Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

The conviction that Shakespeare is better known, better understood, and, above all, better acted in Germany than in England, is very prevalent in the former country, where we have often heard it boldly put forward and sustained. When in Shakespeare’s native land, Germans may possibly be more modest in their pretensions; and yet we must not be too confident of that, when we see a German company selecting Shakespeare’s plays for performance before a refined and critical London audience. The recent performances of Emil Devrient and his companions, give especial interest to some theatrical criticisms put forth by Dr Keif for the benefit of his friend Frolick, seated by his side in the pit of the Olympic Theatre. He is of opinion that English actors, when rendering Shakespeare’s characters, cling too tenaciously to tradition, and aim too little at originality. After a visit to a penny theatre, of the proceedings at which he gives a most laughable account, he returns, at some length, to the subject of the English stage, and highly praises certain English comic actors as excellent, and superior to any of the same class in Germany. “I know nothing better,” he says, “than Matthews at the Lyceum, and Mrs Keeley. There you have natural freshness, vigour, ease, and finesse, all combined in right proportions. There is less heartiness about our German comic performances; they always remind me of the strained vivacity of a bookworm in a drawing-room; now the author, then his interpreter, is too visibly forced in his condescension.” What follows is less complimentary. “When I for the first time, at Sadler’s Wells, saw Romeo and Juliet performed, I bit my lips all to pieces. Juliet looked as if she came from a ladies’ school at Brompton, instead of an Italian convent; the orthopedical stays and backboard were unmistakable: as to Romeo, I would unhesitatingly have confided to him the charge of an express train, so sober and practical was his air, so solid and angular each one of his movements. The same impression was made upon me by Mercutio, Tybalt, Lorenzo. It was not that they displayed too little vocal and mimic power; on the contrary, it was because they gesticulated like madmen, and ranged up and down the entire gamut of human tones, from a whistle to a roar, that I too plainly saw that no tragic passion was in them. The same company afterwards delighted me in comic pieces.” In English theatricals Mr Schlesinger’s taste is strongly for the humorous; the broader the farce and the thicker the jokes, the better he is pleased. A Christmas pantomime, with its practical fun and methodical folly, delights him. He is wonderstruck and enchanted by the mischievous agility of clown, and the only drawback to his pleasure is the inappropriate introduction of a ballet. “To see twenty or thirty Englishwomen, of full grenadier stature, perform a ballet-dance ten minutes in length, is an enjoyment from which one does but slowly recover. To this day I live in the firm conviction that the worthy young women had not the least idea that they were called upon for an artistical performance, but took their long legs for mathematical instruments, with which to demonstrate problems relating to right angles, the hypothenuse, and the squaring of the circle.” This sarcasm elicited a long reply from Frolick, who had once, it seems, been a _fideler bursch_ in Heidelberg, who knew German well, and had seen Shakespeare acted in both countries. In some respects he preferred the German performance of Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, but Richard III. and Falstaff were to be seen best in England. The decline of the drama in this country he attributed to a complication of causes, of which he cited two—the nation’s preoccupation with matters more practical and important, and the want of a government support. “In your country,” he said, “thirty courts cherish, foster, and patronise the theatre; here, every theatre is a private speculation. When the Queen has taken a box at the Princess’s Theatre and another at Covent Garden, she has done all that is expected from her Majesty in the way of patronage of the drama. Upon the same boards upon which to-day you hear the swanlike notes of Desdemona, you to-morrow may behold an equestrian troop or a party of Indian jugglers. If you complain of such desecration of the muse’s temple, you are simply laughed at. Aubry’s dog, which so excited the holy indignation of Schiller and Goethe, would be welcomed at any of our theatres, so long as he filled the house.” Without going the length of restricting theatrical performances to what is termed the legitimate drama, there ought to be a limit to illegitimacy, and unquestionably the introduction upon our stage of tumblers, jugglers, and posture-masters, circus-clowns, rope-dancers, and wild Indians, has powerfully contributed to lower its character, and to wean many lovers of the drama from the habitual frequenting of theatres. But the stage in England has not the importance and weight it enjoys in some foreign countries; notably in France, where it is one of the means used to distract from politics the attention of the restless excitement-loving people; where ministers of state, and imperial majesty itself, condescend to interfere in minute dramatic details, and to command the suppression of pieces whose merits they deem beneath the dignity of the theatre at which they are produced. There, it is worth a government’s while to subsidise the theatres; in England such an item would never be tolerated in a chancellor of the exchequer’s budget. Nor is it needed. Public demand will always create as large a supply as is really required.

Pleasantly and intelligently criticising and discoursing, the German doctor and his companion took their way again through Drury Lane, witnessing more than one disgusting scene of drunkenness, riot, and brutality. It was hard upon midnight: the gin palaces and their frequenters were making the most of their last few minutes; the barrows of battered fruit and full-flavoured shell-fish were trading at reduced prices, upon the principle of small profits and quick returns; oysters as big as a fist were piled up by threes and fours, at a penny a heap—poverty and oysters, Mr Weller has informed us, invariably walk hand in hand; here was a girl carried away dead drunk upon a stretcher—“it was the hunger,” an old Irishwoman, with a glowing pipe in her mouth, assured the gentleman, “that had done it—oh! only the hunger—the smallest drop had been too much for poor Sall;” here a brace of Amazons were indulging in a “mill” in the centre of an admiring ring; in front of a public-house a half-famished Italian ground out the air of “There’s a good time coming, boys—wait a little longer,” the organist looking the while as if he had great need of the “good time,” and very little power to wait. Suddenly the lights went out in the gin palaces, ballad-singers and hurdygurdy stopped short in the middle of their melodies, shouts and curses subsided into a hoarse murmur, and the mob dispersed and disappeared, to adopt Mr Schlesinger’s severe comparison, “like dirty rain-water that rolls into gutters and sewers.” The amateur observers of London’s blackguardism pursued their homeward way.

“Suddenly, from a side street, a tall figure emerged with long noiseless steps, and cast a glance right and left—no policeman was in sight. Then she rapidly approached our two friends and fixed her glassy eyes upon them.

“It is no midnight spectre, but neither is it a being of flesh and blood, it consists but of skin and bone. Upon her arm is an infant, to which the bony hand affords but a hard dying-bed. For a few seconds she gazes at the strangers. They put some silver into her hand. Without a word of thanks, or of surprise at the liberality of the alms, she walks away.

“‘The holy Sabbath has commenced,’ said Keif, after they had proceeded for some distance in silence, ‘the puritanical Sabbath, on which misery feels itself doubly and trebly forlorn.’

“‘My dear friend,’ replied Frolick, ‘five-and-twenty years ago you might have paved Oxford Street with such unhappy wretches as that we just now met. Now you must seek them out in a nook of Drury Lane. And the puritanism of the present day is a rose-coloured full-blooded worldling, compared to that of the Roundheads; it is nothing but the natural reaction against the licentious cavalier spirit, created by the gloomy hypocrisy that prevailed before the Restoration, and handed down even to the beginning of the present century. It is English nature to cure one extreme by running into the other. Either wildly jovial or prudishly refined; drunkards or teetotallers; prize-fighters or peace-society-men. If the perception of a harmonious happy medium, and the instinct of beauty of form, were innate in us, either we should no longer be the tough, hard-working, one-sided, powerful John Bull, or we should ere now have proved the untruth of your German proverb that in no country under the sun do trees grow until their branches reach the sky.’”

After which modest intimation (somewhat Teutonic in style) of his patriotic and heartfelt conviction that if England were a little better than she is, she would be too good for this world, Frolick took leave of his friend. We shall soon follow his example. Before doing so, we recommend to all English readers of German, the twelfth chapter of Mr Schlesinger’s second volume, both as very interesting and as containing many sensible observations and home-truths. No extraordinary acuteness is necessary to discriminate between the writer’s jest and earnest.

“The reader acquainted with English domestic arrangements,” says Mr Schlesinger in a note to his first volume, “will long ago have found out that the house we live in is that of a plain citizen. So we may as well confess that Sir John is neither knight nor baronet, but was dubbed by ourselves, in consideration of his services to the reader, without licence from the Queen, and with a silver spoon instead of a sword.” Sir John is not the less—if Mr Schlesinger’s sketch be a portrait—a good fellow and a worthy simple-hearted Englishman; and we find with pleasure, at the close of the book, a letter from him, dated from his cottage in the country, and addressed to the cynical Keif, who was braving November’s fogs in Guildford Street. The doctor had sent to his friend and host the proof-sheets of the second volume of the _Wanderings through London_; Sir John writes back his thanks, his opinion of the work, and his cordial forgiveness of the jokes at his expense that it contains. “Never mind,” he says; “we Englishmen can stomach the truth; and if you will promise me to abjure some portion of your German stiffneckedness, I willingly pledge myself never again to try to reason a Frenchman’s hind-leg straight. Between ourselves, that was the greatest absurdity our friend has exposed. As to all the rest, I will maintain my words before God, the Queen, and my countrymen. But,” continues Sir John, quitting personal considerations, “as regards our friend’s book—which, you tell me, is to be published at Christmas in Berlin, the most enlightened of German cities—I really fear, my dear doctor, that it is a bad business. How, in heaven’s name, are Germans to form an idea of London from those two meagre volumes? Many things are depicted in them, but how many are neglected, and these the very things in which you Germans should take a lesson from us! Not a word about our picture-galleries, which, nevertheless, impartially speaking, are the first in the world! Not a word about the British Museum, about the Bridgewater, Vernon, and Hampton Court galleries! Not a word about St Paul’s, nor a syllable concerning the Colosseum, Madame Tussaud, or Barclay and Perkins’ Brewery! No mention of our finest streets—Regent Street, Bond Street, Belgravia, and Westbourne Terrace; of our concerts at Exeter Hall, our markets, our zoological and botanical gardens, Kew, Richmond, Windsor, art, literature, benevolent institutions,” &c. &c. Sir John continues his enumeration of omissions, until it seems to comprise everything worth notice in London; and we ask ourselves with what Mr Schlesinger has filled the eight hundred pages we have read with so much satisfaction and amusement. We perceive that he has given his attention to men rather than to things, that his vein has been reflective and philosophical, and that he has not mistaken himself for the compiler of a London guide. But still Sir John is dissatisfied. In Berlin, he says, “people will imagine England has no picture-galleries—ha! ha! and no hospitals—ha! ha! ha! In ten such volumes, the materials would not be exhausted.”

“It is delightful here in the country,” concludes Sir John, breaking off his criticism. “Where do you find such fresh green, and such mild air in November as in our England? I go out walking without a greatcoat, and say to myself, ‘Across the water, in Germany, the snow lies deep, and the wolves walk in and out of Cologne Cathedral.’ Here it is a little damp of a morning and evening, but then one sits by the fire and reads the newspaper. Nowhere is one so comfortable as in the country in England. Come and see us in our cottage; the children are longing to see you, and so am I.”

Then comes a postscript, which, like many postscripts, is not the least important part of the letter. “At this damp time of the year,” says the spoon-dubbed baronet, “I advise you to take a small glass of cognac of a morning—there must still be some bottles of the right sort in the cellar—and every night one of my pills. You will find a boxful on the chimney-piece in my study. Do not be obstinate: you do not know how dangerous this season of the year is in England.”

So kind and hospitable a letter demanded a prompt reply, and accordingly we get Dr Keif’s by return of post. It is pretty evident, however, that the motive of his haste is rather anxiety to answer the charge of incompleteness brought against Max Schlesinger’s book, than generous impatience to thank Sir John for placing the pill-box at his disposal. The author of the _Wanderings_, he says, preferred dissecting and dwelling upon a few subjects to slightly touching upon a large number; and, in his usual caustic strain, he reminds his friend, that if some things of which London has a right to be proud have been left unnoticed, the same has been the case with other things of which she has reason to be ashamed. He then enumerates the blots, as Sir John had detailed the glories. Having done so: “it is horrible here in London,” he says. “Where do you find such fogs and such a pestilential atmosphere, in November, as in your London? That the wolves now walk in and out of Cologne Cathedral is a mere creation of your Britannic imagination; and, since you talk of doing without a greatcoat, why, the English walk about the whole winter through, in Germany, in black dresscoats, but they are cunning enough to carry several layers of flannel underneath them. Have you by chance discarded yours? That you are comfortable in your country-house I have no doubt. _That_ I never disputed.”

In his turn, Dr Keif treats himself to a postscript. “Since this morning,” he says, “I have followed your medical prescription, and will keep to it—partially, that is to say. I found the cognac, and will take it regularly. On the other hand, when you return to London, you will find your pills untouched upon your chimney-piece.”

And so we come to “Finis.” Mr Schlesinger is a genial and unprejudiced critic of a foreign capital’s customs and character, and we thank him for his agreeable, spirited, and impartial volumes. By his own countrymen they will, or we are greatly mistaken, be highly and deservedly prized.

NEW READINGS IN SHAKESPEARE.[3]

NO. II.

If the glory of Shakespeare is a theme for national congratulation, the purity of his text ought to be an object of national concern. It is not enough that the general effect of his writings should impress itself clearly on the hearts and minds of all classes of readers; that the grander and broader features of his genius should commend themselves to the admiration of all mankind. This they can never fail to do. The danger to which Shakespeare is exposed is not such as can ever materially affect the soul and substance of his compositions. Here he stands pre-eminent and secure. But he is exposed to a danger of another kind. As time wears on, his text runs periodically the risk of being extensively tampered with; whether by the introduction of _new_ readings, properly so called, or by the insertion of glosses of a comparatively ancient date. The carelessness with which it is alleged the earlier editions were printed, is pleaded as an apology for these conjectural corrections;—one man’s ingenuity sets to work the wits of another; and thus, unless the _cacoethes emendandi_ be checked betimes, a distant posterity, instead of receiving our great poet’s works in an authentic form, may succeed to a very adulterated inheritance.

This consideration induces us to exert such small power as we may possess to check the growing evil, and in particular to repress that deluge of innovations which Mr Collier has lately let loose upon the gardens of Shakespeare, from the margins of his corrected folio of 1632, and which, if they do not shake the everlasting landmarks, at any rate threaten with destruction many a flower of choicest fragrance and most celestial hue. We believe that when Mr Collier’s volume was first published, the periodical press was generally very loud in its praises. “Here we have the genuine Shakespeare at last,” said the journals, with singular unanimity. But when the new readings have been dispassionately discussed, and when the excitement of their novelty has subsided, we believe that Mr Collier’s “Shakespeare restitutus,” so far from being an acceptable present to the community, will be perceived to be such a book as very few readers would like to live in the same house with.

In order, then, to carry out what we conceive to be a good work—the task, namely, of defending the text of Shakespeare from the impurities with which Mr Collier wishes to inoculate it—we return to the discussion (which must necessarily be of a minute and chiefly verbal character) of the new readings. We shall endeavour to do justice to the old corrector, by bringing forward every alteration which looks like a real emendation. Two or three small matters may perhaps escape us, but the reader may be assured that they are very small matters indeed. It will be seen that the unwise substitutions constitute an overwhelming majority. The play that stands next in order is “King John.”

KING JOHN—_Act II. Scene 1._—In this play the new readings are of no great importance. A few of them may equal the original text—one or two may excel it—but certainly the larger portion fall considerably below it in point of merit. The best emendation occurs in the lines in which young Arthur expresses his acknowledgments to Austria—

“I give you welcome with a powerless hand,
But with a heart full of _unstained_ love.”

The MS. corrector proposes “_unstrained_ love,” which perhaps is the better word of the two, though the change is by no means necessary. The same commendation cannot be extended to the alteration which is proposed in the lines where Constance is endeavouring to dissuade the French king from engaging precipitately in battle. She says—

“My lord Chatillon may from England bring
That right in peace, which here we urge in war;
And then we shall repent each drop of blood,
That hot rash haste so _indirectly_ shed.”

“Indirectly” is Shakespeare’s word. The MS. corrector suggests “indiscreetly”—a most unhappy substitution, which we are surprised that the generally judicious Mr Singer should approve of. “Indiscreetly” means imprudently, inconsiderately. “Indirectly” means wrongfully, iniquitously, as may be learnt from these lines in King Henry V., where the French king is denounced as a usurper, and is told that Henry

“bids you, then, resign
Your crown and kingdom, _indirectly_ held
From him the native and true challenger.”

It was certainly the purpose of Constance to condemn the rash shedding of blood as something worse than indiscreet—as criminal and unjust—and this she did by employing the term “indirectly” in the Shakespearean sense of that word.

In this same Act, _Scene 2_, a new reading—also approved of by Mr Singer, and pronounced “unquestionably right” by Mr Collier—is proposed in the lines where the citizen says—

“That daughter there of Spain, the Lady Blanch
Is _near_ to England.”

For “near” the MS. correction is _niece_. But the Lady Blanch is repeatedly, throughout the play, spoken of as niece to King John and the Queen-mother. Therefore, if for no other reason than that of varying the expression, we must give our suffrage most decidedly in favour of the original reading. “_Near_ to England” of course means nearly related to England; and it seems much more natural, as well as more poetical, that the citizen should speak in this general way of Lady Blanch, than that he should condescend on her particular degree of relationship, and style her the “niece to England.”

At the end of this Act, in the soliloquy of Faulconbridge, a very strange perversion on the part of the MS. corrector comes before us. Faulconbridge is railing against what he calls “commodity”—that is, the morality of self-interest. He then goes on to represent himself as no better than his neighbours, in these words—

“And why rail I on this commodity?
But for because he hath not woo’d me yet;
Not that I have the power to clutch my hand,
When his fair angels would salute my palm.”

The meaning of these lines is certainly sufficiently obvious. Yet Mr Collier’s corrector is not satisfied with them. He reads—

“Not that I have _no_ power to clutch my hand,” &c.

But unless Mr Collier can prove—what will be difficult—that “power” here means _inclination_, it is evident that this reading directly reverses Shakespeare’s meaning. If “power” means _inclination_, the sense would be this—I rail on this commodity, not because I have no inclination to clutch my hand on the fair angels that would salute my palm, but because I have not yet been tempted; when temptation comes, I shall doubtless yield like my neighbours. But power never means, and cannot mean inclination; and Mr Collier has not attempted to show that it does; and therefore the new reading must be to this effect—“I rail on this commodity, not because I am _unable_ to close my hand against a bribe,” &c. But Faulconbridge says the very reverse. He says—“I rail on this commodity, not because I have the power to resist temptation, or am _able_ to shut my hand against the fair angels that would salute my palm; for I have no such power: in this respect I am just like other people, and am as easily bribed as they are.” The new reading, therefore, must be dismissed as a wanton reversal of the plain meaning of Shakespeare.

_Act III. Scene 3._—We approve of the corrector’s change of the word “race,” the ordinary reading, into _ear_, in the following line about the midnight bell—

“Sound one unto the drowsy _ear_ of night.”

The old copies read _on_ instead of _one_, which was supplied—rightly, as we think—by Warburton. The MS. corrector makes no change in regard to _on_.

_Act III. Scene 4._—The passionate vehemence of Constance’s speech is much flattened by the corrector’s ill-judged interference. Bewailing the loss of her son, she says—

“O, that my tongue were in the thunder’s mouth;
Then with a passion would I shake the world:
And rouse from sleep that fell anatomy,
Which cannot hear a lady’s feeble voice,
Which scorns a _modern_ invocation.”

For “modern” the MS. corrector would read “widow’s”! And Mr Collier, defending the new reading, observes that Johnson remarks, “that it is hard to say what Shakespeare means by _modern_.” Johnson does make this remark. Nevertheless the meaning of the word “modern” is perfectly plain. It signifies moderate—not sufficiently impassioned; and we are called upon to give up this fine expression for the inanity of a “_widow’s_ invocation”! In the same lines this reckless tamperer with the language of Shakespeare would change

“Then with a passion would I shake the world,”

into

“Then with _what_ passion would I shake the world.”

_Act IV. Scene 2._—In the following lines a difficulty occurs which seems insuperable, and which the MS. corrector has certainly not explained, although Mr Collier says that his reading makes “the meaning apparent.” King John, in reply to some of his lords, who have tried to dissuade him from having a double coronation, says—

“Some reasons of this double coronation
I have possessed you with, and think them strong:
And more, more strong (_when lesser is my fear_)
I shall endue you with.”

This is the common reading; but why the king should give them more and stronger reasons for his double coronation, when his fears were diminished, is not at all apparent. The strength of his fears should rather have led him at once to state his reasons explicitly. The MS. correction is—

“And more, more strong, _thus lessening_ my fear,
I shall endue you with.”

But how the _communication_ of his stronger reasons should have the effect of lessening the king’s fear, is a riddle still darker than the other. The _possession_ of these reasons might lessen the usurper’s fears; but surely the mere utterance of them could make no difference. If the MS. corrector had written, “thus lessening _your_ fears,” there would have been some sense in the emendation; and, if a new reading be required, this is the one which we venture to suggest.

_Act IV. Scene 3._—We confess that we prefer the MS. corrector’s line,

“Whose private _missive_ of the Dauphin’s love,”

to the ordinary reading,

“Whose private _with me_ of the Dauphin’s love.”

But we are not prepared to say that the latter is unintelligible, or that it is not in accordance with the diplomatic phraseology of the time.

The following new reading has something to recommend it; but much also may be said in defence of the old text. Salisbury, indignant with the king, says, as the ordinary copies give it,

“The King hath dispossessed himself of us;
We will not line his _thin bestained_ cloak
With our pure honours.”

The margins propose “sin-bestained,” which is plausible. But there is also a propriety in the use of the word “thin.” The king’s cloak (that is, his authority) was _thin_, because not lined and strengthened with the power and honours of his nobles. The text ought not to be altered.

We conclude our _obiter dicta_ on this play with the remark, that Pope’s change of “hand” into “head,” which is also proposed by the MS. corrector in the following lines, (_Act IV. Scene III._) seems to us to be an improvement, and entitled to admission into the text. Salisbury vows

“Never to taste the pleasures of the world,
Never to be infected with delight,
Nor conversant with ease and idleness,
’Till I have set a glory to this _head_,
By giving it the worship of revenge,”

—that is, the head of young Arthur, whose dead body had just been discovered on the ground.

KING RICHARD II.—_Act. II. Scene 1._—Ritson’s emendation, as pointed out by Mr Singer, is unquestionably to be preferred to the MS. corrector’s in these lines—

“The King is come; deal mildly with his youth,
For young hot colts, being _rag’d_, do rage the more.”

“Raged,” the common reading, can scarcely be right. Ritson proposed “being reined.” The margins suggest “being urg’d.”

We differ from the MS. corrector, Mr Collier, and Mr Singer, in thinking that there is no good reason for disturbing the received text in the lines where the conspirators, Willoughby, Ross, and Northumberland, are consulting together; but, on the contrary, very good reasons for leaving it alone. Willoughby says to his brother—conspirator, Northumberland,

“Nay, let us share thy thoughts as thou dost ours.”

Ross also presses him to speak:

“Be confident to speak, Northumberland;
We three are but thyself; and speaking so,
Thy words are but _as_ thoughts, therefore be bold.”

The change proposed is _our_ for “as.” “Thy words are but _our_ thoughts.” The difference of meaning in the two readings is but slight; but the old text seems to us to have the advantage in depth and fineness. Ross’s argument with Northumberland to speak was not merely because his words were as _their_ thoughts. That was no doubt true; but the point of his persuasion lay in the consideration that Northumberland’s words would be _as good as not spoken_. “We three are but yourself, and, in these circumstances, your words are but _as_ thoughts—that is, you are as safe in uttering them as if you uttered them not, inasmuch as you will be merely speaking to yourself.” The substitution of “our” for “as” seems to bring out this meaning less clearly.

_Act II. Scene 2._—The following lines (part of which, for the sake of perspicuity, we print within a parenthesis, contrary, we believe, to the common arrangement) require no emendation. The queen, labouring under “the involuntary and unaccountable depression of mind which, says Johnson, every one has some time felt,” remarks—

“Howe’er it be,
I cannot but be sad; so heavy sad,
As (though, in thinking, on no thought I think)
Makes me with heavy nothing faint and shrink.”

The MS. corrector reads “unthinking” for “in thinking;” but this is by no means necessary. The old text is quite as good, indeed rather better than the new.

_Scene 3._—Much dissatisfaction has been expressed with the word _despised_ in the lines in which York severely rates his traitorous nephew Bolingbroke:

“Why have those banish’d and forbidden legs
Dared once to touch a dust of English ground?
But more than why,—why have they dared to march
So many miles upon her peaceful bosom,
Frighting her pale-faced villages with war,
And ostentation of _despised_ arms?”

“But sure,” says Warburton, “the ostentation of despised arms would not _fright_ any one. We should read ‘disposed arms’—_i.e._, forces in battle array.” “Despoiling arms” is the reading recommended by the margins. “Displayed arms” is the right expression, according to Mr Singer. But surely no emendation is required. The ostentation of despised arms was quite sufficient to frighten the harmless villagers; and this is all that Shakespeare says it did. And then it is in the highest degree appropriate and consistent that York should give his nephew to understand that his arms or forces were utterly despicable in the estimation of all loyal subjects, of all honourable and right-thinking men. Hence his words,

“Frighting her _pale-faced_ villages with war,
And _ostentation_ of _despised_ arms,”

mean—alarming with war only pale-faced villagers, who never smelt the sulphurous breeze of battle, and making a vain parade of arms which all true soldiers must despise.

_Act III. Scene 3._—The substitution of _storm_ for “harm,” in the following lines, is an exceedingly doubtful emendation. York says of Richard—

“Yet looks he like a king; behold, his eye,
As bright as is the eagle’s, lightens forth
Controlling majesty. Alack, alack for woe,
That any _harm_ should stain so fair a show!”

It is true that, in a previous part of the speech, the king is likened to the setting sun, whose glory “the envious clouds are bent to dim;” and therefore the word _storm_ has some show of reason to recommend it, and “harm” may possibly have been a misprint. But we rather think that it is the right word, and that it is more natural and pathetic than the word _storm_. Nothing else worthy of note or comment presents itself in the MS. corrections of King Richard II.

THE FIRST PART OF KING HENRY IV.—_Act I. Scene 1._—“No new light,” says Mr Collier, “is thrown upon the two lines which have produced so many conjectures:

‘No more the thirsty entrance of this soil
Shall daub her lips with her own children’s blood.’”

The MS. corrector has in this instance shown his sense by not meddling with these lines; for how any light beyond their own inherent lustre should ever have been thought necessary to render them luminous, it is not easy to understand. As a specimen of the way in which the old commentators occasionally darkened the very simplest matters, their treatment of these two lines may be adduced. The old quartos, and the folio 1623, supply the text as given above. By an error of the press, the folio 1632 reads _damb_ instead of _daub_. This _damb_ the earlier commentators converted into _damp_. Warburton changed “damp” into trempe—_i.e._, moisten. Dr Johnson, although very properly dissatisfied with this Frenchified reading, is as much at fault as the bishop. With the authentic text of the older editions before him, he says, “the old reading helps the editor no better than the new” (in other words, _daub_ is no better than damb, and damp, and trempe); “nor can I satisfactorily reform the passage. I think that ‘thirsty entrance’ _must be_ wrong, yet know not what to offer. We may read, but not very elegantly—

‘No more the thirsty _entrails_ of this soil
Shall _daubed be_ with her own children’s blood.’”

Truly this reading is by no means elegant; it is nothing less than monstrous. To say nothing of the physical impossibility of the blood penetrating to the “entrails” of the earth, the expression violates the first principles of poetical word-painting. The interior parts of the earth are not seen, and therefore to talk of them as daubed with blood, is to attempt to place before the eye of the mind a picture which cannot be placed before it. In science, or as a matter of fact, this may be admissible; but in poetry, where the imagination is addressed, it is simply an absurdity. Steevens, with some hesitation, proposes—

“No more the thirsty _entrants_ of this soil
Shall daub her lips with her own children’s blood.”

“Entrants,” that is, “invaders.” “This,” says Steevens, “may be thought very far-fetched.” It is worse than far-fetched—it is ludicrously despicable. Conceive Shakespeare saying that “a parcel of _drouthy_ Frenchmen shall no more daub the lips of England with the blood of her own children”! What renders this reading all the more inexcusable is, that Steevens perceived what the true and obvious meaning was, although he had not the steadiness to stand to it. He adds—“or Shakespeare _may_ mean the _thirsty entrance_ of the soil for the _porous surface_ of the earth through which all moisture enters, and is thirstily drunk or soaked up.” Shakespeare’s words cannot by any possibility mean anything except this. “Porous surface,” as must be obvious to all mankind, is the exact literal prose of the more poetical phrase, “thirsty entrance.” Yet obvious as this interpretation is, Malone remained blind to it, even after Steevens had pointed it out. He prefers Steevens’ first emendation. He says, “Mr Steevens’ conjecture (that is, his suggestion of _entrants_ for _entrance_) is so likely to be true, that I have no doubt about the propriety of admitting it into the text.” In spite, however, of these vagaries, we believe that the right reading, as given above, has kept its place in the ordinary editions of Shakespeare. This instance may show that our MS. corrector is not the only person whose wits have gone a-woolgathering when attempting to mend the language of Shakespeare.

Before returning to Mr Collier’s corrector, we wish to make another digression, in order to propose a new reading—one, at least, which is new to ourselves, and not to be found in the _variorum_ edition 1785. The king says, in reference to the rising in the north, which has been triumphantly put down—

“Ten thousand bold Scots,—two-and-twenty knights,
_Balked_ in their own blood, did Sir Walter see
On Holmedon’s plains.”

For “balked” Steevens conjectured either “bathed” or “baked.” Warton says that _balk_ is a ridge, and that therefore “balked in their own blood” means “piled up in a ridge, and in their own blood.” Tollet says, “‘balked in their own blood,’ I believe, means, lay in heaps or hillocks in their own blood.” We propose—

“Ten thousand bold Scots,—two-and-twenty knights,
_Bark’d_ in their own blood, did Sir Walter see
On Holmedon’s plains.”

“Barked,” that is, coated with dry and hardened blood, as a tree is coated with bark. This is picturesque. To _bark_ or _barken_ is undoubtedly an old English word; and in Scotland, even at this day, it is not uncommon to hear the country people talk of blood _barkening_, that is, hardening, upon a wound.

_Act I. Scene 3._—The following lines present a difficulty which the commentators—and among them our anonymous scholiast—have not been very successful in clearing up. The king, speaking in reference to the revolted Mortimer and his accomplices, says—

“Shall we buy treason, and indent _with fears_,
When they have lost and forfeited themselves?
No, on the barren mountains let him starve.”

There is no difficulty in regard to the word “indent;” it means, to enter into a compact—to descend, as Johnson says, to a composition. But what is the meaning of “to indent, or enter into a compact, _with fears_”? Johnson suggests “with peers”—that is, with the noblemen who have lost and forfeited themselves. But this is a very unsatisfactory and improbable reading. The MS. corrector proposes “with foes;” and Mr Collier remarks, “It seems strange that, in the course of two hundred and fifty years, nobody should ever have even guessed at _foes_ for _fears_.” It is much more strange that Mr Collier should be ignorant that “foes” is the reading of the Oxford editor, Sir Thomas Hanmer—a reading which was long ago condemned. Mr Singer adheres rightly to the received text; but he is wrong in his explanation of the word “fears.” He says that it means “objects of fear.” But surely the king can never have regarded Mortimer and his associates as objects of fear. He had a spirit above that. He had no dread of them. Steevens is very nearly right when he says that the word “fears” here means _terrors_: he would have been quite right had he said that it signifies _cowardice_, or rather, by a poetical licence, “cowards”—(_fearers_, if there were such a word.) The meaning is, shall we buy treason, and enter into a composition with cowardice, when they (the traitors and cowards) have lost and forfeited themselves? Treason and cowardice are undoubtedly the two offences which the king intends to brand with his indignation. “Foes” is quite inadmissible.

In _Act II. Scene 1_—Gadshill, talking in a lofty vein of his high acquaintances, says, “I am joined with no foot land-rakers, no long-staff, six-penny strikers; none of these mad, mustachio, purple-hued maltworms; but with nobility and _tranquillity_; burgomasters and great _oneyers_; such as can hold in; such as can strike sooner than speak,” &c. The change of “tranquillity” into _sanguinity_, as proposed by the MS. corrector, we dismiss at once as unworthy of any consideration. “Oneyers” is the only word about which there is any difficulty; and it has puzzled the bigwigs. Theobald reads “moneyers”—that is, officers of the mint—bankers. Sir T. Hanmer reads “great owners.” Malone reads “onyers,” which, he says, means public accountants. “To settle accounts is still called at the exchequer _to ony_, and hence Shakespeare seems to have formed the word _onyers_.” Johnson has hit upon the right explanation, although he advances it with considerable hesitation. “I know not,” says he, “whether any change is necessary; Gadshill tells the chamberlain that he is joined with no mean wretches, but with burgomasters and great ones, or, as he terms them in merriment, by a cant termination, great oneyers, or, great one-eers—as we say privateer, auctioneer, circuiteer. This is, I fancy, the whole of the matter.” That this is the true explanation, or very near it, and that no change in the text is necessary, is proved beyond a doubt by the following extract from the writings of one whose genius, while it elevates the noblest subjects, can also illustrate the most small. “Do they often go where glory waits them, and leave you here?” says Mr Swiveller, alluding to Brass and his charming sister, in Dickens’ _Old Curiosity Shop_. “‘O, yes, I believe they do,’ returned the marchioness, _alias_ the small servant; ‘Miss Sally’s such a _one-er_ for that.’ ‘Such a what?’ said Dick, as much puzzled as a Shakespearean commentator. ‘Such a one-er,’ returned the marchioness. After a moment’s reflection, Mr Swiveller determined to forego his responsible duty of setting her right—[why should he have wished to set her right? she _was_ right; she was speaking the language and illustrating the meaning of Shakespeare]—and to suffer her to talk on; as it was evident that her tongue was loosened by the purl, and her opportunities for conversation were not so frequent as to render a momentary check of little consequence. ‘They sometimes go to see Mr Quilp,’ said the small servant, with a shrewd look: ‘they go to a many places, bless you.’ ‘Is _Mr_ Brass a _wunner_?’ said Dick. ‘Not half what Miss Sally is, he isn’t,’ replied the small servant.” Here is the very word we want. Shakespeare’s “oneyer” is Dickens’ _one-er_ or _wunner_—that is, a one _par excellence_, a one with an emphasis—a top-sawyer—and the difficulty is resolved. Set a thief to catch a thief; and leave one great intellectual luminary to throw light upon another. After Mr Dickens’ lucid commentary, “oneyer” becomes quite a household word, and we suspect that the MS. corrector’s emendation will scarcely go down. He reads, “burgomasters and great _ones_,—_yes_ such as can hold in.” “This will never do,” to quote a favourite aphorism, and literary canon of the late Lord Jeffrey, when speaking of the Lake School of poetry.

_Act II. Scene 4._—The complacency with which Mr Collier sets the authority of his MS. corrector above that of the other commentators on Shakespeare, is one of the most curious features in his literary character. The following is an instance of his marginolatry. “Rowe,” says Mr Collier, “_seems_ to have been right (indeed, the emendation hardly admits of doubt) in reading _tristful_ for ‘trustful’ in Falstaff’s speech, as we learn from the alteration introduced in the folio 1632. ‘For Heaven’s sake, lords, convey my _tristful_ queen.’” As if the authority of Rowe, or of any other person, was not, to say the least of it, just as good as that of the anonymous corrector, who, by the blunders into which he has fallen, has proved himself signally disqualified for the task of rectifying Shakespeare where his text may happen to be corrupted.

_Act III. Scene 1._—Now and then, however, as we have all along admitted, the old corrector makes a good hit. A very excellent emendation, about the best which he has proposed, occurs in the scene where Mortimer says—

“My wife can speak no English, I no Welsh.”

The lady then speaks to him in Welsh, being at the same time in tears; whereupon her husband says—

“I understood thy looks, _that_ pretty Welsh
Which thou pourest down from the swelling heavens.”

“The swelling heavens”—her eyes might no doubt be swollen; but that is not a pretty picture. The correction, which is a manifest improvement, and worthy of a place in the text, is “from these welling heavens.” This correction is taken from Mr Collier’s appendix, or “notes,” where it might be easily overlooked.

_Act V. Scene 1._—The MS. corrector is very fond of eking out imperfect lines with conjectural interpolations, and of curtailing others which present a superfluity of syllables. This is a practice which cannot be permitted even in cases where the alteration improves the verses, as sometimes happens; much less can it be tolerated in cases, which are still more frequent, where the verses are manifestly enfeebled by the change. A conspicuous instance of the latter occurs in these lines. The rebellious Worcester says to the king,

——“I do protest
I have not sought the day of this dislike.

_K. Henry._—You have not sought it—How comes it then?”

Here the words, “How comes it then?” are vehement and abrupt, and the verse is purposely defective. Its impetuosity is destroyed by the corrector’s stilted and unnatural interpolation—

“You have not sought it—_say_, how comes it then?”

That word _say_ takes off the sharp edge of the king’s wrathful interrogative, and converts him from a flesh and blood monarch into a mouthing ranter, a mere tragedy-king.

THE SECOND PART OF HENRY IV.—_Act I. Scene 2._—We agree with Mr Collier and Mr Singer that the substitution of _diseases_ for “degrees” in Falstaff’s speech is a good and legitimate emendation, and we willingly place it to the credit of the MS. corrector.

_Act I. Scene 3._—The MS. corrector attempts to amend the following passage in several places—not very successfully, as we shall endeavour to show. The rebellious lords are talking about their prospects and resources. Bardolph counsels delay, and warns his friends against being over-sanguine.

“_Hastings._—But, by your leave, it never yet did hurt,
To lay down likelihoods, and forms of hope.

_Bardolph._—Yes, in this present quality of war;
Indeed, of instant action. A cause on foot
Lives so in hope, as in an early spring
We see the appearing buds; which, to prove fruit,
Hope gives not so much warrant, as despair,
That frosts will bite them. When we mean to build,
We first survey the plot, then draw the model;
And when we see the figure of the house,
Then must we rate the cost of the erection;
Which, if we find outweighs ability,
What do we then, but draw anew the model
In fewer offices; or, at least, desist
To build at all? Much more in this great work
(Which is, almost, to pluck a kingdom down
And set another up), should we survey
The plot of situation and the model;
Consent upon a sure foundation;
Question surveyors; know our own estate,
How able such a work to undergo,
_To weigh against his opposite_; or else
We fortify in paper and in figures,
Using the names of men, instead of men.”

In this speech of Bardolph’s we shall confine our attention to the two main points on which the corrector has tried his hand. These are the two first lines, and the verse printed in italics. The two first lines are somewhat obscure; but we are of opinion that a much better sense may be obtained from them than is afforded by the corrector’s emendation, which we shall presently advert to. “Hope,” says Hastings, “never yet did harm.” “Yes,” says Bardolph, “in a state of affairs like the present, where action seems imminent, it _has_ done harm to entertain (unfounded) hopes.” He then proceeds to press on his friends, as their only chance of safety, the necessity of making the war _not_ imminent—of postponing it until they have pondered well their resources, and received farther supplies. All this is intelligible enough, and may be elicited with perfect ease from the ordinary text which was adjusted by Dr Johnson—the original reading of the two lines in question being obviously disfigured by typographical errors. There is therefore no call whatever for the MS. corrector’s amendment, which seems to us infinitely more obscure and perplexing than the received reading. He writes—

“Yes, in this present quality of war;
Indeed the instant _act and_ cause on foot
Lives so in hope,” &c.

Mr Collier says that this emendation “clears the sense” of the passage. We should have thanked him had he shown us how; for, if the old reading be obscure, the only merit of the new one seems to be that it lends an additional gloom to darkness. In regard to the other point—the line printed in italics—the MS. corrector breaks the back of the difficulty by means of the following interpolated forgery—

“_A careful leader sums what force he brings_
To weigh against his opposite.”

This, and the other similar delinquencies of which the MS. corrector is frequently guilty, are neither more nor less than swindling—and swindling, too, without an object. Nothing is gained by the rascality; for the sense of the passage may be opened without resorting to the use of such a clumsy crowbar, such a burglarious implement as

“A careful leader sums what force he brings.”

It means, before we engage in any great and perilous undertaking, we should know how able we are to undergo such a work—how able we are to weigh against the opposite of such a work; that is, to contend successfully against the forces of the enemy. Mr Singer says that, if any change is necessary, we should read “_this_ opposite,” instead of “_his_ opposite.” With submission we beg to say, that, if any change is necessary, “its” and not “this” is the word which must be substituted for “his.” But no change is necessary; “his opposite” means the work’s opposite; and it is no unfrequent idiom with Shakespeare to use “his” for “its.”

_Act II. Scene 1._—Hostess Quickly says, according to the old copies—

“A hundred marks is a long _one_ for a poor lone woman to bear.”

“One” being obviously a misprint, Theobald substituted “loan;” and this is the usual reading. The MS. corrector proposes “score;” and this, we think, ought to go into the text. But it will be long before the MS. corrector, by means of such small instalments, clears _his_ “score” with the ghost of Shakespeare. As a help, however, towards that consummation, we are rather inclined to place to his credit the substitution of _high_ for _the_ in the line—

“Under _the_ canopies of costly state.”
—_Act III. Scene 1._

Perhaps, also, he ought to get credit for “shrouds” instead of “clouds”—although the former is now no novelty, having been started long ago by some of the early commentators. The original reading is “clouds;” but the epithet “slippery” renders it highly probable that this is a misprint for _shrouds_—that is, the ship’s upper tackling; and that “slippery shrouds” is the genuine reading. It seems probable also that _rags_, the MS. correction, and not _rage_, the ordinary reading, is the right word in the lines where rebellion is spoken of (_Act IV. Scene 1_) as

“Led on by bloody youth, guarded with _rags_,
And countenanced by boys and beggary.”

The MS. corrector seems to be retrieving his character. We are also willing to accept at his hands “seal” instead of “zeal” in the line—

“Under the counterfeited _seal_ of heaven.”

We cannot, however, admit that there is any ground for emendation in the following passage (_Act IV. Scene 1_) where the king is spoken of, and where it is said that he will find much difficulty in punishing his enemies without compromising his friends:—

“His foes are so enrooted with his friends,
That, plucking to unfix an enemy,
He doth unfasten so, and shake a friend,
So that this land, like an offensive wife,
That hath enraged _him on_ to offer strokes;
As he is striking, holds his infant up,
And hangs resolved correction in the arm
That was uprear’d to execution.”

The question is, who is the “him” referred to in the fifth of these lines? It can be no other than the king. _He_, the husband, being excited to chastise his wife—that is, the rebellious country—_she_, as he is striking, holds his infant (that is, certain of his friends) up, and thus stays his arm, and suspends the execution of his vengeance. The MS. corrector substitutes “her man” for the words “him on.” Mr Collier approves, and even Mr Singer says that this “is a very plausible correction, and is evidently called for.” If these gentlemen will reconsider the passage, they will find that it cannot be construed with the new reading, unless several additional words are inserted; thus, “So that this land (is), like an offensive wife who hath enraged _her man_ to offer strokes, (and who) as he is striking, holds his infant up, and hangs resolved correction in the arm that was upreared to execution.” This is as intelligible as the ordinary text, though not more so; but the introduction of so many new words—which are absolutely necessary to complete the grammar and the sense—is quite inadmissible; and therefore the MS. correction must be abandoned.

KING HENRY V.—In this play none of the MS. corrector’s emendations are entitled to go into the text. First, we shall call attention for a moment to a very small correction of our own, which perhaps may have been made in some of the editions, but not in that which we use, the _variorum_ of 1785. In _Act I. Scene 2_, the Bishop of Ely says—

“For government, _though_ high, and low, and lower,
Put into parts, doth keep in one consent
Congruing to a full and natural close
Like music.”

Surely “though” ought to be _through_. “For government, put into parts, like a piece of music, doth keep in one consent or harmony, _through_ high, and low, and lower,” &c. In the same Act, same scene, an emendation is proposed by the MS. corrector, which, though specious, we cannot bring ourselves to endorse. King Henry, in reply to the dauphin’s taunting message, says—

“But tell the Dauphin, I will keep my state,
Be like a king, and show my _sail_ of greatness,
When I do rouse me in my throne of France.”

The corrector proposes _soul_ for “sail.” But Shakespeare’s is a grand expression—“I will show my sail _of greatness_,”—will set _all_ my canvass—will shine,