ON A PASSAGE IN THE "MERCHANT OF VENICE," ACT III. SC. 2.
The passage in which I am about to propose some verbal corrections has already been in part examined by your correspondent A. E. B. in p. 483. of this volume; but the points, except one, to which I advert, have not been touched by that gentleman. The first folio reads thus:
"Thus ornament is but the guiled shore
To a most dangerous sea, the beauteous scarfe
Vailing an Indian beautie; In a word,
The seeming truth which cunning times put on
To intrap the wisest. Therefore then, thou gaudie gold,
Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee,
Nor none of thee, thou pale and common drudge
Tweene man and man; but thou, thou meager lead,