Clerk-like experienc'd, which no less adorns
Our gentry, than our parents' noble names,
In whose success we are gentle," &c.
I take the sense of the whole passage thus: "Since I must acknowledge that you are better skilled in the nature of government than I am, it would be idle in me to lecture you on the subject. Then nothing more is wanting but thereto your sufficient authority (i.e. to govern), as you have the ability, and let them (your skill and authority) come into operation."
Sufficiency, as Warburton long ago observed, is authority, but may possibly be here used in the Latin sense of substitution. Escalus is to be Vice-gerent. The very slight change necessary, and the great probability of the occurrence of the error, strongly recommend this simple emendation.
Daily experience is manifesting how large a portion of the difficult passages are errors of the printer of the first folio, the two happy corrections lately given in The Athenæum, for instance: who can doubt that in Coriolanus, Act III. Sc. 1., "Bosome-multiplied" should be "Bissom-multitude:" or that, in All's Well that Ends Well, Act V. Sc. 3., "infuite comming" should be "infinite cunning?" A glance at the passages as they stand in the old print of the first folio would convince the most sceptical. A list of mere printer's errors in that book would be not a little astounding.
S. W. SINGER.
[It may be proper to observe, that this Note by MR. SINGER had been in the Editor's possession at least a fortnight previous to the appearance of that by our esteemed correspondent at Leeds in our last Number.]