Notes to Shakespeare — Volume 01: Comedies by Samuel Johnson
page 17 of 292 (05%)
page 17 of 292 (05%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
I.ii.27 (8,4) [virtue of compassion] Virtue; the most efficacious part, the energetic quality; in a like sense we say, _The virtue of a plant is in the extract_. I.ii.29 (8,5) [I have with such provision in mine art So safely order'd, that there is no soul-- No, not so much perdition as an hair, Betid to any creature in the vessel] Thus the old editions read, but this is apparently defective. Mr. Rowe, and after him Dr. Warburton, read _that there is no soul lost_, without any notice of the variation. Mr. Theobald substitutes _no foil_, and Mr. Pope follows him. To come so near the right, and yet to miss it, is unlucky: the author probably wrote _no soil_, no stain, no spot: for so Ariel tells, _Not a hair perish'd; On their sustaining garments not a blemish, But fresher than before._ And Gonzalo, _The rarity of it is, that our garments being drench'd in the sea, keep notwithstanding their freshness and glosses_. Of this emendation I find that the author of notes on _The Tempest_ had a glimpse, but could not keep it. I.ii.58 (10,7) [and thy father Was duke of Milan, thou his only heir] Perhaps--_and_ thou _his only heir_. |
|