There is evidently a syllable wanting after 'sleep'; and now seems, being as it were opposed to the preceding line, to be the most likely word. We might, perhaps, but with loss of force, read slumber for 'sleep,' or 'Flourish and live'; but everywhere else it is 'Live and flourish.' The usual reading is 'in thy sleep,' thus setting metre at defiance. Introd. p. [79].
"The lights burn blue. It is now dread midnight."
This passage down to the line 'Find in myself,' etc., is perhaps the worst in all Shakespeare. Steevens was, I think, right in supposing that, though it is undoubtedly the poet's, he cancelled it; and I am of opinion that he substituted the three last lines of the speech—which, it may be seen, do not cohere with what precedes—and that the cancelled passage was retained by the copyist or printer, as was done in L. L. L. iv. 3, and v. 2.
"They thus directed, we will follow then."
Sc. 4.
"But tell me, pray, is young George Stanley living."
The omission of pray is here as in 1 Hen. IV. v. 2.