This reading, Mr. Becket says, he cannot admit; and he says well: since it appears that Shakespeare wrote—
"For who would bear the scores of weapon'd time?"
using scores in the sense of stripes. Formerly, i.e., when Becket was in his sallad days, he augured, he says, that the true reading was—
—"the scores of whip-hand time."
Time having always the whip-hand, the advantage; but he now reverts to the other emendation; though, as he modestly hints, the epithet whip-hand (which he still regards with parental fondness) will perhaps be thought to have much of the manner of Shakespeare.—Vol. i, p. 43.
"Horatio.—While they, distill'd Almost to jelly with the act of fear, Stand dumb, and speak not to him!"
We had been accustomed to find no great difficulty here: the words seemed, to us, at least, to express the usual effect of inordinate terror—but we gladly acknowledge our mistake. "The passage is not to be understood." How should it, when both the pointing and the language are corrupt? Read, as Shakespeare gave it—
—"While they bestill'd
Almost to gelèe with the act. Of fear
Stand dumb," &c.—that is, petrified (or rather icefied) p. 13.
"Lear. And my poor fool is hang'd!"
With these homely words, which burst from the poor old king on reverting to the fate of his loved Cordelia, whom he then holds in his arms, we have been always deeply affected, and therefore set them down as one of the thousand proofs of the poet's intimate knowledge of the human heart. But Mr. Becket has made us ashamed of our simplicity and our tears. Shakespeare had no such "lenten" language in his thoughts; he wrote, as Mr. Becket tells us,