struck me that Thomas Perkins, whose name, with the addition of "his Booke," was upon the cover, might be the old actor who had performed in Marlowe's "Jew of Malta," on its revival shortly before 1633. At this time I fancied that the binding was of about that date, and that the volume might have been his; but in the first place, I found that his name was Richard Perkins, and in the next I became satisfied that the rough calf was not the original binding. Still, Thomas Perkins might have been a descendant of Richard; and this circumstance and others induced me to examine the volume more particularly: I then discovered, to my surprise, that there was hardly a page which did not present, in a handwriting of the time, some emendations in the pointing or in the text, while on most of them they were frequent, and on many numerous. Of course I now submitted the folio to a most careful scrutiny; and as it occupied a considerable time to complete the inspection, how much more must it have consumed to make the alterations? The ink was of various shades, differing sometimes on the same page, and I was once disposed to think that two distinct hands had been employed upon them this notion I have since abandoned; and I am now decidedly of opinion that the same writing prevails from beginning to end, but that the amendments must have been introduced from time to time, during, perhaps, the course of several years. The changes in punctuation alone, always made with nicety and patience, must have required a long period, considering their number: the other alterations, sometimes most minute, extending even to turned letters and typographical trifles of that kind, from their very nature could not have been introduced with rapidity, while many of the errata must have severely tasked the industry of the old corrector". It ought to be mentioned, in reference to the question of the authority of the emendations, that some of them are upon erasures, as if the corrector had either altered his mind as to particular changes, or had ob Then comes the question, why any of them were made, and why such extraordinary pains were bestowed on this particular copy of the folio, 1632? To this inquiry no complete reply, that I am aware of, can be given; but some circumstances can be stated, which may tend to a partial solution of the difficulty. Corrections only have been hitherto spoken of; but there are at least two other very peculiar features in the volume. Many passages, in nearly all the plays, are struck out with a pen, as if for the purpose of shortening the performance'; and we need not feel much hesitation in coming to the conclusion, that these omissions had reference to the representation of the plays by some company about the date of the folio, 1632. To this fact we may add, that hundreds of stage-directions have been inserted in manuscript, as if for the guidance and instruction of actors, in order that no mistake might be made in what is usually denominated stage-business. It is known that in this respect the old printed copies are very deficient'; and sometimes the written additions of this kind seem even more frequent, and more literated something that had been written before-possibly, by some person not so well informed as himself. 7 "Timon of Athens," "Julius Cæsar," and "Antony and Cleopatra," are the only dramas that are entirely exempt from this treatment. In all the other plays, more or less is "cut out," generally, it should seem, in proportion to popularity. 8 In a few cases these manuscript stage-directions are of the highest importance in illustrating the wonderful judgment and skill of Shakespeare in conducting the business of his scenes. This matter cannot well be explained in the compass of a note; but if the reader will turn to p. 5, it will be seen of what consequence the mere words, Put on robe again, are to understanding in what way the sudden somnolency of Miranda, which has always excited remark, had been produced, and was to be accounted for. It would be easy to point out other instances, but they will occur in the course of the volume. There is, I think, but one printed note of aside in the whole of the six-and-thirty plays; but in manuscript the utmost care is taken so to mark all speeches intended to be heard by the audience, but not by the characters engaged in the scene. a explicit, than might be thought necessary. The erasures of passages and scenes are quite inconsistent with the notion that a new edition of the folio, 1632, was contemplated; and how are they, and the new stage-directions, and "asides," to be accounted for, excepting on the supposition that the volume once belonged to a person interested in, or connected with, one of our early theatres? The continuation of the corrections and emendations, in spite of and through the erasures, may show that they were done at a different time, and by a different person; but who shall say which was done first, or whether both were not, in fact, the work of the same hand1. Passing by these matters, upon which we can arrive at no certain result, we must briefly advert to another point upon which, however, we are quite as much in the dark :-we mean the authority upon which these changes, of greater or of less importance, were introduced. How are we warranted in giving credit to any of them? The first and best answer seems to be that which one of the most acute of the commentators applied to an avowedly conjectural emendation-that it required no authority-that it carried conviction on the very face of it'. Many of the most valuable corrections of Shakespeare's text are, in truth, selfevident; and so apparent, when once suggested, that it seems wonderful how the plays could have passed through the hands of men of such learning and critical acumen, during the last century and a half (to say nothing of the period occupied by the publication of the four folios), without the detection of such indisputable blunders. Let us take an instance from "The Taming of the Shrew," Act I. Scene I., where Lucentio, arriving in Padua, to read at the 1 Some expressions and lines of an irreligious or indelicate character are also struck out, evincing, perhaps, the advance of a better, or purer, taste about the period when the emendator went over the volume. 2 Mason, in a note upon "Troilus and Cressida," Act III. Scene III.; which, however, was there singularly inapt. See p. 339. university, Tranio, his man, entreats his master not to apply himself too severely to study: "Only, good master, while we do admire As Ovid be an outcast quite abjur'd." Such has been the invariable text from the first publication of the comedy, in 1623, until our own day; yet it is unquestionably wrong, and wrong in the most important word in the quotation, as the old corrector shows, and as the reader will be sure to acknowledge the moment the emendation is proposed : "Let's be no stoics, nor no stocks, I pray, Or so devote to Aristotle's Ethics, In the manuscript, from which the old printer worked, Ethics was, no doubt, written with a small letter, and with ke near the end of the word, as was then the custom, and the careless compositor mistook ethickes for "checkes," and so printed it:"checkes" is converted into ethickes in the hand-writing of the emendator of the folio, 1632; and it is hardly too much to say that this misprint can never be repeated. Another proof of the same kind, but perhaps even stronger, may be taken from "Coriolanus," Act II. Scene III. It relates to a word which has puzzled all editors, and yet ought not to have delayed them for a moment, the corruption, when pointed out by an emendation in the folio, 1632, being so glaring. The hero, disdainfully soliciting the "sweet voices" of the plebeians, asks himself, "Why in this woolvish toge should I stand here, Johnson says that "woolvish" is rough, hirsute; and Malone, 3 At least until 1826, when Mr. Singer introduced "Ethics," which had been recommended by Blackstone in a note upon the comedy. (as if wild beasts had any thing to do with the matter), and all erroneous, but Johnson's the most unfortunate, because it has been previously stated that the "toge" (or gown) was not hirsute, but absolutely "napless." It seems astonishing, on this very account, that the right word was never guessed, as it is found in the margin of my volume: "Why in this woolless toge should I stand here, Can there be an instant's hesitation about it? The printer, or the scribe who wrote the copy used by the printer, mistook the termination of the word, and "woolvish" has been eternally reiterated as the real language of the poet. It seems impossible that "woolvish" should ever hereafter find a single supporter. Other verbal amendments are restorations of words that were becoming somewhat obsolete in the time of Shakespeare, such as bisson, blind, blead, fruit, &c.; but there is one instance of the sort so remarkable that I cannot refuse to notice it here. It regards the expression "a woollen bagpipe," in "The Merchant of Venice," Act IV. Scene I.; and it must appear strange that "woolless" in one play, and "woollen" in another, should have formed such hard and insuperable stumbling-blocks to all the commentators. When Shylock observes, "As there is no firm reason to be render'd, Why he cannot abide a gaping pig, Why he a harmless necessary cat, ingenuity has been exhausted to explain, or to explain away, the epithet "woollen," as applied to a bagpipe. Some would have it wooden, others swollen, and a third party (myself among the number) were for adhering, in a case of such difficulty, to the text of the old editions. What turns out to be the fact? that every body was in error, and that our great dramatist employed an old word, which he had already used in his "Lucrece," 1594, and which means swollen, viz. |