believe that the player-editors of the folio, en is not deformed by many corruptions in 1623 purposely left these anomalous en- which must be referred to causes lying much tries as an historical tribute to the memory deeper than an inattention to mere mechan of their fellows." Finally, under this head ical correctness. Our own belief is, that not of undisputed and indisputable incorrectness only the superintendence of the volume in pervading the old folio is to be reckoned its passage through the press was left to perwhat we might almost call its systematic sons very indifferently qualified for such a mis-representation of foreign words and task, and was irregularly performed and phrases. Here, once more, we have the tes- sometin.es altogether neglected, but that the timony of Mr. Knight, who in his Introduc- copy, or manuscript put into the hands of tory Notice to Love's Labour's Lost notices the printers, was in various places difficult "the manifold errors of the press in the to be read, or, it may be, wholly illegible, Latin words" throughout that play, and sub-either from the character of the handwritjoins the following observation from Stee-ings, or possibly from its having been somevens:-"It is very certain that authors in times nearly altogether defaced and oblitethe time of Shakespeare did not correct rated. And this theory, as will be seen, will the press for themselves. I hardly ever account for other phenomena besides the ersaw in one of the old plays a sentence of rors in the text of the Folio. either Latin, Italian, or French without the most ridiculous blunders." All this, however, goes for nothing with the modern editors. "Perhaps," says Mr. Knight, "all things considered, there never was a book so correctly printed as the First Folio of Shakspere. If it had been reprint ed, with a literal attention to the punctuation even, up to the present hour, we should have had a better copy than England possesses in a hundred shapes."* Such disfigurements as those that have been mentioned are, it is said, mere typograpical errata, that is, we suppose, such errors as have arisen, not from the manuscript having been misread or misunderstood, but only from its having accidentally happened that the right types were not used to express the intended word. This is doubtless a kind of inaccuracy from which no book is absolutely free. Still such errors, even although the book could be convicted of no others, might be so numerous as very much to impair our confidence in a printed text. As it is said, Humanum est errare, so it may be said, with special emphasis, Typographicum est errare; nevertheless, here too "Est modus in rebus, sunt certe denique fines." We demur, however, to the plea that the various undeniable and universally admitted depravations of the Shakespearian text to be found in the First Folio as above specified can be fairly described as only errors of this kind, errors of the press;-although even if they were all such, and there were no other errors in the volume except what might be so denominated, there would be no saying to what extent it misrepresented what Shakespeare wrote. It is quite impossible, however, to contend that the text of the plays as there giv *Library Shakspere, ix. 371. We are not seeking to make out a case against the printers, or against any person who may have been concerned in bringing out that volume. We daresay they all did their best, as far as circumstances allowed; and it is impossible to feel otherwise than in the highest degree grateful to those to whom we are indebted for having preserved, perhaps from destruction, even though not wholly without blemish or tarnish, so much of what holds the proudest place in our English literature. Mr. Knight, in commenting upon Steevens' objections to the authority of the First Folio, observes that "the insidious mode in which the most astounding errors creep into printed books, whilst it should make all authors vigilant, ought also to render all critics charitable, in this particular." But charity to the printers is not the question; the question is justice to Shakespeare. That is the only question that anybody cares about having settled or discussed. We are not surely to be what is called charitable to the printers to the extent of holding Shakespeare to have written nonsense whenever they may have printed such. Whatever may have been the general merits or good intentions of the editors of the First Folio, both their frequent negligence and their incompetency in certain respects must be considered to be sufficiently proved by the facts that have been already appealed to. The manner in which many of the Latin words and expressions are printed is demonstrative of the illiteracy of the correctors of the press. Other things in their workmanship testify as conclusively to their complete ignorance of the structure of verse, or indeed we may say of the dif ference between verse and prose; when they are right as to that matter it is only that they have gone blindly by the manuscript, as is clearly shown by the numerous instances in which, where the manuscript prob ably was defective or confused, they have been given up either in express terms or blundered in a way irreconcilable with the tacitly and virtually. most elementary knowledge. But what We will now endeavor to give the unsusreason have we for assuming that their ig-pecting reader of the modern editions of norance and carelessness were confined to Shakespeare some notion of what the origithose matters in which their blundering can nal text really is as compared with the always, or generally, be certainly detected closest copy of it which has yet been proand demonstrated? Is it to be supposed duced for popular use. Let us take for this that they did not sometimes mistake other purpose the First Act of Macbeth, and see words as well as those in Latin phrases and how the text of the First Folio is treated quotations that they did not mangle pas- by Mr. Knight. The exemplification of the sages which they could not read, or did not statements that have just been made which comprehend, in other ways than by mis- we shall thus obtain will be very imperfect; pointing them, or cutting up the prose into but it certainly will not err on the side of the shape of verse and breaking down the presenting the general deficiencies of the old verse into doggerel? copy in too strong a light. We believe our selection of a portion of the text to be a fair one, or at least such as will not give us more than an average or medium result. It comprises nearly five pages, or between nine and ten columns of the Folio, and may extend to somewhere between four and five hundred lines. It contains many fewer difficulties or doubtful passages than other portions of the volume of the same extent. The truth is, that the passages are to be counted not by hundreds but by thousands in which there is reason either more or less strongly to suspect, or unhesitatingly to condemn and reject, the readings of the Folio. This may be unanswerably shown from the pages of those very editors who have gone the greatest lengths in their devotion to that copy, in their general professions of submission to its authority and in hostility to all conjectural deviation from it. The evidence is furnished by their own text and their own notes, and by the confessions and admissions, explicit or implied, which abound in both, and which reluctant as they may often be, are not for that the less expressive, or the less conclusive. First, then, (to arrange the several instances under the four heads that have been laid down, condensing into the briefest possible abstract the particulars gleaned by a somewhat tedious examination), the articulately acknowledged deviations from the old copy which we find in this portion of Mr. Knight's text are, as usual, but few. There are howThe evidence in question is of four kinds. ever, some. The line, "shipwracking storms Of course, whenever we have a reading of and direful thunders," which seems to be dethe Folio expressly condemned in the mod- fective in the sense as well as in the prosody, ern edition, we have a testimony against is completed by the addition of the word the original text of the clearest as well as "break," stated to be borrowed from the of the most impartial character. And not Second Folio; and the famous expression the less strong, though less frank, is the tes-(in Scene 5th), which stands in both First timony to the same effect that is borne by and Second Folio "The effect and hit," is the silent abandonment of any of the old corrected, as in all other modern editions, readings and the substitution of another. into "The effect and it," with an intimation But besides these two cases there are other of the change, although none of its having two. There is the case in which the inter- been first made in the Third Folio. The pretation that is offered of the old reading change throughout the play of the original is manifestly one which the words will not weyward and weyard into weird, whieh is exbear; and there is the case in which, the plained in a note, should perhaps be aowords being apparently without any mean- counted an orthographical emendation. It ing or any that will suit the place where was first made by Theobald. Another they stand, no interpretation or explanation of Theobald's corrections, however, which of them whatever is proposed. It by no is adopted and acknowledged, is of a differmeans follows that everything is certainly ent character; that of "this bank and school right where none of these four cases occurs; of time," into "this bank and shoal of time." a reading may still be wrong which is neither Finally, in two instances, and two only, the openly admitted to be so, nor silently aban-metrical arrangement of the old copy is disdoned, nor unsuccessfully attempted to be tinctly stated to be departed from; namely, defended, not left a mere mystery or puzzle in the speech of Malcolm at the commencewithout a word of comment; but, clearly, ment of Scene 4th, "My liege, they are not wherever we have one of the four cases, we yet come back," &c., and in the subsequent may regard the text of the Folio as having speech of Macbeth, "The service and the loyalty I owe," &c.; in the former of which the readjustment extends over seven lines, in the latter over five, every one of the twelve lines being affected by the process. not, however, been adopted by all the mod ern editors). In other cases the pointing is altered so as completely to change the sense. Thus in Lady Macbeth's speech near the end of Scene 5th all the Folios have "Your face, my Thane, is as a book, where men May read strange matters, to beguile the time. Look like the time," &c.; 66 The unacknowledged deviations are greatly more numerous. Some of them, indeed, may be thought to be mere modernizations of the spelling, or corrections of what can be considered little more than typographical errors. Still it should be understood whereas the modern reading, as is well that in the old copy Inverness and Forres are known, connects Envernes and Soris, (the latter error evito beguile the time," not with what precedes, but with what comes dently betokening an incorrect or misread after. So, in Macbeth's soliloquy with which manuscript). So also, instead of the modern "We rest your hermits," we have in Scene 7th opens, instead of the modern the Folio "We rest your Ermites." Other" Might be the be-all and the end-all, here,” alterations, again, may be said to be made we have in the original text a full point after "end-all," and what follows-"Heere, But systematically, or in all cases, and therefore heere," &c.-left to stand as an independent not to need pointing out: such are the sub-heere," stitution of the modern than for then, (as also elsewhere of then for than, for, curious rupted and left incomplete. Lower down the beginning of a sentence which is interin the same scene we have another instance of the same kind: Macbeth's interruption should fail," is also made a broken sentence of his wife's vehement appeal with "If we by Mr. Knight, and pointed with a comma and a dash, instead of the point of interrogation which it has in the old editions; and is also made interrogative in the Folio, he Lady Macbeth's rejoinder-"We fail," which gives with a full point after it, intimating, however, what the original punctuation is in Mr. Knight, without intimating that the readsentence. In the last line of the same speech, ly enough, the two forms have exchanged the full point which stands in the folio after ing he gives is new, substitutes a dash for functions), and the quiet accommodation to the words "And falls on the other," in the the modern rule of the old concord between notion, as he states, that they are merely noun and verb in snch expressions as "Their drenched nature lies,"-a concord familiar with Shakespeare, and one instance of which, not admitting of obliteration, every reader will remember in the song of CymbelineThose springs on chaliced flowers that lies." Other changes are still more rectifications only of matters of form; but it may be mentioned that the title Lady Macbeth, so impressive to us, was unknown to Shakespeare; in the Folio she is only Macbeth's Wife and The Lady. So with Lady Macduff, in the latter part of the play. In some things the plain state of the case necessitates a departure from the old copy; as when at the head of Scene 2d we have the old reading without notice occurs in But the most remarkable departure from "Enter King Malcolm," &c., (instead of "King Duncan," or "The King, Malcolm," &c.); and, a little after, "Enter Rosse and Angus," where only the former actually appears; and, in Scene 6th, Duncan and his attendants made to be received at Macbeth's Castle, the situation of which, evidently seen in the daylight, so much delights them, with "Hoboyes, and Torches." Some of these slips do not indicate a carefully printed book; but, as they all admit of being put to rights without uncertainty, we do not insist upon them in our present argument. the latter case. Banquo's speech in Scene 6th "This guest of summer, The temple-haunting martlet," &c. In a note upon this passage Mr. Knight says; "We request our readers to repeat these celebrated lines as we have printed them. Our text is a literal copy of the original." But this can only be intended to mean that the metrical arrangement is the same as in the Folio. In other respects the passage has undergone important repairs. Not only have The old text, however, is silently given up we in the original Barlet instead of martlet,by Mr. Knight in many other instances to say nothing of Mansonry, from which has throughout this Act which are quite other- been deduced the not altogether unquestionwise circumstanced. In some the old word able mansionry of the modern editions (for is rejected; thus we have in the modern text some would read masonry)—but the conclu"kernes and gallowglasses," instead of Galsion of the speech there is altogether differlowgrosses; and, in the first line of Scene 4th, "Are not," substituted for "Or not," an emendation of the Second Folio, (which has ent from the modern version in the punctuation, in the language, and in the sense. Mr. Knight's reading is "No jutty, frieze, Buttress, nor coigne of vantage, but this bird Hath made his pendent bed, and procreant cra dle: Where they most breed and haunt, I have ob served, The air is delicate." The first that meets us is in the first speech of the wounded soldier (or Captain, as he is called in the folio), where he is made to speak of Fortune smiling on the quarry of the rebel Macdonwald. It is clear on every principle of syntax and of common sense that the pronoun his, at any rate, which pre But in all the folios the three last lines stand cedes the doubtful substantive, cannot pos thus : "Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle, sibly refer to any other person than the rebel. He is in fact the only person who has been mentioned. Yet Mr. Knight will have Where they must breed, and haunt: I have ob-" his quarry" to mean the quarry, or prey served ment of his original is silently departed from by Mr. Knight in more than a score of places-twenty-two at the least, as we count them-in addition to the two instances in of Macbeth!-of whom not a word has yet been said, nor is said till two lines lower down, and after not only the present division of the sentence has been completely finished, but the connexion broken by the intervention of another independent clause, or what we might almost call an entire sentence, though a short one. Malone reads quarrel, which is commonly stated to have been first proposed by Johnson, but, if we may trust Jennen's collation, it had been previously adopted both by Warburton and Hanmer. It is also the correction of Mr. Collier's man script annotator. Immediately after this, instead of Steevens's arrangement,— "Like valour's minion, which such deviation is acknowledged; the number of lines readjusted each time running from a single line to four. In all about fifty lines of the folio text are thus indirectly condemned, besides those that are openly Carv'd out his passage, till he fac'd the slave”— confessed to be misprinted. In four in- Mr. Knight deliberately and with notice restances at most it might perhaps be contended that the alteration is only apparent; sion of the lines is made at the word passage. stores that of the Folio, in which the divibut these are the most unimportant of the whole number; in others the manner in The effect is to produce a line and a hemiswhich the lines are exhibited in the folio tich, the one and the other of which are both evinces an utter insensibilty to the rhythm fest nonsense, in Scene 3rd-" as thick as alike impossible. Then we have the maniof verse, and the most complete ignorance tale can post with post,"--which is the readof its laws and principles, and of every thing ing of all the Folios, retained on the plea, about it in the persons by whom the prepa-that, ration of that edition was superintended. that, although the passage is somewhat obFor example, immediately after one of the scure, "the meaning is as evident under the passages in which Mr. Knight emphatically old reading as the new." The new reading, calls attention to the superiority of the old metrical arrangement, we come upon the following specimen of dancing doggerel (it is in Scene 6th) : Against those honors deep and broad Wherewith your majesty loads our house: For those of old, and the late dignities, Heap'd up to them, we rest your ermites " which is Rowe's, is "Came post with post." Soon after, in the same scene, the Folio presents us with the following extraordinary specimen of versification :— "Or did line the rebel with hidden help, And this "metrical arrangement " Mr. We proceed now, in the third place, to Knight adopts; describing it as "not a perthose readings of the old text which must fect one, certainly, but better than the mobe held to be either manifestly erroneous, dern text." Not a perfect one! It is not a or at least in the highest degree suspicious, possible one: the two full lines and the notwithstanding that they are defended, as hemistich, or imperfect line, are one and all well as retained, in the modern edition. These it will be enough that we enumerate, without further subdivision, in the order of their occurrence. such as we may be perfectly sure Shakespeare never wrote or could have written. The same thing may be said of the following lines which occur a little lower down: "My dull brain was wrought with things for- copy. We have, as far as it was possible, gotten tionable testimony to the defects of the old avoided expressing an opinion touching any Let us toward the king; think upon of the new readings, excepting only in their What hath chanc'd and at more time." relation to that question. Numerous as have Here Mr. Knight's text is only a partial re- been the points which we have been obliged storation; but it retains two of the above to notice, we have passed over every thing, lines. He objects to the attempt of other in text and commentary, which did not bear modern editors to get rid of the hemistich, upon our special object. Nor have we, even "Let us toward the king;" but that hemis- in dealing with the ancient text, applied to tich is of his own invention; there is none it a very microscopic scrutiny; besides givsuch in the Folio; and, besides, it is (unless ing it the benefit of sundry doubtful passages, we adopt a pronunciation of the word to- upon which we have made no remark, we ward never found in Shakespeare) a com- have abstained from reckoning up any of mencement for a verse which is inadmissi- its inaccuracies except those that, if they are ble in any circumstances. In the next Scene such at all, really do affect the sense or the Macbeth's expression, "doing every thing style. Some few of those that have been Safe towards your love and honour," may brought forward may appear to be of infepossibly be right; but it is at least doubt-rior significance; but we do not believe that, ful, and certainly is not satisfactorily ex- of the whole number, there are so many as plained either by Sir William Blackstone's half a dozen at the most that could, upon interpretation of safe as equivalent to saved, any fair or intelligible principle, be struck or by Mr. Knight's paraphrase, "Our duties off from the enumeration as too minute or are called upon to do every thing which they trivial. can do safely, as regards the love and honour we bear you."-Nor can we be altogether without some suspicion as to the line in Scene 6th," Smells wooingly here; no jutty, frieze," of which Mr. Knight finds the har-number of readings which are either clearly, mony to be perfect. And what is the result at which we have arrived? In a portion of the text of the First Folio extending to only between four and five hundred lines, we have found the and for the greater part confessedly, erroThere still remain a few instances coming neous, or such as at least do not seem to under our fourth head, readings of the old admit of satisfactory explanation or defence, copy that may be suspected, although they to be not much under a hundred, or one for are adopted without a word of question or every five lines. The measure that we thus comment in the modern edition. Where obtain of the correctness of the old folio Lennox says, in Scene 1st," So should he would give us about twenty false readings look that seems to speak things strange," in every page, or about twenty thousand in the verb seems has little apparent appropri- the entire volume. But there may be a ateness. Comes is substituted by Mr. Col-great many more. These are only the errors lier's manuscript annotator, decidedly to the that reveal themselves, or that we can deimprovement of the expression. Banquo's tect without any other help than the light phrase in Scene 3d, "That, trusted home," of criticism or common sense; how many is not very intelligible; nor is the thrusted of Mr. Collier's copy much more satisfactory. King Duncan's "might have been mine," in the next scene, is in the highest degree suspicious; we have little doubt that more, which is substituted in Mr. Collier's copy is the right word. Nor can there be much, if any, that in Macbeth's soliloquy in Scene 7th the true reading is not "This," but "Thus even-handed justice," as proposed by Mason and also sanctioned by the lately discovered manuscript corrector. And there may be some other instances that might be brought forward, if we were in want. Such then is what is called the original Shakespearian text. We have not, be it observed, been criticising or examining any modern edition, or the labours of any modern editors, except only in so far as we are thence enabled to obtain the most unexcep more there may be, lurking unseen and unsuspected, we cannot tell. It is very possible, that, if the author's manuscript were to be recovered, the entire number of the cor ruptions or misrepresentations in the original printed text might prove to be twice as great as it can at present be made out to be. We are convinced, we repeat, that our calculation would not be reduced by the survey being carried out over the entire body of the plays. Some portions of the text might be found to be less disfigured than the one which has been examined; but others would turn out to swarm with palpable or probable errors to a still larger extent. We believe, in fact, that for every similar portion of the volume that might show more creditably under such an examination than the First Act of Macbeth there are two that would not come off so well. |