It is strange that the historian of the English Stage did not see that these stage directions-for there are several such*-are fatal to the pretence of his folio to "authority." Why was the printed direction only " He stands aside," in the second folio as well as in the first? Because, when the play was written and printed, painted scenery, and above all, 'practicable' trees did not exist upon our stage. When they represented the field of Agincourt, as in the Chorus to the fourth Act of Henry V., Shakespeare himself tells us they did, "With three or four most vile and ragged foils Right ill dispos'd in brawl ridiculous," it was useless to direct a man to mount a tree. Scenery of that sort was not introduced until after the Restoration; and the direction "in the tree," appended to Biron's remark to himself, shows that it was actually in use on the stage when these MS. alterations were made.† In the second scene of the Induction to the Taming of the Shrew, Sly, insisting upon his tinkership, says, "Ask Marian Hacket, the fat alewife of Wincot, if she know me not: and if she say I am not fourteen pence on the score for sheer ale, score me up for the lyingest knave in Christendom." This passage has presented a difficulty to all the English editors of Shakespeare, which could never have occurred even to an American‡ boy. The trouble is in the expression "sheer ale." Hear Mr. Collier: "Malone did not know what to make of 'sheer ale,' but supposed that it meant shearing or reaping ale, for so reaping is called in Warwickshire. What does it mean? It is spelt sheere in the old copies, and that word begins one line, Warwick having undoubtedly dropt out at the end of the preceding line. The corrector of the folio 1632, inserted the missing word in manuscript, and made the last part of the sentence run 'If she say I am not fourteen pence on the score for Warwickshire ale, score me up for the lyingest knave in Christendom.' "Wincot, where Marian Hacket lived, is some miles from Stratford-upon-Avon. It was formerly not at all unusual to spell 'shire' sheere; and Sly's 'sheer ale' thus turns out to have been Warwickshire ale, which Shakespeare celebrated, and of which he had doubtless often partaken at Mrs. Hacket's.” To this, add Mr. Singer's perplexity. He says: "Sheer ale' is altered to Warwickshire ale,' an unwarrantable license, and a very improbable name to have been given to Sly's liquor. Sheer ale was most likely, ale which the Tinker had drunk at his own charge on Sheer Tuesday, a day of great comfort to the poor from the doles or distribution of clothes, meat, and drink, made to them by the rich on that day. But should this conjecture be unfounded, we may perhaps satisfy ourselves that Sheer ale was the name of a pure and potent liquor, as we have stark beer for stout and strong beer, in Beaumont and Fletcher." This, and many similar difficulties of the commentators, some of which are noticed in this sketch, are only amusing to Americans, for whom the perplexities do not exist, because of the survival of good old English expressions and customs with us, which seem to have died out in the mother country. Sly's "sheer ale," is simply 'ale, alone.' He, toper that he is, is on goodwife Hacket's score fourteen pence for nothing else but ale. In the northern part of the United States this use of the word has been common, from time immemorial. We say *For instance, in Much Ado about Nothing, Act II., Scene 3, where the stage direction in Mr. Collier's folio for Benedick, is, "Retires behind the trees." + I cannot, if I would, reproduce all my authorities for minor and well-established points. The reader who desires to examine the facts and documents which establish the time of the introduction of scenery upon the English Stage, will find them fully set forth in Malone's History of the English Stage-in the Variorum Shakespeare, vo. ., pp. 79-109. The reader must bear in mind that the writer of this able Historical Sketch of the Text of Shakespeare is en American. sheer ale, or sheer brandy, or sheer nonsense, or sheer anything. We would say that in Falstaff's famous tavern bill, his bread was but a halfpenny, while there were five shillings and eightpence for sheer sack. We use it in this way, and have so used it beyond the memory of the oldest living men; just as we say sheer impudence, or sheer stupidity-a use of the word which can hardly have disappeared in England. The term implies exclusiveness, with, generally, a taint of reproach and ridicule. Thus, we would say that one man committed an act out of sheer selfishness, but that another's motive was pure benevolence. In Henry VIII., the King, addressing Wolsey, says, "You have scarce time To steal from spiritual leisure a brief span, To keep your earthly audit." The second line of this is altered by the corrector to,— "To steal from spiritual labour a brief span," because, as Mr. Collier says, "if Wolsey enjoyed so much 'spiritual leisure,' it would seem as if he might have time also for his earthly audit." But the change cannot be received, as it proceeded from ignorance of an old use of the word "leisure." It was used to signify, not only relaxation from labour, but time devoted to any occupation: as is evident from the following passage, which I accidentally met with since the publication of Mr. Collier's book, in reading Sir Thomas Chaloner's translation of Erasmus' Praise of Folly, published in 1549. Folly speaks of the difference between those authors who are studious and careful, and those who devote their pens to her. "Besides the hurte thei susteyn in theyr bodies, decay of beautie, marryng of their eyesight, or also blindnesse, together with pouertie, enuie, forbearing of pleasures, untimely age, hasted death, and such like disadvantages, which natheless these wise men sticke not at, so they maye have theyr writinges allowed at one or two of these blereied bokewormes handes. But my Scribes on the other side, have not a little more commoditie and pleasure of their folie. Whereas, taking no greate leysure in penninge of theyr mattier, naie, rather whatsoever toy lighteth in theyr head, or falleth in their thought, be it but theyr dreame, they do put the same straight in writing," &c.-The Praise of Folie. 4to., 1549. Sig. Lii. Here "leisure" is evidently used, but a generation before Shakespeare, to mean the time devoted to labour. It is the same use of the word which is made in a passage in Chaucer's Tale of Meliboeus, quoted by Richardson in his Dictionary. "Wherefore we axen leiser and space to have deliberation in this case to deem." Here the opportunity, or leisure, asked, is not for relaxation, but for the labour of deeming, i.e., judging a case. It is plain that we must retain the original text. "Spiritual leisure," is the time devoted to spiritual affairs. The alterations which show that, before they were made, tastes and usages had undergone a change, to which the corrector wished arbitrarily to conform the text of his author, are plentifully scattered through Mr. Collier's volume. Here are a few of them. First, upon a passage in the second scene of the Merchant of Venice. "In order not to offend James I., the word 'Scottish' of the quartos, published more than two years before he came to the throne, was altered in the folio, 1623, to other, in Nerissa's question, 'what think you of the Scottish lord, his neighbour ?' In the folio, 1632, the word other is struck through with a pen, and Irish placed in the margin, as if it had not been considered objectionable, in the time of the corrector, so to stigmatise Irish lords." But Irishmen were not so stigmatised in England until ten years after the publication of the second folio, that is, nineteen years after the publication of the original text. The rebellion in Ireland broke out in 1641. Again, remarking on a change in the last scene in Hamlet, Mr. Collier says, "The lines put into the mouth of Horatio are these, as they stand in every edition, Hamlet having just expired : 'Now cracks a noble heart-Good night, sweet prince, And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.' "However, it seems to have been thought about the time the abbreviations were made, that the tragedy ought to end with a rhyming couplet, and we may infer that the alteration we meet with in the folio, 1632, was made for the purpose: 'Now cracks a noble heart-Good night, be blest, And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.'" Rhyming couplets at the close of a play are common enough in the works of Shakespeare's contemporaries and immediate predecessors; but the idea that a play "ought to end with a rhyming couplet" came in with the French taste at the Restoration. Dryden's plays in verse invariably end thus; and I cannot remember a poetical drama produced by one of his contemporaries which does not bring up with a similar jingle; which, too, is tacked to nearly all, if not all the prose comedies of that day. A MS. stage direction in the first scene of Much Ado about Nothing, gives Mr. Collier occasion to remark: "Another change in the same stage direction merits notice: it is that the word 'Messenger' is converted into Gentleman, and the manner in which he joins in the conversation shows, that he must have been a person superior in rank to what we now understand by a messenger. Consistently with this notion, all the prefixes to what he says are altered from Mes. to Gent. In other dramas Shakespeare gives important parts to persons whom he only calls Messengers; and it requires no proof that in the reign of Elizabeth the Messengers who conveyed news to the Court from abroad were frequently officers whose services were in part rewarded by this distinction. It was in this capacity that Raleigh seems first to have attracted the favour of the Queen." This custom was not changed in England until long after the time of the Great Rebellion, as all familiar with the literature and manners of the time, must remember :-another incontestable proof of the late date of the MS. corrector's work. To many such, might be added changes of phrase, and other like variations to suit a change of taste; but these are enough to establish the point. There are several instances in which Mr. Collier himself confesses that the MS. corrector made his changes simply because HE did not understand the text. As, for instance, in the passage in Midsummer Night's Dream, Act III., Sc. 2, "Two lovely berries moulded on one stem: he wantonly changes the first line to, and, as Mr. Collier says, "Two loving berries moulded on one stem :" "The heraldic couplet which follows, is struck out by the same hand, probably because, like most other readers, he did not understand it.” Upon a passage in the Comedy of Errors, Act II., Sc. 1, Mr. Collier says, "It is worth while to mention that the line, 'I see the jewel best enamelled,' and the two next lines (the folio, 1632, omits two others in the folio, 1623), are struck out, perhaps, as unintelligible to the manuscript corrector, he having no means of setting the passage right.” Three lines at one fell swoop! Insatiate, would not one suffice? And this, too, merely because they were unintelligible to him; and after the second folio had already cut out two lines more from the original! These are but specimens. And this is emending Shakespeare's text by "a higher authority" than that used by his first editors! That the corrections were founded entirely upon caprice or conjecture, is again evident from passages like the following, upon a line in King Richard II., Act IV., Sc. 1, which are common in Mr. Collier's book: "The folio, 1632, misprints the following line- 'Give sorrow leave a while to tutor me,' by absurdly putting return for 'tutor. This blunder is set right by the old corrector; but it seems as if he had previously substituted some other word, and had erased it. Such may have been the case in several other places where he himself blundered." Again, upon a passage in King Richard II., Act V., Sc. 5, Mr. Collier remarks,— "On the next page, he struck out the whole of the passage in which the King resembles himself to a clock, which none of the commentators have been able to understand: the erasure begins at 'For now hath time,' and ends at ‘Jack o' the clock.' It is to be regretted that the old corrector could throw no light upon this obscure question: it deserves remark, however, that he struck out the word 'watches' as if it were certainly wrong; but, as if he did not know what ought to be substituted for it, he has written no corresponding word in the margin." Some of the corrections which, from their plausibility and apparently easy solution of a great difficulty, have been urged as evidence that the MS. corrector worked, not upon conjecture, but authority, were, unfortunately for this conclusion, made during the last hundred years, by some of the various commentators. Two striking instances will suffice as examples. In the Merry Wives of Windsor, Act I., Sc. 3, Falstaff says of Mrs. Ford, "She carves, she gives the leer of invitation." This the MS. corrector changes to "She craves, she gives the leer," &c., and the simplicity of this correction of a passage which has given learned commentators much trouble, is hailed with a shout of exultation. The new reading cannot be admitted; but it is not my purpose to explain here why it cannot, but merely to show that it required no authority" to make it, whether it be good or bad. It is one of the conjectures of so foolish a fellow-we have seen how foolish-as Zachary Jackson! who thus presented it more than thirty years ago. "Falstaff. I spy entertainment in her; she discourses, she carves, she gives the leer of invitation.' "No doubt Mrs. Ford was an excellent carver, perhaps equal to any in Windsor; and entertained her friends with choice viands: but the entertainment to which Falstaff alludes being that of love, her adroitness in the art of carving is not absolutely necessary. "Falstaff has spied a certain craving in the eye of this merry wife; and as she has given him the leer of invitation, he, in his lascivious humour, says,— The next instance brings in a more important disputant for the honours of emendation. In the Taming of the Shrew, Act I., Sc. 2, Tranio, who has arrived at Padua, with his master, who is to attend the University there, says in the original, "Let's be no stoicks, nor no stocks I pray, Or so devote to Aristotle's checks As Ovid be an outcast quite abjured." Mr. Collier says, "our quotation is the same in all impressions, ancient and modern," and adds: "What are 'Aristotle's checks?' Undoubtedly a misprint for Aristotle's ethics, formerly spelt ethicks, and hence the absurd blunder. 'Or so devote to Aristotle's ethicks' is the line as it stands authoritatively corrected in the margin of the folio of 1632." This plausible and ingenious correction, which I yet think uncalled-for and inadmissible, has been pointed out by others than Mr. Collier, as conclusive evidence that the corrector must have had "authority." But it was made by no less a personage than Blackstone, a hundred years ago, and appears in the text of the Chiswick edition. Mr. Collier was careless. 66 It may not be impertinent to notice here, that several of the most plausible new emendations in Mr. Collier's folio, were suggested three years and more ago, by the present writer, who could not by any possibility have seen the MS. corrections. I will only instance "Rebellion's head" for "Rebellious head," in Act IV., Sc. 1, of Macbeth ; no more flights" for "no more sights," in the same scene of the same play; and "Ne'er knows retiring ebb” for "Ne'er keeps retiring ebb," in Othello, Act III., Sc. 3. These stand with several others, upon a copy of Shakespeare which I have collated with the text of the original folio, Steevens' reprint of the twenty quartos, and the comments of nearly all the commentators-the noteworthy readings and my own conjectures being recorded in the margin. They, with the host of similar instances which appear in Mr. Collier's volume, prove conclusively, that no "authority" was necessary for the suggestion of such alterations in the text. Though I have exhibited the various incapacity of Mr. Collier's MS. corrector, the late date of his labours, and his self-demonstrated want of any acknowledged authority upon which to base his corrections, only by the quotation of a comparatively few passages from Mr. Collier's book, I am yet able to speak of it as a whole, and in detail, from actual examination and re-examination, collation and re-collation, of every change which it proposes in the received text of Shakespeare. Mr. Collier alludes to the number of those changes as "considerably more than one thousand." I can tell him exactly how many there are. Setting aside trivial stage directions, there are thirteen hundred and three modifications of the text of the second folio, proposed in Mr. Collier's "Notes and Emendations," based on the MS. correction in his copy of the folio of 1662. Of these thirteen hundred and three, I have found that at least two hundred and fortynine are old; that is, are either restorations of the text of the original folio, adoptions of readings from the old quartos, or identical with the conjectural emendations of editors and commentators during the last hundred and fifty years. I say 'at least' that number, because, although my collation has been as thorough as circumstances would admit, it is more than probable that many cases of coincident reading have escaped me. Of these two hundred and forty-nine old readings, twenty-nine have long ago been rejected by common consent, as unworthy of the least attention; forty-seven are rejected from the text, but have a certain plausibility; and one hundred and seventy-three are found in the received text. The proposed modifications in the received text, which are peculiar to Mr. Collier's folio, are one thousand and fifty-four in number; of which, judging upon the principles which my readers can see, from the previous portion of this review, have governed me, eight hundred and eighteen, or over eight-tenths-an overwhelming majority-are to be utterly rejected, as unworthy of the least attention, and the fruits only of blind ignorance, patient dulness, and wanton presumption. Of the remaining two hundred and thirty-six, now proposed for the first time, at least one hundred and nineteen are inadmissible, though not unworthy of notice; leaving only one hundred and seventeen, which seem to be plausible corrections, if, indeed, the passages to which they apply need correction. I again say, 'seem to be,' for this number must inevitably be much reduced upon the discussion of the merits of the readings among the best Shakespearian critics. |