Chapter XXX: Act I: Sc. 1, mentions, on Sir F. Madden’s authority, that ‘I wis’

is undoubtedly derived from the Saxon adverb ‘gewis,’ but in the thirteenth century ‘ge’ was changed to ‘y’ or ‘i,’ and in the latter end of the fifteenth it was probably held to be equivalent to the German ‘Ich weiss.’ There can be no doubt that Shakespeare spelt it ‘I wis’ and used it as two words, pronoun and verb.

NOTE VII.

III. 2. 61. Mr Halliwell says that Roberts’s Quarto reads _then_ for _thou_. It is not so in our copy.

NOTE VIII.

III. 2. 66. Johnson follows Hanmer in reading ‘Reply’ as a stage direction. It is true that the words ‘Reply, reply’ stand in the margin of the old copies, but they are printed like the song in italics, and seem to be required as part of it by the rhythm and (if we read _eye_ with the Quartos) by the rhyme also. Capell prefixes 1 v. to ‘Tell me, &c.’ and 2 v. to ‘It is engender’d...’ He says that “the words ‘reply, reply’ show it to be a song in two parts or by two voices, followed by a chorus of divers assistant voices which ‘all’ indicates.”

NOTE IX.

III. 2. 221. We have retained here and throughout the scene the name ‘Salerio,’ which is so spelt consistently in all the old copies. Rowe altered it to ‘Salanio;’ and if the punctuation means anything, the editor of the third Quarto seems to have doubted about the name.

Capell, not Steevens as Mr Dyce says, restored ‘Salerio’ in the text, supposing Shakespeare to have used it as an abridgement of ‘Salerino,’ which he put in the stage direction. Mr Dyce thinks with Mr Knight that it is altogether unlikely that Shakespeare would, without necessity and in violation of dramatic propriety, introduce a new character, ‘Salerio,’ in addition to Salanio and Salerino. Tried by this standard Shakespeare’s violations of dramatic propriety are frequent indeed, and it is no part of an Editor’s duty to correct them.

In the next scene Q2 Q3 Q4 have ‘Salerio,’ altered in the Folios to ‘Solanio;’ for clearly it cannot be the same person as the messenger to Belmont; and in IV. 1. 15 the same Quartos make ‘Salerio’ the speaker, while Q1 and the Folios have merely ‘Sal.’

NOTE X.

III. 4. 72. _I could not do withal._ In Florio’s _Giardino di Ricreatione_, p. 9, ed. 1591, the Italian ‘Io non saprei farci altro’ is rendered into English ‘I cannot doo with all;’ and the phrase occurs several times in the same book, meaning always ‘I cannot help it.’

NOTE XI.

IV. 1. 50. Mr Knight attributes the reading ‘Mistress of...’ to Steevens from the conjecture of Waldron. It was really first adopted by Capell from the conjecture of ‘the ingenious Dr Thirlby.’

Mr Staunton says that in line 51 F1, omits ‘it;’ but this is not the case in our copy.

NOTE XII.

IV. 1. 56. We have retained the reading ‘_woollen_’ as it gives a meaning not altogether absurd. In an illuminated copy of an _Office de la Vierge_ in the library of Trinity College there is a representation of a bagpipe which appears to be of sheepskin with the wool on. We incline however to think that Capell’s conjecture ‘wawling’ approaches nearest to the truth.

NOTE XIII.

IV. 1. 74. In the Duke of Devonshire’s copy of Heyes’s Quarto (our Q2) the passage runs thus:

‘well use question with the Woolfe, the Ewe bleake for the Lambe.’

Lord Ellesmere’s copy agrees with Capell’s _literatim_, and reads, not ‘bleat,’ as Mr Collier says, but ‘bleake.’

Mr Halliwell says that line 74, _Why...lamb_, is omitted in one copy of Heyes’s Quarto which he has seen, but that it is found in three other copies.

NOTE XIV.

IV. 1. 209. Warburton has claimed this conjecture in a MS. note to our edition of Theobald, but he did not adopt it in his own text.

NOTE XV.

IV. 1. 303. Mr Knight incorrectly says that this line is first found in the Folio of 1623. It is in all the quartos.

AS YOU LIKE IT.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ[1].

DUKE, living in banishment. FREDERICK, his brother, and usurper of his dominions. AMIENS, lord attending on the banished Duke. JAQUES, ” ” ” LE BEAU[2], a courtier attending upon Frederick. CHARLES, wrestler to Frederick. OLIVER, son of Sir Rowland de Boys. JAQUES, ” ” ” ORLANDO, ” ” ” ADAM, servant to Oliver. DENNIS, ” ” TOUCHSTONE, a clown. SIR OLIVER MARTEXT, a vicar. CORIN, shepherd. SILVIUS, ” WILLIAM, a country fellow, in love with Audrey[3]. A person representing Hymen.

ROSALIND, daughter to the banished Duke. CELIA, daughter to Frederick. PHEBE, a shepherdess. AUDREY, a country wench.

Lords, pages, and attendants, &c.

SCENE—_Oliver’s house; Duke Frederick’s court; and the Forest of Arden._

~~~~~ Footnotes:

1: DRAMATIS PERSONÆ] First given by Rowe.

2: LE BEAU] LE BEU. Rowe. See note (I).

3: WILLIAM] ‘Clown in love with Audrey,’ and ‘William, another clown in love with Audrey.’ Rowe (ed. 2). ~~~~~

AS YOU LIKE IT.