Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

ACT IV.

SCENE 1.-C. p. 72; K. p. 336.

Jaq. Nay then, God be wi' you, an you talk in blank verse.

[Exit.

Ros. Farewell, monsieur traveller: look you lisp, and wear strange suits; disable all the benefits of your own country; be out of love with your nativity, and almost chide God for making you that countenance you are, or I will scarce think you have swam in a gondola.-Why, how now, Orlando!" &c.

Does Rosalind say all this to Jaques after he has left the stage?

In the first folio the "exit" of Jaques is not marked at all. In the three later folios it is placed (as by Mr. Collier and the other modern editors) at the end of his speech. But exits as well as entrances (see my remarks on Troilus and Cressida, act i. sc. 2) were very frequently marked much earlier than they were really intended to take place: and nothing can be more evident than that here the "exit" of Jaques ought to follow "gondola."

[ocr errors]

ACT V.

SCENE 4.-C. p. 982.

"And to the skirts of this wild wood he came,
Where, meeting with an old religious man,
After some question with him, was converted
Both from his enterprise, and from the world;
His crown bequeathing to his banish'd brother,
And all their lands restor❜d to him again,

That were with him exil'd."

So the old copies, which modern editors have altered without notice to 'restor'd to them again.' The meaning is, that the converted brother restores to the banished brother his dukedom, and all the lands of those who were in exile with him, in order that he (the duke) may bestow the lands again on their former possessors. The duke afterwards tells his nobles that he will give them back their estates." COLLIER.

The other modern editors may, I think, be forgiven for making without notice an alteration so obviously demanded by

the context. The misprint of "him" for "'em" or "them" is one of the commonest; and Mr. Collier himself elsewhere gives;

"Ay, sir; I'll call them to you."

Merry Wives of Windsor, act iv. sc. 3, vol. i. 252.

(where the folio has “him.")

"May have a tomb of orphans' tears wept on 'em."

King Henry VIII. act iii. sc. 2, vol. v. 571.

(where all the old eds. have "on him.")

"Let them be made an overture for the wars."

Coriolanus, act i. sc. 9, vol. vi. 168.

(where all the old eds. have "Let him.")

"Perchance, because she knows them innocent."

Titus Andron., act iii. sc. 1, vol. vi. 315.

(where all the old eds., except one, have "knows him.")

"I see a cherub that sees them."

(where the folio has "him.")

Hamlet, act iv. sc. 3, vol. vii. 299.

When Mr. Collier remarked that "the duke afterwards tells his nobles that he will give them back their estates," he altogether mistook the meaning of the following lines, at p. 99;

"And after, every of this happy number,

That have endur'd shrewd days and nights with us,
Shall share the good of our returned fortune,

According to the measure of their 'states [read states].”

i. e. all my faithful followers shall receive such reward as suits their various stations.

[ocr errors]

TAMING OF THE SHREW.

[Vol. iii. COLLIER; vol. ii. Knight.]

INDUCTION.

SCENE 1.-C. p. 107; K. p. 124. "Go by, S. Jeronimy:

Go to thy cold bed, and warm thee."

In this passage, there is a double allusion to The Spanish Tragedy' by Thomas Kyd. How the capital S became introduced into the text, it is not easy to explain; but Monck Mason would make out that it is part of the word says, the rest having dropped out; but why should it have been printed with a capital letter? The phrase 'Go by' is derived from one part of The Spanish Tragedy,' of which Jeronimo may be called the hero; and 'Go to thy cold bed, and warm thee,' refers to another part of the same play, where Jeronimo exclaims, 'What outcries pluck me from my naked bed?' when he enters in his night-dress, after the murder of his son. See 'Dodsley's Old Plays,' last edition, vol. iii. p. 130 & 163. Different parts of this popular play were often quoted and ridiculed by contemporary writers. Sly can scarcely mean to canonize Jeronimo, and call him a saint, from his being such a favourite with the frequenters of our early theatres; and when Malone remarks, that 'Sly's making Jeronimy a saint is not more extravagant than his exhorting his hostess to go to her cold bed and warm herself,' he was not aware of the allusion to 'The Spanish Tragedy,' in the last line of Sly's reply." COLLIER.

Mr. Collier's note is as little to the purpose as the notes of the other commentators on this passage (which is certainly not verse). The matter is clear enough. "S." is put for "Saint" (a very common abbreviation): Sly alludes to the notorious and much-ridiculed lines of The Spanish Tragedy, and at the same time confounds Jeronimo with Saint Jerome.

Mr. Knight prints; "Go-by S. Jeronimy -Go to thy cold bed, and warm thee,”—evidently not aware that in more than a dozen early dramas the words "Go by, Jeronimo" (from Kyd's celebrated play), are cited and sneered at: for instance;

F

"Tuc. Goe by, Ieronimo, goe by; and heere drop the ten shillings into this Bason," &c. Dekker's Satiro-mastix, 1602, sig. D 2.

"But if I were as you, Ide cry, go by, Ieronimo, go by." Dekker's Shoomakers Holy-Day, &c. sig. B 4, ed. 1624.

"Sim. Go from my window, go, go from, &c., away; go by, old Jeronimo: nay, and you shrink i' th' wetting, walk, walk, walk.” Middleton's Blurt, Master Constable,—Works, i. 285, ed. Dyce.

"What new book have you there? What! Go by, Hieronymo ?” Jonson's Every Man in his Humour,—Works, i. 34, ed. Gifford. "for your brother,

I'll only say, Go by."

Massinger's Maid of Honour,-Works, iii. 91,

ed. 1813 (where see Gifford's note).

"she's like a play; if new, very good company, very good company; but if stale, like old Jeronimo, go by, go by." Webster and Dekker's Westward Ho,-Webster's Works, iii. 45, ed. Dyce.

Indeed, the expression had become proverbial;

"For as a cart-wheele in the way goes round,

The spoake that's high'st is quickly at the ground,

So Enuy, or iust cause, or misconceit,

In Princes Courts continually doe waite,

That he that is this day Magnifico,

To morrow may goe by Jeronimo."

Taylor's Superbiæ Flagellum, p. 35,-Workes, ed. 1630.

We even find it used as a nick-name;

"And call thee Bloody-bones, and Spade, and Spit-fire,
And Gaffer Madman, and Go-by-Jeronimo,

And Will-with-a-whisp," &c.

Beaumont and Fletcher's Captain, act iii. sc. 5.

АСТ І.

SCENE 2.-C. p. 132; K. p. 152.

"For she is sweeter than perfume itself,

To whom they go. What will you read to her?”

[ocr errors]

"The folios read, To whom they go to;' redundant by the sense and metre." COLLIER.

In a note on the following passage of Massinger's Very Woman, act iii. sc. 5,

"Heaven knows to what 'twill mount to,"

Gifford, after giving an example of similar phraseology in Beaumont and Fletcher, which the editors of those poets had thought fit to alter, adds;

"When it is considered that the repetition so sedulously removed, was as anxiously sought after by our old writers, and was, indeed, characteristic of their style and manner, we may, perhaps, be indulged in forming a wish that those who undertake to revive and explain them, were somewhat more competent to the office." Works, iv. 301, ed. 1813.

Mr. Knight, as well as Mr. Collier, improperly throws out from the text the second "to" in the present passage; yet they both print;

"Presents more woful pageants, than the scene

Wherein we play in."

As you like it, act ii. sc. 7.

"In what enormity is Marcius poor in, that you two have not in abundance?" Coriolanus, act ii. sc. 1.

"And what not done, that thou hast cause to rue,

Wherein I had no stroke of mischief in it ?"

Titus Andron., act v. sc. 1.

Romeo and Juliet, act i. sc. 5.

"That fair, for which love groan'd for, and would die."

The same repetition is found in writers long posterior to Shakespeare; e. g.

"Lady Bashfull. O in what a torment I have been in! hell is not like it." Loves Adventures, act i. sc. 4,—Playes by the Duchess of Newcastle, 1662.

With respect to the "metre" of the present passage,—why should Mr. Collier object to a line of eleven syllables, when a little after, in the same page, he gives one which consists of no fewer than fifteen?

[ocr errors]

Trow you, whither I am going?-To Baptista Minola."

« ZurückWeiter »