st improvement, though not an important one.

Mr. Collier gives Rowe the credit of having altered "butt" to _boat_,
and "have quit it" to _had quit it_, in the lines,--

"Where they prepar'd
A rotten carcase of a _butt_ not rigg'd,
Nor tackle, sail, nor mast,--the very rats
Instinctively _have quit it_."

Adding, that in both changes he is supported by the corrector of the
folio, 1632. Hanmer gives the passage exactly as the latter, and as Rowe
does.

We now come to the stage-directions in the folio, to which Mr. Collier
gives, I think, a most exaggerated value. He says, that, where Prospero
says,--

"Lend thy hand
And pluck my magic garment from me,--so
Lie there, my art,"--

the words, "Lay it down," are written over against the passage. Now this
really seems a very unnecessary direction, inasmuch as the text very
clearly indicates that Prospero lays down as well as plucks off his
"magic garment,"--unless we are to suppose Miranda holding it over her
arm till he resumes it. But still less do I agree with Mr. Collier in
thinking the direction, "Put on robe again," at the passage beginning,
"Now I arise," any extraordinary accession to the business, as it is
technically called, of the scene: for I do not think that his resuming
his magical robe was in any way necessary to account for the slumber
which overcomes Miranda, "in spite of her interest in her father's
story," and which Mr. Collier says the commentators have endeavored to
account for in various ways; but putting "_because_ of her interest in
her father's story," instead of "_in spite_ of," I feel none of the
difficulty which beset the commentators, and which Mr. Collier conjures
by the stage-direction which makes Prospero resume his magic robe at
a certain moment in order to put his daughter to sleep. Worthy Dr.
Johnson, who was not among the puzzled commentators on this occasion,
suggests, very agreeably to common sense, that "Experience proves that
any violent agitation of the mind easily subsides in slumber." But Mr.
Collier says, the Doctor gives this very reasonable explanation of
Miranda's sleep only because he was not acquainted with the folio
stage-direction about Prospero's coat, and knew no better. Now we are
acquainted with this important addition to the text, and yet know no
better than to agree with Doctor Johnson, that Miranda's slumbers were
perfectly to be accounted for without the coat. Mr. Collier does not
seem to know