Cursory criticisms on the edition of Shakspeare published by Edmond Malone

Table of contents

- [titlepage]

- TO THE MONTHLY AND CRITICAL REVIEWERS.

- PREFACE.

- VOL. I.

- PART I.

- PREFACE. PP. xix. xxi. &c.

- TEMPEST.

- TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.

- MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.

- MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

- COMEDY OF ERRORS.

- LOVES LABOUR LOST.

- MIDSUMMER NIGHTS DREAM.

- MERCHANT OF VENICE.

- AS YOU LIKE IT.

- TAMING OF THE SHREW.

- ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

- TWELFTH NIGHT.

- WINTERS TALE.

- MACBETH.

- K. JOHN.

- FIRST PART OF K. HENRY IV.

- FIRST PART OF K. HEN. VI.

- HENRY VIII.

- JULIUS CAESAR.

- CORIOLANUS.

- ANTHONY AND CLEOPATRA.

- TITUS ANDRONICUS.

- ROMEO AND JULIET.

- HAMLET.

- OTHELLO.

- P. 249.

- VOL. I. PART II.

- P. 293.

- TEMPEST.

- P. 21.

- P. 24.

- P. 37.

- P. 39.

- P. 52.

- P. 55.

- P. 65.

- TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.

- P. 120.

- P. 133.

- MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.

- P. 265.

- P. 261.

- VOL. II.

- MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

- P. 101.

- P. 140.

- MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

- P. 269.

- LOVES LABOUR LOST.

- P. 414.

- MIDSUMMER NIGHTS DREAM.

- P. 459.

- P. 464.

- P. 499.

- P. 473.

- VOL. III.

- MERCHANT OF VENICE.

- P. 25.

- P. 33.

- P. 38.

- Ibi.

- P. 59

- P. 92.

- AS YOU LIKE IT.

- P. 141.

- P. 145.

- P. 195.

- P. 205.

- P. 214

- TAMING OF THE SHREW.

- P. 258.

- P. 295.

- P. 315.

- PERICLES.

- P. 556.

- VOL. IV

- TWELFTH NIGHT.

- P. 25

- P. 42.

- P. 37.

- WINTERS TALE.

- P. 138.

- P. 164.

- P. 200.

- P. 242

- KING JOHN.

- P. 454.

- P. 468.

- VOL. V.

- KING RICHARD II.

- P. 46.

- P. 72.

- FIRST PART OF KING HENRY IV.

- P. 114.

- P. 142.

- P. 162.

- P. 188.

- KING HENRY V.

- P. 508

- P. 584.

- VOL. VI.

- FIRST PART OF KING HENRY VI.

- P. 22.

- P. 30

- P. 44.

- SECOND PART OF K. HENRY VI.

- P. 134.

- THIRD PART OF K. HENRY VI.

- P. 267.

- P. 272.

- P. 276.

- P. 289.

- P. 360.

- K. RICHARD III.

- P. 569.

- P. 588.

- VOL. VII.

- CORIOLANUS.

- P. 193.

- P. 159.

- P. 220.

- P. 237.

- P. 283.

- JULIUS CAESAR.

- P. 334.

- P. 356.

- P. 376.

- P. 377.

- P. 383.

- ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.

- P. 466.

- P. 474.

- P. 479.

- P. 499.

- P. 508

- P. 575.

- VOL. VIII.

- TIMON OF ATHENS.

- P. 27.

- P. 40.

- P. 52.

- P. 61.

- P. 63.

- TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.

- P. 145.

- K. LEAR.

- P. 583.

- P. 587.

- VOL. IX.

- ROMEO AND JULIET.

- P. 66.

- P. 100.

- P. 113.

- P. 123.

- HAMLET.

- P. 217.

- P. 426.

- OTHELLO.

- P. 445.

- P. 537.

- VOL. X.

- TITUS ANDRONICUS.

- P. 388.

- P. 451.

- P. 467.

- APPENDIX.

- P. 599.

- P. 643.

- P. 643.

CURSORY CRITICISMS, &c.

THE END.

CURSORY CRITICISMS ON THE EDITION OF SHAKSPEARE PUBLISHED BY EDMOND MALONE.

A FAULCON, TOW'RING IN HER PRIDE OF PLACE,

WAS BY A MOUSING OWL HAWK'D AT AND KILL'D.

MACBETH.

LONDON: PRINTED FOR HOOKHAM AND CARPENTER, NEW AND OLD BOND-STREET.

M DCC XCII.

TO THE MONTHLY AND CRITICAL REVIEWERS.

GENTLEMEN,

I PREFIX this address in order to induce you, before you pass sentence on the following pages, to read them through: "Strike, but hear!" To enable you to do this I have desired my publishers to send each of you a copy; for, though you may have Jack the Giant-killers coat, it has never been suspected that you possess Fortunatus's purse; and the title of a book, read in a newspaper, or through a shop-window, may not be always a sufficient ground for unqualifyed condemnation and virulent abuse.

On second thoughts, however, I believe I might as well have saved them the trouble; since you will, most probably, allow Mr. Malone the grateful privilege of reviewing it himself: the virtue and honour of this literary hero frequently condescending to bring down an unsuspicious enemy from the masked battery of a Review. And yet, I see, one of your "gangs"[*] has the effrontery to boast that it

—Nothing extenuates,

Nor sets down aught in malice.

That you "nothing extenuate," unless it be in favour of yourselves or your employers, I can easily believe; but the next line certainly requires, if not a different reading, an opposite construction. It suits your purpose, no doubt, to delude the unwary by false colours; as the devil, when he commences innkeeper, hangs out an angel for his sign. The real meaning, however, is that you ‘—set down ALL in malice.’ Shakspears morality, in the hands of a Reviewer, is to be read backward, like a witch's prayer.

Accustomed as you are to every species of misrepresentation, you must by no means do me the injustice to say that I treat you with contempt. For, though a literary prostitute be, in reality, a most despicable character, I cannot but consider you in, if not a far superior, at least, a very different light;—as two formidable, in short, and mischievous gangs of nocturnal banditti, or invisible footpads, equally cowardly and malignant, who attack when there can be no defence, and assassinate or destroy where you cannot plunder. And yet, surprising as it is, while offenders of comparative insignificance are almost every day exposed on pillories, or perishing in dungeons, you have the luck to escape the resentment of the injured, and the vengeance of the law! Upon my word, gentlemen, I admire your good fortune, though I cannot persuade myself you deserve it; and, indeed, as guilt is only hardened by impunity, the sooner, I think, you are brought to justice the better. Nor is this event, perhaps, at so great a distance as you may imagine: even the Monster, you know, was caught at last; and, though you possibly conceive this brother assassin to have been as inferior to you in cunning, as he certainly was in criminality, it will not be amiss to let his fate be a warning to you.

I shall make no apology for having taken up so much of your time, which would, most probably, have been worse employed. You may now proceed to gratify your malice, and take your revenge; and (as I know you are fond of Scripture quotations) the Lord reward you according to your works!

I am, Gentlemen,
Your humble servant.

Notes

*
These societies of gentlemen (as they modestly intitle themselves) are, with equal justice and ability, characterised by Dr. Brown as—"two notorious gangs of monthly and critical book-thieves, hackney'd in the ways of wickedness, who, in the rage of hunger and malice, first plunder, and then abuse, maim, or murder, every honest author who is possessed of ought worth their carrying off; yet skulking among other vermin in cellars and garrets, keep their persons tolerably out of sight, and thus escape the hands of literary justice." ESTIMATE OF THE MANNERS AND PRINCIPLES OF THE TIMES, vol. II. p. 75.
↵

PREFACE.

MR. MALONE, in the year 1780, when publishing a Supplement to Shakspeare of plays which he never wrote, modestly remarked that by a diligent collation of all the old copies thitherto discovered, and the judicious restoration of ancient readings, the text of this author seemed then finally settled. Since that period, however, he has been labouring "with unceasing solicitude," for the space of "eight years" to convince the public that he had, if not directly asserted the thing which was not, at least gone a little further than was consistent with the exact state of the case. For, if the text had been already diligently collated with all the old copies, why should he make such a parade of having collated it himself? If it had not been so collated, why should he say it had? This fact is therefor manifest, upon Mr. Malones own evidence, that the text of Shakspeare had never been collated, whether diligently or not, with all or any of the old copies, by any person before Mr. Malone. To which one may add that even this great critics collation has not been either so diligent or so successful as he would induce us to believe;[*] and also that it would have been much better for the said text if he had never collated it at all. By a judicious restoration of ancient readings, Mr. Malone seems to understand the replacing of all the gross and palpable blunders of the first folio, from which it has been the labour of such critics as Rowe, Pope, Theobald, Warburton, and Hanmer to purge the text. Mr. Malone is a critic of a very different description.

I have thought proper, in the following pages, to make a few observations on some of Mr. Malones notes. Now Mr. Malone will take this exceedingly ill; for Mr. Malone has a very high opinion of himself, and a very mean one of every body else. But I confess I do not seek to please Mr. Malone: I wish to rescue the language and sense of an admirable author from the barbarism and corruption they have acquired in passing through the hands of this incompetent and unworthy editor. In a word, I mean to convict and not to convince him.

The total want of ear and judgement, under which Mr. Malone will be found to labour, is undoubtedly a natural defect, for which he would be an object rather of pity than of reprehension, if he had not forced himself into an employment for which ear and judgement were essential, and nature, of course, in depriving him of those indispensable requisites, had utterly disqualifyed him. Want of courage, in a common man, may be considered as mere weakness of nerves; in a commander, it is punished with death.

But it is not the want of ear and judgement only of which I have to accuse Mr. Malone: he stands charged with divers other high crimes and misdemeanors against the divine majesty of our sovereign lord of the drama; with deforming his text, and degrading his margin, by intentional corruption, flagrant misrepresentation, malignant hypercriticism, and unexampled scurrility. These charges shall be proved—not, as Mr. Malone proves things, by groundless opinion and confident assertion, but—by fact, argument, and demonstration. How sayest thou, culprit? Guilty or not guilty?

Whoever may think fit to censure the language of these "criticisms," Mr. Malone has no such right; having himself rifled the blooming beds of Billings-gate to grace his commentaries with the choicest rhetorical flowers.[*] It is surely lawful to return an enemy the shot of his own poisoned arrows: and, as for the rest, whatever respect may be due to the errors of genius, the blunders of ignorance and presumption deserve no quarter.

{inverted ⁂} Since these sheets were printed off, Mr. Malone has issued proposals for a new and splendid edition of the plays and poems of this admired author, IN FIFTEEN VOLUMES ROYAL QUARTO!!! The reciprocal good opinion which the public and Mr. Malone appear to entertain of each other does both parties infinite honour; the one from his singular confidence, the other from its refined taste. Having sufficiently, and, I trust, satisfactorily, proved how peculiarly qualifyed this ingenious gentleman is for an editor of our great poet, I have only to add my sincerest wishes that completion of so magnificent a work may happen in time to afford me another equally favorable opportunity of giving my humble testimony to his very extraordinary merit.

Notes

*

Of this the following instances, occasionally noticed, in the two first vols. may serve as the specimen of a proof:

- Vol. I. p. 80. "If thou be pleas'd"—Both the folios read—you.

- Vol. I. p. 140. "For love is still more precious in itself."—The old editt. agree in reading—most.

- Vol. I. p. 154. "Speed. Item, she can sew.

- "Launce. That's as much as to say, can she so." Both the folios read sow, which is manifestly requisite. Probably, however, the editor may suppose sew and so to have the same pronunciation.

- Vol. I. p. 155. "And that I cannot help." In the old editions—cannot I.

- Vol. I. p. 174. "As easily as I do tear this paper." Both folios read—his.

- Vol. II. p. 70. "But grace being the soul of your complexion should keep the body of it ever fair."—In the folios—shall.

- Vol. II. p. 71. "Let me hear you speak further." Both editions—farther; a word entirely different from further, though too frequently confounded with it by ignorant persons: the one being the comparative of forth; the other a corruption of farer.

- Vol. II. p. 143. "In what safe place you have dispos'd my money." The old editions read—bestow'd

- Vol. II. p. 151. "If it be, sir, pray eat none of it." In the folio—I pray.

- Vol. II. p. 157. "Ay let none enter"—The old copies—Ay, and let.

- Vol. II. p. 190. "And much different from the man he was," The folios read: "And much much different;"—the additional syllable being necessary to the metre, which the editor could not perceive.

- Vol. II. p. Ibi. "And therefore came it that the man was mad." In the old copies—"And thereof came it."

- Vol. II. p. 477. "Through the forest have I gone, "But Athenian found I none." All the old editions read—find, which is not only more elegant but more grammatical.

There is not reason to believe that each of the remaining volumes would not have contributed an equal number of these damning proofs; but in fact the search required too large a portion of both time and patience.

↵

*
He seldom introduces the author of the Remarks, &c. without a compliment on his profound ignorance or crude notions, the feebleness of his attempts at jocularity, the slenderness of his criticism, and the like; or the favourite epithet of a shallow or half-informed remarker. "And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges."
↵

VOL. I.

PART I.

PREFACE. PP. xix. xxi. &c.

THERE cannot well be a more flagrant proof of disingenuity in the support of a particular opinion than is here manifested by the editor in his treatment of the second folio, in order to substantiate his position "that the editor of that book was intirely ignorant of our poet phraseology and metre; and that various alterations were made by him, in consequence of that ignorance, which render his edition of no value whatever." Many of the instances adduced in support of this assertion are mere self-evident errors of the press, the accidental omission or insertion of a single word, or the inadvertent transposition of a couple of letters;[*] faults to which every copy is equally subject; and consequently prove that editors ignorance much less than his accusers malice; which is the more remarkable as he has actually availed himself of a very considerable number of the corrections of the identical edition which he thus anxiously labours to depreciate as a sink of ignorance and corruption. It must be evident, that by this partial mode of proceeding, the same charge might be brought home not only to the first folio, but to almost any edition of any author. A person who had only truth and justice in view would have exhibited a faithful statement, a fair debtor and creditor account of the merits and defects of the two editions. But this method, Mr. Malone is conscious, so far from answering his purpose, would have completely disproved and give the lye direct to his accusation; since, in fact, for one instance of an alteration for the worse it will be easy to produce ten instances of alterations for the better, and such, at the same time, as not only no ignorant or capricious person, but not even a man of sense and sagacity would have hit upon, without the assistance of manuscript corrections or personal information: and after all, it is not in the least improbable that both editions were printed by one and the same person, there being only nine years difference in their dates, and the one, whether intentionally or otherwise, just as inaccurate as the other. Both editors, at least, if two there were, were Shakspeares contemporaries; probably his acquaintance; possibly his friends; and, in all events, equally familiar with the language of his time and his peculiar phraseology. But, leaving Mr. Malones partiality and ingratitude out of the question, I am by no means disposed to admit his judgement as to any ones ignorance of Shakspeares phraseology and metre: in neither of which, I believe, we shall find him a proficient. Some of these identical instances prove the direct reverse of what they are brought to do, and convict the prosecutor of both ignorance and malignity.

I. "His[i. e. the second editors] ignorance of Shakspeares phraseology" consists in printing—

"I can go no further," instead of "I can not go no further;"

"I appointed him," instead of "I am appointed him," the syllable having slipped out in the press:

"The way to study death," instead of "the way to dusty death;" a mere accidental transposition of two letters; which is constantly happening. The following is of more consequence.

"The seventh [fifth] scene of the fourth act of this play [Antony and Cleopatra] concludes with these words:—"Dispatch,—Enobarbus!" Anthony, who, is the speaker, desires his attendant Eros to dispatch, and then pronounces the name Enobarbus, who had recently deserted him, and whose loss he here laments. But there being no person in the scene but Eros, and the point being inadvertently omitted after the word dispatch, the editor of the second folio supposed that Enobarbus must have been an error of the press, and therefore reads; ‘"Dispatch, Eros."’

Such is Mr. Malones account of the matter, in which it is only necessary to supply a small omission of the very accurate writer, viz. that the line, of which the two words in question are part, is intended for metre, of which he is too good a judge for the omission to have been designed. This intention, however, would be defeated by the word Enobarbus; unless we are to accent it thus:

—my fortunes have

Corrupted honest men. Dispatch.—Enōbārbūs?

Antony is continually repeating the name of Eros; he does it no less than five times in the preceding scene, and once before in this. The manuscript, it is probable, had, in this place, only an E. of which the original printer improperly made Enobarbus: this mistake must have been some how or other made known to the editor of the second folio, most likely by a MS. correction in the copy he printed from; he has therefor rightly corrected the word, but, at the same time, has neglected to observe the transposition which had been made by his predecessor (supposing the printer of each copy two different persons). Take the line, therefor, as Shakspeare gave it, and let us acknowlege our obligation to the second folio, for so valuable an alteration: ‘Corrupted honest men.—Eros! dispatch. ’ If he had meant that Anthony should apostrophise his absent officer, he would have given it thus: ‘Corrupted honest men.—O Enobarbus! ’ The editor of the second folio was therefor right in supposing, if indeed he was not sure, "that Enobarbus must have been an error of the press."

"In K. Henry VIII. are these lines

"—If we did think

"His contemplation were above the earth,—"

Not understanding this phraseology, and supposing that were must require a noun in the plural number, he reads:

"—If we did think

His contemplations were above the earth, &c."

Now, one would be glad to know where there is a single person to be found, setting aside this petulant dogmatist, who ever heard of such a phraseology, or who does not know "that were must require a noun in the plural number."

It would be well if charges of no better foundation or greater strength could be brought against the ignorance of M. Malone.

II. "Let us now examine how far he was acquainted with the metre of these plays." Ay marry, now for it; this is a subject upon which we are quite at home.

"In the Winter's Tale, we find,—

"What wheels? racks? fires? what flaying? boiling?

"In leads, or oils?"—

"Not knowing that fires was used as a dissyllable he added the word burning at the end of the line."

He did so; and it will be evident to every one who can read that the addition was absolutely necessary, in point of quantity, to the perfection of the line. Mr. Malone can not read, and is totally ignorant of the consequences of his own absurd ideas; he could never else have thought such a line as the following consistent with the laws of metre: ‘"What wheels? racks? fi-ers? what flaying? boiling? ’ Thus, however, he insists that Shakspeare intended us to read—swor-en, cha-rums, instead of sworn, charms; su-ar, for sure, &c. &c. converting one syllable into two, two into three or four and so on.

Instead of ‘"And so to arms, victorious noble father,"’ with the second folio, we are to read ‘"And so to a-rums, vic-to-rī-ous father,"’ because noble, or some other word of equal quantity, has been omited by the printer of the first.

Instead of ‘"But prove it, Henry, and thou shalt be king."’ As given by the editor of the second folio, "not knowing Henry to be used as a trisyllable," we are to read: ‘"Prove it He-nē-ry, and shalt be king."’

Instead of ‘"Pours into captains wounds! ha! banishment.’ pours being a dissyllable, we are to adopt the following harmonious line: ‘"Po-ūrs in-tō cap-tāins wounds! banishment.’

Instead of ‘She's tickled now, her fume can need no spurs.’ he thinks it more in the authors manner to read: ‘"She's tickclēd now; hēr fume needs no spurs,"’

Instead of

"The body of the city, country, court:"

"The body of ci-ty, coun-tē-ry, court."

And Instead of

"Burn hotter than my faith. O but dear sir.

"Bu-ūrn hot-tēr than mȳ faith. O but sir."

"The editor, indeed" he says, "was even ignorant of the author's manner of accenting words, for in the Tempest, where we find,

"—Spirits, which by mine art

"I have from their confines call'd to enact

"My present fancies,"—

he exhibits the second line thus: ‘"I have from all their cònfines call'd to enact."’ It is somewhat lucky, however, for the editor of the second folio, that we are able to produce in his defence no less decisive a testimony than that of Shakspeare himself. The word in question occurs in Julius Caesar:

"And Caesar's spirit, ranging for revenge,

"Shall, on these cònfines, with a monarch's voice,

"Cry havock, and let slip the dogs of war."

The reader will now judge for himself which of these two editors, the prosecutor or defendant, is most ignorant of his authors "phraseology, metre," and "manner of accenting words."

"Had he consulted the original quarto," says M. Malone, "he would have found that the poet wrote"—so and so. Well, but how if he could not get, or never heard of the original quarto? how then? Had he not, in common with every other editor, the right of supplying imperfections or correcting mistakes, according to the best of his judgement? It is no imputation upon the sagacity of Dr. Thirlby or sir Thomas Hammer that they have suggested readings, which, however plausible, are disproved by the more recent discovery of the old quartos: all of which have not been yet seen, even by Mr. Malone; who has, at the same time, been indebted to chance or favour for many of the others; for which he has not, on every occasion, made the most grateful or liberal return.

I shall now proceed to make the editor of the second folio some amends for the injustice, malevolence, and personal abuse of his Hibernian adversary, by displaying a few instances not only of his actual superiority to his predecessor (if, in fact, either edition had any other editor than the compositor of the press), but also where that superiority is admitted by Mr. Malones own adoption. The latter case is distinguished by an asterisk. It was once my intention to have given, what Mr. Malone ought to have done, a fair and faithful collation of the various readings of the two editions; but the space and press-work required even by the following specimen and the necessity I should have thought myself under of going through them a second time, which no one needs to be told is a word of time and patience, will be a sufficient apology for not having carryed it into effect at present. However, as Mr. Malone has preserved all the errors of the second folio, and I shall exhibit a considerable number, at least, of its emendations, the reader will, between us, have a tolerably complete view of the controversy. The first reading is that of the folio 1623, the other that of the folio 1632.

TEMPEST.

I'll shew thee every fertile inch o'th' island.

I'l shew thee every fertile inch o'th' ile.

—who t'advance and who To trash for overtopping.

—whom t'advance and whom To trash for overtopping.

If I should say I saw such islands.

If I should say I saw such islanders. *

Earths increase, foison plenty.

Earths increase, and foison plenty.

You brother mine that entertaine ambition.

You brother mine that entertain'd ambition.

TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.

You conclude then that may master is a shepherd, and I sheep.

You conclude then that my master is a shepherd, and I a sheep. *

You have cestern'd me.

You have testern'd me. *

I see you have a months mind to them.

I see you have a monthes mind to them.

With Valentinus in the emperors court.

With Valentino in the emperors court.

If thou wilt go to the alehouse.

If thou wilt go to the alehouse, so, *

And instances of infinite of love.

And instances as infinite of love. *

That they should harbour where their lord should be.

That they should harbour where their lord would be.

Who would'st thou strike.

Whom would'st thou strike. *

Who Silvia?

Whom Silvia? *

Therefore know thee for this I entertain thee.

Therefore know thou for this I entertain thee. *

It seems you lov'd not her not leave her token.

It seems you lov'd not her to leave her token.

Which of you saw Eglamour of late.

Which of you saw sir Eglamour of late.*

For such is a friend now, treacherous man.

For such is a friend now thou treacherous man.

MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.

Hold sirrah, bear these letters tightly.

Hold sirrah, bear these letters rightly. [†]

We cannot misuse enough.

We cannot misuse him enough.*

Let him strike the old woman.

Let him not strike the old woman.*

MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

Where youth and cost witless bravery keeps.

Where youth and cost and witless bravery keeps.*

More reasons in this action.

More reasons for this action.

May call it again. Well believe this.

May call it back again. Well, believe this.

Than the soft myrtle, but man proud man.

Than the soft myrtle, O but man, proud man.[†]

Bring them to speak where I may be conceal'd.

Bring them to speak where I may be conceal'd.

Yet near them.

The prenzie Angelo.

The princely Angelo.*

In prenzie guards.

In princely guards.*

That age ache periurie and imprisonment.

That age ache penurie and imprisonment.*

Was affianced to her oath.

Was affianced to her by oath.*

From our faults as faults from seeming free.

Free from our faults, as faults from seeming free.

First let her shew your face.

First let her shew her face.*

Although by confutation they are ours.

Although by confiscation they are ours.*[‡]

COMEDY OF ERRORS.

And by me had not our hap been bad.

And by me too had not our hap been bad.*

A mean woman was delivered.

A poor mean woman was delivered.*

Which being violently born up.

Which being violently born upon.*

Gave healthful welcome to their shipwreck'd guests.

Gave helpful welcome to their shipwreck'd guests.*

What have befall'n of them and they till now.

What hath befall'n of them and thee till now.*

That his attendant (so his case was like).

That his attendant (for his case was like).*

Look when I serve him so he takes it.

Look when I serve him so he takes it ill. [†]

Would that a love he would detain.

Would that alone he would detain.*

Here is no time for all things.

There is no time for all things.*

In no time to recover hair lost by nature.

No time to recover hair lost by nature.*

We talk with goblins owls and sprites.

We talk with goblins owls and elves [elvish] sprites.*

I'll meet you at that place some hour hence.

I'll meet you at the place some hour sir hence.

Ill deeds is doubled with an evil word.

Ill deeds are doubled with an evil word.

To drown me in thy sister flood of tears.

To drown me in thy sisters flood of tears.

And as a bud I'll take thee and there lie.

And as a bed I'll take thee and there lie.*

Making war against her heir.

Making war against her hair.*

And then, sir, she bears away our fraughtage, sir.

Then, sir, she bears away our fraughtage, sir.

Oh his hearts meteors tilting in his face.

Of his hearts meteors tilting in his face.

Thus he, unknown to me, should be in debt.

That he unknown to me should be in debt.

Master, if do, expect spoon meat.

Master, if you do, expect spoon meat.*

LOVES LABOUR LOST.

Well fitted in arts, glorious in arms.

Well fitted in the arts, glorious in arms.*

Well, I will love, write, sigh, pray, sue, groan.

Well, I will love, write, sigh, pray, sue and groan.

The prayful princess—

The praiseful princess.*

With men like men, of inconstancy.

With men like men, of strange inconstancy.

It mourns that painting usurping hair.

It mourns that painting and usurping hair.

And shape his service wholly to my device.

And shape his service wholly to my behests.*[†]

As gravitys revolt to wantons be.

As gravitys revolt to wantonness.*

But, while 'tis spoke, each turn away his face.

But while 'tis spoke each turn away her face.*

The rest will e'er come in if he be out.

The rest will ne'er come in if he be out.

They were all in lamentable cases.

O they were all in lamentable cases.

This jest is dry to me.—Gentle sweet.

This jest is dry to me.—fair, gentle sweet.

MIDSUMMER NIGHTS DREAM.

This man hath bewitched the bosom of my child.

This hath bewitch'd the bosom of my child.*

Unto his lordship whose unwish'd yoke.

Unto his lordship to whose unwish'd yoke.

For I am sick when I do look on you.

For I am sick when I do look on thee.*

Transparent Helena, Nature shews art.

Transparent Helena, Nature here shews art.

MERCHANT OF VENICE.

If a Christian do not play the knave and get thee.

If a Christian did not play the knave and get thee.*

So begone, you are sped.

So begone sir, you are sped.*

There is no voice so simple.

There is no vice so simple.*

More rich than onely to stand high in your account.

More rich than to stand high in your account.

And ne'er a true one. In such a night.

And ne'er a true one. And in such a night.

AS YOU LIKE IT.

After my flight. Now go in we content.

After my flight. Now go we in content.*

To that which had too must.

To that which had too much.*

Know you not master to seeme kind of men

Know you not master to some kind of men.*

Wearing thy hearer in thy mistress praise

Wearying thy hearer in thy mistress praise.*

—searching of they would.

—searching of they [thy] wound.*

And I remember the kissing of her batler.

And I remember the kissing of her batlet.

Good even to your friend.

Good even to you friend.*

Thou art right welcome as thy masters is.

Thou art right welcome as thy master is.*

Have more cause to hate him than to love him.

I have more cause, &c.

Let me better acquainted with thee.

Let me be better acquainted with thee.*

In which by often rumination.

In which my often rumination.*

Like a ripe sister: the woman low.

Like a ripe sister: but the woman low.

My gentle Phebe did bid me give you this.[†]

My gentle Phebe bid me give you this.

TAMING OF THE SHREW.

Were she is as rough.

Were she as rough.*

Of all thy suitors here I charge tell.

Of all thy suitors here I charge thee tell.*

No such sir, as you, if me you mean.

No such jade sir, as you, if me you mean.*

Much more a shrew of impatient humour.

Much more a shrew of thy impatient humour.*

As before imparted to your worship.

As I before imparted to your worship.*

As much news as wilt thou.

As much news as thou wilt.*

I fear it is too cholerick a meat.

I fear it is too phlegmatick a meat.[†]

Then at my lodging, an it like you.

Then at my lodging, an it like you, sir.

I cannot tell, expect they are busied in a counterfeit assurance.

I cannot tell, expect they are busied in a counterfeit assurance.

He will make the man mad to make the woman of him.

He will make the man mad to make a woman of him.*

Whither away or whither is thy abode.

Whither away or where is thy abode.*

Didst thou never see thy mistress father?

Didst thou never see thy masters father?*

Well, I say no: and therefore, sir, assurance.

Well, I say no: and therefore for assurance.*

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

It blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads.

It blots thy beauty as frosts bite the meads.*

Yet in this captious and intemible sieve.

Yet in this captious and intenible sieve.*

And would not have knaves thrive long under.

And would not have knaves thrive long under her.*

TWELFTH NIGHT.

Yet you will be hang'd to be turn'd away.

Yet you will be hang'd, or be turned away.

Enter Violenta.

Enter Viola.

That methought her eyes had lost her tongue.

That sure methought her eyes had lost her tongue.*

Let thy tongue langer with arguments of state.

Let thy tongue tang with arguments of state.*

WINTERS TALE.

—clear stores.

—clear stones.

With hey, the thrush and the jay.

With hey, with hey, the thrush and the jay.*

Digest with a custom.

Digest it with a custom.

Burn hotter than my faith. O but sir.

Burn hotter than my faith. O but dear sir.

Before this ancient sir, whom, it should seem.

Before this ancient sir, who, it should seem.*

Of excellent witchcraft, whom perforce must know.

Of excellent witchcraft, who, perforce must know.*

You know my fathers temper.

You know your fathers temper.*

With her who here I cannot hold on shore.

With her whom here I cannot hold on shore.*

MACBETH.

Of kernes and gallow-grosses—

Of kernes and gallow-glasses—

Shipwrecking storms and direful thunders.

Shipwrecking storms and direful thunders breaking [break].

Is execution done on Cawdor or not

Those in commission yet return'd?

Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not

Those in commission yet return'd.*

Whom we to gain our peace have sent to peace.

Whom we to gain our place have sent to peace.*

Whether, in deed, before they here approach.

Whether, indeed, before thy here-approach.

K. JOHN.

It would not be sir Nob in any case.

I would not be sir Nob in any case.

Say, shall the current of our right roam on.

Say shall the current of our right run on.*

Strong reasons make strange actions.

Strong reasons make strong actions.[†]

'Tis true to hurt his master, no mans else.

'Tis true to hurt his master, no man else.*

FIRST PART OF K. HENRY IV.

With such a heady currance.

With such a heady current.*

To furnish with all appertinents.

To furnish him with all appertinents.*

Which in sufferance heartily will rejoice.

Which I in sufferance heartily will rejoice.*

To his full height. On, on, you noblish English.

To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.*

Of headly murder.

Of heady murder.*

Poor we call them in their native lords.

Poor we may call them in their native lords.

Pales in the flood with men, wives, and boys.

Pales in the flood with men, with wives and boys.*

FIRST PART OF K. HEN. VI.

Shall be whipt out in the next parliament.

Shall be wip'd out in the next parliament.*

If Richard will be true, not that all alone.

If Richard will be true, not that alone.

Yes, my lord, her father is a king.

Yes, my good lord, her father is a king.*

She's tickled now, her fume needs no spurs.

She's tickled now, her fume can need no spurs.

Trust nobody, for fear you betray'd.

Trust nobody for fear you be betray'd.*

When I return with victory to the field.

When I return with victory from the field.*

To Lynn, my lord; and ship from thence to Flanders.

To Lynn, my lord; and shipt from thence to Flanders.

HENRY VIII.

Good man, those joyful tears shew thy true hearts.

Good man, those joyful tears shew thy true hearts.

JULIUS CAESAR.

Are then in council, and the state of a man.

Are then in council, and the state of man.

Passion I see is catching from mine eyes.

Passion I see is catching, for mine eyes.

For I have neither writ, nor words nor worth.

For I have neither wit, nor words nor worth.

CORIOLANUS.

Our best friends made, our means stretch'd.

Our best friends made, and our best means stretch'd out.

ANTHONY AND CLEOPATRA.

—my fortunes have

Corrupted honest men. Dispatch Enobarbus.

—my fortunes have

Corrupted honest men. Dispatch Eros. [Eros, dispatch!]

Let him come in. What a poor instrument.

Let him come in. How poor an instrument.

TITUS ANDRONICUS.

Was none in Rome to make a stale.

Was there none else in Rome to make a stale of.*

Even from Eptons rising in the east.

Even from Hyperions rising in the east.*

ROMEO AND JULIET.

Jul. Romeo!

Rom. My niece.

Jul. Romeo!

Rom. My sweet.

Misshapen chaos of well-seeing forms.

Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms.

Among fresh fennell buds—

Among fresh female buds—

A dimne saint, an honorable villain.

A damned saint, an honorable villain.

But which a rear-ward following Tybalts death.

But with a rear-ward following Tybalts death.

The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade

To many ashes—

The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade

To mealy ashes—

HAMLET.

—this pursy times.

—these pursy times.*

Lord Hamlet is a prince out of thy Starre.

Lord Hamlet is a prince out of thy sphere.

The inobled queen.

The mobled queen.

OTHELLO.

Out ran my purpose; and I return'd then rather

Out ran my purpose and I return'd the rather—*

Did Michael Cassio, when you woo'd my lady

Know of your love?

I did not think he had been acquainted with her.

Did &c.

Know &c.

I did not think he had been acquainted with it.

P. 249.

"The Quip Modest, &c."

☜ "THE author of this pamphlet, after a few copies had got abroad, had the modesty to suppress it. Some time afterwards, repenting as it were of his repentance, he issued it out. One instance may be sufficient to shew his profound ignorance of the poet whom he attempted to illustrate; he supposed the words ignomy and intergatory, in a late edition of Shakspeare, to be errours of the press! So, when the clown in Measure for Measure says "there were but two stew'd prunes in the house, which at that very distant time stood, as it were in a fruit-dish, &c. this Remarker for distant would read instant."

The veracity of this note is no less remarkable than its decency. That the author of the pamphlet in question ever "had the modesty to suppress it" is an absolute falsehood, known to his printer, his bookseller, and all who bought it. The truth is that, "after a few copies were got abroad," the further sale was delayed till a leaf could be reprinted, in which some erroneous references had been detected, and an expression used which was thought too strong for the person alluded to, even if that person had been Mr. Malone, and another added to convict the editor or reviser of the "late edition" of a gross and wilful misrepresentation. All this might take up a week, when the publication was continued. As to the rest, both Mr. Malone and the author of that pamphlet may have sufficient reason to wish that neither of them had ever betrayed more profound ignorance of this great poet than in barely prefering the reading of one edition to that of another. That ignominy, the correction of the second folio, and of which ignomy is every where either a contraction or a corruption, is requisite in the present instance will be evident to all, except Mr. Malone, and perhaps the editor (or reviser) of the edition in question, from the line itself: ‘"Ignòminy in ransom and free pardon."’

Intergatories, is likewise nothing more than a contraction of interrogatories, as Shakspeare would always have written it, if his metre had not required the sacrifice of a syllable, which prose does not. So, in K. John: ‘"What earthly name to interrògatories."’

Instant is also the reading of the second folio, and of every other edition before that of 1785. As however it was thought distant might be intentional, the instance was omitted in the cancel.

After all, if the "Quipsters ignorance" of his author was so "profound," why has this infallible judge adopted any of his remarks or suggestions, sometimes word for word, and elsewhere with sneaking approbation, or at second-hand. See vol. ii. 11. 256. 491. 507. iii. 27. 77. 316. 394. iv. 497. 504. vi. 146. 273. v. 495. viii. 634. &c. &c. How say you to this M. Malone?

VOL. I. PART II.

P. 293.

"Richard the Confessor."

"THIS piece," Mr. Malone observes, "should seem to have been written by the tinker in The Taming of the Shrew, who talks of Richard Conqueror." Unfortunately, however, the observation is but one out of many instances of our "half-informed" editors pleasantry being occasioned by his ignorance. He supposes Richard a blunder for Edward; because he does not know that there is such a personage as Richard the Confessor; whereas there are no less than four Confessors of that name, any of whom might have been, and one certainly was, the hero of the above play. In the first place there is saint Richard the Confessor, an imaginary king of England, supposed to be buried at Lucca, where he is said to have dyed on his return from a pilgrimage to Rome. Another was bishop of Chichester; a third of St. Andrews in Calabri; and the fourth hermit of Hampole near Doncaster, whose somniferous lucubrations have contributed in no small degree to the bulk of Mr. Wartons History of English Poetry. All of these are expressly stiled Confessors in the English Martyrologe, 1608, and other books of the same cast: so that the editors "attempt at jocularity" is as "feeble" as his "ignorance" is "profound."

TEMPEST.

P. 21.

Pro.

Go make thyself like a nymph o'the sea; be subject

To no sight but thine and mine; invisible

To every eye-ball else.

The elder folio regulates the passage thus:

Go make thyself like a nymph o'th' sea:

Be subject to no sight but thine and mine; invisible

To every eye-ball else.

The second reads: ‘—like to nymph o'th' sea.’

And now comes our Irish editor, and pronounces as positively as if he had been at the copyists or compositors elbow that the words be subject were transfered to the second line "by the carelessness of the transcriber or printer." "The regulation that I have made," says he, "shews that the addition [of the second folio] was unnecessary."

The only difference between the editor of the second folio and Mr. Malone is that the former perfected the metre of the only defective line, and the latter has destroyed that of each. Had this "very fond and skill-less" editor possessed one thousandth part of the sense and sagacity he assumes the credit of, he would have perceived that the blunder of the transcriber or printer consisted, not in transposing the words be subject, but, in the insertion of two other syllables which certainly have no business there, and could not possibly have come from Shakspeare, unless Shakspeare had written like Mr. Malone. "The regulation that I have made shews that the addition was necessary:" I appeal to those who have ears:

Go make thyself like to a nymph o'th' sea,

Be subject to no sight but mine, invisible

To every eye-ball else.

If this alteration have been made already, it is more than I know.

P. 24.

Curs'd be I that I did so!—all the charms.

"The latter word (charms)" we are told "like many others of the same kind is here used as a dissyllable."

How other words "of the same kind" may be used is of little consequence: all we want to know is why the word charms should be so used; or, in short, how one syllable comes to be two. The metre of the line is manifestly and simply perfect, as consisting of ten monosyllables, alternately short and long: so that it is absolutely impossible to conceive a less exceptionable instance of heroic verse. Is this laborious octennial editor ignorant that his authors measure consists of ten syllables? or is he, like many of his wild countrymen, unable to reckon to ten, or to count his fingers? The only reason, I can perceive, for his making charms a word of two syllables, is that it cannot possibly be more than one.

P. 37.

—the fair soul herself

Weigh'd, between lothness and obedience, at

Which end o'the beam she'd bow.

The old edition reads—should—and Mr. Pope, by the omission of a single superfluous letter— ‘Which end the beam should bow;’ an easy and apposite sense, which our ingenious and consistent critic, who thinks that "an omission of any word in the old copy," however nonsensical or absurd, "without substituting another in its place, is seldom safe," has rejected for a much more violent alteration, and no sense at all.

P. 39.

Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none.

"Bourn," the editor says, "might have been used as a dissyllable."

Certainly,—by such a judge of harmony as himself. ‘Bo-urn, bound òf land, tilth, vi-nè-yard, nòne. ’ He could not perceive that there are two syllables wanting to complete the measure. Shakspeare might have written: ‘Bourn, limit, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none.’

P. 52.

Stephano here asks Trinculo how he escaped, and the latter says that he "swam ashore like a duck;" adding, "I can swim like a duck, I'll be sworn:" than which nothing can be more simple. Our Irish editor, however, in the profundity of his conceit, believes that "Trinculo is speaking of Caliban, and that we should read—"a' can swim, &c." than which nothing can be more absurd.

P. 55.

All former editions reading

—most poor matters

Point to rich ends. This my mean task

Would be as heavy to me as odious; but

The mistress whom I serve quickens what's dead

And makes my labours pleasures,—

our notable critic, for the improvement of the metre, of which he is a complete judge, alters it thus:

—most poor matters

Point to rich ends. This my mean task would be

As heavy to me as odious, but

The mistress, &c.

And justifies the alteration by gravely telling us that "our author and his contemporaries generally use odious as a trisyllable." How then, will he tell us, do he and his contemporaries use it?

It is evident that all we get by this capricious change is a transfer to one line of the defect of another; at least, to make any metre of the second we must read it thus: ‘"As heavy to me as o-dì-ous, but;"’ as, the editor will undoubtedly pretend, our author and his contemporaries generally pronounced it.

The insertion of a single syllable perfects the measure:

—most poor matters

Point to rich ends. This my mean task would be

As heavy to me as 'tis odious; but

The mistress, &c.

P. 65.

Trin.

The sound is going away: let's follow it, And after do our work.

Ste.

Lead monster, we'll follow,—I wou'd I could see this taborer: he lays it on.

Trin.

Wilt come? I'll follow Stephano.

The words Wilt come, our sagacious editor believes, are addressed to Stephano, who, from a desire to see the "taborer" lingers behind. Will you come or not (says Trinculo)? If you will not, I'll follow Caliban without you."

Such an "idle conjecture" could only, one would think, proceed from a dabbler equally ignorant of our authors manner and unconscious of his meaning. It is, notwithstanding, very much in character. The music is going away, and Stephano lingers behind to see the performer: this is Paddy from Cork with a vengeance! Suppose now we were to treat the passage thus: Ste. Lead monster; we'll follow,—I would I could see this taborer: he lays it on. Wilt come? Trin. I'll follow, Stephano. It is Trinculo who "lingers behind."

TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.

P. 120.

O how this spring of love resembleth.

The editor has inserted both Mr. Tyrwhitts notes, without taking the least notice of the conclusive reply already made to the latter, and which it is unnecessary here to repeat. In return for this piece of candour, I shall only say that I do not in the least wonder to find him as ignorant of the principles of English orthography, as he is of the sense and language of the author he has had the presumption to think himself qualifyed to illustrate. Mr. Tyrwhitt was a man of indisputable learning and critical abilities; but, perhaps on that very account could not, like Cicero, be expected to

—follow any thing

That other men begin.

P. 133.

Pro.

I'll die on him that says so but yourself.

Sil.

That you are welcome.

Pro.

That you are worthless.

Dr. Johnson, finding the measure defective, prefixed the word No to the latter hemistich, "But perhaps," says Mr. Malone, "the particle which he has supplyed is unnecessary. Worthless was, I believe, used as a trisyllable. See Mr. Tyrwhitt's note, p. 120."

The gentleman, as his friend Bottom observes, has "a reasonable good ear in music," and "the tongs and the bones" would be no improper accompaniment for such kind of harmony as he thus makes of our all-excellent poets versification. If worthless be a trisyllable, it will be necessary to insert a vowel in order to receive the accent, which it must be evident can neither fall upon worth nor less. One must therefore read:

That you are welcome.

That you are worth-ì-less.

The editor seems to have acquired the secret of multiplying syllables from a well-known story in Joe Millers Jests, where an equally ingenious Oxford scholar proves two capons to be three, and gets the third for his pains.

They who look for information upon the subject in Mr. Tyrwhitts note will be as much disappointed as that learned gentleman would have been surprised to find them sent thither for it.

MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.

P. 265.

Farewell, gentle mistress; farewell Nan.

"Mistress" the editor says, "is here used as a trisyllable." The accent, of course, falls as usual upon the second: e. g.

Farewell, gentle mis-tè-ress; farewell Nan.

P. 261.

—to be compass'd like a good bilbo in the circumference of a peck, hilt to point.—

"Thus," says our editor, "the folio. The old 4to reads—of a pack, and perhaps rightly. Pedlars packs are sometimes of such a size as to admit of Falstaffs description; but who but a Lilliputian could be "compassed in a peck."

O feeble, shallow, profoundly ignorant annotator! It is the bilbo, not Falstaff, that is "compass'd in a peck:" He was in a similar condition in the buck-basket.

Notes

*

One passage of this kind is very remarkable. The first folio reading.

Is straightway calm and boarded with a pirate

The editor of the second edition, or some one for him, had added the d; and the printer made it claim'd. So where, instead of Car •at, in the first folio, the second has Raccat; and instead of vigilance, viligance, we are to impute the compositors carelessness to ignorance or intentional corruption.

↵

†
Thus also the old quarto. Tightly, however, being stark nonsense, is judiciously preferred by Mr. Malone.
↵

†
This, says Malone, "like all the other emendations of that copy, is the worst and most improbable that could have been chosen." Ipse dixit! He proposes—"but man, weak, proud man."
↵

‡
Confutation, however, he thinks, "may be right, by his being confuted." If that is the case Mr. Malone himself may be right.
↵

†
This word, he says, which the rime seems to countenance, was furnished, &c. Q. If the rime does not absolutely require it, or he can find another to supply its place.
↵

†
"One of the very few corrections of any value to be found in that copy." MALONE.
↵

†
So Malone. Phebe must therefor be a monosyllable.
↵

†
It is a neats foot, which cannot be thought to engender choler. Besides, the word cholerick, which Malone prefers, occurs three lines lower.
↵

†
Malone, in this, as in other places, prefers the nonsense of the first edition to the sense of the second.
↵

VOL. II.

MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

P. 101.

Ere twice the sun hath made his daily greeting

To yond generation, you shall find, &c.

If the editor had followed the practice he imputes to the editor of the second folio, "of altering whatever he did not understand," we should scarcely have had a single word of Shakspeares left. It is therefor rather fortunate that he has so frequently affected to understand, not only what he was perfectly ignorant of, but what in fact is utterly unintelligible and absolute nonsense.

Yond, in the above passage, being an evident misprint for the under, which had been written in the copy Ye vnd', and is requisite both to the sense and to the metre, our notable Hibernian explains it to mean "the without door generation." The metre of the line will therefor be very properly in unison with the sense.

To yond ge-ne-ra-tì-on, you shall find.

P. 140.

And live if not then thou art doom'd to die:—"if not,] Old copy—no. Corrected in the second folio."

The second folio, now under my eye, does not differ from the first. Is this a specimen of the editors accuracy or of his veracity?

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

P. 269.

Leon.

What do you mean my lord?

Claud.

Not to be marry'd, Not to knit my soul to an approve• wanton.

Leon.

Dear my lord, if you in your own proof.

These lines have been differently regulated; but let that pass; "Dear," our editor says, "like door, fire, hour, and many similar words, is here used as a dissyllable. "We must therefor read: ‘De-àr, my lord, if you, in your own proof:’ which, it must be confessed, is one of the best dissyllable lines throughout this harmonious edition.

LOVES LABOUR LOST.

P. 414.

Taffata phrases, silken terms precise,

Three-pil'd hyperboles, spruce affection,

Figures pedantical, these summer-flies

Have blown me full of maggot ostentation.

"The modern editors," it seems, "read affectation;" but "there is no need of change. The word was used by our author and his contemporaries, as a quadrisyllable."

In the Devils name (God forgive me for swearing!) what has the number of syllables to do here? It is the rime we are at a loss for, not the metre. Surely, surely, if ever man was peculiarly disqualifyed by nature for an editor of Shakspeare, or, in short, for a reader of poetry, it was this identical Mr. Malone! Could it have been imagined that a writer in the eighteenth century would be so profoundly ignorant of the commonest rules of versification, so totally destitute of every idea of harmony and arithmetic, as to propose such a stanza as the following?

Taf-fa-ta phras-es, silk-en terms pre-cise,

Three-pil'd hy-per-bo-les, spruce af-fec-tì-on,

Fi-gures pe-dan-ti-cal; these sum-mer flies,

Have blown me full of mag-got os-ten-tà-ti-on.

Perhaps, however, he will contend that hyperboles is a trisyllable, as nothing can be improbable, in reference to such a genius, on the score of absurdity. Let it be so, it will make no sort of difference: ‘Three-pil'd hy-per-boles, spruce af-fec-ti-òn. ’ Only, in the one case, we see that on will be the rime to ātion; in the other, īon.

MIDSUMMER NIGHTS DREAM.

P. 459.

—Are you not he

That fright the maidens of the villagery;

Skim milk; and sometimes labour in the quern,

And bootless make the breathless housewife churn.

"Perhaps," observes our sagacious editor, "the construction is—and sometimes make the breathless housewife labour in the quern, and bootless churn. This," he adds, "would obviate the objection made by Dr. Johnson, viz. that "the mention of the mill seems out of place, for she is not now telling the good but the evil that he does." Such a construction may be perfectly natural to the maker, whose ideas seem to sport in a most lovely confusion, but how is it possible for any other person to approve it? Nothing can be more easy and intelligible than the passage as it now stands; and the objection taken by Dr. Johnson does not seem well founded: as the fairy may have enumerated mischievous acts only. Pucks labour in the quern might be either to disturb the family with the noise, or, if he actually ground the corn, when it was not wanted, or to throw the flour about the house.

P. 464.

The human mortals want their winter here.

The position too hastily advanced by Mr. Steevens of the mortality of fairies has been so fully and completely refuted, that I do not at all wonder to find our present candid and liberal editor continuing that gentlemans note, tho' I own I am not a little surprised to see the swaggering comment in the edition of 1785 reduced to half a dozen words—

"See the Faery Queen B. II. c. 10; and Wartons OBSERVATIONS on Spenser, vol. i. p. 55. REED."

And why not likewise to "Tickell's poem, called Kensington Gardens," which was to shew "that the opinion prevailed in the present century?"[*] But the reduction and omission are sufficient to prove that our modest editor was himself convinced of the fallacy of Mr. Steevens's assertion, and Mr. Reeds authorities, though he has not had the candour to acknowledge it. See the Quip Modest. pp. 11. 33.

The passage three quoted from Ariosto is thus translated by Sir J. Harington:

"But (either auncient folke beleeu'd a lie,

"Or this is true) a fayrie cannot die."

The following instances, from this very play, were accidentally omited:

"But she, being mortal, of that boy did die."

"I am a spirit of no common sort."

If ever any position was or can be demonstrated by literary evidence it is that the fairies of Shakspeare were not subject to mortality. There is no evidence whatever on the other side.

P. 499.

So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart

Two of the first, like coats in heraldry,

Due but to one, and crowned with one crest.

"According to the rules of heraldry," it is the editors note, "the first house only, (e. g. a father who has a son living, or an elder brother as distinguished from a younger,) has a right to bear the family coat. The son's coat is distinguished from the father's by a label; the younger brother's from the elder's by a mullet. The same crest is common to both. Helena therefore means to say, that she and her friends were as closely united, as much as one person, as if they were both of the first house; as if they both had the privilege due but to one person, (viz. to him of the first house,) the right of bearing the family coat without any distinguishing mark."

Every reader of this incomparable edition will have frequent occasion to observe that the editor "draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument." The present instance, indeed, is nothing in comparison to pages of inanity with which the work abounds, and which, on account of their "true no-meaning," are actually incapable of refutation or discussion. What, in the name of Shakspeare, of sense or reason, has either the father or his eldest son to do with the passage in question? The two seeming bodies united by one heart are resembled to coats in heraldry, crowned with one crest. And this happens either where the heir keeps his paternal and maternal coats, or the husband his own and his wifes, in separate shields, as is done on the continent; or, as at present with us, in the quarterings of the same shield; in both cases there are two coats, due but to one, and crowned with one crest: which is clearly the authors allusion. But I am sorry to add that he must have entirely misunderstood, since he has so strangely misapplyed, the expression, Two of the first; which, in heraldical jargon, always means two objects of the first colour mentioned; that is the field. For instance: in blazoning a coat they will say, Argent, upon a fesse gules, two mullets of the first, that is, argent, the colour of the field. These words are therefor a melancholy proof that our great author sometimes retained the phrase after he had lost the idea, or up the former without sufficient precaution as to the latter. It is not indeed the only one; but "quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus." With respect to the note, as it is the offspring of ignorance, it becomes naturally the parent of contempt.

P. 473.

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows.

"Where," Mr. Malone informs us, "is here used as a dissyllable. The modern editors," he says, unnecessarily read—whereon."

We must therefor, it seems, necessarily read: ‘"I know a bank whe-àr the wild thyme blows.’

This, to be sure, is no despicable line; Mr. Malone is a very pretty harmonist, in his way. But, if we must have a dissyllable, why not bank? ‘"I know a bà-ank where the wild thyme blows."’ Or thyme, still better, as old Geoffrey might have had it?

"I know a bank where the wild thymé blows."

Notes

*

This poem is printed in Dodsleys Collection, of which the editor or reviser of the edition of 1785 had been a very few years before employed in the republication. He must therefor know that it proved the direct reverse of that for which he refered to it, and consequently that he was asserting an untruth.

I should like to know from the gentleman concerned, or any other able casuist, the exact difference between asserting that a book proves what the asserter knows it disproves, and producing, like Lauder, supposititious extracts for the purpose.

↵

VOL. III.

MERCHANT OF VENICE.

P. 25.

—away, says the fiend, for the heavens; rouse up a brave mind and run.

Away for the heavens, that is, as our editor explains it, "Begone to the heavens." Now was it possible to imagine that a man who has been labouring for eight years, "with unceasing solicitude, to give a faithful and correct edition of Shakspeare" should be so profoundly and completely ignorant of his meaning in this very simple passage? Can any thing be so unnatural and absurd as for the Devil to advise the person he is tempting to go to heaven? But why to the heavens? or how get thither? Mr. Malone, it is believed, will find the journey somewhat more difficult than he seems to apprehend it would have been to honest Launcelot. In the mean time, every one, but this floundering commentator, knows that for the heavens is nothing more than an adjuration, or, as we now say, for the heavens sake.

P. 33.

If a Christian do not play the knave, and get thee, I am much deceived.

"If a Christian (says Launcelot, on receiving a love-letter for Lorenzo,) do not play the knave, and carry thee away from thy fathers house, I am much deceived." Such is the ingenious editors explanation, which he "would not have attempted of so easy a passage, if the ignorant editor of the second folio, thinking probably that the word get must necessarily mean beget, had not altered the text, and substituted did in the place of do, in which he has been copied by every subsequent editor." Every subsequent editor must therefor be, at least, equally ignorant; and I dare say, if Mr. Malone is to be the judge, there never was editor, commentator or critic of Shakspeare who had a grain of sense beside himself. A refutation cannot be expected of such peculiar absurdity. "Launcelot," he says, "is not talking about Jessica's father, but about her future husband." But how does he know this? who told him so? can he be better acquainted with the subject of Launcelots conversation than the man himself? He is aware, at the same time, that, in a subsequent scene, he says to Jessica, "Marry, you may partly hope your father got you not;" but he is now, it seems, on another subject. That, however, is but the idle opinion of Mr. Malone; the editor of the second folio, and all his successors, and, I will venture to add, Shakspeare himself, and all his readers, think very differently.

P. 38.

Shut doors after you: fast bind, fast find.

Former editors had supplyed a syllable, which is equally necessary to the sense and to the metre. But the delicate ear and critical acumen of their Hibernian successor have enabled him to discover that "doors is here used as a dissyllable." A previous acquaintance with the Irish howl must be of infinite service in the perusal of this harmonious edition.

Ibi.

How like a younker, and a prodigal.

This elegant and judicious emendation of the old copies, which read younger, was made by Mr. Rowe. Our more ingenious editor, however, with becoming diffidence and profound knowlege, doubts "whether younker was a word of our authors time." It, however, happens, a little unluckily, not only to be a word of our authors time, but to be elsewhere used by our author himself. "What!" says Falstaff, in the Second part of King Henry IV. "will you make a younker of me?" Again in the Third part of K. Henry VI.

Trim'd like a younker prancing to his love.

If he has elsewhere doubted of his doubt, it only proves how little he is any where to be depended on.

P. 59

For fear I surfeit!

Bass.

What find I here.

"The latter word is here employed as a dissyllable."

Of this there can be no doubt, as the line itself will prove:

For fear I surfeit.

What find I he-àr.

P. 92.

As far as Belmont.

Jes.

In such a night, did

Young Lorenzo swear he lov'd her well.

"Swear is here, as in many other places, a dissyllable."

This as usual is confirmed by the metre:

As fār as Bēlmont. In sŭch ā nĭght dīd

Young Lō-rĕn-zō swĕ-ār he lōv'd her wēll.

Who can say that our harmonious editor has not employed his eight years labour to advantage when he produces such lines as these?

AS YOU LIKE IT.

P. 141.

—Now go we in content.

Go in we, an accidental transposition of the first folio, being thus properly corrected in the second, our editor, who will not allow that edition the merit or liberty of correcting the most glaring typographical blunder, is "not sure that the transposition is necessary;" for, as he sagaciously observes, "our author might have used content as an adjective:" Whence, I presume, we must necessarily infer that the correction has rendered it a substantive, pronoun, verb, participle, adverb, conjunction, preposition or interjection. He seems a very pretty grammarian.

P. 145.

The body of country, city, court.

Every one who has either ear or eye, will instantly perceive here the want of a syllable, which was supplyed by the editor of the second folio, who reads ‘The body of the country, city, court;’ a reading which is essential to the sense and measure of the verse, and which one may therefor reckon indisputably Shakspeares. The present editor, however, who is in fact, what he would have the other thought to be, "utterly ignorant of our authors phraseology and metre," omits the article, under pretence that "Country is here used as a trisyllable." To reason with a man who has no more ear for poetry than Dr. Johnson had for music, and he scarcely "knew a drum from a trumpet, or a bagpipe from a guitar," would be absurd: every other person will see it was utterly impossible for Shakspeare to write such a line as this, or indeed for any one but Mr. Malone to conceive it: ‘"The body of coun-tè-ry, city, court.’ What a pity it is that the public cannot have the pleasure of hearing Mr. Malone read his own text! I say pleasure, because undoubtedly it would be a most laughable performance.

P. 195.

Over the wretched? What though you have mo beauty.

The old copies reading—no beauty, the editor will have it to be a misprint for mo, or more, as he has every where else thought proper to write it. This, he says, "appears clearly from the passage in Lodge's Rosalynde, which Shakspeare has here imitated:—"Because thou art beautiful, be not so coy, &c." A passage which, as it contains neither no nor mo, can not certainly prove what it is brought to do. The construction adopted by this penetrating critic is that though a woman has more beauty than her lover she is not on that account to insult him: an idea which one can easily suppose never entered into any head but his own; one would not, therefor, wish to deprive the present edition of an emendation so worthy of it. But, however, Mr. Malone may read, his author certainly wrote ‘Over the wretched? what though you have beauty.’ He could not perceive that no or mo was as injurious to the metre, as his quotation from Lodge might have led him to suspect it was to the sense: though I believe he understands both equally well. But, I well know that "my learned friend is above taking notice of such slender criticism."

P. 205.

—I will weep for nothing like Diana in the fountain.

Our perspicacious editor had some years ago conjectured that these words had an allusion to some well-known conduit; he has since found his conjecture confirmed, and elsewhere observed "that our author without doubt alluded to the ancient Cross in Cheapside," in which was an alabaster image of Diana, and water prilling from her naked breasts." So that, unfortunately, the very instance which he has adduced in confirmation of the above sagacious conjecture totally destroys it; unless the tears of his Cheapside Diana flowed from her breasts, instead of her eyes. This would have done well enough in Dublin.

P. 214

Ah, sir, a body would think this was well counterfeited.

"The old copy reads—Ah, Sirra, &c. Corrected by the editor of the second folio."

It ought, indeed, to have been so corrected by that editor: but the fact is that the second folio reads—Ah, Sirra.

TAMING OF THE SHREW.

P. 258.

Vincentio's son brought up in Florence.

"Vincentio's" according to Mr. Malone, "is here used as a quadrisyllable. Mr. Pope," he adds, "not perceiving this, unnecessarily reads—Vincentio his son, which has been too hastily adopted by the subsequent editors."

Mr. Malone, no doubt, is able to perceive a great many thing which neither Mr. Pope nor any body else would dream of; though, if Mr. Pope did not perceive that a word of four syllables was a word of four syllables, he must have been a more extraordinary person than he is generally reputed. No, no, Mr. Malone, it was not because he did not perceive Vincentio's to be used as a quadrisyllable, that he read Vincentio his, but because, not having had the advantage of an Irish education, he perceived that such a line as the following could not have been written by Shakspeare: ‘Vin-cēn-ti-ō's son, brōught up īn Florēnce.’

Whatever people may choose to say of Mr. Malones edition, no one will deny him the exclusive merit of deforming his authors verse in the most ridiculous and asinine manner possible.

P. 295.

But, wrangling pedant, this is.

"Probably," the editor admits," our author wrote—this lady is, which," he says, "completes the metre, wrangling being used as a trisyllable.' Now, in my humble opinion, it rather completes the evidence that the editor does not know what metre is. He should have accented his lines. What delectable harmony is here! ‘But, wrāng-gle-īng pedānt, this lady is.’

There is a poem, intitled Teisa, which was published a few years ago, entirely written in this way, and on that account a sort of curiosity. If it had not born the name of the author (Anna Fisher) and been upon a different subject, I should have been positive that is was the production of our musical editor. The said poem, however, and his own Shakspeare are, so far as I know, the only specimens of this kind of metre extant either in the English or any other language.

P. 315.

Where be these knaves? What no man at door.

"Door is here, and in other places, used as a dissyllable." Right; you have told us so once before: let us therefor read the line, as it should be, in the Irish way:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Where1 be2 these3 knaves4? What5 no6 man7 at8 do9-oo10r.

A dealer in dissyllables, possessed of the slightest notion of harmony, would rather have made one of knaves; but an editor of common sense would read—the door.

PERICLES.

P. 556.

To please the fool and death.

"The Fool and Death," Mr. Malone observes, "were principal personages in the old Moralities." Mr. Malone is hereby called upon to mention one single Morality in which there is any such character as either the Fool or Death. If he can not, what are we to think of the morality of Mr. Malone?

VOL. IV

TWELFTH NIGHT.

P. 25

With adoration's fertile tears.

"Tears," the editor says, "is here used as a dissyllable;" and dissyllable are the most convenient things in the world for patching up a broken verse. Now, what, for instance, can run more smoothly than the following? ‘With ā-do-rā-ti-ōns fer-tīle te-ārs.’ Ah, to be sure Mr. Malone is not a very good judge of harmony; to be sure he isn't!

P. 42.

Mar.

My purpose is indeed a horse of that colour.

Sir And.

And your horse now would make him an ass.

Mar.

Ass, I doubt not.

Mr. Tyrwhitt believing that this conceit, which, though bad enough, shews, he thought, too quick an apprehension for sir Andrew, should be given to sir Toby; "An anonymous writer" asks, if the ingenious critic imagined it "probable that Maria would call sir Toby," whom, according to his own account, she adored, and ass; upon which our truly affable and diffident Hibernian, after premising that his "learned friend is above taking notice of such slender criticism," roundly asserts that "Maria is not speaking of sir Andrew, or sir Toby, but of Malvolio!" I should insult the reader by descending to refute an assertion so wantonly confident, and extravagantly absurd.

P. 37.

And thanks, and ever thanks: Oft good turns.

Theobald inserted the second thanks, and added likewise the word and to perfect the metre. Mr. Malone, who is a much better judge of metre, suffers the former word to remain, but rejects the latter; having no doubt that turns was used as a dissyllable. We must therefor take care to read: ‘And thanks, and ever thanks: oft good tu-ùrns. ’ But why, Mr. Malone, should not good be a dissyllable, since a dissyllable there must be, as well as turns, and then, you see, we shall have no need of interpolating the true original reading of the only ancient authentic copy?

WINTERS TALE.

P. 138.

Mr. Malone reads

—(for cogitation

Resides not in that man that does not think)

which being, as Fabian says, "exceeding good sense-less," is judiciously prefered to the correction of former editors: ‘—that does not think it. ’ This is not, however, as he asserts, the reading of the second folio. But certainly it ought to have been so, which, in Irish, may be the same thing.

P. 164.

The pretty dimples of his chin, and cheek, his smiles.

Dimples, according to our metrical Procrustes, as well as of his, is here employed as a monosyllable; which is must be confessed will make one of the prettyest namby pamby lines that we can any where meet with.

‘The pretty dimp's of's chin, and cheek, his smiles.’ Shakspeare had no conception of these little Malonian beauties: he only wrote the line thus: ‘The pretty dimples of his cheek, his smiles;’ leaving it for such superior geniuses as Mr. Malone to improve and finish off.

P. 200.

Burn hotter than my faith.

Per.

O but sir.

The editor of the second folio, who, ignorant as he was, seems to have had the use his ears, eyes, and fingers, reads— ‘O but dear sir.’ This addition, however, our infallible metre-master pronounces unnecessary, "burn in the preceding hemistic being," he says, "used as a dissyllable." A dissyllable! nay then, all will be right enough, as we have only to read this most beautiful and harmonious line: ‘"Bu-ùrn hot-tèr than my faith. O but sir.’ Ah, well! and who finds fault with it? For

"Dare you think your clumsy lugs so proper to decide as

"The delicate ears of justice Midas?"

P. 242

Here where we are.

Leon.

The blessed Gods.

"Unless both here and where were employed as dissyllables, the metre is defective." O by all means let them be employed as dissyllables: they are most useful and excellent things, and make the sweetest versification imaginable. For instance: ‘He-àr, whe-àr we arè. The blessed Gods.’ Or thus, more softly: ‘He-rèe whe-rèe we are. The blessed Gods.’

Here is again "employed as a dissyllable in Macbeth, p. 270,

Who comes he-àr? The worthy thane of Ross.

KING JOHN.

P. 454.

Kneel thou down, Philip, but rise more great.

"More is here used as a dissyllable."

To be sure it is: and this Mr. Tyrwhitt might have thought an additional proof that our poet "had not forgotten his Chaucer:" ‘Kneel thou down, Philip, but rise moré great.’ What an admirable thing is it to have a delicate ear! A plain hobbling fellow unblessed with that advantage would have only thought the little word up wanting, and spoiled, of course, a most excellent mono-dissyllable.

P. 468.

It lies as sightly on the back of him

As great Alcides' shoes upon an ass:

"i. e. upon the hoofs of an ass."

This comment is at least in unison with the text. The idea of Hercules's shoes (N. B. Hercules wore no shoes) lying upon the hoofs of an ass is every way worthy of ingenious Hibernian, from whom alone it could proceed.

VOL. V.

KING RICHARD II.

P. 46.

My lord, my answer is—to Lancaster.

The editors note on this passage has been already refuted; but if ignorance would suffer him to perceive his error, obstinacy would not permit him to confess it.

P. 72.

I would the plants thou graft'st may never grow.

Gard.

Poor queen! so that thy state might be no worse,

I would my skill were subject to thy curse.

"An anonymous writer suggests that the queen perhaps meant to wish him childless. The gardeners answer shews that this was not the authors meaning."

The gardeners answer shews no such thing: he merely pursues the allusion.

FIRST PART OF KING HENRY IV.

P. 114.

Mordake earl of Fife, and eldest son.

"The word earl," our editor tells us, " is here used as a dissyllable;" but "Mr. Pope, not perceiving this," reads—the earl. ‘"Mordake e-àrl of Fife, and eldest son.’ Mr. Pope could no more have conceived Shakspeare capable of writing such a line, than he could have written it himself: these discoveries were reserved for a second-sighted Hibernian.

P. 142.

Fal.

A bastard son of the kings?

Dr. Johnson, having observed that the improbability of this scene is scarcely balanced by the humour, our Irish editor perceives no improbability: asserting roundly that Falstaff does NOT mistake the prince for a bastard of the kings, but means to inform him at once that he knows him a Poins, notwithstanding their disguise.

The text, which is too plain to be misunderstood by a reader of common sense, will speak for itself, and clearly prove that neither Falstaff nor the hostess knows the prince till he says he is "come to draw him out by the ears." Falstaff himself allows that he did not know the prince was within hearing: but this perspicacious critic, who can see into the midst of a millstone, would be thought to know what passes better than either Falstaff, or Falstaffs creator.

P. 162.

Eastcheap. A room in the boars head tavern.

"Shakspeare," says the editor, "has hung up a sign that he saw daily; for the Boars head tavern was very near Blackfriars playhouse. See Stows Survey, 4to. 1618. p. 686.

No doubt there might be many signs of the Boars head, in and about London, besides that in East-cheap; but why need Shakspeare be at the trouble of carrying a sign from Blackfriars and hanging it up in Eastcheap, where, he must know, it existed already? If the Boars head were not the sign of the Boars head Tavern, in Eastcheap, let the editor tell us what it was. If it were not, Shakspeare might have looked long enough about Blackfriars playhouse before he had found either the Boars head or the Boars head Tavern. The sign which Stow mentions was a Beares head, and he speaks of it—not as hanging at the time he wrote, but—as having formerly been one of the signs of the stew-houses, which had been long suppressed, and which, every one knows, were not near Blackfriars playhouse. See his Survay, 1598, p. 332.

P. 188.

Fal.

I deny your major: if you will deny the sheriff, so.

"An anonymous writer," we are informed, "supposes, that Falstaff here intends a quibble. Major, which sheriff brought to his mind, signifies as well one of the parts of a logical proposition, as the principal officer of a corporation."—"To render this supposition probable," says the editor, "it should be proved, that the mayor of a corporation was called in Shakspeares time ma-jor."

The supposition would appear sufficiently probable although the pronunciation contended for could not be established by a quotation. Every one knows that Mayor is Major in Latin, which would be enough for the present purpose. The proof required can only be necessary for one who has every where betrayed the profoundest ignorance of his authors language, and who pretends to have collated editions, which, if we may judge from the blunders of his own, he has never looked into. The identical pronunciation in question happens, fortunately enough, to be preserved in one of our authors own plays, the First part of K. Henry VI. as printed in the "only ancient authentic edition," the folio of 1623.

Major farewell: thou doo'st but what thou may'st.

KING HENRY V.

P. 508

Flu.

Gots ploot! up to the preaches, &c.

Nothing need or can be added to what has been already urged against this corrupted text and prevaricating comment. See the Quip Modest, &c. p. 27.

How unfortunate is it, how injurious to the memory of this great and admirable writer, that his best scenes should be thus mangled and deformed by a restoration, equally impudent and foolish, of what he himself has thought fit to alter or reject! Such conduct deserves a pillory rather than a pamphlet.

P. 584.

Toward Calais: grant him there; there seen.

"If Toward," the editor observes, "be not abbreviated, our author with his accustomed licence uses one of these words as a dissyllable, while to the other he assigns only its due length."

Arrah! my dear, this will be after mending the matter by making bad worse. The line already wants one syllable, if toward be abbreviated it will want two—and then there will be ten. So that take two from ten, and there remains ten. Our editor is a notable arithmetician in his way: he can multiply one syllable into two or three, reduce two or three to one, and play a thousand such tricks, which neither Cocker nor Breslaw ever once dreamt of. I am apt to suspect, however, after all, that the above observation labours under a capital error of the press; and that, instead of the words "our author with his accustomed licence," we should read "our editor with his accustomed ignorance."

VOL. VI.

FIRST PART OF KING HENRY VI.

P. 22.

Gloster, we'll meet to thy cost, be sure.

"The latter word" being "here used as a dissyllable," we are to read the line thus: ‘Glos-ter, we'll meet to thy cost be su-ùre, ’ than which nothing can be more Malonious—harmonious I would say.

P. 30

A statelier pyramis to her I'll rear

Than Rhodope's or Memphis every was.

Mr. Steevens having proposed to read—of Memphis, as Shakspeare unquestionably wrote, this sagacious Hibernian observes "Rhodope was of Thrace, not of Memphis." Well! and whoever supposed she was of Memphis? But her pyramis was there; which is sufficient authority for the correction.

P. 44.

Enter Mortimer.

Mr. Steevens, from the MS. notes of Mr. Edwards, having observed "that Shakspeare has varied from the truth of history, to introduce this scene between Mortimer and Richard Plantagenet," "a half-informed Remarker on this note" (they are the words of the gentle Edmond) "seems to think that he has totally over-turned it, by quoting the following passage from Hall's Chronicle: "During which parliament [held in the third year of Henry VI. 1425.] came to London Peter Duke of Quimber,—which of the Duke of Exeter, &c. was highly fested.—During which season Edmond Mortymer, the last Erle of Marche of that name, (whiche long tyme had bene restrayned from hys liberty and finally waxed lame) disceased without yssue, whose inheritance descended to Lord Richard Plantagenet," &c. as if a circumstance which Hall has mentioned to mark the time of Mortimer's death, necessarily ascertained the place where it happened also. The fact is, that this Edmund Mortimer did not die in London, but at Trim in Ireland." So far, so good.

This testy critic seems to smart so much from some corrections of that same "half-informed Remarker," that he may be readily allowed to avail himself of every opportunity of abusing him, particularly where he happens to anticipate a quotation which an all-informed editor would have been glad to produce. The passage in Hall (and it is copyed by Hollinshed) would be sufficient, it was said, to justify Shakspeare "even if the fact were otherwise;" and so it undoubtedly is, notwithstanding either the great learning or little scurrility of Edmond Malone. The historian does not, to be sure, expressly say that the Earl of March dyed in the Tower; but no person of common sense can think that he meant to relate an event which happened to a sound, free man in Ireland, as happening to a lame prisoner during the time a particular person was feasting in London. In fact, he does say that this nobleman dyed in prison, and that by such prison he meant either the Tower, or some place of confinement at no great distance, is almost certain, not only from the circumstance already mentioned, but from a passage in the preceding part of his book, where he expressly tells us that "the Erle of Marche was euer kepte in the courte vnder such a keper that he could nether doo or attempte any thyng agaynste the king without his knowledge, and dyed without issue." If he did not mean the Tower, let Mr. Malone say what prison he did mean. To what purpose is it that the actual truth was otherwise? Our author had neither Rymer, nor Dugdale, nor Sandford, to consult, and it cannot surely be expected that he should have gone to examine the record office: He naturally took for fact what he found in History, and if the historian were but half-informed, how could he help it? He was writing a play, not a chronicle. I know, much better, I am persuaded, than Mr. Malone, how little either Hall or Hollinshed is to be depended on in matter of fact. Is the death of Edmond Mortimer of greater consequence than the intended marriage of lady Bona, or the capture, imprisonment and escape of K. Edward IV. both which are absolutely fabulous and without the slightest possible foundation. And why is not Shakspeare, who has adopted these two lying stories, charged with having in these instances "varyed from the truth of history?" The remark was natural enough to Mr. Edwards, who did not know what sort of histories our author consulted; neither indeed is the editors defence of it otherwise, being a pedantic parade of historical knowledge picked up for the occasion, to fasten Shakspeare with a charge which every one must think frivolous, and which he knew to be unjust.

SECOND PART OF K. HENRY VI.

P. 134.

She's tickled now, her fume needs no spurs.

"Tickled," it seems, "is here used as a trisyllable. The editor of the second folio, not perceiving this, reads—"her fume can need no spurs;" in which he has been followed by all the subsequent editors."

The editor of the second folio, then, has had the use of his ears, which is more than can be said of his Hibernian successor. It requires a certain degree of folly, peculiar to this all-accomplished critic, not to perceive—that whether tickled be a dissyllable, or a trisyllable or a quadrisyllable, cannot make the slightest difference; the defect of the line being in another quarter.—According to the hypothesis of our Boeotian editor, we ought to read the line as follows: ‘She's tic-kle-èd now, hèr fume needs no spurs.’ What a pity it is that Mr. Malone does not appear upon the stage!

THIRD PART OF K. HENRY VI.

P. 267.

Prove it, Henry, and thou shalt be king.

"Henry," being "frequently used by Shakspeare and his contemporaries as a word of three syllables," must be thus pronounced: ‘Prove it, He-nè-ry, and thou shalt be king.’

P. 272.

When I return with victory from the field.

"Folio—to the field. The true reading is found in the old play."

The true reading is found in the second folio; which affords one out of many proofs that this edition is not what the editors malice or ignorance has chosen to represent it.

P. 276.

Ms.

The queen will all the Northern earls and lords

Intend here to besiege you in this castle.

"An anonymous Remarker," we are told, "very confidently asserts that "this scene, so far as respects Yorks oath and his resolution to break it, proceeds entirely from the authors imagination. His oath," however, "is in record, and what his resolution was when he marched from London at the head of a large body of men, and sent the message abovestated to his son, it is not very difficult to conjecture."

A little superficial reading, and a consummate stock of assurance authorise this hypercritical commentator to abuse what he does not understand. The "anonymous Remarker," confidently if it must be, asserts that the scene in question, in which Edward and Richard persuade their father to break his oath, had no foundation in history; and gives this reason for it, that, "neither the Earl of March nor Richard was then at Sandal; the latter being likewise a mere child, scarcely more than (if indeed so much as) nine years old:" in fact he was but just turned of eight. How, therefor, does the Irish editor, with all his pitiful caviling and malignity, pick out from these words that York had never taken an oath? And, though he and Warwick did leave London with 5 or 6,000 men, and might send a message to his son to follow them, it was with the kings own authority, to suppress an insurrection against the established government: nor could either his attacking, or his defending himself against, the queen or prince be any breach of his oath. So that the Remarkers assertion, however confident, is strictly true; which is more than this ingenuous Hibernian can always say of his own, which are at the same time very seldom distinguishable by diffidence.

It is not true that the queen and prince were at York, nor do we find from any good authority that they were sent to by the King. Though, if they had been sent to, and, instead of obeying the requisition, had employed themselves in raising a rebellion, it would have been perfectly consonant with the dukes oath and duty to have prevented or quelled it. But in fact, whatever concern the queen might have in the Yorkshire insurrection, she did not return from Scotland till after the battle of Wakefield.

What sort of histories the Irish editor consults I am at a loss to imagine; and as he does not choose to cite them, I shall for once follow his example.[*]

The absurd note at p. 278. being founded in gross misapprehension, or profound ignorance, is unworthy of more particular notice.

P. 289.

So many years ere I shall sheer the fleece.

"Mr. Rowe," we are told, "changed years to months; which was followed by the subsequent editors; and in the next line inserted the word weeks, not observing that hours is used as a dissyllable. Years," it seems, "is in that line likewise used as a word of two syllables."

The reason of Mr. Rowes changing years to months, and inserting weeks was not, as this equally superficial and blundering commentator imagines, purely on account of the measure, but because the king has already mentioned weeks and years, and afterward enumerates months. These two curious dissyllables it must be confessed, help the metre prodigiously: but, in fact, the editor should be expected to rehearse his text to the purchaser, as no one will ever be able to read it without his instructions. The line in question would seem to be accented thus: ‘So mi-nutes, hou-ers, days, months, and ye-àrs. ’

P. 360.

Now brother Richard, lord Hastings, and the rest.

One of the former commentators having, very judiciously, proposed to omit the word lord, our ingenious editor observes that brother, like many similar words, is here used by Shakspeare as a monosyllable, and the metre was to his ear perfect. He should rather have said, that it is so to his own: which indeed, I can as easily believe as pardon; since the gentleman unfortunately labours under a natural defect, to which whoever interpolated the word must have been also subject, though not in an equal degree. The ears of Shakspeare were formed very differently from Mr. Malones. Observe how smoothly the verse will run! ‘Now brò'r Ri-chàrd, lord Hastings, and the rest.’

The editor is unable to perceive the consequences of his own system. The luminous arrangement of his ideas is altogether wonderful!

K. RICHARD III.

P. 569.

When didst thou sleep when such a deed was done?

Q. Mar.

When holy Harry dy'd, and my sweet son.

"The editor of the second folio," says our acute critic, "changed When to Why, which has been adopted by all the subsequent editors; though Margarets answer evidently refers to the word found in the original copy."

The editor of the second folio seems to have understood his authors meaning, which is by no means the case with his "flimsy" antagonist. Why is "evidently" right. How happens it, exclaims the queen, that Heav'n slept when such a deed was done! Margaret, catching at the words such a deed, adds when holy Henry and my son were murdered.

If When were right the queen would be guilty of a manifest absurdity, as the question would answer itself. But an Irish editor must have an Irish text.

P. 588.

What heir of York is there alive, but we?

And who is Englands king, but great Yorks heir?

"Richard," says the editor, "asks this question in the plenitude of power, and no one dares to answer him. But they whom he addresses, had they not been intimidated, might have told him, that there was a male heir of the house of York alive, who had a better claim to the throne than he; Edward earl of Warwick the only son of the usurpers elder brother George duke of Clarence; and Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of Edward IV. and all her sisters, had a better title than either of them."

Either this frivolous commentator is "profoundly ignorant" of the history of the monarch whom he chooses to call usurper, or wilfully misrepresents it. King Richard, it is well known, had as good a title to the crown as the late king William or queen Anne, or the reigning house of Hanover. The issue of King Edward had been bastardized, the duke of Clarence attainted, and himself declared the undoubted heir of Richard duke of York, BY ACT OF PARLIAMENT: and what better title has the present king? It might as well be said that, when he, by his champion, challenged all the world to dispute his right, he did it "in the plentitude of power;" and that they whom he addressed, "had they not been intimidated, might have told him that there was a male heir of the house of 'STUART' alive, who had a better claim to the throne than he!" An act of parliament is of no more force in the 17th or 18th century than it was in the 15th.

Notes

*
I collect from another note (p. 321) where he says that "neither of his daughters was married at the time when Warwick was in France negotiating a marriage between lady Bona and the king," that the learned gentleman is content either with the same historians whom Shakspeare used, or with those who have followed them: Warwick never was in France for any such purpose: as no one but such a "half-informed" note-writer can be ignorant.
↵

VOL. VII.

CORIOLANUS.

P. 193.

"The etymology which Dr. Johnson has given in his dictionary—"MALKIN, from Mal or Mary, and kin, the diminutive termination,"—is, I apprehend, erroneous." MALONE.

Mr. Malones apprehension arises from his ignorance of the English language. The diminutives Wilkin, Tomkin, Jenkin, Perkin, Simkin, &. &c. sufficiently corroborate Dr. Johnsons etymology; and they who know to what the diminutive of Margaret has given a name can be at no loss to account for the reason of Malkin being degraded to signify a mop of clouts, or a scarecrow: neither of which significations, by the way, has anything to do with the text. But such is the absurd consequence of an Irish editor attempting the illustration of an English author.

P. 159.

Corioli.] As the editor makes an uncommon fuss with his pretensions of adhering to the old copy, let him give reason why he has chosen to read Corioli, not only in opposition to his original, but to Shakspeares authority,—Norths Plutarch. This, however, is not mentioned as the only instance he has given us of his want of truth, fidelity, candour, and consistency.

P. 220.

Sic.

You shew too much of that.

"This speech is given in the old copy to Cominius. It was rightly attributed to Sicinius by Mr. Theobald."

Having neither Theobalds edition nor the first folio at present before me, I shall leave the above assertion to its credit. But this I can say, that the second folio, which, if it is not to be called an "old copy," is clearly not a very modern one, gives the speech to Sicinius; and I, for one, do not believe that the first gives it to any body else. If it does, the second folio is good for something; which is more than any one will be found to say of Mr. Malones edition, at the end of a century and a half, should it so long have the unmerited good fortune to escape the figs and pepper to which it is destined.

P. 237.

Because that now it lies you on to speak,

To the people; not by your own instruction,

Nor by the matter which your heart prompts you,

But with such words that are but roted in

Your tongue, though but bastards and syllables

Of no allowance to your bosoms truth.

The editor being as devoid of harmony as one of the long ear'd fraternity, naturally thinks, if he be capable of thinking,—for, as he elsewhere makes his author observe,

—cogitation

Resides not in the man who does not think,—

that all his readers must be as defectively organized as himself. How else could he have printed such execrable hobbling lines as coming from Shakspeare? He will not have sense to perceive the superiority of the following arrangement;—it is not intended for him. To offer him harmonious verses would be literally throwing pearls to swine.

Because

That now it lies you on to speak to th' people,

Not by your own instruction, nor by th' matter

Which your heart prompts you to, but with such words

That are but roted in your tongue, but bastards,

Of no allowance to your bosoms truth.

Prompts you to is the reading of the second folio. The words Though and and syllables have been interpolated by such another editor as himself; as they only serve to make nonsense of the passage. But, indeed, sense or nonsense, harmony or discord, verse or prose are all the same to him.

P. 283.

If you have heard your general talk of Rome,

And of his friends there, it is lots to blanks,

My name hath touch'd your ears.

A lot, here, Dr Johnson says, is a prize. It certainly is so; though our sagacious Hibernian believes him mistaken. Menenius, he imagines, only means to say that it is mo•• 〈◊〉 an equal chance that his name had touch'd their ears: which is precisely the effect of Dr. Johnsons explanation. But, adds he, if lot signifyed prize, there being in every lottery many more blanks than prizes, Menenius must be supposed to say, that the chance of his name having reached their ears was very small: a criticism exactly calculated for the meridian of Tipperary. Menenius says it is prizes to blanks, something to nothing, 20,000l. to a piece of waste paper, &c. A lot is what one gains in the lottery; and our learned editor, no doubt, if he got a blank, would say he had gain'd a loss. Neither Shakspeare, however, nor Menenius was an Irishman.

JULIUS CAESAR.

P. 334.

Are then in council and the state of a man.

Such, it seems, is the reading of the elder copy. "The editor of the second folio omitted the article, probably from a mistaken notion concerning the metre; and all the subsequent editors have adopted his alteration. Many words of two syllables," however, "are used by Shakspeare as taking up the time of only one; as whether, either, brother, lover, gentle, spirit; &c. and I suppose," concludes this profound critic, "council is so used here."

There can be no occasion, I should think, to make any remark upon a note of which the premisses are so false, and the conclusion so foolish. Neither our author nor any other author in the world ever used such words as either, brother, lover, gentle, spirit as monosyllables; and though whether is sometimes so contracted, the old copies on that occasion usually print where. It is, in short, morally impossible that two syllables should be no more than one.

P. 356.

—If this be known,

Cassius or Caesar never shall turn back,

For I will slay myself.

The editor believes that Shakspeare wrote ‘Cassius on Caesar never shall turn back,’ And says, the next line strongly supports this conjecture. He must mean, it is presumed, in the Irish way; as a mere English reader would conclude that the next line totally destroys it. If, adds he, the conspiracy was discovered, and the assassination of Caesar rendered impracticable by "prevention," Cassius could have no hope of being able to prevent Caesar from "turning back; and in all events this conspirators "slaying himself" could not produce that effect.

It is much to be lamented that the legislature has not prevented this misconceiving, blundering foreigner from dishonouring and debasing the margin of Shakspeare by such palpable absurdities. Cassius says, if the plot be discovered, at all events either he or Caesar shall never return alive, for, if the latter cannot be killed, he is determined to slay himself. The sense is as plain, as the alternative is just and necessary, or the proposed reading ignorant and absurd.

P. 376.

Even at the base of Pompeys statue.

If even, says the editor, be considered as a monosyllable, the metre, of which to be sure he is an admirable judge, will be defective. But though it is not our authors practice to make this adverb a dissyllable, yet clearly if we treat it as one, the defect is removed, and the metre exactly suited to "the delicate ears" of this Irish Midas; whose admirers are to read the line thus: ‘E-vēn ăt thēe băse ōf Pŏmpēyes stă-tūe,’

P. 377.

For I have neither writ, nor words, nor worth.

The first folio, by an evident blunder, having writ, is followed by our congenial editor, who does not like to see a blunder corrected. Wit, the reading of the second folio, will receive the approbation of every one who has sense.

P. 383.

Our best friends made, our means stretch'd to the utmost.

We are indebted for the three last words to the conceit of the present editor, who has had the modesty to advance them to the honour of a place in the text. The second folio, from some good authority, no doubt, reads: ‘Our best friends made, and our best means stretch'd out. ’ Which, whether he understand it or not, has an evident and easy sense, and is perfectly in our authors manner. ‘—stretch'd tò the utmost’ is much too Malonish for so correct and elegant a writer.

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.

P. 466.

Go to then; your considerate stone.

Sir W. Blackstone having remarked that the metre of this line is deficient, the editor, with his usual modesty observes that "Your, like hour, is used as a dissyllable; the metre therefore is not defective." Defective? no, certainly; nothing can be more harmonious: ‘Go tō then; yōu-er cōn-si-dē-rate stōne.’ However, as Enobarbus, to whom it belongs, generally speaks in plain prose, there is no occasion for any further attempt to harmonize it.

P. 474.

—Good night dear lady.—

Good night, sir.

"These last words, which in the only authentick copy of this play are given to Antony, the modern editors," according to Mr. Malone, "have assigned to Octavia. I," however, he adds, "see no need of change." He addresses himself to Caesar, who immediately replies, Good night." The first of these "modern editors" happens to be his old friend the editor of the second folio (which he pretends to have collated with so much care), who appears, from this and numberless other instances, to have had a copy of the first folio corrected by the players who published it, or some other well-informed person. That Mr. Malone sees "no need of change" is the strongest possible reason for believing that a change is absolutely necessary. And so it certainly is: Antony has already said "Good night, sir," to Caesar, in the three first words of his speech: the repetition would be absurd.

P. 479.

Ram thou thy fruitful tidings in mine ears,

That long time have been barren.

Though the first word is evidently a misprint for Rain, as it has been given by Sir T. Hanmer and others, the editor suspects no corruption. "The term employed in the text," he says, "is much in the style of the speaker;" (what he means by that is difficult to say;) "and is supported incontestably by a passage in Julius Caesar," which incontestably does not support it at all, the idea being perfectly distinct. The term employed, however, as well as the note upon it, is much in the style of the editor; and it would be a pity to lose any opportunity of laughing at his bulls and blunders; which, it must be nevertheless admitted, are as impertinent in the margin of Shakspeare as a buffoon would be in a church.

Ram is likewise a vulgar word, never used in our authors plays, but once by Falstaff, where he describes his situation in the buck-basket. Though if, in the Tempest, the negligence of a press-man had left. ‘—Heavens ram grace,’ this judicious critic would have supported that authentic reading in the same way. For, as he has elsewhere justly observed, "If such capricious innovations were to be admitted, every line in these plays might be changed." Some people are too ignorant to innovate.

P. 499.

Spake you of Caesar? How? the nonpareil!

"How, I believe, was here printed by mistake for ho!" MALONE.

It was not; and ho, which this ingenuous annotator found in the second folio, is nothing more than an accidental transposition of oh. ‘Oh Antony! oh thou Arabian bird!’ The editor can pilfer, though he cannot praise.

P. 508

Then, world, thou hast a pair of chaps no more,

And throw between them all the food thou hast,

They'll grind the one the other. Where's Antony?

Dr. Johnsons emendation certainly deserved a place in the text; and a very slight alteration would prevent its destroying the metre, which any but our asinego of an editor will instantly perceive. ‘—grind the one the other—’ will never do. The measure is perfect in the old reading, which requires only one syllable for another. Shakspeare wrote: ‘They'll grind each other. Where is Antony?’

P. 575.

Being so frustrate, tell him he mocks us by

The pauses that he makes.

The two last words of the first line are added by the present Irish editor, who observes that "the defect of the metre," of which he knows as much as a superannuated jack-ass, "shews that something was omitted." Former editors supplyed the measure by reading ‘Being so frustrated, tell him he mocks;’ which, it must be confessed, does not afford an easy sense. Shakspeare, however, would never have written the above hobbling line, which has no sort of pretensions to metre. We may read: ‘Being so frustrated, he mocks us by.’

VOL. VIII.

TIMON OF ATHENS.

P. 27.

The ear, taste, touch, smell, all pleas'd from thy table rise.

"The ear," it seems, "was intended to be contracted into one syllable; and table also was probably used as taking up only the time of a monosyllable." This nonsense is to justify the retention of all, which better judges had found it necessary to omit, or rather to change for smell. Mr. Malone reads the line thus, that is, if he can read at all: ‘Th'ear, taste, touch, smell, all pleas'd from thy tāil rise.’

P. 40.

The clamorous demands of date-broken bonds.

The old editions read: ‘—of debt, broken bonds.’ Hanmer and others omit the syllable, which the present editor has thus judiciously restored; being unable to perceive that he was injuring the metre, without improving the sense.

P. 52.

—This slave

Unto his honour has my lords meat in him.

The modern editors have concurred in reading— ‘Unto this hour— ’ as unquestionably Shakspeare wrote. But the corruption, being manifest nonsense, is properly replaced in the present text, where it will find nothing to put it out of countenance.

P. 61.

The devil knew not what he did, when he made man politick; he cross'd himself by't: and I cannot think but in the end, the villanies of man will set him clear.

The meaning, as elucidated by this perspicacious critic is as follows: The devil did not know what he was about when he made man crafty and interested; he thwarted himself by it; and I cannot but think that at last the enormities of mankind will rise to, such a height as to make even Satan himself, in comparison appear (what he would least of all wish to be) spotless and innocent; which seems much more obscure than the text itself. The editor has omitted three very weak notes of Warburton, Johnson and Tollett, to make way for his own nonsense; but why the passage should have required a note, except to inform us that the commentator did not understand it, is not easy to conceive. The devils folly in making man politic is to appear in this, that he will at the long run be too many for his old master, and get free of his bonds. The villanies of man are to set himself clear, not the devil, to whom he is, by ignorant enthusiasts, supposed to be in thralldom.

P. 63.

Your masters confidence was above mine,

Else, surely, his had equall'd,

Our modest Hibernian, after giving an interpretation, which he professes to think wrong, because "a shallow Remarker" has endeavoured to represent it as unintelligible, allows it may be so to him, as the wit of some men (meaning, of course, his own) like Falstaffs desert "is too thick to shine, and too heavy to mount." "This Remarker, however," he proceeds to relate, "after a feeble attempt at jocularity, and saying that he shall take no further notice of this editors see-saw conjectures, with great gravity proposes a comment evidently formed on the latter of them, as an original interpretation of his own, on which the reader may safely rely."

Friend Butler somewhere tells us, there is no argument like matter of fact: we shall presently see who is the thief.

In the edition of 1778, the latter of this ingenious gentlemans "see-saw conjectures" is as follows: "The passage however may be explained thus:—His may refer to mine; as if he had said: Your master's confidence was above my masters; else surely his, i. e. the sum demanded from my master (for that is the last antecedent) had been equal to the sum demanded from yours."

The Remark is: "Your master, it seems, had more confidence in lord Timon than mine, otherwise, his (i. e. my masters) debt (i. e. the sum due to him from Timon) would, certainly, have been as great as your master (i. e. as the money which Timon owes to your master); that is, my master, being as rich as yours, could and would have advanced Timon as large a sum as your master has advanced him, if he (i. e. my master) had thought it prudent to do so."

Very well: now comes "the true explication," which the editor says he "also formerly proposed;" an assertion, if he mean in the edition of 1778, which is evidently untrue. The reader may compare them.

"His may refer to mine. "It should seem that the confidential friendship subsisting between your master and Timon was greater than that subsisting between Timon and my master; else surely his sum, i. e. the sum borrowed from my master, [the last antecedent] had been as large as the sum borrowed from yours."

It must be perfectly clear, that the Remarker could not be indebted to a note which, so far as it is intelligible, seems diametrically opposite to his idea. It is equally so, that the editor has availed himself of the above "shallow" Remark, to vary the expression of his "see-saw conjecture," and give it a sense it would otherwise never have had. Q. E. D.

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.

P. 145.

And skill-less as unpractis'd infancy.

Dr. Johnson says that "Mr. Dryden, in his alteration of this play, has changed skill-less to artless, not for the better, because skill-less refers to skill and skilful. "A very fond and skill-less Remarker, on this note," adds the editor, "asks and does not artless refer to art and artful."

Without interesting myself at all in what I do not profess to understand, I shall only beg leave to say that if Mr. Malone meant, by this piece of insolent vulgarity, to assert that there was any such question in the "Remarks on the last edition, &c. 1785, the assertion is a gross falsehood. He seems to commit forgery for the sake of abuse.

K. LEAR.

P. 583.

Here our learned editor, incapable of distinguishing history from romance, quotes Geoffrey of Monmouth for "an historical fact." In a subsequent page (601) he assures us that "Nero is introduced in the present play above 800 years before he was born." He should therefor seem to have some secret method for ascertaining the aera of persons that never existed, and of events that never happened. It cannot, however, be by means of the black art, as he is certainly no conjurer.

P. 587.

Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave you all.

Father, brother, rather, he has already observed, he says, were sometimes used by Shakspeare as monosyllables: ‘Your old kind fa'r, whose frank heart gave you all.’

The folios read: ‘Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all.’

The poetical reader will judge which line is most likely to have fallen from Shakspeare.

VOL. IX.

ROMEO AND JULIET.

P. 66.

Jul.

Romeo!

Rom.

Madam.

"Thus," says Mr. Malone, "the original copy of 1597. In the two subsequent copies and the folio we have—My niece. What word was intended by it is difficult," for him, "to say. The editor of the second folio," he adds, "substituted—My sweet:" which, being an emendation equally just and beautiful, and, by his own admission, more "tender" than what he calls "the original word," he rejects as an arbitrary substitution, "all the alterations in that copy" being "made at random;" not excluding those which this candid commentator has elsewhere thought fit to adopt.

Madam, which is given to Romeo, in the first copy, by a mere mistake of the compositor, evidently belongs to the nurse, who is supposed to call Juliet from within. Shakspeare, however, thought proper to alter the word to sweet, and give it to Romeo; or indeed one of the speeches may have dropped out at the press. Neece is a palpable misprint.

P. 100.

Hood my unmann'd blood.

"To hood a hawk, that is to cover its head with a hood," we are here told, "was an usual practice, before the bird was suffered to fly at its quarry."

If such a practice ever prevailed, I conclude it must have been in our luminous editors native country. It will appear a very strange doctrine to the amateurs of this savage amusement, that the hawk should be flown at game which it was not suffered to see. The fact is that they, on this occasion, took the hood off.

P. 113.

But thou stew'st Tybalt; there are thou happy too.

"Thus," he says, "the first quarto. In the subsequent quartos, and the folio too is omitted."

Now, reader, be pleased to mark the candour, the integrity of this ingenuous critic. The editor of the second folio, who, he pretends, has been the most arbitrary, ignorant and capricious of the whole set, reads exactly with the first quarto. What say you to this, M. Malone? Is this too an alteration made at random and suggested by ignorance and caprice?

P. 123.

When the sun sets the air doth drizzle dew.

The reading of some editions is—the earth doth drizzle dew—which our editor says is philosophically true, and ought to be preferred.

No one I believe ever before heard of the earths drizzleing dew. The editor seems to have got his philosophy our of Dr. Hills Inspector, which, to be sure, is a very proper school for such a novice. That Shakspeare, however, thought it was the air and not the earth that drizzled dew is evident from other passages.

So in K. John: ‘Before the dew of evening fall. ’

Again in K. Henry VIII.

His dews fall every where.

Again, in the same play: ‘The dews of heaven fall thick in blessings on her.’

Again, in Hamlet: ‘Dews of blood fell. ’

I suppose we are in these places to read earth for heaven and rise or rose instead of fall or fell.

HAMLET.

P. 217.

Lends the tongue vows: these blazes, daughter.

Some epithet, he says, has been omitted in consequence of which the metre is defective. There is not the smallest ground for such a supposition: Blazes is a quadrisyllable. We may therefor read: ‘Lends the tongue vows: these bla-a-à-zes, daughter.’

P. 426.

Of carnal, bloody and unnatural acts.

"A feeble Remarker," as this Herculean commentator elegantly observes, "asks "was the relationship between the usurper and the deceased king a secret confined to Horatio?" "No," he answers, "but the murder of Hamlet by Claudius was a secret which the young prince had imparted to Horatio alone; and to this it is he principally, though covertly alludes."

And, pray, what is all this to the signification of the word carnal? But it is natural enough for a feeble Remark to produce a pitiful cavil from a half-informed hypercritic.

OTHELLO.

P. 445.

—must be belee'd and calm'd.

"The lee-side of a ship," we are told, "is that on which the wind blows. To lee, or to be lee'd may," therefor "mean, to fall to leeward, or to lose the advantage of the wind."

Alexander the great, after listening to the laboured oration of a pedantic philosopher on the art of war, observed that he had never heard a fool talk so learnedly. This compliment cannot possibly be applyed to our editor, who always talks like himself; pretending to know every thing and knowing nothing. One would have thought that every fool knew that the lee side of a ship is that—not on which, but from which the wind blows. The editor has read in the newspapers of a lee-shore, which would be there rightly interpreted, a shore on which the wind blows; but it is so termed in reference to the ship, as being a shore on its lee side. Belee'd is a word formed like becalm'd, &c. and means, as other persons have rightly explained it, that Cassio intercepted the wind of favour or preferment.

P. 537.

Keep leets and lawdays.

"The leet," our learned editor observes, "according to Lambard, was a court or jurisdiction above the wapentake or hundred, comprehending three or four hundreds. The jurisdiction of this court is now in most places merged in that of the county court."

There is, I am persuaded, some misrepresentation as well as some ignorance in this note. As to the first charge, he may acquit himself of it by producing a passage in which Lambard has any such assertion. Upon the second count, Ignorance, he must be clearly convicted. The Leet being a criminal court as well as a court of record never had, nor possibly could have, the slightest connection with the county court, which is neither the one nor the other, and consequently cannot have merged in it. You see, therefor, M. Malone, that your friend Minshew is not always to be depended upon.

VOL. X.

TITUS ANDRONICUS.

P. 388.

Was there none else in Rome to make a stale of.

"The words, there, else, and of, are not found in the old copies. This conjectural emendation was made by the editor of the second folio."

Since our critic has elsewhere shewn (as he says) "that all the alterations in this edition were made at random," and that the editor was entirely ignorant of our authors phraseology and metre, how comes i•; that his arbitrary innovation of no less than three words should have been honoured with a place in our authors text? Because, for once, he has omitted to perceive that Shakspeare used the words none Rome, and other words of that kind, as dissyllables and consequently the metre "was to his ear perfect."

Was noné in Romè to make a stale.

P. 451.

Even from Hyperion's rising in the east.

"The [first] folio," says Mr. Steevens, "reads Epton's; the quarto Epion's: to which Mr. Malone, without blushing, adds, "the correction was made in the second folio;" most inconsistently deserting the only true ancient authentic copies for the arbitrary emendation of an ignorant editor in an edition of no value whatever?

P. 467.

It is observable that our equally modest and consistent critic thinks it "highly probable" that the second scene of the third act of this play "was added by our author:" an opinion for which he has here attempted to ridicule a much more respectable character than himself; and one whose judgment seems, from this instance, at least, to have been altogether upon a par with his own. See the Preface, p. lix.

APPENDIX.

P. 599.

Vol. iv. Tw. N. p. 46. He has observed, he says, that lover is elsewhere used by our poet as a word of one syllable. So, in A Midsummer Night's Dream: ‘"Tie up my lover's tongue; bring him silently."’

Again, in King Henry VIII. ‘"Is held no great good lover of the archbishops,"’ As to the first of these pretended instances, it proves nothing; being only (whatever he may say to the contrary) a misprint for love's. And every one but this sagacious critic will perceive that the other is to be pronounced like what it is, a word of two syllables: ‘Is held no great good lover of th' archbishops.’

P. 643.

H. V.

P. 492.
His nose was as sharp as a pen, and 'a babbled of green fields.

On this difficult passage our editor had one conjecture which had luckily, it seems, escaped him when the play was printing, but he unfortunately recollected it in time for his appendix. It is that the word table is right, and the corrupted word and, which may have been misprinted for in; and thus then the passage will mean—"and his note was as sharp as a pen in a table of green fields." A pen may have been used for a pin-fold, and a table for a picture. The pointed stakes, he adds, of which pinfolds are sometimes formed were perhaps in the poets thoughts.

Risum teneatis? If Shakspeare had had the pointed stakes of a pinfold in his minds eye he would have mentioned it, for though the stake may be sharp, the pinfold is not. But why waste a moment in the consideration of such miserable nonsense? Whoever knew the word pen used for pinfold, or a pinfold placed amidst a parcel of green fields? We have pens for geese, indeed, and pens for sheep; but no one ever before heard of the pen of an ass.

P. 643.

P. 495. "An anonymous writer," we are told, "supposes that by the words—keep close, Pistol means keep within doors. That this was not the meaning," it seems, "is proved decisively by the words of the quarto."

That this is not the meaning in the quarto may be proved decisively by the words of that edition, but the meaning of the folio is to be ascertained by its own: so that the supposition may be right enough.

Such are the observations which I have had to make upon this most sagacious of editors, and his unparalleled edition. I must not, however, be understood to say that I have paid equal attention to all his absurdities. His pages abound with examples of profound ignorance, idle conjectures, crude actions, feeble attempts at jocularity, slender criticism, shallow, half-informed, fond, skill-less, tasteless and unfounded remarks, no less, or possibly much more, worthy of contempt and derision than those exposed in the present sheets. They can only, therefor, serve as a hasty or imperfect sketch of what may be done by others; if indeed either Mr. Malone or his edition be intitled to any further notice. It will be easily seen that, in the course of this investigation, "I have endeavoured, as much as possible, to avoid all controversy;" and Mr. Malone, I am sure, has too exalted an opinion of his peculiar merits, and too sovereign a contempt for those who dare call them in question, to permit that the serenity of his mind should suffer a moments discomposure by the appearance of an insignificant pamphlet; well knowing that "of such flimzy materials are many of the hyper-criticisms composed to which the labours of the editors and commentators on Shakspeare have given rise."

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Title statement

Cursory criticisms on the edition of Shakspeare published by Edmond Malone

Ritson, Joseph, 1752-1803.

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ID [ota]

http://ota.ox.ac.uk/id/3732

ID [isbn10]

110600731X

ID [isbn13]

9781106007315

ID [TCP]

K023576.000

ID [BIBNO]

CW3313895337

ID [ECLL]

0559100800

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Source

— Cursory criticisms on the edition of Shakspeare published by Edmond Malone, Ritson, Joseph, 1752-1803.. viii,vii-ix,[1],104p. ; 8⁰. London :: printed for Hookham and Carpenter,. 1792.. [Anonymous. By Joseph Ritson.] [Reproduction of original from the British Library.] [English Short Title Catalog, ESTCT6426.] [Electronic data. Farmington Hills, Mich. : Thomson Gale, 2003. Page image (PNG). Digitized image of the microfilm version produced in Woodbridge, CT by Research Publications, 1982-2002 (later known as Primary Source Microfilm, an imprint of the Gale Group).]

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