nonsense [Warburton's comment]? Is any thing mere
commonly said, than that beauties eclipse the sun? Has not Pope the
thought and the word?
"Sol through white curtains shot a tim'rous ray,
"And spe'd those eyes that must _eclipse the day_."
Both the old and the new reading are philosophical nonsense, but they
are both, and both equally poetical sense.
I.ii.26 (18,4) Such comfort as do lusty young men feel] To say, and to
say in pompous words, that a _young man shall feel_ as much in an
assembly of beauties, _as young men feel in the month of April_, is
surely to waste sound upon a very poor sentiment. I read,
Such comfort as do lusty _yeomen_ feel.
You shall feel from the sight and conversation of these ladies, such
hopes of happiness and such pleasure, as the farmer receives from the
spring, when the plenty of the year begins, and the prospect of the
harvest fills him with delight.