IV.ii.10 (345,2) So his familiars from his buried fortunes/Slink all away] The old copies have to instead of from.  The correction is Hanmer’s; but the old reading might stand (see 1765, VI, 231, 2)

IV.ii.38 (346,4) strange unusual blood] Of this passage, I suppose, every reader would wish for a correction; but the word, harsh as it is, stands fortified by the rhyme, to which, perhaps, it owes its introduction.  I know not what to propose.  Perhaps,

  —­strange unusual mood,

may, by some, be thought better, and by others worse.

IV.iii.1 (347,5) O blessed, breeding sun] [W:  blessing breeding] I do not see that this emendation much strengthens the sense.

IV.iii.2 (347,6) thy sister’s orb] That is, the moon’s, this sublunary world.

IV.iii.6 (348,7) Not nature,/To whom all sores lay siege] I have preserved this note rather for the sake of the commentator [Warburton] than of the author.  How nature, to whom all sores lay siege, can so emphatically express nature in its greatest perfection, I shall not endeavour to explain.  The meaning I take to be this:  Brother, when his fortune is inlarged, will scorn brother; for this is the general depravity of human nature, which, besieged as it is by misery, admonished as it is of want and imperfection, when elevated by fortune, will despise beings of nature like its own.

IV.iii.12 (349,9) It is the pastor lards the brother’s sides,/The want that makes him leave] [W:  weather’s sides] This passage is very obscure, nor do I discover any clear sense, even though we should admit the emendation.  Let us inspect the text as I have given it from the original edition,

  It is the pastour lards the brother’s sides,
  The want that makes him leave.

Dr. Warburton found the passage already changed thus,

  It is the pasture lards the beggar’s sides,
  The want that makes him lean.

And upon this reading of no authority, raised another equally uncertain.

Alterations are never to be made without necessity.  Let us see what sense the genuine reading will afford.  Poverty, says the poet, bears contempt hereditary, and wealth native honour.  To illustrate this position, having already mentioned the case of a poor and rich brother, he remarks, that this preference is given to wealth by those whom it least becomes; it is the pastour that greases or flatters the rich brother, and will grease him on till want makes him leave.  The poet then goes on to ask, Who dares to say this man, this pastour, is a flatterer; the crime is universal; through all the world the learned pate, with allusion to the pastour, ducks to the golden fool.  If it be objected, as it may justly be, that the mention of pastour is unsuitable, we must remember the mention of grace and cherubims in this play, and many such anachronisms in many others.  I would therefore read thus: