Shakspere may have written deep in the margin, meaning it as a substitute for true; and the printer may have thought that it was meant to be inserted in the next line. With printers such things are possible. But were it not that the Cambridge editors seem to have seen no objection to 'deep' where it stands in the Quarto, I should have thought it certain that no man with an ear for metrical effect ever put it there intentionally.

43

IV. iv. 263. "And mean to make her Queen of England."

I do not know whether Shakspere ever pronounced 'England' as a trisyllable. The corrector read it as a disyllable and corrected the metre accordingly:

"And do intend to make her Queen of England."

44.

IV. iv. 268. "As one that are best acquainted with her humour.” The Folio substitutes 'being' for 'that are'; evidently to get rid of the redundant syllable. 'Being' was almost always treated as a monosyllable.

45.

IV. iv. 452. "What is't your Highness pleasure I shall do at Salis

bury."

The editors regulate the metre here by putting at Salisbury' in a separate line the Folio by reading :

"What may it please you shall I do at Salisbury?"

46.

IV. iv. 456. "My mind is changed Sir: my mind is changed.
How now what news with you?

This the editors retain without alteration, preferring it to the reading of the Folio:

"My mind is changed. Stanley, what news with

47.

IV. iv. 467. "Well, Sir, as you guess, as you guess?"

The Folio reads" Well, as you guess?" leaving it a short line, but metrical as far as it goes.

48.

IV. iv. 485. "Cold friends to Richard: What do they in the north?" This, in any of Shakspere's later plays, would be a common form of line: the redundant syllable, coming in the middle of the line immediately before a strong pause, drops, as it were, into the pause, and scarcely disturbs the measure more than the redundant syllable at the end of a line. But in the plays of the second period I think you will find very few such, and at the time when the inserted passages the more considerable of them-were composed, I doubt whether Shakspere would have admitted them at all. To get rid of it here, 'Richard' is changed to 'me : '—

"Cold friends to me: What do they in the north?”

These are all the alterations belonging to this class that I have been able to find, besides those which the Cambridge editors have allowed to be Shaksperean by admitting them into their text. And without raising the question whether they are judicious or injudicious, a question of taste which cannot be determined,-I think I may fairly ask in which of them the sense is spoiled for the sake of amending a supposed defect of metre; and also whether any one is prepared to maintain, even among those who most think the readings of the Quarto superior, that the superiority is so great, or of such a kind, as to make it certain that the alterations were not due to Shakspere?

III.

I now proceed to the next class,-alterations apparently made "to avoid the recurrence of the same word even where the recurrence adds to the force of the passage," a class with which, in the absence of specified examples, I cannot deal exhaustively, there being so many words altered in the neighbourhood of the same words, and so little to guide me to the cases in which force is supposed to be lost by the alteration. Suppose we take the first examples that come and examine them.

ALTERATIONS MADE TO AVOID THE RECURRENCE OF THE SAME WORD.

1.

I. ii. 11, 14. "Stabbed by the self-same hands that made these holes." Holes altered in Folio to wounds. No doubt because

"Curst be the hand that made these fatal holes"

occurred only 3 lines below. But what force is lost by the alteration?

2.

I. ii. 76, 79. Evils changed to crimes (a better word, I think, and making a smoother verse) in 76, but not in 79, whereby it is true that some force is lost.. This I have already mentioned among the alterations not likely to have been designed by Shakspere. See above, p. 6, no. 7.

I. ii. 94.

3.

"Queen Margaret saw

Thy bloody falchion smoking in his blood."

Bloody changed to murderous. But this alteration the editors accept.

4.

I. iii. 280, 282. "O princely Buckingham, I will kiss thy hand
In sign of league and amity with thee.

Now fair befall thee and thy princely house."

The last princely changed to noble. The alteration admitted.

5.

I. iii. 325-328. "The secret mischiefs that I set abroach
I lay unto the grievous charge of others.

Clarence, whom I indeed have laid in darkness,"

Laid changed to cast: no doubt because of lay in the previous line. The alteration, though rejected in the Cambridge edition, is surely an improvement, the recurrence of the same word adding, in this case, no force whatever.

6.

I. iii. 354. "Your eyes drop millstones when fools' eyes drop tears." The last drop changed to fall. And this may, perhaps, be one of the passages which suggested the editors' remark. If so, I cannot agree

with them. I do not feel that any force is lost by the loss of the repetition.

7.

I. iv. 18. "Methought that Gloucester stumbled, and in stumbling Struck me, that thought to stay him, overboard."

Stumbling changed to falling. The change admitted.

8.

I. iv. 196. "Take heed; for he holds vengeance in his hands [204 Globe.] To hurl upon their heads that break his law.

2. And that same vengeance doth he throw on thee."

Here the Folio reads in the last line hurl instead of throw. Had the change been the other way, I should have thought it a case in point. But as it is, the corrector clearly felt that the recurrence of the word added force to the passage. And the editors accept the correction.

9.

II. i. 9, 10. "By heaven my heart is purged from grudging hate
And with my hand I seal my true heart's love."

In the Folio, heart in the first line is changed to soul. No doubt to avoid the recurrence of the same words, which, in this instance, adds no force; as the editors acknowledge, by accepting the correction.

10.

II. i. 33. "Whenever Buckingham doth turn his hate

On you or yours, but with all duteous love

Doth cherish you and yours, God punish me
With hate," &c.

Here the editors adhere to the Quarto; and I suppose, therefore, that they feel some force added to the passage by the recurrence of the phrase on you and yours. It does not appear to me to have any such effect, and the reading of the Folio, which substitutes upon your Grace for on you or yours in the second line (Buckingham being understood, according to Rowe's suggestion, to address the Queen), I call an improvement. Not so Pope's substitution of and not with for but with all. The clause is indeed hard to construe, and may per haps be corrupt; but I rather think that "but. . . . doth cherish"

is to be understood as equivalent to "instead of cherishing," and this would give the right meaning.

11.

II. ii. 41. "Why grow the branches now the root is withered?
Why wither not the leaves, the sap being gone?"

I do not know whether the editors find any value in the repetition of the word wither. But I fancy the corrector observed that, as applied to the root, it was not the proper word, and removed it on that account. The Folio reads:

"Why grow the branches when the root is gone?
Why wither not the leaves that want their sap?"

Which seems to me to show no signs of an inferior hand, and to be, moreover, more like an author's correction than a critic's.

12.

II. iii. 5. "I fear, I fear 'twill prove a troublous world.” 9. "Then masters look to see a troublous world.”

Though the editors retain both these lines unaltered, I think if they had observed the recurrence of the three last words within four lines of each other (and certainly without adding anything to the force of the passage) they would have accepted the change of troublous (in the first) to giddy: which is the reading of the Folio.

III. ii. 8.

13.

"Mess. First he commends him to your noble lordship. Hast. And then?

Mess. And then he sends you word

He dreamt to night," &c.

To make the metre more regular, the corrector altered the messenger's second speech into :

"Then certifies your Lordship that this night

He dreamt," &c.

At the same time, to avoid the repetition of the word Lordship at so short an interval, he changed it (in the first line) to self:

"First he commends him to your noble self."

It is another case of an alteration to avoid the recurrence of the same word, but still it is not one in which the recurrence adds anything to the force of the passage: and these are what I am seeking for.