"Speed. Item, 'She is not to be fasting, in respect of her breath.'"

Rowe added kissed; and read,

"She is not to be kissed fasting, in respect of her breath;"

which has been palmed upon us as Shakespeare's text for a hundred and fifty years. Mr. Collier suggests that the addition was perhaps unneces

sary. There's no 'perhaps' in the case: it was certainly unnecessary, and therefore unjustifiable and presumptuous. Launce's "cate-log" of the "conditions" of his sweetheart, says that she must not be made to fast, for fear of certain unpleasant physiological consequences. The text has a plain meaning, and by what right does any man make an arbitrary addition to it?

MERRY WIVES

"Slen. I keep but three men and a boy yet, till my mother be dead."-Act I., Scene 1.

Upon this, Warburton remarks:-" As great a fool as the poet has made Slender, it appears by his boasting of his wealth, his breeding, and his courage, that he knew how to win a woman. This is a fine instance of Shakespeare's knowledge of human nature."

One would like to be a woman for a few minutes to have the privilege of calling Warburton a brute, and feel amply justified in so doing, by this coarse libel on the sex. But the gross misrepresentation of Shakespeare involved. in it, justifies an indignant protest on the part of every one of his readers, of either sex. Where, through the whole wide range of his drama, does he show a woman, worthy of the name, won by a boast of wealth, breeding, and courage? Nowhere. Slender gets on finely by his boasting, does he not! And Fenton, because he is poor and is not a braggart, is utterly eclipsed by his wealthy, vaunting rival! Out on such villanous perversion of the poet's meaning-such low views of human nature! Shakespeare had no such grovelling ideas of womanhood. The knowledge of human nature which we recognize in the works of him who seems to have penetrated by an instinct, and at a glance, the heart of all humanity, is but an exponent of our own intellectual and mora! standard. He holds the mirror up, not only to Nature, but to our natures: and Warburton's praise of his own degraded interpretation of this passage, as a "fine instance of Shakespeare's knowledge of human nature," speaks equally for inferiority of his moral tone, and the dulness of his intellectual perception.

"Host. My hand, bully: thou shalt have egresse and regresse: said I well? and thy name shall be Broome. It is a merry knight. Will you go Anheires?"-Act II., Scene 1.

OF WINDSOR.

Thus the original folio; but this name Broome, kills Falstaff's pun about brooks o'erflowing with liquor; and, as in the surreptitious quarto of 1602 the name is printed Brook, that alias has been adopted in all modern editions. But it is to be remarked that in the authentic copy of the play, frequently as the name occurs, it is invariably given, "Broome." Now it is almost impossible that Brook could have been so often, and without exception, misprinted Broome; but it is quite probable that Bourne, which means the same as Brook (for instance

"We twa hae paidl't i' the bourn)," should have been mistaken in manuscript for Broome. Mr. Collier's folio makes the change to Bourne; and though the world will give up Master Brook unwillingly, there seems to be no reasonable doubt, that he should yield place to Master Bourne.

Of all the many proposed emendations of the last two incomprehensible words in the original of this passage, Hanmer's mynheer, so ably sustained by Mr. Dyce, is the only one which appears to me at all satisfactory. There can be little doubt that "An heires" is a misprint for minheires, a word well suited to the mouth of mine Host.

"Fal. By the Lord, a buck basket," &c.

Act III., Scene 5. Thus the surreptitious quartos of 1602 and 1619; the authentic folio and the quarto of 1630 giving, "Yes, a buck basket." The change was consequent upon a statute made after the accession of James I., which interdicted oaths, &c. on the stage. In this way many passages were modified, and some entirely omitted in the first folio: as, for instance, Falstaff's remark in the fifth Scene of the fourth Act of this play :"Well, if my wind were but long enough to say my prayers, I would repent;"

TWELFTH NIGHT;

"Duke. That straine agen;-it had a dying fall:
O, it came ore my eare like the sweet sound
That breathes vpon a banke of Violets
Stealing, and giuing Odour."—Act I., Scene 1.

Thus this beautiful passage stands in the original. Rowe changed "sound" to wind, and Pope ubstituted for it, South, in which he is followed by the editor of every edition since his day, except Mr. Knight. But what right had Pope to change "sound" to South, more than Rowe had to change it to wind? Would either have been willing to own that he could not understand,

"O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound
That breathes upon a bank of violets."?

But

Upon what ground did they then presume to change it? Because wind or South were better words, in their estimation, than "sound ?" Mr. Knight says the question between these words in effect is, "which is the better word ?" There is no such question up for discussion. If, in place of "sound," there were some word without meaning, or even with a meaning incongruous with the tone of the passage, and both wind and South were proposed as substitutes, then there would be a question, between wind and South, as to which is the better word. "sound" is in the original text. It is, to say the least, a comprehensible and appropriate word; and until Rowe, Pope, and their successors, have taken out letters patent to improve the text of Shakespeare, would it not be better for them to confine themselves to editing it? The carelessness of the printers of the authentic folio, or their inability to decipher the manuscript furnished to them by Shakespeare's friends and partners, affords a field for conjecture wide enough for the reasonable ambition of any editor, without his attempting to improve those passages which are comprehensible. I wonder

that Pope did not perfect his change, and read,

"O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet South.-
That breeze upon a bank of violets,
Stealing, and giving odour."

He certainly had as much right to change "breathes" to breeze, and to call the south wind 'that breeze,' as to change "sound" to South.

But did Pope, or the editors who have followed him, ever lie musing on the sward at the edge of a wood, and hear the low sweet hum of the summer air, as it kissed the coyly-shrinking wild flowers upon the banks, and passed on, loaded with fragrance from the sweet salute? If they ever did, how could they make this change of "sound" to South? and if they never did, they are unable to appreciate the passage, much less to improve it. As Mr. Knight has well remarked, Shakespeare never makes the South an odour-bringing wind. He speaks only of "the foggy South," "the contagion of the South," the spungy South," "the dew-dropping South" expressions, these, not at all descriptive of the wind which the love-sick Duke thought of when he said,

"the sweet sound That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing, and giving odour."*

"Vio. O that I served that lady,
And might not be deliver'd to the world
Till I had made mine own occasion mellow
What my state is."--Act I., Scene 2.

Hear the great commentators of the last century upon this passage, and upon the character of Viola!

*It will be seen that this note does not agree with that at the end of the play; but we have considered it right to lay before the reader the reasons assigned by each critic for his opinion as to the correctness of the reading.

"And might not be delivered to the world.] I wish I might not be made public to the world, with regard to the state of my birth and fortune, till I have gained a ripe opportunity for my design.-Viola seems to have formed a very deep design with very little premeditation: she is thrown by shipwreck on an unknown coast, hears that the prince is a bachelor, and resolves to supplant the lady whom he courts."

JOHNSON.

"In the novel on which Shakespeare founded this play, the Duke Apollonius being driven by a tempest on the isle of Cyprus, Silla, the daughter of the governor, falls in love with him, and on his departure goes in pursuit of him. All this Shakespeare knew, and probably intended in some future scene to tell, but afterwards forgot it. If this were not the case, the impropriety censured by Dr. Johnson must be accounted for from the poet's having here, as in other places, sometimes adhered to the fable he had in view, and sometimes departed from it. Viola, in a subsequent scene, plainly alludes to her having been secretly in love with the Duke:

"My father had a daughter lov'd a man,
As it might be perhaps, were I a woman,
I should, your worship.

Duke.
And what's her history?
Vio. A blank, my lord, she never told her
love!'" &c.

MALONE.

"It would have been inconsistent with Viola's delicacy to have made an open confession of her love for the Duke to the Captain."

BOSWELL.

Variorum Shakespeare, vol. XI., p. 347. And upon Viola's remark, "I'll serve this duke," in her next speech, Johuson adds:

"Viola is an excellent schemer, never at a loss if she cannot serve the lady, she will serve the Duke." Ibid. p. 348.

And this is the appreciation which Shakespeare's labours met at the hands of such men as Johnson and Malone! The 'great moralist' could be so bisson blind as to call the most unsophisticated and self-sacrificing character in the whole range of fiction "an excellent schemer," and attribute to her the formation of a deep design to supplant a lady in the affections of her lover! How this could happen, is incomprehensible; for an appreciation of Viola's gentle and unselfish character is not necessary to prevent such a misapprehension; it needs but to read the text with a reasonable degree of attention, to see that such a supposition has not the least foothold on probability. Malone's

supposition, that Shakespeare forgot to tell us that Viola had started in pursuit of the Duke, and his opinion, that Viola "plainly alludes to her having been secretly in love with the Duke," as well as Boswell's defence of Viola, on the ground that her delicacy would forbid her to tell the Captain of her love for the Duke, are all equally preposterous, and show that all three of the critics were equally ignorant of the subject on which they spoke, and equally unable to sympathize with the character which they grossly asperse, or traduce no less by a pitiful

defence.

Viola is shipwrecked, and cast upon a coast unknown to her: and when she finds out where she is, she asks,

"And what should I do in Illyria?" She had heard her father name Orsino, but had never seen him. In her abandoned and dejected state, she longs to get into the service of a lady who

"hath abjur'd the company And sight of men,"

and not to be "delivered to the world" till her opportunities and her talents had enabled her to better her then forlorn condition. She is told that she cannot get an audience of this lady; and then, perforce, is obliged to seek the protection of the Duke, which she does, not as a beautiful girl in distress, but in the very disguise most calculated to prevent him from taking any personal interest in her. But the danger proves to be reversed. She loves him deeply, hopelessly; and yet at his bidding she goes to his "sovereign cruelty," effects the entrance denied to all others, and pleads his cause with such a fervour, that it would seem she was suing for her own happiness, rather than asking for that, which in her own words, would make her life" a blank." In her disguise she captivates the very woman whose love she has sought for another; and so far is she from rejoicing at this check upon the Duke's designs, or finding a malicious and almost pardonable pleasure in the fatal and ludicrous passion | of her rival, that she exclaims, repenting of her disguise, and pitying her master:

"I am the man ;-If it be so (as 'tis)
Poor lady, she were better love a dream.
Disguise, I see, thou art a wickedness,
Wherein the pregnant enemy does much.
How easy is it for the proper false

In women's waxen hearts to set their forms!
Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we;
For, such as we are made of, such we be.
How will this fadge? My master loves her dearly:
And I, poor monster, fond as much on him;
And she, mistaken, seems to dote on me;

What will become of this? As I am man,
My state is desperate for my master's love:
As I am woman,-now alas the day!

What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe!
O time, thou must untangle this, not I;
It is too hard a knot for me to untie."

And this is the woman whom Samuel Johnson, LL.D. could call a schemer, and accuse of a deep selfish design; and whom Malone and Boswell could suppose in love with the Duke, forgetting, the while, that at the time when they defend her from the indelicacy of confessing her love for him to another, she had never seen him. Malone's supposition, that Viola's beautiful allusion to herself in the story which she tells the Duke of her pretended sister, is an allusion to her "having been secretly in love with him," that is, of course, in love with him before the play opens,-is too absurd to merit notice. Indeed, indeed, the best part of Shakespeare was written in an unknown tongue to these learned gentlemen. If there ever were an ingenuous, unsophisticated, unselfish character portrayed, it is this very Viola,-Dr. Johnson's "excellent schemer," who, wretched and in want, forms that "very deep design" of supplanting a high-born beauty of whom she has never heard, in the affections of a man of princely rank, whom she has never seen.

Thus the Clown's reply stands in the first folio: and yet the editors have changed it to "Dexterously, good Madonna." How natural that the Clown should say, "Dextériously, good Madonna." Why did not the editors, when he replies to Sir Andrew Ague-cheek, "I did impeticos thy gratillity," make him say, 'I did put in my petticoat thy gratuity ?' Notwithstanding the recent labours of Mr. Collier and Mr. Knight, and the too often unquestioning deference of the latter gentleman to the first folio, that text still needs careful collation with the received version, that we may not be the losers by the presuming and ruthless excisions and changes of the editors of the last century.

"Oli. But we will draw the Curtain and shew you the picture. Look you, sir; such a one I was this present."

Mr. Collier's folio corrector would feebly amend this passage by the violent change, "such a one I am at this present." Mr. Singer makes a simpler and a better change, i. e. 'such a one I was as this presents.' But this is only a modification for the worse of Zachary 4 F

VOL. I.

Jackson's "such a one as I was this presents," which was made long ago, and which is the correct reading, beyond a question.

"Seb. A lady, sir, though it was said she much resembled me, was yet of many accounted beautiful : but though I could not, with such estimable wonder, overfar believe that, yet thus far will I boldly pub. lish her."-Act II., Scene 1.

The words in italic letter are utterly incomprehensible; but the sentence is easily understood without them. They are evidently interjectional. All the attempts at emendation, involve a change in the body of the sentence. In all such cases it is better to let the text stand, pass over the interjected phrase, and be satisfied with the body of the sentence, than to disturb that which is clear, and to obtain by it only a diffusion of turbidness through the whole passage, or a substitution of something which is utterly unlike the original.

"Sir Toby. Out o' tune? sir, ye lic."

Act II., Scene 3. Theobald's correction to "out o time?" is

manifestly demanded. Malvolio had said nothing about tune; but he had asked, "Is there no respect of place, persons, nor time in you." Sir Toby, in his drunken confusion of ideas, replies, "We did keep time, sir, in our catches." After further remonstrance on the part of the Steward, and a futile attempt on the part of the topers to continue the vocal amusement which he had interrupted, the intoxicated knight reverts, in the true revolving style of drunken thought, to the remark to which he first re

plied; and again, with comical earnestness, defends the party against the supposed or assumed attack upon their musical accuracy. The text, as it has hitherto been printed, destroys one fine exhibition of the poet's knowledge of the workings of the mind under all circumstances. Besides all this, the substitution of tune' for 'time' is the most natural and frequent error of the compositor when setting up musical matter,' as I know by experience, and as I have pointed out in a comment on Touchstone's remark to the singing Page, in As You Like It, Act V., Scene 3.

"Duke. Give me some music :-now, good morrow, friends:

Now, good Cesario, but that piece of song,
That old and antique song we heard last night;
Methought it did relieve my passion much,
More than light airs and recollected terms,
Of these most brisk and giddy-paced times."
Act II., Scene 4.
"Terms" does not, I think, mean musica!

phrases; nor is it a misprint for tunes, both of which explanations have been suggested by the editors. The Duke speaks of a song, "an antique song." A song consists of both music and words; and this song, which was "old and plain," by reason of the simple sweetness of its air and the homely directness of its words, suited the mood of the lover, more than the "light airs" [i. e. gay, trivial music] to which the "recollected terms" [i. e. carefully sought out expressions] in the songs of those "most brisk and giddy-paced times," were set. "Recollected terms" might well be applied to the words of a song written under the influence of Euphues his England.

"Vio. Save thee friend, and thy music! Dost thou live by thy tabor?

Clo. No, sir; I live by the church.

Vio. Art thou a churchman?

Clo. No such matter, sir: I do live by the church, for I do live by my house, and my house does stand by the church."-Act III., Scene 1.

Upon this passage Mr. Collier remarks: "The clown's reply, 'No, sir, I live by the church,' is not intelligible, if we do not suppose him to have wilfully misunderstood Viola to ask whether he lived near the sign of the tabor, which might be either a music shop or a tavern." This certainly exhibits such a want of capacity to apprehend the humour of equivoque, as fully to justify Mr. Singer's conclusion that "we can now fully comprehend the sympathetic support Mr. Collier gives to the [MS.] corrector's attempts to get rid of similar passages of playful banter, which he had not the capacity to understand."

"Oli. Open it and read it.

Clo. Look then to be well edified, when the fool delivers the madman. By the Lord, madam,'Oli. How now, art thou mad?

Clo. No, madam, I do but read madness," &c.
Act V., Scene 1.

Had anybody, before I read an annotated edition of Shakespeare, told me that a note could be perpetrated upon this passage, I should have believed it with difficulty. How is it possible to avoid seeing that the Clown,-beginning to read Malvolio's letter which commences, "By the Lord, madam, you wrong me, and the world shall know it,”—as he utters the first words, is instantly reproved by Olivia for his supposed profanity in her presence! What is his reply? -"I do but read madness." And yet Steevens says:-"I am by no means certain that I understand this passage, which, indeed, the author of The Revisal [Heath] pronounces to have no meaning. I suppose the clown begins reading the letter in some fantastical manner, on which Olivia asks him, if he is mad. No, madam (says he), I do but barely deliver the sense of this madman's epistle: if you would have it read as it ought to be (that is), with such a frantic accent and gesture as a madman would read it, you must allow vox, i. e. you must furnish the reader with a voice, or, in other words, read it yourself. But Mr. Malone's explanation I think is preferable to mine."

Here is Mr. Malone's explanation, to which his rival so modestly defers:-"The clown, we may presume, had begun to read the letter in a very loud tone, and probably with extravagant gesticulation. Being reprimanded by his mistress, he justifies himself by saying, if you would have it read in character, as such a mad epistle ought to be read, you must permit me to assume a frantic tone.""

To these, appearing strangely enough in such company, on such a subject, we must add Mr. Knight, who says: "When the Clown begins to read he raves and gesticulates; upon which Olivia says 'art thou mad?" After this, whom can we trust, and what passage, how plain soever, is safe from perversion!

MR. HUNTER thus opens his comments upon Measure for Measure:-"Few of Shakespeare's plays give so little pleasure as this. The fault is, in a great measure, in the plot, which is improbable and disgusting. But the play wants

*New Illustrations of the Life, Studies, and Writings of Shakespeare. By Joseph Hunter. 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1845.

character. The principal persons are unin dividualized men and women, and it may be doubted whether they always exhibit the feeling which really belongs to the strange situations in which they are placed."

In this opinion he is sustained by Coleridge, and by Mr. Knight. It is prudent, as well as pleasant, to agree with such critics; but some