“The direful spectacle of the wreck . . . 
  I have with such provision in mine art
  So safely ordered,” etc.,—­

I do not agree to the value of the change.  It is very true that prevision means the foresight that his art gave him, but provision implies the exercise of that foresight or prevision; it is therefore better, because more comprehensive.

Mr. Collier’s folio gives as an improvement upon Malone and Steevens’s reading of the passage,—­

  “And thy father
  Was Duke of Milan; and his only heir
  A princess; no worse issued,”—­

the following:—­

  “And thy father
  Was Duke of Milan,—­thou his only heir
  And princess no worse issued.”

Supposing the folio to be ingenious rather than authoritative, the passage, as it stands in Hanmer, is decidedly better, because clearer:—­

  “And thy father
  Was Duke of Milan,—­thou, his only heir
  A princess—­no worse issued.”

In the next passage, given as emended by the folio, we have what appears to me one bad and one decidedly good alteration from the usual reading, which, in all the editions given hitherto, has left the meaning barely perceptible through the confusion and obscurity of the expression.

  “He being thus lorded,
  Not only with what my revenue yielded,
  But what my power might else exact,—­like one
  Who having unto truth by telling of it
  Made such a sinner of his memory
  To credit his own lie,—­he did believe
  He was indeed the Duke.”

The folio says,—­

“He being thus loaded.”

And to this change I object:  the meaning was obvious before; “lorded” stands clearly enough here for made lord of or over, etc.; and though the expression is unusual, it is less prosaic than the proposed word loaded.  But in the rest of the passage the critic of the folio does immense service to the text, in reading

  “Like one
  Who having to untruth by telling of it
  Made such a sinner of his memory
  To credit his own lie,—­he did believe
  He was indeed the Duke.”

This change carries its own authority in its manifest good sense.

Of the passage,—­

  “Whereon,
  A treacherous army levied, one midnight
  Fated to the purpose, did Antonio open
  The gates of Milan, and in the dead of darkness
  The ministers for the purpose hurried thence
  Me and thy crying self,”—­

Mr. Collier says that the iteration of the word “purpose,” in the fourth line, after its employment in the second, is a blemish, which his folio obviates by substituting the word practice in the first line.  I think this a manifest improvement, though not an important one.

Mr. Collier gives Rowe the credit of having altered “butt” to boat, and “have quit it” to had quit it, in the lines,—­