so long
As he could make me with _this_ eye or ear
Distinguish him from others," &c.

But "_this_ eye," in spite of the supposition of its being used {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~},
is very awkward. I should think that either "or" or "the" was
Shakespeare's word;--

"As he could make me or with eye or ear."

_Ib._ sc. 6. Iachimo's speech:--

... "Hath nature given them eyes
To see this vaulted arch, and the rich crop
Of sea and land, which can distinguish 'twixt
The fiery orbs above, and the twinn'd stones
Upon the number'd beach."

I would suggest "cope" for "crop." As to "twinn'd stones"--may it not be a
bold _catachresis_ for muscles, cockles, and other empty shells with
hinges, which are truly twinned? I would take Dr. Farmer's "umber'd,"
which I had proposed before I ever heard of its having been already
offered by him: but I do not adopt his interpretation of the word, which I
think is not derived from _umbra_, a shade, but from _umber_, a dingy
yellow-brown soil, which most commonly forms the mass of the sludge on the
sea-shore, and on the banks of tide-rivers at low water. One other
possible interpretation of this sentence has occurred to me, just barely
worth mentioning;--that the "twinn'd stones" are the _augrim_ stones upon
the number'd beech,--that is, the astronomical tables of beech-wood.

Act v. sc. 5.--

"_Sooth._ When, as a lion's whelp," &c.

It is not easy to conjecture why Shakespeare should have introduced this
ludicrous scroll, which answers no one purpose, either propulsive, or
explicatory, unless as a joke on etymology.

"Titus Andronicus."

Act i. sc. 1. Theobald's note:--

"I never heard it so much as intimated, that he (Shakespeare) had
turned his genius to stage-writing, before he associated with the
players, and became one of their body."

That Shakespeare never "turned his genius to stage-writing," as Theobald
most _Theobaldice_ phrases it, before he became an actor, is an assertion
of about as much authority as the precious story that he left Stratford
for deer-stealing, and that he lived by holding gentlemen's horses at the
doors of the theatre, and other trash of that arch-gossip, old Aubrey. The
metre