P. 361. (21) "Laun. But, I pray you, ergo, old man, ergo, I beseech you, talk you of young Master Launcelot ?" "This sentence is usually put interrogatively, contrary to the punctuation of all the old copies, which is not to be so utterly despised as the modern editors would pretend." So says Mr. Knight,- forgetting that this is a repetition of Launcelot's preceding interrogation, "Talk you of young Master Launcelot ?" (A subsequent speech of Launcelot is pointed thus in the old copies; "Do I look like a cudgel or a hovel-post, a staff or a prop: do you know me father.",-and yet Mr. Knight does not point it so.)-1863. To my great surprise, I find Mr. Grant White maintaining that "this is imperative, not interrogative." Omitted in the old eds., but absolutely necessary: and compare Launcelot's next speech. A vulgarism (and archaism) for " 'eleven,"-formerly not uncommon. An addition made by Hanmer (and adopted by Capell),—this speech having been beyond all doubt originally verse. Here the old eds. have “misconsterd:" and in my Remarks on Mr. Collier's and Mr. Knight's eds. of Shakespeare, p. 54, I rather rashly expressed an opinion that no change should be made where that form of the word occurred. I now see that an editor ought, as far as he can, to preserve uniformity of spelling.-In Julius Cæsar, act v. sc. 3, the folio has "Alas, thou hast misconstrued euery thing ;" and again, in the First Part of Henry IV. act v. sc. 2, "So much misconstrued in his wantonnesse." P. 365. (26) "if a Christian did not play the knave,” Both the quartos and the folio have " corrected in the second folio. doe not play," &c.,-a mistake P. 365. (27) "We have not spoke us yet of torch-bearers." Is explained to mean "We have not yet bespoke us torch-bearers."—" Until this can be shown to be English, I would read, with Pope [with folio 1685], 'We have not spoke as yet,' &c." Walker's Crit. Exam. &c. vol. iii. p. 53. Without this addition, which is Hanmer's, the accent (as Mr. W. N. Lettsom observes) would be placed wrong in the line. Hanmer prints "Sir, I will go before;" and Walker (Crit. Exam. &c. vol. iii. p. 54) conjectures "I'll go before you, sir." Here the old eds. have the spelling "Jewes;" which is retained by Mr. Grant White, who finds fault with the editors for printing "Jewess,"-" none of them," he says, “having observed, or all having forgotten, that 'Jewess' is quite a modern word, 'Jew' having been applied of old to Hebrews of both sexes." Not "quite a modern word," surely: "Felix came with his wife Drusilla, which was a Jewess." Acts xxiv. 24 (the Bible of 1611 having there the spelling "Jewess,"-the Bible of 1629 the spelling "Jewesse”). P. 368. (31) "Fast bind, fast find, A proverb never stale in thrifty mind." Concerning this sort of couplet see last note on sc. 2 of act ii. of Measure for Measure. P. 368. (32) The old eds. have "younger." P. 369. (33) "younker" "then.-Come, approach;" The "Come" is a modern addition.-Ritson would read "Come then, approach." The old eds. have "who,”—an error plainly occasioned by the "Who's" which follow and compare the third line of the speech. : So Johnson (and Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector).-The old eds. have “timber.” P. 373. (36) "And jewels,-two stones, two rich and precious stones," Some of the editors omit the second "two."-Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector gives "And jewels, too,-two rich and precious stones.” The old eds. have "there" (repeated by mistake from the preceding line). The old eds. have "multitudes." But compare the 7th line before. Hanmer, Ritson, and Steevens were, I believe, right in regarding these words as an interpolation. The old eds., by a mistake of the scribe or printer, read "haue:" see this line twice above in the present page, and pp. 370, 371. Added in the second folio. ("Unnecessarily," says Boswell.-"The editor of that copy not understanding the metrical system followed by the author," says Mr. Halliwell.) P. 376. (42) "Serv. Where is my lady? Here: what would my lord?" This reply of Portia (which led Mr. Collier to suppose that she must be speaking to a person of rank) is nothing more than a sportive rejoinder to the abrupt exclamation of the Servant (called "Messenger" in the old eds.). For various similar passages I refer the reader to my Remarks on Mr. Collier's and Mr. Knight's eds. of Shakespeare, p. 55, and my Few Notes, &c. p. 64. So the second folio.-The earlier eds. have "thou." amity and life."-Corrected by Walker (Crit. Exam. "vice" So the second folio.-The earlier eds. have "voice." P. 383. (48) "Thus ornament is but the guilèd shore 66 To a most dangerous sea; the beauteous scarf The seeming truth which cunning times put on 'Here," says Steevens, "guiled shore' means 'treacherous shore.' Shakespeare, in this instance as in many others, confounds the participles. 'Guiled' stands for 'guiling'."-Walker (Crit. Exam. &c. vol. i. p. 291) "suspects 'guiled," though he compares and "To me came Tarquin armèd; so beguil'd "Rais'd for their double-guil'd deserts, Before integrity and parts." Shakespeare's Lucrece. Butler's Satire on the Weakness and Misery of Man. -Since the first edition of the present work appeared, I met with the following passage in Jasper Heywood's translation of Seneca's Hercules Furens (Chorus at the end of Act i.), "He leaning ouer hollow rocke doth lye, And either his begiled hookes doth bayte," &c.; which passage I thought would illustrate and support the expression “guiled shore," till, on turning to the Latin original, I found that I was altogether mistaken:-the words of Seneca are, "Aut deceptos instruit hamos," and doubtless mean, as Farnaby explains them, " Esca reparat hamos, priori a piscibus erepta.”—In the second folio "guiled shore" is altered to “guilded (i. e. gilded) shore;" which Rowe and some others adopted. Mr. W. N. Lettsom, too (note on Walker's Crit. Exam. &c. ubi supra), "has little doubt that the poet was thinking of Raleigh's 'Discovery of Guiana,' and wrote 'guilded'."—Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector makes the following change in the punctuation; "Thus ornament is but the guilèd shore To a most dangerous sea, the beauteous scarf The seeming truth which cunning times put on a change which is also found in an edition of Shakespeare published by Scott 66 P. 383. (49) "thou stale and common drudge" Farmer's emendation.-The old eds. have "thou pale and," &c. (The words "stale" and "pale” are frequently confounded by early transcribers and printers.) P. 383. (50) Thy paleness moves me more than eloquence;" Warburton reads "Thy plainness moves me," &c. Mr. W. N. Lettsom would read "For fear I surfeit on't!"-Capell printed "Ha! what find I here?" P. 383. (53) "And leave itself unfurnish'd." i. e. and leave itself unprovided with a companion or fellow. That such is the meaning of "unfurnish'd" in the present passage Hanmer saw long ago; and Mason supports it by quoting from Fletcher's Lovers' Progress, "You are a noble gentleman. Will't please you bring a friend? we are two of us, And pity either, sir, should be unfurnish’d.” Act ii. sc. 1. —Walker, however, would read, as some others have done, “ And leave itself unfinish'd." Crit. Exam. &c. vol. iii. p. 55. So Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector.-The old eds. have " is.” P. 386. (56) What, and my old Venetian friend Solanio?" Here, and throughout the scene, the old eds. have "Salerio;" for which Rowe substituted "Salanio;" and the latter name kept its place in the text till Steevens restored "Salerio;" which was once more displaced for "Solanio" by Mr. Knight; with whom I agree in regarding "Salerio" as a decided error,and in thinking it altogether unlikely that Shakespeare would, without necessity and in violation of dramatic propriety, introduce a new character, “Salerio," in addition to Solanio and Salarino. (Be it observed that in the old copies there is much confusion with respect to these names; we find Salanio, Solanio, Salino, Salarino, Slarino.) "In the first scene of this act,"-I quote the words of Mr. Knight," the servant of Antonio thus addresses Solanio and Salarino: 'Gentlemen, my master Antonio is at his house, and desires to speak with you both.' To the unfortunate Antonio, then, these friends repair. What can be more natural than that, after the conference, the one should be dispatched to Bassanio, and the other remain with him whose 'creditors grow cruel'? We accordingly find, in the third scene of this act, that one of them accompanies Antonio when he is in custody of the gaoler." The name of the friend who remains at Venice is rightly given in Roberts's quarto (see note 61) " Salarino,”—a name which, it is hardly necessary to add, will not suit the metre in the present scene. The old eds. have “And I must freely haue."-Some of the earlier editors rightly omit "freely" (which, as Mr. W. N. Lettsom observes to me, seems to have crept in here from the fifth line below). Has been altered to "is." But I prefer the old reading. P. 388. (59) "The best-condition'd and unwearied spirit" "Unwearied," says Mr. Hunter, "should evidently be unwearied'st,' " 999 |