If nothing is lost, we should read 'have fled.'
"Retires to chiding Fortune."
For 'Retires' Pope, whom I have followed, read Returns, Hanmer Replies, Dyce Retorts. Yet the text may be right, and 'Retires' be the French retire, shoots again, returns the shot.
"Speak, Prince of Ithaca, and be it of less expect."
This is not sense. I read 'we it less.' The superfluous insertion of of was not infrequent (see on Meas. for Meas. iv. 4). Here, however, it was manifestly introduced to make some kind of sense. See Introd. p. [67].
"But for these instances * * *"