That for your highness' good I ever labour'd
More than mine own; that I am true, and will be
Though all the world should lack their duty to you,
And throw it from their soul: though perils did
Abound, as thick as thought could make them, and
Appear in forms more horrid; yet my duty
(As doth a rock against the chiding flood,)
Should the approach of this wild river break,
And stand unshaken yours."
Here all is congruous and clear. This slight correction of a palpable printer's error redeems a fine passage hitherto entirely unintelligible. I do not insist upon the correction in the fourth line of lack for crack, yet what can be meant by cracking a duty? The duke, in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, speaks of his daughter as "lacking duty;" and seeing how very negligently the whole passage has been given in the folio, I think there is good ground for its reception. With regard to the correction in the second line, I feel confident, and doubt not that it will have the approbation of all who, like myself, feel assured that most of the difficulties in the text of our great poet are attributable to careless printer or transcriber.