III. 2. 208, 209. The misreading 'may' for 'have,' which is so familiar to us in this often-quoted passage, was not corrected by Pope or any subsequent editor till Capell.
Note X.
V. 3. Mr Grant White suggests that a new scene should begin here, "although the stage direction in the folio is only 'A Councell Table brought in with Chayres and Stooles, and placed under the State,' &c. But this is plainly the mere result of the absence of scenery of any kind on Shakespeare's stage, and the audience were to imagine that the scene changed from the lobby before the Council Chamber to that apartment itself." We have adopted his suggestion, thinking that the obvious propriety of changing the scene outweighs any inconvenience which might result for purposes of reference. Hanmer, Warburton, and Johnson all follow Pope in calling this Scene V. Theobald also supposes a new scene to begin here, although in his edition the scenes are not numbered. Capell, by his stage direction, indicated that the scene presented the Council-chamber and the lobby both at once to the eyes of the spectators.
Note XI.
V. 4. 30-61. It is scarcely worth while to record how Capell cut up these thirty lines of prose into verse. No editor has followed him. Mr Sidney Walker however has made a similar attempt, but is forced to admit that in some changes of reading he has 'ventured beyond the lawful limits of an emendator.' With the same license, it would be easy to convert an Act of Parliament or a leading article into verse.
Mr Walker also has followed Capell, or perhaps has hit independently on the same arrangement, as regards the first part of the scene. The intervening lines from 10 to 30 are printed as verse in the folio. In these he proposes some trifling changes of arrangement.
Note XII.
V. 5. 1-4. Pope, with more than usual audacity, makes the lines run smoothly by thus changing them:
'Heav'n, from thy endless goodness, send long life,
And ever happy, to the high and mighty
Princess of England, fair Elizabeth.'
Theobald, Hanmer, Warburton, and Johnson adopt Pope's reading without remark.