A SHAKESPEAREAN SUGGESTION.
[To THE EDITOR OF TEM " SPECTATOR ."J Sla,—May I offer a new reading of a line in Cymbeline that has troubled the commentators ? In Act V., Scene i., Posthumuq, groaning with remorse for the crime that he has committed in ordering the murder of his wife Imogen, moralizes on the different treatments awarded by the gods to different classes of offenders. Addressing them, he says :-
"You snatch some hence for little faults—that's love— To have them fall no more; you some permit To second ills with ills, each elder worse, And make them dread it, to the doers' thrift."
For "dread it" in the last line I would read " dree it," as in the well-known Scottish phrase, "to dree one's weird "; meaning, "to chew the cud of their misdeeds to their good." " Thrift " I take as meaning "a state of thriving." To " dree " as = to suffer is old English, and is quoted by Halliwell from Ffampole and the &torte Arthure.—I am, Sir, &e.,
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