Premising that I should approach the text of our great poet with an almost equal degree of awful reverence with that which characterises his two latest editors, I must confess that I should not have the same respect for evident errors of the printers of the early editions, which they have occasionally shown. In the following passage in the Tempest, Act i., Scene 1., this forbearance has not, however, been the cause of the very unsatisfactory state in which they have both left it. I must be indulged in citing at length, that the context may the more clearly show what was really the poet's meaning:—
"Enter FERDINAND bearing a Log.
"Fer. There be some sports are painful; and their labour
Delight in them sets off; some kinds of baseness
Are nobly undergone; and most poor matters
Point to rich ends. This my mean task
Would be as heavy to me, as odious; but
The mistress, which I serve, quickens what's dead,
And makes my labours pleasures: O! she is
Ten times more gentle than her father's crabbed;