—good alone. Is good without a name; Helen is so;
The rest follows easily by this change.
II.iii.138 (56,7)
[—She is young, wise, fair;
In these, to nature she's immediate heir;
And these breed honour]
Here is a long note [W's] which I wish had been shorter. Good is better than young, as it refers to honour. But she is more the immediate heir of nature with respect to youth than goodness. To be immediate heir is to inherit without any intervening transmitter: thus she inherits beauty immediately from nature, but honour is transmitted by ancestors; youth is received immediately from nature. but goodness may be conceived in part the gift of parents, or the effect of education. The alteration therefore loses on one side what it gains on the other.
II.iii.170 (58,9) [Into the staggers] One species of the staggers, or the horses apoplexy, is a raging impatience which makes the animal dash himself with destructive violence against posts or walls. To this the allusion, I suppose, is made.
II.iii.185 (59,1)
[whose ceremony Shall seem expedient on the now-born brief, And be perform'd to-night]
This, if it be at all intelligible, is at least obscure and inaccurate.
Perhaps it was written thus,
—what ceremony Shall seem expedient on the now-born brief Shall be perform'd to-night; the solemn feast Shall more attend—