Though, however, an editor of our old dramatic poets, or commentator on them, can do them no real service, but only draw ridicule on himself, by placing them, as to the higher requisites of the art, on a level with Shakspeare, he is guilty of unpardonable injustice towards them if he overlooks those minor points in which they may fairly challenge comparison, viz. poetical diction and versification. "The poet," say the last editors of Shakspeare, "whose dialogue has often, during a long and uninterrupted series of lines, no other peculiarities than were common to the works of his most celebrated contemporaries, and whose general ease and sweetness of versification are hitherto unrivalled, ought not so often to be suspected of having produced ungrammatical nonsense, and such rough defective numbers as would disgrace a village school-boy in his first attempts at English poetry."-"Omissions in our author's works," they proceed in another place to observe, "are frequently suspected, and sometimes not without sufficient reason. Yet, in our opinion, they have suffered a more certain injury from interpolation; for almost as often as their measure is deranged or redundant, some words, alike unnecessary to sense and the grammar of the age, may be discovered, and in a thousand instances might be expunged, without loss of a single idea meant to be expressed."" A blind fidelity to the eldest printed copies is on some occasions a confirmed treason against the sense, spirit, and versification of Shakspeare." They also find occasion to remark that "to a reader unconversant with the licences of a theatre, the charge of more material interpolation than that of mere syllables, will appear to want support; and yet whole lines and passages incur a very just suspicion of having originated from this practice, which continues even in the present improved state of our dramatic arrangements; for the propensity of modern performers to alter words, and occasionally introduce ideas incongruous with their author's plan, will not always escape detection." Still arguing à fortiori, and allowing that " much deserved censure has been thrown out on the carelessness of our ancient printers, as well as on the wretched transcripts they obtained from contemporary theatres," Mr. Stevens proceeds to observe that "yet, should any one, at this instant, undertake to publish a play of Shakspeare from pages of no greater fidelity than such as are issued out for the use of performers, the press would teem with as interpolated and inextricable nonsense, as it produced a century ago. Mr. Colman (who cannot be suspected of ignorance or mirepresentation) in his preface to the last edition of Beaumont and Fletcher, very forcibly styles the prompter's books "the most inaccurate and barbarous of all manuscripts; and well may they deserve that character; for verse, as I am informed, still continues to be transcribed as prose by a set of mercenaries, who in general have neither the advantage of literature or understanding." Above all, let the critic bear in mind, with a view not to justify bold and unnecessary deviations from printed texts, but to the free exercise of a sound judgment, the words in which Johnson so admirably sums up the requisites of the editorial office : "The duty of a collator is dull, yet, like other tedious tasks, is very necessary; but an emendatory critic would ill discharge his duty, without qualities very different from dulness. In perusing a corrupted piece, he must have before him all possibilities of meaning, with all possibilities of expression. Such must be his comprehension of thought, and such his copiousness of language. Out of many readings possible, he must be able to select that which best suits with the state, opinions, and modes of language prevailing in every age, and with his author's particular cast of thought and turn of expression. Such must be his knowledge, and such his taste. Conjectural criticism demands more than humanity possesses, and he that exercises it with most praise, has frequent need of indulgence." (See the Prolegomena to Johnson's and Stevens's Shakspeare.) We should apologize to the present editor for thus réferring him to the established rules of criticism, could we discover any mark of his having duly prepared himself for the task which he has undertaken by consulting the experience of Shakspeare's commentators. "It is not true," says Malone, "that Shakspeare was more inaccurately printed than others."" It has been hitherto usual to represent the ancient quartos of Shakspeare as more incorrect than those of his contemporaries: but I fear that this representation has been continued by many of us rather with a design to magnify our own services than to exhibit a true state of the question. B. Jonson appears to have superintended the publication of his own pieces; but were those of Lyly, Chapman, Marlowe, or the Heywoods, to be revised with equal industry, an editor would meet with as frequent opportunities for the exertion of his critical abilities as in these quartos." Let no man say then, that, by carefully collating the different editions of an old play, he faithfully discharges every duty of an editor. To expect that nobody should gird himself to the exploit, who is not previously furnished with every requisite which Johnson demands in a conjectural critic, would be perhaps unreasonable, however desirable; and it is on the whole rather better to do too little than to rush, without the guide of a sound discretion, into the wide field of conjecture. Yet two things may, we think, be confidently assumed; the first, that, the laws of verse being perfectly 6 understood understood and universally followed by the old dramatic authors, they can hardly be suspected of frequent wilful and flagrant violations of them; the second, that, though they may sometimes have written ungrammatically, even with reference to the loose grammatical construction authorized by the practice of the age, they never absolutely put words together without any possible or even an evident meaning. The office of every editor is, therefore, to reduce to just measure that which was clearly intended to be written in verse; and, if possible, to make some sense out of apparent nonsense: but that duty becomes absolutely indispensable where it can be accomplished by the omission or subsitution of a monosyllable, the transposition of a point, a word, or a sentence, or the mere correction of a faulty division into lines; and even these, which may be called the mechanical functions of an editor, have been neglected, in the publication now before us, to a degree that is inexcusable. A few instances may suffice; and they shall be selected not in the spirit of censure, but from an earnest wish to supply such hints as may render the remaining portions of this work something better than the promise afforded by its Commencement. The tragedy of Dr. Faustus, p. 40. "Chorus:" "[Learned] Faustus, to find the secrets of astronomy, The word "Learned," here, may be fairly presumed to be an interpolation of the players, and should be placed at least between brackets, as we have done, or expunged, which would be better. Id. p. 78. "I see an angel hover o'er thy head, And with a vial full of precious grace, For offers, read offer. "Fair Nature's eye, rise, rise again, and make That Faustus may repent and save his soul." This is evidently an apostrophe to the Sun, and should be thus printed : Fair Nature's eye! Rise, rise again, and make A year, a month, a week, a natural day, &c. "Lust's Dominion," p. 116. To others, our two hearts seem to be lock'd Up in a case of steel; upon our love others Dare not look; or if they dare, they cast Q 4 Squint Squint purblind glances; who care though all see all Are thin; he laughs to see them like this hand, Go you, and with a face well set, do In good sad colours, such as paint out The cheek of that fool penitence, and with a tongue Can tempt to lay their souls to the stake. Seek such, they are rank and thick, "Qu. Mo.-What then? I know such: what's the use? Hire these to write books, preach, and proclaim abroad, Qu. Mo.-How?" It is not easy to find, even in that Augean stable, an old quarto, any passage more corrupt than this; yet here we have it copied out, word for word, line for line, without a single note or observation; not even so much as to say, "this is hopeless." Let us try, however, whether it may be restored to metre at least, if not to sense, without taking any very unwarrantable liberties: Upon our love Others dare not to look; or, if they dare, They cast squint, purblind glances: who need care Eleaz. -Thus: Go you, and with a face well set, In good sad colours, such as paint the cheek Qu. Mo. Eleaz. -What then? I know such. Why, this is excellent. Thus Thus have we good measure, at the expence of only half-adozen added, and two or three omitted, monosyllables; and thus have we something like intelligible sense in all but one line, in which, if conjecture might be permitted so far as to substitute windows for villains, we should probably be not far from the mark intended by the author. The following are much more simple emendations; and the interpolations of the players are too obvious to admit of a question. İd. p. 120. "Will you do this for us? "Eleaz.-Say, will you? "Bath.-Aye. "Eleaz.-Why start you back and stare? (Ha!) Are you afraid ? By the omission of the player's exclamation, we have two lines of lawful measure, which the editor appears not to have suspected. In the next page, are two other lines which require only to be differently placed to restore the metre: -thus: (Q.M.) Yes, there is one. (El.) One! who? Give me his name, And I will turn it to a magic spell. (El.) Ha! my Maria! (Qu. Mo.) She's the Hellespont Divides my love and me: she being cut off,- &c. In p. 133. the King elegantly replies to Maria, who asks why he has disturbed her in her sleep, "To let thee view a bloody horrid tragedy," when, if he had used either of these terrible epithets alone, he would have spoken a verse of ten feet precisely, and fully as much to the purpose. Id. p. 128. "This storm is well nigh past: the swelling clouds, That hang so full of treason, by the wind In awful majesty are scattered." If for in we read of, we not only obtain sense but a noble metaphor into the bargain. In pp. 162, 163. some perriwig-pated player has been at work again, without the editor seeming to suspect that Marlowe did not write exactly what he finds written. The misplacing of the verse in the first of those pages is too evident to deserve pointing out: but the insertion of the choice apostrophe, "Ha! 'sfoot!" in the second, shews us at once what sort of "harlotry players" they were who undertook to represent the characters of our old tragedies, and how insufficiently the duty of an editor is performed by the collation of two or three old quartos printed from the prompter's books. Leave out the interpolated words, and the following speech of the King is in the finest spirit of old dramatic writing: " [Ha! |