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 Scotch woman, 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,

1854, in a paper upon Mr. Collier's recent edition of Shakespeare,-a passage which is but a fair specimen of the critical school to which it belongs. The Reviewer is speaking of those lines in Macbeth, Act I. Sc. 6, in which Banquo says of the martlet,

"Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed

The air is delicate."

In the folio, for 'most' we have must,-a mere typographical error, which any proof reader would correct and ask no questions. But, says the Reviewer, "Mr. Collier in his new edition has 'Where they much breed,' whether upon the authority of "his manuscript annotator does not appear. Much "we should think very likely to be the true word. "Most was Rowe's conjectural emendation." It does not seem to have occurred to the writer that there was no question of whether he thought this or that "very likely to be the true word." If we even go so far as to suppose that much and most are equally adapted to the context, the former requires the change of two letters in the original text, while the latter changes but one, and must therefore, as it gives an appropriate sense, be received without question.

Of a similar kind is the error into which the author of a skilfully prepared paper, in the North American Review for April, 1854, falls, an error in which he but goes astray with some of those who have judged themselves not unfit to become Shakespeare's editors. He admits that it is better not to disturb certain passages, such as,

"Put out the light, and then-put out the light!"

"If 'twere done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well,
It were done quickly,"

Gadshill's "burgomasters and great oneyers," and Dogberry's description of himself as "a rich fellow and one that hath had losses," on the ground that, the expressions have become consecrated, as it "were, in the mind of every loving admirer of Shake"speare, and he will resist to the death any change "in them." He goes on to say-"A similar feeling "(it would be too harsh to call it prejudice) exists "with regard to many expressions in the common

English version of the Scriptures which might be "profitably amended, as they are either ungramma"tical, incorrect or obsolete." Is it not deplorable that intelligent men should advocate the retention of a phrase in Shakespeare's works, not on the grounds that we have the best authority to believe it his and that it conveys a sense consistent with the context, but because people have become used to it! Our Bible is a translation; and if any man be displeased with the "ungrammatical, incorrect and obsolete" expressions in it, and think that he can make a better, he may do it, and welcome: nay there is no canon, literary or ecclesiastical, to prevent the North American Reviewer himself from undertaking the task, which he would doubtless perform with ability and taste. But what has this to do with the condition of the text of Shakespeare,—an original work? If according to the best evidence