Volume 2 / Part 1 — WIT AT SEVERAL WEAPONS.
Reading edition
Act I. Oldcraft's speech:
I'm arm'd at all points, &c.
It would be very easy to restore all this passage to metre, by supplying a sentence of four syllables, which the reasoning almost demands, and by correcting the grammar. Read thus:—
Arm'd at all points 'gainst treachery, I hold My humor firm. If, living, I can see thee Thrive by thy wits, I shall have the more courage, Dying, to trust thee with my lands. If not, The best wit, I can hear of, carries them. For since so many in my time and knowledge, Rich children of the city, have concluded For lack of wit in beggary, I'd rather Make a wise stranger my executor, Than a fool son my heir, and have my lands call'd After my wit than name: and that's my nature!
Ib. Oldcraft's speech:—
To prevent which I have sought out a match for her.—
Read
Which to prevent I've sought a match out for her.
Ib. Sir Gregory's speech:—
—Do you think I'll have any of the wits hang upon me after I am married once?
Read it thus:—
Do you think That I'll have any of the wits to hang Upon me after I am married once?
and afterwards—
Is it a fashion in London, To marry a woman, and to never see her?
The superfluous 'to' gives it the Sir Andrew Ague-cheek character.