by Benson, omitting extraneous poems. Why 18, 19, 43, 56, 75, 76, 96, 126 should have been excluded it is not altogether easy to see. If it be said that Benson intended to convey the impression that the Sonnets of the first series were addressed to a woman, and that some of those just mentioned would not agree with this view, still it must be remembered that others equally unsuitable to the theory in question were admitted; as 3, 16, 26. Notwithstanding what Benson says of his publication being "serviceable for the continuance of glory to the Author," it is perhaps best regarded as a bookseller's venture, influenced mainly by commercial considerations. Whether in this respect the book was successful we have apparently no means of ascertaining.1 1 It is remarkable, however, that seventy years later, in 1710, the edition of 1609 was reprinted, and issued by Lintott, while, simultaneously or nearly so, another edition, which has been ascribed to Gildon as editor, gave substantially the edition of 1640. The first of these editions professes to give "all the Miscellanies of Mr. William Shakespeare, which were Publish'd by himself in the year 1609, and now correctly Printed from those Editions." Among those "Miscellanies" are included the "One Hundred and Fifty Four Sonnets, all of them in Praise of his Mistress." The second, professing to be the seventh volume of Shakespeare's works, and "Printed for E. Curll," &c., heads its reprint, so far as the Sonnets are concerned, as Poems on several occasions." CHAPTER XVII. CRITICISM OF THE TEXT. THE criticism of the text in the Sonnets is not attended with difficulties nearly so great as those which present themselves in relation to several other of Shakespeare's works. This results from the fact that the edition of 1609 is to so very considerable an extent the sole authority. The great critical difficulty of the Sonnets is presented by the commencement of the second line in 146, where, in the edition of 1609, are found the words, "My sinfull earth," repeated from the end of the first line : "Poore soule the center of my sinfull earth, My sinfull earth these rebbell powres that thee array, Of suggested emenda The second line is obviously wrong. tions the Cambridge editors give, "Fool'd by those rebel," Malone; "Starv'd by the rebel," Steevens conj.; "Fool'd by these rebel," Dyce; "Thrall to these rebel," Anon. conj. Professor Dowden adds other emendations:-"Foil'd by these rebel," F. T. Palgrave; "Hemm'd with these rebel," Furnivall; "My sins these rebel," Bullock; "Slave of these rebel," Cartwright; "My sinful earth these rebel powers array," G. Massey, the word "array" being taken by Massey as implying set their battle in array against the soul. Professor Dowden himself gives "Press'd by these rebel." I regard as preferable the reading "Why feed'st these rebel," having regard to the scope and meaning of the Sonnet, and perhaps also to the vocalisation of the line. "Feed'st" is found in the first Sonnet (line 7), and in a context where the thought is by no means altogether alien from that of 146.1 Before the 1609 edition was printed, it is not quite improbable that the Sonnets generally, or the major part of them, had been subjected to revision. In this process. of change and revision, the termination of one line may have been altered, while that of the line corresponding with it may, through oversight, have remained unchanged. We may thus account for the terminations of 25, lines 9 and II: "The painefull warrior famosed for worth, Is from the booke of honour rased quite." Errors of the press, however, sometimes assume a strange aspect; and whatever may be the fact with regard to the example just given, there need not be much difficulty in ascribing to a mistake of the compositor the repetition of "loss" in 34, lines 10, 12:— "Though thou repent, yet I haue still the losse, To him that bears the strong offenses losse." The frequent substitution of "their" for "thy" in the 1609 Quarto was ascribed, and in all probability rightly ascribed by Malone, to a misunderstanding of the manuscript. Either " thy" may have been so written as to be mistaken for an abbreviation of "their," or sufficient distinction may not have been made between the abbreviated form of the one word and the other. Some of the lines, however, as printed in the Quarto with "their," make nonsense, which it may seem strange that Thorpe, or Eld 1 With regard to the second Sonnet, Dowden has observed :-"It is curious to note that siege and livery are in close juxtaposition" (Note on 146, line 2). Shakespeare may have had the language and thought of these first Sonnets before his mind when he wrote 146. the printer, should have overlooked. An example may be given from 46, a Sonnet in which "their" occurs wrongly four times : "Mine eye and heart are at a mortall warre, How to deuide the conquest of thy sight, Mine eye, my heart their pictures sight would barre," &c. In other cases the critic requires to keep in view both the greater laxity of Elizabethan orthography, and also the pretty evident fact that this laxity was accompanied by a pronunciation not only in important respects differing from that which now prevails, but which was, even in the mouths of educated persons, more obtuse and less precise. We may thus account for the rhyme "steeld" and "held" in 24, lines 1, 3, and "sheeds" and "deeds" in 34, lines 13, 14, "Ah but those teares are pearle which thy loue sheeds, And they are ritch, and ransome all ill deeds." And, of course, in relation to the Sonnets, as elsewhere, the critic should so far observe the general rule that the more difficult reading is to be preferred as to be on his guard against accepting too readily emendations of tempting facility. Thus, in 23, line 9, "O let my books be then the eloquence," &c., though on a superficial view the suggested emendation "looks" may seem admissible, a more thorough consideration of the context will probably suffice to show that "books" is certainly to be retained. |