'Biron'. And what to me, my love? and what to me?
'Ros'. You must be purged too, your sins are rank;
You are attaint with fault and perjury:
Therefore, if you my favour mean to get,
A twelvemonth shall you spend, and never rest,
But seek the weary beds of people sick.
There can be no doubt, indeed, about the propriety of expunging this speech of Rosaline's; it soils the very page that retains it. But I do not agree with Warburton and others in striking out the preceding line also. It is quite in Biron's character; and Rosaline not answering it immediately, Dumain takes up the question for him, and, after he and Longaville are answered, Biron, with evident propriety, says;—
Studies my mistress? &c.
MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.
Act i. sc. 1.
'Her'. O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low—
'Lys'. Or else misgraffed, in respect of years;
'Her'. O spite! too old to be engag'd to young—
'Lys'. Or else it stood upon the choice of friends;
'Her'. O hell! to chuse love by another's eye!
There is no authority for any alteration;—but I never can help feeling how great an improvement it would be, if the two former of Hermia's exclamations were omitted;—the third and only appropriate one would then become a beauty, and most natural.
'Ib.' Helena's speech:—