III. 2. 18. The Quartos here read 'breaches,' not 'preaches,' and the Folios 'breach,' not 'preach.' Throughout the speeches of Fluellen the old copies sometimes mark the peculiarity of his pronunciation, by using 'p' for 'b,' and 't' for 'd,' sometimes not; an inconsistency, which Hanmer and others have attempted to correct. As a rule, we have silently followed the first Folio. See Merry Wives of Windsor, Note II. The same will apply to the Scotch of Jamy and the Irish of Macmorris; for these dialects, which could not be represented by the printer, were left to the actor's power of imitation.
Ritson, in his Remarks, p. 108, says, 'In the Folio, it is the duke of Exeter and not Fluellen, who enters and to whom Pistol addresses himself. Shakespeare had made the alteration and the player editors inserted it in the text, but inadvertently, left Fluellen in possession of the margin.' No copy of any Folio with which we are acquainted bears out Ritson's assertion. All have Enter Fluellen, as well as Flu. in the margin. It seems to us that there is some comic humour in making Pistol, almost beside himself with fright, endeavour to propitiate the captain by giving him high sounding titles. The language, too, of the exhortation is more suitable to the choleric Fluellen than to the stately Exeter.
[Note VIII.]
III. 1. 112-114. Mr Knight, at the suggestion of a friend, transposes this passage thus: 'Of my nation? What ish my nation? What ish my nation? Who talks of my nation ish a villain, a bastard, and a knave, and a rascal.' We agree with Mr Staunton's suggestion, that 'the incoherence of the original was designed to mark the impetuosity of the speaker.'
[Note IX.]
III. 3. 32. The editor of the variorum edition of 1803, adopting the emendation 'deadly,' which was really Capell's conjecture, though Malone appropriates it, makes it appear, as if on the authority of Malone, that 'deadly' is the reading of the second Folio. We have left unnoticed many similar errors, which run, uncorrected, through the successive variorum editions.
[Note X.]
III. 4. 1. We content ourselves with a few specimens of the errors and variations of the old copies in this scene. The French was set right, or nearly so, by successive alterations made by Rowe, Pope, Theobald, Warburton, and Capell. Some obvious corrections in the distribution of the dialogue were made by Theobald.