It is difficult
to understand how a poet could deliberately reject such a line as
'Sleep that knits up the ravelld sleave of care.
to understand how a poet could deliberately reject such a line as
'Sleep that knits up the ravelld sleave of care.
Cambridge History of English Literature - 1908 - v05
261 (#285) ############################################
Length of Texts
261
serious omissions in Part II of Henry IV; in Troilus and
Cressida, King Lear and Othello, they are fairly evenly divided.
The greater completeness of the folio text constitutes it the chief
authority for these variant quarto plays. An exception has to be
noted in the case of Richard III. Here, the omissions in the folio
are trifling, compared with those in the quarto; but textual evidence
conclusively proves that the folio text follows two different quarto
texts and contains systematic alterations. The first quarto, there-
fore, becomes the authoritative text for all except the omitted
passages? Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet are unique in possessing
doublet, quarto texts. The first quarto, in both cases, is very
defective; but, in the case of the former play, the folio text was
derived from the second quarto, while, in the case of the latter,
the folio text was taken from a copy which was considerably less
complete.
The great discrepancies in these texts demand some explanation.
There can be little doubt that they are due, in the main, to the
fact that the defective texts were based on copies which had been
adapted for the stage. From the fact that Shakespeare wrote for the
stage, it must not be inferred that he allowed himself to be bound
by the exigencies of stage performance. The need of adaptation
for stage purposes has always made itself felt in the case of the
texts of plays, even to the present day; and it is highly probable
that none of the longer plays of Shakespeare were ever pro-
duced in the theatre exactly as they were written. There is,
moreover, definite evidence that the plays of other dramatists
were shortened for the stage. It is in this sense that we are to
understand the statement made on the title-page of the second
quarto of Hamlet, 'newly imprinted and enlarged to almost as much
againe as it was, according to the true and perfect Coppie,' and
similar statements in the quartos of other plays.
The references in the prologue to Romeo and Juliet to the
two hours traffic of our stage,' and in that of Henry VIII to 'two
short hours,' fix the average length of a performance. The mere
length of such plays as Richard III, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear,
Troilus and Cressida, Part II of Henry IV, Henry V, necessi-
tated curtailment. Thus, of the long scene in Richard III",
numbering five hundred and forty lines in the folio, nearly eighty
are omitted (including a passage of over fifty lines); the quarto text
of Hamlet omits sixty lines of Hamlet's interview with Rosencrantz
* The genealogy of the text of Richard III is described in an appendix to this chapter,
? Act 19, 80. 4.
## p. 262 (#286) ############################################
262
The Text of Shakespeare
and Guildenstern concerning the players; and the folio text of King
Lear lacks a whole scene, as well as a passage of nearly fifty lines.
Not only, however, the length of a play, but also the number of
characters called for adaptation. Companies were often so thin
that one player had to act two or three parts. A clear case
of curtailment on this ground is the omission in the folio text of
the dialogue between Hamlet and a lord, who comes to urge him
to the rapier contest with Laertes. This is the only occasion on
which this character appears. The folio text of King Lear omits
the conversation between two servants after the putting out of
Gloucester's eyes, probably for the same reason. Sometimes,
speeches are put into the mouths of other characters, instead of
being omitted altogether. In Henry V, Westmoreland's wish for
ten thousand more men is transferred to Warwick.
A different reason for the omission of passages in the per-
formance of a play was political expediency. Both Elizabeth and
James I frequently witnessed stage performances, and a natural
consequence of this personal patronage was a strict censorship of
plays presented before them. Precarious as is any attempt to point
out political allusions in Shakespeare, the magnificent compliment
paid to the fair vestal throned by the west,' and 'her single
blessedness,' would suffice to show that such allusions were, on
occasion, introduced by him. The suppression of the deposition
scene in the first quarto of Richard II was doubtless made out of
deference to the queen's well known susceptibilities on the subject.
In King Lear, Edmund's allusions to the results of the prediction,'
in which James is said to have had some faith, and the reference
to nobles acting as spies in France may have been suppressed on
similar grounds. Portia's description of the Scottish' lord
contains a satirical allusion to the alliances of Scotland with
France against England. After the accession of James, the
players, instead of omitting the passage, altered 'Scottish lord'
to 'other lord,' which is the reading of the folio.
The legal restrictions with regard to the use of oaths and the
profane use of Scripture account for the excision of a great number
of passages and the modification of many expressions, especially in
Part II of Henry IV. A few seem to be omitted in both quarto and
folio on account of their lewdness. Other passages were struck out
by the players because of their inherent obscurity. The corrupt
passages in Hamlet, containing stars with trains of fire,' dram of
eale,' 'that monster custom,' omitted entirely in the folio text,
very likely owe their corruption to the tampering of the players.
## p. 263 (#287) ############################################
Reasons for Defects in Quarto Texts 263
The process of adaptation caused passages to be added as well
as omitted. The clown's duty was to afford amusement to the
spectators after the play was finished; but he was also expected
to add specimens of his own native wit to his regular part in a play.
This practice is referred to by Hamlet in a well known passage of
his address to the players, to which the first quarto adds samples,
'Cannot you stay till I eate my porridge ? and you owe me a
quarters wages, my coat wants a cullison; And your beere is
sowre. ' The fool in King Lear is no mere clown! It is probable
that for portions of this, and for poor Tom's' parts, buffoonery was
often substituted; which would account for the disturbed state of
the text both in quarto and folio in these passages. The omission
of the prologue to Troilus and Cressida in the folio may be
explicable in the same way. The omission from the folio text of
several other passages seems to confirm doubts as to their
genuineness.
The mangled state of the text in the first quartos of Parts II
and III of Henry VI, The Merry Wives, Henry V, Romeo and
Juliet and Hamlet shows another disintegrating factor at work
besides adaptation. Publishers who could not secure a copy of a
play by any other means would employ a shorthand writer to report
it, while it was being acted. This report, naturally, would be very
imperfect; some poetaster would patch it up as best he could,
and thus it found its way into print? . The numerous mistakes due
to imperfect hearing confirm this view of the origin of these texts,
such as 'tigers of Arcadia' for 'tigers of Hyrcania,' 'Cophetua' for
• Caveto' etc.
The first quartos of these plays have been regarded as earlier
drafts subsequently revised by the poet. This theory is plausible
with regard to The Merry Wives, where the quarto contains
passages which evidently do not go back to the same original as
the corresponding passages in the folio, and to the two parts of
Henry VI, which appear under a different title. But the causes
already enumerated are sufficient to account for the state of the
quarto text; and, wherever this is admitted to be not only an
6
1 The difficulty of acting this part has been often felt on the modern stage. Cf.
Macready, W. C. , Reminiscences, vol. II, p. 97.
? Cf. the well known passage in Thomas Heywood, cited post, vol. vi, ch. iv.
A specimen of the stenographer's' work is to be found in the first quatto version of
Hamlet's famous soliloquy:
To be or not to be, I there's the point,
To Die, to sleepe, is that all? I all :
No, to sleepe, to dreame, I mary there it goes, eto.
## p. 264 (#288) ############################################
264
The Text of Shakespeare
adaptation of the supposed earlier draft, but a garbled version of
the adaptation, it is difficult to see how the question of revision
can be fruitfully discussed.
Numerous minor omissions in the quartos are due to careless-
ness in copying either on the part of the players or the printers.
In this way, a whole scene was omitted in earlier impressions
of the quarto of Part II of Henry IV, but restored in later
copies. The very numerous half-lines which still remain in the
text may be attributed to this cause. Sometimes, a passage drops
out owing to similarity of expressions at the beginning and end 1.
The text of the first folio has a more uniform value than that
of the quartos. But, in two respects, it is, on the whole, hardly any
more trustworthy. For the punctuation and metre of the plays,
we are largely dependent on the work of modern editors. In
individual cases, however, the metrical arrangement of the folio is
vastly superior. In King Lear, the verse of the folio, to a large
extent, is represented by prose in the quarto. The duplicate quarto
plays, in which the folio text was drawn from one of the quartos,
afford a test of its conjectural emendations. They are of little
importance and generally for the worse. Where real corruption
exists (eg. 'perttaunt-like,' in Love's Labour's Lost) it is usually
left alone.
Alternative readings are very common in the variant quarto
play. There is sometimes very little to choose between them;
but, in such cases, the folio text is to be preferred, as having better
authority. But, ordinarily, it is better in itself? The quarto text,
though often substituting a more usual word or phrases, occasionally
preserves the unmistakable words of Shakespeare. The in-
imitable 'Love's thrice repured nectarb' appears, in the folio,
as 'reputed'
Some critics have held that Shakespeare was responsible for
6
.
· For an example see Othello, act iv, sc. 2, 74–7.
Thus, the pregnant line in King Lear (act 11, sc. 4, 119) 'O me, my heart, my
rising heart! But down' is, in the quarto, the commonplace 'O my heart, my heart! '
Come unbutton here' (act III, s. 4, 107—8) is, in the quarto, the nonsensical, Come
on, be true,
3 Thus, Othello's striking words (act. v, sc. 2, 13),
I know not where is that Promethean beat
That can thy light relume,
are robbed of their force by the substitution of return' for 'relame. ' Lear's no less
striking epithet, 'cadent' tears, becomes the meaningless'accent' tears.
* Othello's 'She gave me for my pains a world of sighs' (act 1, sc. 3, 159) is, for
instance, turned by the folio into the hackneyed a world of kisses. '
5 Troilus and Cressida, act III, sc. 2, 21.
## p. 265 (#289) ############################################
à
The First and the Later Folios 265
corrections and additions in the folio text of these plays. This
assumption leaves out of account two important facts. In certain
cases, it is unquestionably the quarto text which has been altered,
and which has received additions. Moreover, it is obvious that
these changes could not have been made for stage purposes. They
must, therefore, have been made with a view to printing the plays ;
but it is surely inconceivable that Shakespeare should have made
these minute corrections without also authorising an edition of the
revised plays.
In the case of the doublet quarto plays, the folio text, as we
have seen, is subordinate to that of the second quarto. The first
quarto of Romeo and Juliet is a valuable corrective. In spite of
its lacunae, it was evidently made by a skilful reporter, for it
contains many unquestionably genuine readings, where all the
rest have gone astray! In Hamlet, when the readings of the first
quarto and folio coincide, they are to be preferred. The intrinsic
value of the first folio lies in the fact that it contains the only
extant text of eighteen plays; but its merits are unequal. The
text of some of the plays is as good as that of the duplicate
quartos; that of the rest recalls the characteristics of the text of
the variant quartos. Measure for Measure, All : Well, Cymbeline,
Coriolanus and Macbeth are among the worst texts in the folio.
It is practically hopeless to determine the metre of Timon, in large
portions of which it is impossible to tell whether verse or prose is
intended. Julius Caesar holds the same position among the folio
plays which A Midsummer Night's Dream has among the quartos.
The text is free from any serious error and might well have been
printed from the original manuscript.
The value of the later folios is comparatively small. They take
great liberties with the text, though, it must be admitted, not
beyond those taken by some of the later editors. When the second
folio makes an alteration, this is, as a rule, perpetuated in the third
and fourth. Where the second or third stands alone, it is nearly
always wrong. The fourth folio is not so free in making altera-
tions, except in order to modernise the spelling. Were it not
for the legacy of errors inherited from the second and third, the
1 Thus, Romeo's wisb (act 1, 86. 4, 113),
But He, that hath the steerage of my course,
Direct my sail,
is preserved by it, when the other quartos and the folio read 'sate' for sail. '
Thus, the • fretful porpentine' of the ghost's speech (act I, 80. 5, 20) has greater
textual authority than the fearfull porpentine' of the later quartos, because it is
supported by two independent copies.
## p. 266 (#290) ############################################
266
The Text of Shakespeare
fourth would often be nearer a modern text than either. The
later folios, however, have all made some happy restorations of
the text'. In the case of the variant quarto plays, where a later
folio agrees with the quarto against the first, we have a better
attested reading. There are some remarkable cases of this co-
incidence?
One cause of variation between the different quarto and folio
texts remains to be noted. It is the most prolific and the most
modern of all the mistakes of editor and printer.
Special causes for these mistakes are to be found, first, in
differences of spelling in vogue in the Elizabethan age, e. g. 'antique’
and 'antick,' rights' and 'rites,' 'symboles' and 'cymbals. ' Again,
an uncommon word sometimes caused the substitution of one more
usual: ‘moe' and 'more'; 'intentively' and 'instinctively'; 'foy-
sons' and 'poisons'; 'prescience and patience”; “unprevented'
and 'unprepared. ' This practice was a thoroughly characteristic
licence at a time when an editor had no hesitation in substituting
a word which he considered more suitable to the context—'unprofit-
able' for 'improbable'; 'the way to study death' for 'the way to
dusty death'; 'phlegmatick' for 'choleric. ' Thirdly, contractions
commonly used in manuscripts often caused variations in the endings
of words : 'h'as’and 'hath'; wº=which ; yº=the; y'= that; y'=thou
or you; I = ay; 'ignomie' and 'ignominy'; 'conster' and 'con-
strue. ' The abbreviation 'L' doubtless accounts for such variations
as 'liege' and 'lord. ' Finally, there were the ordinary misprints
with which everyone is familiar-due to the dropping out of
letters (“contradict' and 'contract'; 'remuneration' and remura-
tion'); to the omission of words (“his trusty Thisby's' Qq, ‘his
Thisby's' F. , ‘his gentle Thisby's' F, F, F. ); to wrong letters ('Loue'
Q. (Duke of Devonshire's copy), 'Ioue' Qı, 'Ioane' F, F. , 'Joan'
F, F. ); to wrong punctuation (the first folio reads Dispatch
Enobarbus. ' As Enobarbus is not present, the second, third and
fourth read 'Dispatch Eros. ' The right punctuation solves the
‘
difficulty: 'Dispatch. Enobarbus! '); to permutation of letters
(‘Athica' for 'Ithaca'); to repetition of letters ('involverable' Fi,
>
6
1)
>
2,
1 One of the best is to be found in Coriolanus (act 11, sc. 3, 18). The third citizen
says: 'not that our heads are, some brown, some black, some auburn, some bald, but
that our wits are so diversely coloured. ' The fourth folio was the first to suggest
'auburn' for · Abram,' which is read by the first three.
Thus, an uncommon word 'renege' is restored by the second folio in King Lear,
act 11, sc. 2, 73, where the first folio reads Revenge' and the quartos bave 'Reneag. '
In Othello, act v, sc. 2, 350, ‘base Indian,' the reading of the quartos and later folios,
has greater textual authority than the base Judean' of the first folio.
2
4
7
## p. 267 (#291) ############################################
4
Early Editors: Rowe 267
'invaluerable' F, F, F. , for 'invulnerable'). Such is the process by
which the text of Shakespeare has been evolved—a process pre-
cisely similar to that undergone by any classical text. The
quartos and folios represent the work of copyists—that of editing
follows.
The subsequent history of Shakespeare's text falls, naturally,
into two divisions—a period of conjecture, during which the great
bulk of accepted emendations were made, and a period of con-
solidation, in which a fuller knowledge of the old copies and a
firmer grasp of textual principles combined to produce the received
text of today.
It was fitting that a poet laureate should be the first to give to
the world an edition of Shakespeare—whether or not poetic gifts
are an advantage to an editor. At all events, Nicholas Rowe
(1709)' was engaged on a more profitable task when he attempted
to edit the works, than when he endeavoured to emulate the style,
of Shakespeare. Rowe's main object, as Johnson says, was to
publish an edition of Shakespeare, 'like those of his fraternity,
with the appendages of a life and a recommendatory preface. ”
Therefore, it is not surprising that his work shows little critical
method. He based his text on the latest and worst copy-the
fourth folio. This error affected all editions before Capell, for
each of the succeeding editors was as uncritical as Rowe in basing
his text on the edition immediately preceding his own. Although
Rowe says, 'I have taken some care to redeem him from the
injuries of former impressions, and speaks of comparing the
several editions,' he can hardly have possessed any acquaintance
with old copies. His corrections of the fourth folio, sometimes,
coincide with the readings of the first, as where he reads 'dread
trident' for 'dead trident' of the later folios. In general, however,
he follows the fourth, even where the first obviously contains the
genuine reading. He occasionally consulted a late quarto: textual
evidence shows that he used the quarto of 1676 for the additions
in Hamlet. His alterations were made simply with a view to
.
rendering the plays more intelligible, and he did much useful
pioneer work to this end. His knowledge of the stage enabled
him to add lists of dramatis personae to each play, to supply
stage directions and to make divisions into acts and scenes,
which, to a large extent, have been followed by modern editors.
Many proper names were restored by him (as 'Plutus' for Platus ').
· The date mentioned, in each case, is that of the first edition.
6
## p. 268 (#292) ############################################
268
The Text of Shakespeare
<
Others, which had been manufactured by his predecessors, were
unmasked (thus 'Cyprus' grove becomes 'cypress'). Thanks to
his linguistic attainments, he was able to make sense of a good
deal of nonsense, which did duty in the folios for French or Italian.
Dr Caius's 'green-a-box' of ointment appears in the folios as
‘unboyteene' instead of 'un boitier,' as in Rowe. But his work
for the text rises above that of a proof corrector. Some of his
conjectures deserve a place beside those of his more eminent
successors. Few quotations are more firmly established than
'Some are born great. ' (The folios have are become. ') And the
temple-haunting martlet’ in Macbeth is not likely to be ousted
from the place occupied in the folios by 'Barlet. '
No one will dispute Rowe's modest claim that he has rendered
many places intelligible that were not so before. It is his unique
distinction that he did not stir up any controversy. His emenda-
tions were silently introduced into his text, and as silently
appropriated by his successors.
To Pope belongs the unenviable distinction of having intro-
duced into the study of Shakespeare's text that controversial
acrimony of which echoes were heard far on into the nineteenth
century. But his edition (1723—5) is quite free from this blemish.
Instead of expanding his notes, which are models of brevity, he
curtailed the text to suit his 'private sense,' and filled his margin
with rejected passages. Some of these, it is true, were no great
loss, though Pope was hardly qualified for expurgating Shakespeare.
Others, however, seriously interfere not only with the sense, but
with the conceptions of the dramatist. Mercutio is robbed whole-
sale of his jests. Much of Caesar's distinctive braggadocio is
struck out. Again, the porter's soliloquy in Macbeth is dispensed
with, and so are several lines of Richard's soliloquy before
the battle. Romeo and Juliet fares worst of all; many passages
being omitted on the pretext that they do not occur in the
defective first quarto, while others are inserted because they
appear in the second, and others, again, are struck out simply
because they are ‘nonsense' or 'trash' or 'ridiculous.
It is difficult
to understand how a poet could deliberately reject such a line as
'Sleep that knits up the ravelld sleave of care. ' Occasionally, a
line is dropped out altogether, without warning or comment.
Pope's text is further marred by hundreds of verbal alterations
for which no justification is even attempted. A small proportion
of these may be regarded as legitimate conjectures; but the great
majority are arbitrary corrections, not of copyists' errors, but of
>
## p. 269 (#293) ############################################
6
Pope's Merits and Shortcomings 269
Shakespeare's own composition. We are left to guess the reasons
for his changes. In many instances, they are obviously made to
harmonise the metre with the ideal of rigid uniformity which
dominated the Augustan age (“brest' for 'bosom,' lady' for
'gentlewoman,' 'foes' for 'enemies'). Monosyllables are omitted
or inserted with the utmost licence to produce a regular line.
Uncommon forms of expression, or words employed in an unusual
sense, are rarely allowed to stand. (The ‘untented woundings of
a father's curse' become 'untender'; 'I owe you no subscription
;
is altered to submission'; 'to keep at utterance,' that is, to the
last extremity, has to make way for 'to keep at variance. ') Such
reckless alterations have obscured Pope's real contribution to the
study of Shakespeare's text. Compared with the work of Rowe,
his services may justly be called great. That he thoroughly under-
stood the nature of his task is abundantly clear. His preface-the
only part of his work which he brought to perfection-contains a
careful and accurate characterisation of the quarto and folio texts.
The theory that 'the original copies,' referred to by the editors of
the first folio, were 'those which had lain ever since the author's
day in the play-house, and had from time to time been cut or added
to arbitrarily,' is there found for the first time. Pope evinces an
acquaintance with all the most important quarto texts. If he was
too ready to suspect interpolations, nevertheless he was respon-
sible for the insertion of most of the passages in the variant quarto
plays, which were omitted in the first folio. Although he made
havoc of the text of Romeo and Juliet by his excisions, he
instinctively introduced a number of undoubtedly genuine readings
from the first quarto. He has often unravelled Shakespeare's verse
from the prose of the old copies, and in almost every play the
metrical arrangement of the lines owes something to him. Many
of his conjectures have been generally accepted. He restored a
realistic touch in "Tarquin's ravishing strides' where the first folio
has 'sides, and he recovered Falstaff's 'oeillades' from the 'illiads'
of all the folios. On the other hand, the cause of Pope's failure is
revealed in his own phrase : 'the dull duty of an editor. ' He had
been invited to undertake the work as the first man of letters of
his day; and he deals with the text in the spirit of a dictator. But
the laborious task of collating texts could not be accomplished by
the sheer force of poetic genius. Had he possessed an army of
collaborators for doing the drudgery, Pope's edition of Shakespeare
might have achieved as great a success as his translation of Homer.
As it was, the work was only half done.
a
## p. 270 (#294) ############################################
270
The Text of Shakespeare
Yet it might still have brought him some fame, had it not been
doomed to pass through the ordeal of criticism at the hands of one
who has few rivals as a textual critic. All its defects were laid
bare by Lewis Theobald in his Shakespeare Restored (1726). No
one could read this work-monumental in the history of Shake-
speare's text—without acknowledging that here, at any rate, Pope
had met more than his match. Pope was too wise to attempt to
defend himself against criticism, which he, better than anyone else,
knew to be unanswerable. In his second edition, he calmly adopted
many of Theobald's corrections; and, then, he began a campaign of
misrepresentation and abuse which culminated in his making
Theobald the hero of The Dunciad. The power of satire, wielded by
genius, has never been more strikingly displayed. Pope's caricature
of the foremost of all textual critics of Shakespeare as a dull,
meddling pedant without salt or savour not only led astray the
judgment of the sanest critics of the eighteenth century, but
infected the clear reason of Coleridge, and has remained the current
estimate to this day. Theobald's method of retaliation was un-
fortunate. He remained silent while Pope was exhausting every
mean device to ruin his projected edition. But, when that edition
(1733) became a triumphant fact, he emptied the vials of his wrath
into his notes. Those who are aware of the unprecedented provoca-
tion which he received and of the superiority of which he must
have been conscious find no difficulty in acquitting him; but the
majority who read only Theobald's notes must perforce join with
Johnson in condemning his 'contemptible ostentation. ' Every
correction adopted by Pope from Shakespeare Restored in his
second edition is carefully noted, although Theobald himself ap-
propriated many of Pope's conjectures without acknowledgment.
Every correction of Theobald's own, if but a comma, is accompanied
by shouts of exultation and volleys of impotent sarcasm. But
he overreached himself. Though smarting under the 'flagrant
civilities' which he received from Pope, he paid him the un-
intentional compliment of taking his text as the basis of his own.
Had he been as anxious to adhere faithfully to his authorities as
he was eager to dilate on the faithlessness of Pope, he would
hardly have fallen into the error of following the edition which he
himself classed as of no authority. ' It has sometimes been stated
'
that Theobald based his text on the first folio. But the very
numerous instances in which he has perpetuated Pope's arbitrary
alterations in his own text show that this was not the case. Yet
the multitude of readings which he restored both from the quartos
6
## p. 271 (#295) ############################################
Theobala.
Hanmer
271
and from the first folio largely neutralised the effect of this error! It
is in dealing with real corruption that Theobald is seen at his best,
and remains without a rival. His acuteness in the detection of
errors is no less admirable than is the ingenuity shown in their
correction. His thorough knowledge of Shakespearean phraseology,
his sound training in 'corrupt classics,' and also his fine poetic
taste, were qualifications which contributed to his success. The
importance of Theobald's conjectures may be gathered from the
words of the editors of The Cambridge Shakespeare: ‘Where the
folios are all obviously wrong, and the quartos also fail us, we
have introduced into the text several conjectural emendations ;
especially we have often had recourse to Theobald's ingenuity? . ?
It is not surprising that the gift of conjecture revealed in these
brilliant restorations led Theobald to make many unnecessary
changes in the text.
Some of these abortive attempts were adopted by Sir Thomas
Hanmer in his edition (1744), which was based, however, on that of
Pope. He provided an édition de luxe for gentlemen of his own
class. The print and binding were magnificent, and caused its
value to rise to nine guineas, when Warburton's edition was going
for eighteen shillings. Pope has celebrated this, its chief feature,
in the well known picture of Montalto and his 'volume fair:
On its title-page, the text is said to have been carefully revised
and corrected by the former editions'; but there is no evidence
that the old copies were consulted. Hanmer is nearer the mark
when he says in the preface that it was only 'according to the best
1 One example may be taken out of hundreds. Bolingbroke compares the meeting
of himself with king Richard to that
Of fire and water, when their thundering shock
At meeting, tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven.
This is the reading of the first quarto. The later quartos, followed by the folios and
Rowe and Pope, read 'smoak' (smoke) for shock. ' Theobald's note reads : This is
the first time, I believe, we ever heard of a thundering smoak: I never conceived
anything of a more silent nature. But this is a nostrum of the wise editors, who
imagine, I presume, that the report and thundering of a cannon proceed from the
“smoak” and not from the explosion of the powder. '
? We could hardly imagine the fat knight dying unless a' babbled o' green fields. '
Yet this touch of mingled humour and pathos is due to the bold and brilliant con-
jecture of Theobald-bold, because the quartos entirely omit the passage ; brilliant,
because never did an emendation more aptly fit both text and context. The folios
read and a table of green fields. ' No less brilliant, though less familiar, is the
restoration of the true poetry of Shakespeare in the image of the opening flower which
dedicates its beauty to the sun. ' Quartos and folios read 'same. ' The very name
of the 'weird ' sisters comes from him. He did not think the weyward' of the folios
& very suitable epithet, and, on searching Holinshed, he found the word which, doubt-
less, Shakespeare used.
3 The Dunciad, bk. iv, 11. 105 ff.
6
## p. 272 (#296) ############################################
272
The Text of Shakespeare
of his judgment' that he attempted 'to restore the genuine sense
and purity' of the text. He relegated to the bottom of the page
all the passages which Pope had thus degraded, and added several
others, thinking it a pity that ‘more had not then undergone the
same sentence. His emendations are numerous, and are generally
made in the reckless spirit of Pope ; but his natural acuteness
produced some conjectures of value? William Warburton had
corresponded with both Theobald and Hanmer on the text of
Shakespeare. He had sympathised with the former in his con-
troversy with Pope, whom in some of his letters he attacked
with such vigour that, had Pope been acquainted with them, the
subsequent friendship between them would have been impossible.
Theobald inserted some of Warburton's conjectures in his text, and
printed his notes with his name. After the appearance of
Theobald's edition, Warburton thought it well to quarrel with him;
he also quarrelled with Hanmer, when he discovered that he was
contemplating an edition of Shakespeare. In the preface to his
own edition (1747), he accused both of plagiarism, a charge which
might have been made with more justice against his own edition.
He eulogised Pope, whose name he placed by the side of his own on
the title-page, only, however, to depart from his text; while he
denounced Theobald, only to adopt his edition as a basis. The
title-page blatantly boasts that the Genuine Text (collated with
all the former editions, and then corrected and emended) is here
settled. ' If we naturally wonder how the genuine text' can
require correction, all wonder ceases when we have become ac-
quainted with Warburton's methods. His knowledge of the old
copies was mostly gained from Pope and Theobald. In the opening
scene of King Lear, he comments on Theobald's reading “'tis our
fast intent'--'this is an interpolation of Mr Lewis Theobald, for
want of knowing the meaning of the old reading in the quarto of
1608, and first folio of 1623; where we find it "tis our first intent. ""
Unfortunately for Warburton's reputation, Theobald’s ‘interpola-
tion' is simply the reading of the first folio. His ignorance of the
old texts is only exceeded by his ignorance of Shakespeare's
language. His conjectures would furnish a curiosity shop of
unused and unheard of words. He strains at a gnat, it may be,
and then swallows his own camel. 'Following' is changed to
'follying,' which we are told means 'wantoning '; 'jewel' becomes
1 Polonius's • I'll sconce me even here,' is due to Hanmer's conjecture for silence,"
and Helena's Yours would I catch,' for the reading of the quartos and folios, ‘Your
words I catch,' in A Midsummer Night's Dream.
## p. 273 (#297) ############################################
Warburton and Johnson
273
<
6
>
>
'gemell,' from the Latin gemellus a twin'; 'Venus' pigeons' ought
to be called 'Venus' widgeons'; for 'beauty's crest,' Shakespeare,
without question, wrote “beauty's crete' i. e. beauty's white, from
creta ; 'shall damp her lips'is nonsense which should read shall
trempe' i. e. moisten, from French tremper ; Lear's 'cadent tears'
should be candent' i. e. hot. For 'black-corner'd night,' we must
read 'black-cornette' night, cornette being a woman's headdress
for the night. 'My life itself and the best heart of it’is denounced
as a 'monstrous' expression. The heart is supposed the seat of
life; but as if he had many lives and to each of them a heart, he
says his “best heart. ” A way of speaking that would become a
cat rather than a king. '
Bentley is reported to have said that Warburton was a man of
'monstrous appetite but very bad digestion. ' At any rate, this
description is true of his work as an editor. There is, however, a
.
halfpennyworth of bread with this intolerable deal of sack. 'Like
a God, kissing carrion' of the sun, in Hamlet, Johnson called a
‘noble' emendation for the 'good kissing carrion' of the quartos
and folios. "The wolf behowls the moon,' for 'beholds'; 'eyeless
night' for 'endless night,' and 'gentle fine' for 'gentle sin,' are
other favourable specimens. But, in spite of these, Warburton's
false criticism of Theobald, that'he left his author in a ten times
worse condition than he found him,' is not far from the mark, when
applied to his own performance. Warburton's edition was very
effectively criticised by 'Another gentleman of Lincoln's Inn'-
Thomas Edwards—who made 'tragical mirth' out of his genuine
text. ' John Upton, Zachary Grey and Benjamin Heath also joined
in the onslaught.
Nearly twenty years elapsed before another edition appeared.
But there were two men busy with the text, in the interval. One
was Samuel Johnson ; though his critics were wondering when the
subscribers would get their book? . It appeared, at last, in 1765.
The text was based on Warburton's edition ; but all his ama
Meryóueva were carefully excised. Il as Johnson was equipped
physically for the arduous work of collating texts, he was responsible
for restoring many readings from the old copies, which had escaped
Theobald's vigilance. Some of these are of the minutest character
(such as ‘momentany' for 'momentary,' 'fust' for 'rust'). He
also brought back several passages from the quartos, which were
1
1
He for subscribers baits his hook
And takes your cash, but where's the book ?
Churchill, The Ghost, book 11.
CH. XI.
18
E. L. V.
## p. 274 (#298) ############################################
274
The Text of Shakespeare
wanting in the folio. He made no striking conjectures, but several
useful emendations by him have passed into the text of today.
He was attacked with uncalled-for vehemence by William Kenrick,
who undertook to expose his 'ignorance or inattention. ' As a
matter of fact, Johnson's text had a distinct value, due to his own
restorations; this, however, was speedily eclipsed by the publica-
tion of Capell’s edition in 1768.
Scientific criticism of the text begins with Edward Capell. He
was the first to base his text actually on the quartos and folios;
and later editors, even when they go back to the original authorities,
owe an incalculable debt to his painstaking and remarkably
accurate collation of the old copies. Ever since the publication of
Hanmer's edition, Capell had been silently laying his foundations.
He is said to have transcribed the whole of Shakespeare ten times.
His services, like those of Theobald, have been greatly underrated.
An involved style obscured the value of his preface, quite the best
piece of textual criticism in the eighteenth century. An unfor-
tunate method, which caused him to avoid noting anything at the
foot of the page, except the original reading which had been
changed in the text, failed to reveal the prodigious labour which
he underwent to form his text, and transferred the credit of it to
others. His discrimination between the quarto and folio texts, on
the whole, is remarkably accurate. He rightly gave the preference
to the first quarto in the case of the duplicate quarto plays; but
he certainly underestimated the value of the folio text when he
said that the faults and errors of the quarto are all preserved in
the folio, and others are added to them: and what difference there
is, is generally for the worse on the side of the folios. ' He did not,
however, act on this opinion, for he often adopts the folio reading,
after taking the quarto as his basis. He made a thorough in-
vestigation of Shakespeare's versification, and his arrangements of
lines are often those which are now generally adopted? . His care
for the metre led him to introduce many words into the text.
In fact, he was far too free in introducing conjectures. The
original readings are always given at the bottom of the page ; but
neither these nor the conjectures are assigned to any one. Although
he adopted the most important of Theobald's conjectures, it is re-
markable that he should speak of Theobald's edition as 'only a little
better than Pope's by his having a few more materials, of which he
was not a better collator than the other, nor did he excel him in
1 An example is to be found in the opening scene of Hamlet, "Give you good
night,' etc.
6
6
9
## p. 275 (#299) ############################################
Steevens and Malone
275
use of them. ' His own conjectures (distinguished by black type),
as a rule, are not happy; but there was no justification for Johnson's
slighting opinion that his abilities were just sufficient to select
the black hairs from the white for the use of the periwig
makers. Three quarto volumes of notes published after his
death gave some idea of the labour which his neat little edition
had cost.
George Steevens, who, in 1766, had done good service by
printing twenty old quartos, was, in 1773, associated with Johnson
in bringing out a new edition of Shakespeare. The text of this
edition was the best that had yet appeared. It contained all the
most important conjectures hitherto made, and, owing to the
removal of many unnecessary emendations which Capell had intro-
duced, was more faithful to the original copies than that editor's
text had been. But it is quite certain that Capell's text formed
the basis of Steevens's collation, and that to it was largely due the
accuracy of the resultant text. In his advertisement, Steevens says
The Second Part of King Henry VI is the only play from that [Capell's]
edition which has been consulted in the course of this work; for as several
passages there are arbitrarily omitted, and as no notice is given when other
deviations are made from the old copies, it was of little consequence to
examine any further. This circumstance is mentioned, lest such accidental
coincidences of opinion, as may be discovered hereafter, should be interpreted
into plagiarism.
The criticism of Capell's text here offered by Steevens is sheer
misrepresentation. The only passages' omitted by Capell are a
few lines inserted by Theobald from the defective quarto and also
omitted by Malone and the editors of The Cambridge Shakespeare.
All Capells deviations from the folio, except the most trifling, are
scrupulously noted by him. Thus, Steevens's statement as to the
use made by him of Capell's text, while suspicious in itself, must
be altogether rejected ; as a matter of fact, he follows Capell, in
the main, even to his punctuation, and also adopts some of his
conjectural emendations.
A second edition of Johnson and Steevens's text appeared in
1778, Edmond Malone contributing an Essay on the Chronology of
Shakespeare's Plays and a few notes. In 1780, he published a
supplement to this edition, containing the Poems and an intimation
of his intention to bring out a new edition of the whole of the
poet's works. Steevens had now retired from the field and cast
his mantle on Isaac Reed, who brought out the third edition in
1785. To this, Malone contributed some notes occasionally
opposing the dicta of Steevens, whereupon the latter demanded
18--2
## p. 276 (#300) ############################################
276
The Text of Shakespeare
that his original notes should be printed word for word in any
future edition. Malone, of course, would not listen to such a pro-
posal, and the usual separation ensued. Malone's edition appeared
in 1790. There can be no doubt that he went back to the old
copies for his text, which shows a scrupulous fidelity to the quartos
and folios, and a preference for the first folio in the case of the
variant quarto plays. Indeed, it may be said that 'faith unfaithful
kept him falsely true,' for he rejects such obviously certain con-
jectures as Theobald's 'dedicate its beauty to the sun. ' He did
not study the text of previous editors with the care which he
devoted to the old copies, and, in several cases, he assigns an
emendation to the wrong person. Malone made a careful investi-
gation of the relative value of quartos and folios. He is not far
wrong when he says that the editor of the second folio and Pope
'were the two great corrupters of our poet's text. ' Steevens now
once more comes upon the scene; but his reappearance ruined his
reputation as a textual critic. He published a new edition in
1793, with the sole object of displacing that of Malone. It was
obviously impossible for Steevens to surpass Malone in fidelity to
the quartos and folios; hence, he declares
a
8
it is time instead of a servile and timid adherence to the ancient copies, when
(offending against sense and metre) they furnish no real help, that a future
editor, well acquainted with the phraseology of our author's age, should be at
liberty to restore some apparent meaning to his corrupted lines, and a decent
flow to his obstructed versification.
Steevens took this liberty and emulated Pope in 'indulging his
private sense. ' Hallam's estimate of the two editors is just :
Malone and Steevens were two laborious commentators on the meaning
of words and phrases; one dull, the other clever; but the dulness was accom-
panied by candour and a love of truth, the cleverness by a total absence of
both.
A new edition of Malone's text was brought out by a son of
James Boswell, Johnson's biographer, in 1821. It contains an
accumulated mass of information, which has been of great service
to later editors. But the confused arrangement of its contents
and the bulk of its notes entailed upon Malone a reputation for
dulness and stupidity which approaches that of the first hero of
The Dunciad. Walpole said that Malone's notes were an 'extract
of all the opium that is spread through the works of all the bad
playwrights of that age’; and, among later writers, G. H. Lewes
has endeavoured to exaggerate this censure'.
1 Boswell's chief service to the text was his final vindication of the reading like
## p. 277 (#301) ############################################
Singer, Hudson and Collier
277
Of detached criticism on Shakespeare's text, the Observations
and Conjectures of Thomas Tyrwhitt (1766) is worthy of mention.
Joseph Ritson shows some acquaintance with the original
authorities in his Remarks (1783) and in The Quip Modest (1788),
in which he criticises Johnson and Steevens's edition and Reed's
revision. Monck Mason's Comments (1785) and further Comments
(1807) contain some of the best detached criticism of the time.
Malone's text left nothing to be done which faithful adherence to
the old copies could achieve. But the variant quarto plays still
afforded scope for critical discrimination between the readings of
quarto and folio.
Nineteenth century editors may be distinguished broadly by
their attitude to these two texts. Samuel Weller Singer (1826)
mainly followed the text of Malone. He led a revolt against
superfluous notes and bulky volumes; but he went to the opposite
extreme. Out of scores of emendations incorporated in it, chiefly
from Theobald, only a few are assigned to their authors, while, in
the Life prefixed to the edition, we are told that “Theobald did
not wholly abstain from conjecture, but the palm of conjectural
criticism was placed much too high for the reach of his hand. '
Singer was the first to attempt a refutation of Collier's 'corrector. '
Hudson followed in his footsteps with another well printed and
convenient edition (1851-2).
Length of Texts
261
serious omissions in Part II of Henry IV; in Troilus and
Cressida, King Lear and Othello, they are fairly evenly divided.
The greater completeness of the folio text constitutes it the chief
authority for these variant quarto plays. An exception has to be
noted in the case of Richard III. Here, the omissions in the folio
are trifling, compared with those in the quarto; but textual evidence
conclusively proves that the folio text follows two different quarto
texts and contains systematic alterations. The first quarto, there-
fore, becomes the authoritative text for all except the omitted
passages? Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet are unique in possessing
doublet, quarto texts. The first quarto, in both cases, is very
defective; but, in the case of the former play, the folio text was
derived from the second quarto, while, in the case of the latter,
the folio text was taken from a copy which was considerably less
complete.
The great discrepancies in these texts demand some explanation.
There can be little doubt that they are due, in the main, to the
fact that the defective texts were based on copies which had been
adapted for the stage. From the fact that Shakespeare wrote for the
stage, it must not be inferred that he allowed himself to be bound
by the exigencies of stage performance. The need of adaptation
for stage purposes has always made itself felt in the case of the
texts of plays, even to the present day; and it is highly probable
that none of the longer plays of Shakespeare were ever pro-
duced in the theatre exactly as they were written. There is,
moreover, definite evidence that the plays of other dramatists
were shortened for the stage. It is in this sense that we are to
understand the statement made on the title-page of the second
quarto of Hamlet, 'newly imprinted and enlarged to almost as much
againe as it was, according to the true and perfect Coppie,' and
similar statements in the quartos of other plays.
The references in the prologue to Romeo and Juliet to the
two hours traffic of our stage,' and in that of Henry VIII to 'two
short hours,' fix the average length of a performance. The mere
length of such plays as Richard III, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear,
Troilus and Cressida, Part II of Henry IV, Henry V, necessi-
tated curtailment. Thus, of the long scene in Richard III",
numbering five hundred and forty lines in the folio, nearly eighty
are omitted (including a passage of over fifty lines); the quarto text
of Hamlet omits sixty lines of Hamlet's interview with Rosencrantz
* The genealogy of the text of Richard III is described in an appendix to this chapter,
? Act 19, 80. 4.
## p. 262 (#286) ############################################
262
The Text of Shakespeare
and Guildenstern concerning the players; and the folio text of King
Lear lacks a whole scene, as well as a passage of nearly fifty lines.
Not only, however, the length of a play, but also the number of
characters called for adaptation. Companies were often so thin
that one player had to act two or three parts. A clear case
of curtailment on this ground is the omission in the folio text of
the dialogue between Hamlet and a lord, who comes to urge him
to the rapier contest with Laertes. This is the only occasion on
which this character appears. The folio text of King Lear omits
the conversation between two servants after the putting out of
Gloucester's eyes, probably for the same reason. Sometimes,
speeches are put into the mouths of other characters, instead of
being omitted altogether. In Henry V, Westmoreland's wish for
ten thousand more men is transferred to Warwick.
A different reason for the omission of passages in the per-
formance of a play was political expediency. Both Elizabeth and
James I frequently witnessed stage performances, and a natural
consequence of this personal patronage was a strict censorship of
plays presented before them. Precarious as is any attempt to point
out political allusions in Shakespeare, the magnificent compliment
paid to the fair vestal throned by the west,' and 'her single
blessedness,' would suffice to show that such allusions were, on
occasion, introduced by him. The suppression of the deposition
scene in the first quarto of Richard II was doubtless made out of
deference to the queen's well known susceptibilities on the subject.
In King Lear, Edmund's allusions to the results of the prediction,'
in which James is said to have had some faith, and the reference
to nobles acting as spies in France may have been suppressed on
similar grounds. Portia's description of the Scottish' lord
contains a satirical allusion to the alliances of Scotland with
France against England. After the accession of James, the
players, instead of omitting the passage, altered 'Scottish lord'
to 'other lord,' which is the reading of the folio.
The legal restrictions with regard to the use of oaths and the
profane use of Scripture account for the excision of a great number
of passages and the modification of many expressions, especially in
Part II of Henry IV. A few seem to be omitted in both quarto and
folio on account of their lewdness. Other passages were struck out
by the players because of their inherent obscurity. The corrupt
passages in Hamlet, containing stars with trains of fire,' dram of
eale,' 'that monster custom,' omitted entirely in the folio text,
very likely owe their corruption to the tampering of the players.
## p. 263 (#287) ############################################
Reasons for Defects in Quarto Texts 263
The process of adaptation caused passages to be added as well
as omitted. The clown's duty was to afford amusement to the
spectators after the play was finished; but he was also expected
to add specimens of his own native wit to his regular part in a play.
This practice is referred to by Hamlet in a well known passage of
his address to the players, to which the first quarto adds samples,
'Cannot you stay till I eate my porridge ? and you owe me a
quarters wages, my coat wants a cullison; And your beere is
sowre. ' The fool in King Lear is no mere clown! It is probable
that for portions of this, and for poor Tom's' parts, buffoonery was
often substituted; which would account for the disturbed state of
the text both in quarto and folio in these passages. The omission
of the prologue to Troilus and Cressida in the folio may be
explicable in the same way. The omission from the folio text of
several other passages seems to confirm doubts as to their
genuineness.
The mangled state of the text in the first quartos of Parts II
and III of Henry VI, The Merry Wives, Henry V, Romeo and
Juliet and Hamlet shows another disintegrating factor at work
besides adaptation. Publishers who could not secure a copy of a
play by any other means would employ a shorthand writer to report
it, while it was being acted. This report, naturally, would be very
imperfect; some poetaster would patch it up as best he could,
and thus it found its way into print? . The numerous mistakes due
to imperfect hearing confirm this view of the origin of these texts,
such as 'tigers of Arcadia' for 'tigers of Hyrcania,' 'Cophetua' for
• Caveto' etc.
The first quartos of these plays have been regarded as earlier
drafts subsequently revised by the poet. This theory is plausible
with regard to The Merry Wives, where the quarto contains
passages which evidently do not go back to the same original as
the corresponding passages in the folio, and to the two parts of
Henry VI, which appear under a different title. But the causes
already enumerated are sufficient to account for the state of the
quarto text; and, wherever this is admitted to be not only an
6
1 The difficulty of acting this part has been often felt on the modern stage. Cf.
Macready, W. C. , Reminiscences, vol. II, p. 97.
? Cf. the well known passage in Thomas Heywood, cited post, vol. vi, ch. iv.
A specimen of the stenographer's' work is to be found in the first quatto version of
Hamlet's famous soliloquy:
To be or not to be, I there's the point,
To Die, to sleepe, is that all? I all :
No, to sleepe, to dreame, I mary there it goes, eto.
## p. 264 (#288) ############################################
264
The Text of Shakespeare
adaptation of the supposed earlier draft, but a garbled version of
the adaptation, it is difficult to see how the question of revision
can be fruitfully discussed.
Numerous minor omissions in the quartos are due to careless-
ness in copying either on the part of the players or the printers.
In this way, a whole scene was omitted in earlier impressions
of the quarto of Part II of Henry IV, but restored in later
copies. The very numerous half-lines which still remain in the
text may be attributed to this cause. Sometimes, a passage drops
out owing to similarity of expressions at the beginning and end 1.
The text of the first folio has a more uniform value than that
of the quartos. But, in two respects, it is, on the whole, hardly any
more trustworthy. For the punctuation and metre of the plays,
we are largely dependent on the work of modern editors. In
individual cases, however, the metrical arrangement of the folio is
vastly superior. In King Lear, the verse of the folio, to a large
extent, is represented by prose in the quarto. The duplicate quarto
plays, in which the folio text was drawn from one of the quartos,
afford a test of its conjectural emendations. They are of little
importance and generally for the worse. Where real corruption
exists (eg. 'perttaunt-like,' in Love's Labour's Lost) it is usually
left alone.
Alternative readings are very common in the variant quarto
play. There is sometimes very little to choose between them;
but, in such cases, the folio text is to be preferred, as having better
authority. But, ordinarily, it is better in itself? The quarto text,
though often substituting a more usual word or phrases, occasionally
preserves the unmistakable words of Shakespeare. The in-
imitable 'Love's thrice repured nectarb' appears, in the folio,
as 'reputed'
Some critics have held that Shakespeare was responsible for
6
.
· For an example see Othello, act iv, sc. 2, 74–7.
Thus, the pregnant line in King Lear (act 11, sc. 4, 119) 'O me, my heart, my
rising heart! But down' is, in the quarto, the commonplace 'O my heart, my heart! '
Come unbutton here' (act III, s. 4, 107—8) is, in the quarto, the nonsensical, Come
on, be true,
3 Thus, Othello's striking words (act. v, sc. 2, 13),
I know not where is that Promethean beat
That can thy light relume,
are robbed of their force by the substitution of return' for 'relame. ' Lear's no less
striking epithet, 'cadent' tears, becomes the meaningless'accent' tears.
* Othello's 'She gave me for my pains a world of sighs' (act 1, sc. 3, 159) is, for
instance, turned by the folio into the hackneyed a world of kisses. '
5 Troilus and Cressida, act III, sc. 2, 21.
## p. 265 (#289) ############################################
à
The First and the Later Folios 265
corrections and additions in the folio text of these plays. This
assumption leaves out of account two important facts. In certain
cases, it is unquestionably the quarto text which has been altered,
and which has received additions. Moreover, it is obvious that
these changes could not have been made for stage purposes. They
must, therefore, have been made with a view to printing the plays ;
but it is surely inconceivable that Shakespeare should have made
these minute corrections without also authorising an edition of the
revised plays.
In the case of the doublet quarto plays, the folio text, as we
have seen, is subordinate to that of the second quarto. The first
quarto of Romeo and Juliet is a valuable corrective. In spite of
its lacunae, it was evidently made by a skilful reporter, for it
contains many unquestionably genuine readings, where all the
rest have gone astray! In Hamlet, when the readings of the first
quarto and folio coincide, they are to be preferred. The intrinsic
value of the first folio lies in the fact that it contains the only
extant text of eighteen plays; but its merits are unequal. The
text of some of the plays is as good as that of the duplicate
quartos; that of the rest recalls the characteristics of the text of
the variant quartos. Measure for Measure, All : Well, Cymbeline,
Coriolanus and Macbeth are among the worst texts in the folio.
It is practically hopeless to determine the metre of Timon, in large
portions of which it is impossible to tell whether verse or prose is
intended. Julius Caesar holds the same position among the folio
plays which A Midsummer Night's Dream has among the quartos.
The text is free from any serious error and might well have been
printed from the original manuscript.
The value of the later folios is comparatively small. They take
great liberties with the text, though, it must be admitted, not
beyond those taken by some of the later editors. When the second
folio makes an alteration, this is, as a rule, perpetuated in the third
and fourth. Where the second or third stands alone, it is nearly
always wrong. The fourth folio is not so free in making altera-
tions, except in order to modernise the spelling. Were it not
for the legacy of errors inherited from the second and third, the
1 Thus, Romeo's wisb (act 1, 86. 4, 113),
But He, that hath the steerage of my course,
Direct my sail,
is preserved by it, when the other quartos and the folio read 'sate' for sail. '
Thus, the • fretful porpentine' of the ghost's speech (act I, 80. 5, 20) has greater
textual authority than the fearfull porpentine' of the later quartos, because it is
supported by two independent copies.
## p. 266 (#290) ############################################
266
The Text of Shakespeare
fourth would often be nearer a modern text than either. The
later folios, however, have all made some happy restorations of
the text'. In the case of the variant quarto plays, where a later
folio agrees with the quarto against the first, we have a better
attested reading. There are some remarkable cases of this co-
incidence?
One cause of variation between the different quarto and folio
texts remains to be noted. It is the most prolific and the most
modern of all the mistakes of editor and printer.
Special causes for these mistakes are to be found, first, in
differences of spelling in vogue in the Elizabethan age, e. g. 'antique’
and 'antick,' rights' and 'rites,' 'symboles' and 'cymbals. ' Again,
an uncommon word sometimes caused the substitution of one more
usual: ‘moe' and 'more'; 'intentively' and 'instinctively'; 'foy-
sons' and 'poisons'; 'prescience and patience”; “unprevented'
and 'unprepared. ' This practice was a thoroughly characteristic
licence at a time when an editor had no hesitation in substituting
a word which he considered more suitable to the context—'unprofit-
able' for 'improbable'; 'the way to study death' for 'the way to
dusty death'; 'phlegmatick' for 'choleric. ' Thirdly, contractions
commonly used in manuscripts often caused variations in the endings
of words : 'h'as’and 'hath'; wº=which ; yº=the; y'= that; y'=thou
or you; I = ay; 'ignomie' and 'ignominy'; 'conster' and 'con-
strue. ' The abbreviation 'L' doubtless accounts for such variations
as 'liege' and 'lord. ' Finally, there were the ordinary misprints
with which everyone is familiar-due to the dropping out of
letters (“contradict' and 'contract'; 'remuneration' and remura-
tion'); to the omission of words (“his trusty Thisby's' Qq, ‘his
Thisby's' F. , ‘his gentle Thisby's' F, F, F. ); to wrong letters ('Loue'
Q. (Duke of Devonshire's copy), 'Ioue' Qı, 'Ioane' F, F. , 'Joan'
F, F. ); to wrong punctuation (the first folio reads Dispatch
Enobarbus. ' As Enobarbus is not present, the second, third and
fourth read 'Dispatch Eros. ' The right punctuation solves the
‘
difficulty: 'Dispatch. Enobarbus! '); to permutation of letters
(‘Athica' for 'Ithaca'); to repetition of letters ('involverable' Fi,
>
6
1)
>
2,
1 One of the best is to be found in Coriolanus (act 11, sc. 3, 18). The third citizen
says: 'not that our heads are, some brown, some black, some auburn, some bald, but
that our wits are so diversely coloured. ' The fourth folio was the first to suggest
'auburn' for · Abram,' which is read by the first three.
Thus, an uncommon word 'renege' is restored by the second folio in King Lear,
act 11, sc. 2, 73, where the first folio reads Revenge' and the quartos bave 'Reneag. '
In Othello, act v, sc. 2, 350, ‘base Indian,' the reading of the quartos and later folios,
has greater textual authority than the base Judean' of the first folio.
2
4
7
## p. 267 (#291) ############################################
4
Early Editors: Rowe 267
'invaluerable' F, F, F. , for 'invulnerable'). Such is the process by
which the text of Shakespeare has been evolved—a process pre-
cisely similar to that undergone by any classical text. The
quartos and folios represent the work of copyists—that of editing
follows.
The subsequent history of Shakespeare's text falls, naturally,
into two divisions—a period of conjecture, during which the great
bulk of accepted emendations were made, and a period of con-
solidation, in which a fuller knowledge of the old copies and a
firmer grasp of textual principles combined to produce the received
text of today.
It was fitting that a poet laureate should be the first to give to
the world an edition of Shakespeare—whether or not poetic gifts
are an advantage to an editor. At all events, Nicholas Rowe
(1709)' was engaged on a more profitable task when he attempted
to edit the works, than when he endeavoured to emulate the style,
of Shakespeare. Rowe's main object, as Johnson says, was to
publish an edition of Shakespeare, 'like those of his fraternity,
with the appendages of a life and a recommendatory preface. ”
Therefore, it is not surprising that his work shows little critical
method. He based his text on the latest and worst copy-the
fourth folio. This error affected all editions before Capell, for
each of the succeeding editors was as uncritical as Rowe in basing
his text on the edition immediately preceding his own. Although
Rowe says, 'I have taken some care to redeem him from the
injuries of former impressions, and speaks of comparing the
several editions,' he can hardly have possessed any acquaintance
with old copies. His corrections of the fourth folio, sometimes,
coincide with the readings of the first, as where he reads 'dread
trident' for 'dead trident' of the later folios. In general, however,
he follows the fourth, even where the first obviously contains the
genuine reading. He occasionally consulted a late quarto: textual
evidence shows that he used the quarto of 1676 for the additions
in Hamlet. His alterations were made simply with a view to
.
rendering the plays more intelligible, and he did much useful
pioneer work to this end. His knowledge of the stage enabled
him to add lists of dramatis personae to each play, to supply
stage directions and to make divisions into acts and scenes,
which, to a large extent, have been followed by modern editors.
Many proper names were restored by him (as 'Plutus' for Platus ').
· The date mentioned, in each case, is that of the first edition.
6
## p. 268 (#292) ############################################
268
The Text of Shakespeare
<
Others, which had been manufactured by his predecessors, were
unmasked (thus 'Cyprus' grove becomes 'cypress'). Thanks to
his linguistic attainments, he was able to make sense of a good
deal of nonsense, which did duty in the folios for French or Italian.
Dr Caius's 'green-a-box' of ointment appears in the folios as
‘unboyteene' instead of 'un boitier,' as in Rowe. But his work
for the text rises above that of a proof corrector. Some of his
conjectures deserve a place beside those of his more eminent
successors. Few quotations are more firmly established than
'Some are born great. ' (The folios have are become. ') And the
temple-haunting martlet’ in Macbeth is not likely to be ousted
from the place occupied in the folios by 'Barlet. '
No one will dispute Rowe's modest claim that he has rendered
many places intelligible that were not so before. It is his unique
distinction that he did not stir up any controversy. His emenda-
tions were silently introduced into his text, and as silently
appropriated by his successors.
To Pope belongs the unenviable distinction of having intro-
duced into the study of Shakespeare's text that controversial
acrimony of which echoes were heard far on into the nineteenth
century. But his edition (1723—5) is quite free from this blemish.
Instead of expanding his notes, which are models of brevity, he
curtailed the text to suit his 'private sense,' and filled his margin
with rejected passages. Some of these, it is true, were no great
loss, though Pope was hardly qualified for expurgating Shakespeare.
Others, however, seriously interfere not only with the sense, but
with the conceptions of the dramatist. Mercutio is robbed whole-
sale of his jests. Much of Caesar's distinctive braggadocio is
struck out. Again, the porter's soliloquy in Macbeth is dispensed
with, and so are several lines of Richard's soliloquy before
the battle. Romeo and Juliet fares worst of all; many passages
being omitted on the pretext that they do not occur in the
defective first quarto, while others are inserted because they
appear in the second, and others, again, are struck out simply
because they are ‘nonsense' or 'trash' or 'ridiculous.
It is difficult
to understand how a poet could deliberately reject such a line as
'Sleep that knits up the ravelld sleave of care. ' Occasionally, a
line is dropped out altogether, without warning or comment.
Pope's text is further marred by hundreds of verbal alterations
for which no justification is even attempted. A small proportion
of these may be regarded as legitimate conjectures; but the great
majority are arbitrary corrections, not of copyists' errors, but of
>
## p. 269 (#293) ############################################
6
Pope's Merits and Shortcomings 269
Shakespeare's own composition. We are left to guess the reasons
for his changes. In many instances, they are obviously made to
harmonise the metre with the ideal of rigid uniformity which
dominated the Augustan age (“brest' for 'bosom,' lady' for
'gentlewoman,' 'foes' for 'enemies'). Monosyllables are omitted
or inserted with the utmost licence to produce a regular line.
Uncommon forms of expression, or words employed in an unusual
sense, are rarely allowed to stand. (The ‘untented woundings of
a father's curse' become 'untender'; 'I owe you no subscription
;
is altered to submission'; 'to keep at utterance,' that is, to the
last extremity, has to make way for 'to keep at variance. ') Such
reckless alterations have obscured Pope's real contribution to the
study of Shakespeare's text. Compared with the work of Rowe,
his services may justly be called great. That he thoroughly under-
stood the nature of his task is abundantly clear. His preface-the
only part of his work which he brought to perfection-contains a
careful and accurate characterisation of the quarto and folio texts.
The theory that 'the original copies,' referred to by the editors of
the first folio, were 'those which had lain ever since the author's
day in the play-house, and had from time to time been cut or added
to arbitrarily,' is there found for the first time. Pope evinces an
acquaintance with all the most important quarto texts. If he was
too ready to suspect interpolations, nevertheless he was respon-
sible for the insertion of most of the passages in the variant quarto
plays, which were omitted in the first folio. Although he made
havoc of the text of Romeo and Juliet by his excisions, he
instinctively introduced a number of undoubtedly genuine readings
from the first quarto. He has often unravelled Shakespeare's verse
from the prose of the old copies, and in almost every play the
metrical arrangement of the lines owes something to him. Many
of his conjectures have been generally accepted. He restored a
realistic touch in "Tarquin's ravishing strides' where the first folio
has 'sides, and he recovered Falstaff's 'oeillades' from the 'illiads'
of all the folios. On the other hand, the cause of Pope's failure is
revealed in his own phrase : 'the dull duty of an editor. ' He had
been invited to undertake the work as the first man of letters of
his day; and he deals with the text in the spirit of a dictator. But
the laborious task of collating texts could not be accomplished by
the sheer force of poetic genius. Had he possessed an army of
collaborators for doing the drudgery, Pope's edition of Shakespeare
might have achieved as great a success as his translation of Homer.
As it was, the work was only half done.
a
## p. 270 (#294) ############################################
270
The Text of Shakespeare
Yet it might still have brought him some fame, had it not been
doomed to pass through the ordeal of criticism at the hands of one
who has few rivals as a textual critic. All its defects were laid
bare by Lewis Theobald in his Shakespeare Restored (1726). No
one could read this work-monumental in the history of Shake-
speare's text—without acknowledging that here, at any rate, Pope
had met more than his match. Pope was too wise to attempt to
defend himself against criticism, which he, better than anyone else,
knew to be unanswerable. In his second edition, he calmly adopted
many of Theobald's corrections; and, then, he began a campaign of
misrepresentation and abuse which culminated in his making
Theobald the hero of The Dunciad. The power of satire, wielded by
genius, has never been more strikingly displayed. Pope's caricature
of the foremost of all textual critics of Shakespeare as a dull,
meddling pedant without salt or savour not only led astray the
judgment of the sanest critics of the eighteenth century, but
infected the clear reason of Coleridge, and has remained the current
estimate to this day. Theobald's method of retaliation was un-
fortunate. He remained silent while Pope was exhausting every
mean device to ruin his projected edition. But, when that edition
(1733) became a triumphant fact, he emptied the vials of his wrath
into his notes. Those who are aware of the unprecedented provoca-
tion which he received and of the superiority of which he must
have been conscious find no difficulty in acquitting him; but the
majority who read only Theobald's notes must perforce join with
Johnson in condemning his 'contemptible ostentation. ' Every
correction adopted by Pope from Shakespeare Restored in his
second edition is carefully noted, although Theobald himself ap-
propriated many of Pope's conjectures without acknowledgment.
Every correction of Theobald's own, if but a comma, is accompanied
by shouts of exultation and volleys of impotent sarcasm. But
he overreached himself. Though smarting under the 'flagrant
civilities' which he received from Pope, he paid him the un-
intentional compliment of taking his text as the basis of his own.
Had he been as anxious to adhere faithfully to his authorities as
he was eager to dilate on the faithlessness of Pope, he would
hardly have fallen into the error of following the edition which he
himself classed as of no authority. ' It has sometimes been stated
'
that Theobald based his text on the first folio. But the very
numerous instances in which he has perpetuated Pope's arbitrary
alterations in his own text show that this was not the case. Yet
the multitude of readings which he restored both from the quartos
6
## p. 271 (#295) ############################################
Theobala.
Hanmer
271
and from the first folio largely neutralised the effect of this error! It
is in dealing with real corruption that Theobald is seen at his best,
and remains without a rival. His acuteness in the detection of
errors is no less admirable than is the ingenuity shown in their
correction. His thorough knowledge of Shakespearean phraseology,
his sound training in 'corrupt classics,' and also his fine poetic
taste, were qualifications which contributed to his success. The
importance of Theobald's conjectures may be gathered from the
words of the editors of The Cambridge Shakespeare: ‘Where the
folios are all obviously wrong, and the quartos also fail us, we
have introduced into the text several conjectural emendations ;
especially we have often had recourse to Theobald's ingenuity? . ?
It is not surprising that the gift of conjecture revealed in these
brilliant restorations led Theobald to make many unnecessary
changes in the text.
Some of these abortive attempts were adopted by Sir Thomas
Hanmer in his edition (1744), which was based, however, on that of
Pope. He provided an édition de luxe for gentlemen of his own
class. The print and binding were magnificent, and caused its
value to rise to nine guineas, when Warburton's edition was going
for eighteen shillings. Pope has celebrated this, its chief feature,
in the well known picture of Montalto and his 'volume fair:
On its title-page, the text is said to have been carefully revised
and corrected by the former editions'; but there is no evidence
that the old copies were consulted. Hanmer is nearer the mark
when he says in the preface that it was only 'according to the best
1 One example may be taken out of hundreds. Bolingbroke compares the meeting
of himself with king Richard to that
Of fire and water, when their thundering shock
At meeting, tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven.
This is the reading of the first quarto. The later quartos, followed by the folios and
Rowe and Pope, read 'smoak' (smoke) for shock. ' Theobald's note reads : This is
the first time, I believe, we ever heard of a thundering smoak: I never conceived
anything of a more silent nature. But this is a nostrum of the wise editors, who
imagine, I presume, that the report and thundering of a cannon proceed from the
“smoak” and not from the explosion of the powder. '
? We could hardly imagine the fat knight dying unless a' babbled o' green fields. '
Yet this touch of mingled humour and pathos is due to the bold and brilliant con-
jecture of Theobald-bold, because the quartos entirely omit the passage ; brilliant,
because never did an emendation more aptly fit both text and context. The folios
read and a table of green fields. ' No less brilliant, though less familiar, is the
restoration of the true poetry of Shakespeare in the image of the opening flower which
dedicates its beauty to the sun. ' Quartos and folios read 'same. ' The very name
of the 'weird ' sisters comes from him. He did not think the weyward' of the folios
& very suitable epithet, and, on searching Holinshed, he found the word which, doubt-
less, Shakespeare used.
3 The Dunciad, bk. iv, 11. 105 ff.
6
## p. 272 (#296) ############################################
272
The Text of Shakespeare
of his judgment' that he attempted 'to restore the genuine sense
and purity' of the text. He relegated to the bottom of the page
all the passages which Pope had thus degraded, and added several
others, thinking it a pity that ‘more had not then undergone the
same sentence. His emendations are numerous, and are generally
made in the reckless spirit of Pope ; but his natural acuteness
produced some conjectures of value? William Warburton had
corresponded with both Theobald and Hanmer on the text of
Shakespeare. He had sympathised with the former in his con-
troversy with Pope, whom in some of his letters he attacked
with such vigour that, had Pope been acquainted with them, the
subsequent friendship between them would have been impossible.
Theobald inserted some of Warburton's conjectures in his text, and
printed his notes with his name. After the appearance of
Theobald's edition, Warburton thought it well to quarrel with him;
he also quarrelled with Hanmer, when he discovered that he was
contemplating an edition of Shakespeare. In the preface to his
own edition (1747), he accused both of plagiarism, a charge which
might have been made with more justice against his own edition.
He eulogised Pope, whose name he placed by the side of his own on
the title-page, only, however, to depart from his text; while he
denounced Theobald, only to adopt his edition as a basis. The
title-page blatantly boasts that the Genuine Text (collated with
all the former editions, and then corrected and emended) is here
settled. ' If we naturally wonder how the genuine text' can
require correction, all wonder ceases when we have become ac-
quainted with Warburton's methods. His knowledge of the old
copies was mostly gained from Pope and Theobald. In the opening
scene of King Lear, he comments on Theobald's reading “'tis our
fast intent'--'this is an interpolation of Mr Lewis Theobald, for
want of knowing the meaning of the old reading in the quarto of
1608, and first folio of 1623; where we find it "tis our first intent. ""
Unfortunately for Warburton's reputation, Theobald’s ‘interpola-
tion' is simply the reading of the first folio. His ignorance of the
old texts is only exceeded by his ignorance of Shakespeare's
language. His conjectures would furnish a curiosity shop of
unused and unheard of words. He strains at a gnat, it may be,
and then swallows his own camel. 'Following' is changed to
'follying,' which we are told means 'wantoning '; 'jewel' becomes
1 Polonius's • I'll sconce me even here,' is due to Hanmer's conjecture for silence,"
and Helena's Yours would I catch,' for the reading of the quartos and folios, ‘Your
words I catch,' in A Midsummer Night's Dream.
## p. 273 (#297) ############################################
Warburton and Johnson
273
<
6
>
>
'gemell,' from the Latin gemellus a twin'; 'Venus' pigeons' ought
to be called 'Venus' widgeons'; for 'beauty's crest,' Shakespeare,
without question, wrote “beauty's crete' i. e. beauty's white, from
creta ; 'shall damp her lips'is nonsense which should read shall
trempe' i. e. moisten, from French tremper ; Lear's 'cadent tears'
should be candent' i. e. hot. For 'black-corner'd night,' we must
read 'black-cornette' night, cornette being a woman's headdress
for the night. 'My life itself and the best heart of it’is denounced
as a 'monstrous' expression. The heart is supposed the seat of
life; but as if he had many lives and to each of them a heart, he
says his “best heart. ” A way of speaking that would become a
cat rather than a king. '
Bentley is reported to have said that Warburton was a man of
'monstrous appetite but very bad digestion. ' At any rate, this
description is true of his work as an editor. There is, however, a
.
halfpennyworth of bread with this intolerable deal of sack. 'Like
a God, kissing carrion' of the sun, in Hamlet, Johnson called a
‘noble' emendation for the 'good kissing carrion' of the quartos
and folios. "The wolf behowls the moon,' for 'beholds'; 'eyeless
night' for 'endless night,' and 'gentle fine' for 'gentle sin,' are
other favourable specimens. But, in spite of these, Warburton's
false criticism of Theobald, that'he left his author in a ten times
worse condition than he found him,' is not far from the mark, when
applied to his own performance. Warburton's edition was very
effectively criticised by 'Another gentleman of Lincoln's Inn'-
Thomas Edwards—who made 'tragical mirth' out of his genuine
text. ' John Upton, Zachary Grey and Benjamin Heath also joined
in the onslaught.
Nearly twenty years elapsed before another edition appeared.
But there were two men busy with the text, in the interval. One
was Samuel Johnson ; though his critics were wondering when the
subscribers would get their book? . It appeared, at last, in 1765.
The text was based on Warburton's edition ; but all his ama
Meryóueva were carefully excised. Il as Johnson was equipped
physically for the arduous work of collating texts, he was responsible
for restoring many readings from the old copies, which had escaped
Theobald's vigilance. Some of these are of the minutest character
(such as ‘momentany' for 'momentary,' 'fust' for 'rust'). He
also brought back several passages from the quartos, which were
1
1
He for subscribers baits his hook
And takes your cash, but where's the book ?
Churchill, The Ghost, book 11.
CH. XI.
18
E. L. V.
## p. 274 (#298) ############################################
274
The Text of Shakespeare
wanting in the folio. He made no striking conjectures, but several
useful emendations by him have passed into the text of today.
He was attacked with uncalled-for vehemence by William Kenrick,
who undertook to expose his 'ignorance or inattention. ' As a
matter of fact, Johnson's text had a distinct value, due to his own
restorations; this, however, was speedily eclipsed by the publica-
tion of Capell’s edition in 1768.
Scientific criticism of the text begins with Edward Capell. He
was the first to base his text actually on the quartos and folios;
and later editors, even when they go back to the original authorities,
owe an incalculable debt to his painstaking and remarkably
accurate collation of the old copies. Ever since the publication of
Hanmer's edition, Capell had been silently laying his foundations.
He is said to have transcribed the whole of Shakespeare ten times.
His services, like those of Theobald, have been greatly underrated.
An involved style obscured the value of his preface, quite the best
piece of textual criticism in the eighteenth century. An unfor-
tunate method, which caused him to avoid noting anything at the
foot of the page, except the original reading which had been
changed in the text, failed to reveal the prodigious labour which
he underwent to form his text, and transferred the credit of it to
others. His discrimination between the quarto and folio texts, on
the whole, is remarkably accurate. He rightly gave the preference
to the first quarto in the case of the duplicate quarto plays; but
he certainly underestimated the value of the folio text when he
said that the faults and errors of the quarto are all preserved in
the folio, and others are added to them: and what difference there
is, is generally for the worse on the side of the folios. ' He did not,
however, act on this opinion, for he often adopts the folio reading,
after taking the quarto as his basis. He made a thorough in-
vestigation of Shakespeare's versification, and his arrangements of
lines are often those which are now generally adopted? . His care
for the metre led him to introduce many words into the text.
In fact, he was far too free in introducing conjectures. The
original readings are always given at the bottom of the page ; but
neither these nor the conjectures are assigned to any one. Although
he adopted the most important of Theobald's conjectures, it is re-
markable that he should speak of Theobald's edition as 'only a little
better than Pope's by his having a few more materials, of which he
was not a better collator than the other, nor did he excel him in
1 An example is to be found in the opening scene of Hamlet, "Give you good
night,' etc.
6
6
9
## p. 275 (#299) ############################################
Steevens and Malone
275
use of them. ' His own conjectures (distinguished by black type),
as a rule, are not happy; but there was no justification for Johnson's
slighting opinion that his abilities were just sufficient to select
the black hairs from the white for the use of the periwig
makers. Three quarto volumes of notes published after his
death gave some idea of the labour which his neat little edition
had cost.
George Steevens, who, in 1766, had done good service by
printing twenty old quartos, was, in 1773, associated with Johnson
in bringing out a new edition of Shakespeare. The text of this
edition was the best that had yet appeared. It contained all the
most important conjectures hitherto made, and, owing to the
removal of many unnecessary emendations which Capell had intro-
duced, was more faithful to the original copies than that editor's
text had been. But it is quite certain that Capell's text formed
the basis of Steevens's collation, and that to it was largely due the
accuracy of the resultant text. In his advertisement, Steevens says
The Second Part of King Henry VI is the only play from that [Capell's]
edition which has been consulted in the course of this work; for as several
passages there are arbitrarily omitted, and as no notice is given when other
deviations are made from the old copies, it was of little consequence to
examine any further. This circumstance is mentioned, lest such accidental
coincidences of opinion, as may be discovered hereafter, should be interpreted
into plagiarism.
The criticism of Capell's text here offered by Steevens is sheer
misrepresentation. The only passages' omitted by Capell are a
few lines inserted by Theobald from the defective quarto and also
omitted by Malone and the editors of The Cambridge Shakespeare.
All Capells deviations from the folio, except the most trifling, are
scrupulously noted by him. Thus, Steevens's statement as to the
use made by him of Capell's text, while suspicious in itself, must
be altogether rejected ; as a matter of fact, he follows Capell, in
the main, even to his punctuation, and also adopts some of his
conjectural emendations.
A second edition of Johnson and Steevens's text appeared in
1778, Edmond Malone contributing an Essay on the Chronology of
Shakespeare's Plays and a few notes. In 1780, he published a
supplement to this edition, containing the Poems and an intimation
of his intention to bring out a new edition of the whole of the
poet's works. Steevens had now retired from the field and cast
his mantle on Isaac Reed, who brought out the third edition in
1785. To this, Malone contributed some notes occasionally
opposing the dicta of Steevens, whereupon the latter demanded
18--2
## p. 276 (#300) ############################################
276
The Text of Shakespeare
that his original notes should be printed word for word in any
future edition. Malone, of course, would not listen to such a pro-
posal, and the usual separation ensued. Malone's edition appeared
in 1790. There can be no doubt that he went back to the old
copies for his text, which shows a scrupulous fidelity to the quartos
and folios, and a preference for the first folio in the case of the
variant quarto plays. Indeed, it may be said that 'faith unfaithful
kept him falsely true,' for he rejects such obviously certain con-
jectures as Theobald's 'dedicate its beauty to the sun. ' He did
not study the text of previous editors with the care which he
devoted to the old copies, and, in several cases, he assigns an
emendation to the wrong person. Malone made a careful investi-
gation of the relative value of quartos and folios. He is not far
wrong when he says that the editor of the second folio and Pope
'were the two great corrupters of our poet's text. ' Steevens now
once more comes upon the scene; but his reappearance ruined his
reputation as a textual critic. He published a new edition in
1793, with the sole object of displacing that of Malone. It was
obviously impossible for Steevens to surpass Malone in fidelity to
the quartos and folios; hence, he declares
a
8
it is time instead of a servile and timid adherence to the ancient copies, when
(offending against sense and metre) they furnish no real help, that a future
editor, well acquainted with the phraseology of our author's age, should be at
liberty to restore some apparent meaning to his corrupted lines, and a decent
flow to his obstructed versification.
Steevens took this liberty and emulated Pope in 'indulging his
private sense. ' Hallam's estimate of the two editors is just :
Malone and Steevens were two laborious commentators on the meaning
of words and phrases; one dull, the other clever; but the dulness was accom-
panied by candour and a love of truth, the cleverness by a total absence of
both.
A new edition of Malone's text was brought out by a son of
James Boswell, Johnson's biographer, in 1821. It contains an
accumulated mass of information, which has been of great service
to later editors. But the confused arrangement of its contents
and the bulk of its notes entailed upon Malone a reputation for
dulness and stupidity which approaches that of the first hero of
The Dunciad. Walpole said that Malone's notes were an 'extract
of all the opium that is spread through the works of all the bad
playwrights of that age’; and, among later writers, G. H. Lewes
has endeavoured to exaggerate this censure'.
1 Boswell's chief service to the text was his final vindication of the reading like
## p. 277 (#301) ############################################
Singer, Hudson and Collier
277
Of detached criticism on Shakespeare's text, the Observations
and Conjectures of Thomas Tyrwhitt (1766) is worthy of mention.
Joseph Ritson shows some acquaintance with the original
authorities in his Remarks (1783) and in The Quip Modest (1788),
in which he criticises Johnson and Steevens's edition and Reed's
revision. Monck Mason's Comments (1785) and further Comments
(1807) contain some of the best detached criticism of the time.
Malone's text left nothing to be done which faithful adherence to
the old copies could achieve. But the variant quarto plays still
afforded scope for critical discrimination between the readings of
quarto and folio.
Nineteenth century editors may be distinguished broadly by
their attitude to these two texts. Samuel Weller Singer (1826)
mainly followed the text of Malone. He led a revolt against
superfluous notes and bulky volumes; but he went to the opposite
extreme. Out of scores of emendations incorporated in it, chiefly
from Theobald, only a few are assigned to their authors, while, in
the Life prefixed to the edition, we are told that “Theobald did
not wholly abstain from conjecture, but the palm of conjectural
criticism was placed much too high for the reach of his hand. '
Singer was the first to attempt a refutation of Collier's 'corrector. '
Hudson followed in his footsteps with another well printed and
convenient edition (1851-2).
