It is folly to say that the writings of such a man need notes and comments to enable readers of ordinary intelligence to apprehend their full meaning. There is no pretence for the intrusion of such aids, except the fact that Shakespeare wrote two hundred and fifty years ago; and this seems to be but a pretence; for who needs, for as much as a word in a play, even the glossary which is most superfluously appended to almost every edition of the Poet's works? I believe that for even the least learned of those who can appreciate Shakespeare at all, there is not necessity for more than a half a score of brief notes to each play; and these, purely historical or antiquarian in their character.

I must not be understood as seeking to derogate from the value of critical writing upon the works of Shakespeare; for in that department of literature there exist some of the most delightful essays in our language. My objections are to notes upon his pages, or elsewhere, the professed object of which is to enable the reader to understand the text and apprehend the poetical beauty of the thoughts. These are in almost every instance useless and impertinent: the reader who cannot appreciate Shakespeare without them can do no better with them; and to all others they are either a stumbling-block or foolishness.

These lines are prefixed to the spurious edition of Shakespeare's Poems, published in 1640. As I know of no copy of that rare volume in this country, I am obliged to quote at second hand from the Variorum Shakespeare, vol. i. p. 487.

Let me give two examples here. In quoting this passage from Antony and Cleopatra, in which the Queen having fainted upon the body of Antony is aroused by the cries of her women,

Cleo. No more; but e'en a woman, and commanded,
By such poor passion as the maid that milks,'

And does the meanest chores."

Did

Mrs. Jameson adds in a note-"Cleopatra replies "to the first word she hears on recovering her senses, "No more an empress, but e'en a woman. Mrs. Jameson suppose that any one who could appreciate her charming book could fail to understand such a passage at the first glance? In the same play Dr. Johnson has a note upon this speech of Cleopa

tra's:

"Your wife, Octavia, with her modest eyes
And still conclusion, shall acquire no honour,
Demuring upon me."

The lexicographer informs us that "still conclusion is sedate determination.' What is this but to substitute a water color sketch for an oil painting?

There are certain passages in his plays, and to Shakespeare's glory and our delight they are many, to appreciate the full force of which we must have gone sympathetically on with the poet, and have reached them in the same mood with him. Otherwise we breathe a different air, scan a narrower horizon. The man who stands upon the level of literal prose cannot see the vast, far-stretching, ten

der-hued beauties which his glance takes in who has been borne into mid air upon the wings of Poesy. Such passages as these, it has been, and even yet is, the fashion to pick out and condemn as obscure, nonsensical, contradictory. The critics would do well to remember what Shakespeare's contemporary, good Dean Donne, quaintly says in his Newes from the very Countrey, "That Sentences in Authors, like haires "in horse-tailes, concurre in one root of beauty and "strength; but being pluckt out one by one, serve "only for sprindges and snares." In these snares which the commentators make, they themselves are caught. Shakespeare's plays were written only to be acted, not to be read; and one reason why his audiences found no obscurity in them was that they came to the understanding of a passage after hearing all that had preceded it. The poet had communicated to their minds a glow kindred to that which fired his imagination; and thus, as he wrote, so were they able to "apprehend, more than cool reason ever comprehends." Those who cannot read his plays in the same spirit should never undertake to criticise them. As to the most eminent of his editors in the last century, the baleful influence of whose labors has not yet passed away, they themselves have left us the best reasons for concluding that often, and in the homelier and simpler as well as in the grander and more highly wrought manifestations of his genius, he appealed to sympathies which they did not possess and uttered thoughts which they could not apprehend, in a language which they did not understand.

It is not improbable that the confession of Byron to Moore, when the latter applied to him to explain an incomprehensible passage,-that he knew what he meant when he wrote it, but could not tell then, gives us an insight into the origin of some of the very few obscure passages in Shakespeare's plays, and that if asked to be his own commentator, he, like the poet nearest akin to him of all his countrymen, in the vigor, grandeur, aud picturesqueness of his style, might not himself be able to recollect exactly the idea which in the heat of composition had flashed across his mind. There is a pertinent meaning, too, in the story of the old Scotchwoman, who, when her pastor remarked that she had been very attentive to his morning sermon, and asked if she understood it all, dropped a courtesy and replied, "Wad I hae the presoomption, Sir?" There was not more difference between her mind and that of the clergyman, than between ours and Shakespeare's; and is it not better when the obscurity of a passage is not obviously due to typograhical errors, to allow it to stand unchanged, and to admit that it is possible that he might have written that which we will not "hae the presoomption" to suppose that we can understand?

And there is yet another reason, why these passages should be allowed to remain undisturbed, which will commend itself to every man who has written for the press. It is not uncommon for a sentence to come to us in the first proof so utterly confused, that we ourselves, without the assistance of

our manuscript, cannot correct what we wrote perhaps a day, perhaps a few hours before. It would be strange, indeed, if this had not occurred more than once in the setting up of the first folio,-a volume of nearly one thousand pages, the proofs of very few of which were read at all. In such cases conjectural emendation is equally presumptuous and hopeless.

But in those passages, the clear, calm, well connected flow of which is obstructed only by a single obstinate word or phrase, and the confusion of which is therefore obviously due to accident, we must seek the integrity of the text by conjectural emendation. The proper manner of performing this task will be ackowledged by you, or any other who has filled an editor's chair, to be simply the seeking of the word which best fulfils the conditions of consonance with the context, conformity with the character of Shakespeare's style and the phraseology of his day, and similarity to the trace of the letters in the corrupted passage. Theobald said well, that "in conjectu"ral criticism, as in mechanics, the perfection of the "art consists in producing a given effect with the "least possible force;" and it is to his practice upon this sensible theory, that we owe his many happy restorations of the text of Shakespeare. From a contrary course, resulted the travesties of Shakespeare's works which have been published under the sanction of great names. It has been the practice of editors to give the reading which they preferred; and that this disposition has not died out, is shown by a passage in the North British Review for February,