With heigh ho, the wind and the rain;
Must make content with his fortunes fit,
Though the rain it raineth every day]
I fancy that the second line of this stanza had once a termination that rhymed with the fourth; but I can only fancy it; for both the copies agree. It was once perhaps written,
With heigh ho, the wind and the rain in his way.
The meaning seems likewise to require this insertion. "He that has wit, however small, and finds wind and rain in his way, must content himself by thinking, that somewhere or other it raineth every day, and others are therefore suffering like himself." Yet I am afraid that all this is chimerical, for the burthen appears again in the song at the end of Twelfth Night, and seems to have been an arbitrary supplement, without any reference to the sense of the song. (see 1765, VI, 84, 6)
III.ii.80 (402,8) I'll speak a prophecy ere I go] [W: or two ere] The sagacity and acuteness of Dr. Warburton are very conspicuous in this note. He has disentangled the confusion of the passage, and I have inserted his emendation in the text. Or e'er is proved by Mr. Upton to be good English, but the controversy was not necessary, for or is not in the old copies. [Steevens retained "ere">[
III.ii.84 (403,1) No heretics burnt, but wenches' suitors] The disease to which wenches' suitors are particularly exposed, was called in Shakespeare's time the brenning or burning.
III.iv.26 (406,1)
In, boy; go first. [To the Fool.] You houseless poverty—