mine art
So safely ordered," etc.,--

I do not agree to the value of the change. It is very true that
_pre_vision means the foresight that his art gave him, but _pro_vision
implies the exercise of that foresight or _pre_vision; it is therefore
better, because more comprehensive.

Mr. Collier's folio gives as an improvement upon Malone and Steevens's
reading of the passage,--

"And thy father
Was Duke of Milan; and his only heir
A princess; no worse issued,"--

the following:--

"And thy father
Was Duke of Milan,--thou his only heir
And princess no worse issued."

Supposing the folio to be ingenious rather than authoritative, the
passage, as it stands in Hanmer, is decidedly better, because clearer:--

"And thy father
Was Duke of Milan,--thou, his only heir
A princess--no worse issued."

In the next passage, given as emended by the folio, we have what appears
to me one bad and one decidedly good alteration from the usual reading,
which, in all the editions given hitherto, has left the meaning barely
perceptible through the confusion and obscurity of the expression.

"He being thus _lorded_,
Not only with what my revenue yielded,
But what my power might else exact,--like one
Who having _unto truth_ by telling of it
Made such a sinner of his memory
To credit his own lie,--he did believe
He was indeed the Duke."

The folio says,--

"He being thus _loaded_."

And to this change I object: the meaning was obvious before; "lorded"
stands clearly enough here for made lord of or over, etc.; and though
the expression is unusual, it is less prosaic than the proposed word
_loaded_. But in the rest of the passage the critic of the folio does
immense service to the text, in reading

"Like one
Who having _to untruth_ by telling of it
Made such a sinner of his memory
To credit his own lie,--he did believe
He was indeed the Duke."

This change carries its own authority in its manifest good sense.

Of the passage,--

"Whereon,
A treacherous army levied, one midnight
Fated to the purpose, did Antonio open
The gates of Milan, and in the dead of darkness
The ministers for the purpose hurried thence
Me and thy crying self,"--

Mr. Collier says that the iteration of the word "purpose," in the fourth
line, after its employment in the second, is a blemish, which his folio
obviates by substituting the word _practice_ in the first line. I think
this a manife