Note VII.
IV. 2. 50, 52. The ingenious alteration made by Mr Craik cures the defective metre of line 50 and gets rid of the incongruous 'association of an officer of rank and a servant boy' in line 52. We have not however adopted it, because we are of opinion that the error, such as it is, is due to the author and not to a transcriber. In the first place, irregularities of metre are especially frequent, as Mr Dyce and others have pointed out, where proper names occur; and, secondly, an incongruity which was unnoticed by a long series of commentators may well have escaped the observation of a writer among whose merits minute accuracy cannot be ranked. Moreover in Shakespeare's eyes Lucius was probably a page of gentle birth, with whom Titinius might not unfitly be associated; and the office of guarding a door is at least as suitable to him as that of carrying a message to an army. In the next scene, both Lucius and Lucilius are in attendance.