ty lies in the ear
Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
Of him that makes it: then, if sickly ears,
Deaf'd with the clamours of their own dear groans,
Will hear your idle scorns, continue then,
And I will have you, and that fault withal:
But, if they will not, throw away that spirit,
And I shall find you empty of that fault,
Right joyful of your reformation."

Act v. sc. 2. In Biron's speech to the Princess:

"And, therefore, like the eye,
Full of _straying_ shapes, of habits, and of forms"--

either read _stray_, which I prefer; or throw _full_ back to the preceding
lines,--

"Like the eye, full
Of straying shapes," &c,

In the same scene:--

"_Biron._ And what to me, my love? and what to me?

_Ros._ You must be purged too, your sins are rank;
You are attaint with fault and perjury:
Therefore, if you my favour mean to get,
A twelvemonth shall you spend, and never rest,
But seek the weary beds of people sick."

There can be no doubt, indeed, about the propriety of expunging this
speech of Rosaline's; it soils the very page that retains it. But I do not
agree with Warburton and others in striking out the preceding line also.
It is quite in Biron's character; and Rosaline, not answering it
immediately, Dumain takes up the question for him, and, after he and
Longaville are answered, Biron, with evident propriety, says:--

"_Studies_ my mistress?" &c.

"Midsummer Night's Dream."

Act i. sc. 1.--

"_Her._ O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low--

_Lys._ Or else misgrafted in respect of years;

_Her._ O spite! too old to be engaged to young--

_Lys._ Or else it stood upon the choice of friends;

_Her._ O hell! to chuse love by another's eye!"

There is no authority for any alteration;--but I never can help feeling how
great an improvement it would be, if the two former of Hermia's
exclamations were omitted;--the third and only appropriate one would then
become a beauty, and most natural.

_Ib._ Helena's speech:--

"I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight," &c.

I am convinced that Shakespeare availed himself of the title of this play
in his own mind, and worked upon it as a dream throughout, but especially,
and perhaps unpleasingly, in this broad determination of ungrateful
treachery in Helena, so undisguisedly avowed to herself, and this, too,
after the witty cool philosophising that precedes. The act itself is
natural, and the resolve so to act is, I fear,