various mistakes of those quartos; they,-not to mention minor mutilations of the text, some of them accidental,— omitted in the course of the play about a hundred and sixty verses (including nearly the whole of the 4th scene of act iv.), and left out a portion of the prose-dialogue in act v. sc. 2, besides allowing a multitude of errors to creep in passim :that their text of King Lear, though frequently correct where the quartos are incorrect, and containing various lines and words omitted in the quartos, is, on the other hand, not only often incorrect where the quartos are correct, but is mutilated to a surprising extent, the omissions, if we take prose and verse together, amounting to about two hundred and seventy lines, among which is an admirable portion of the 6th scene of the iiid act, as well as the whole of the 3d scene of act iv. :-but, not to weary the reader, I refrain from further details, though something might be added concerning their text of The Second Part of King Henry IV., of Titus Andronicus, of Romeo and Juliet, and of Othello. In short, Heminge and Condell made up the folio of 1623, partly from those very quartos which they denounced as worthless, and partly from manuscript stage-copies, some of which had been depraved, in not a few places, by the alterations and "botchery of the players," and awkwardly mutilated for the purpose of 8 False justicer, why hast thou let her scape?" 8 I may just notice that in Othello's famous address to the Senate, describing his courtship of Desdemona (who, as her father tells us, was the folio has "a maiden never bold; Of spirit so still and quiet, that her motion "My story being done, She gave me for my pains a world of KISSES: She swore,-in faith, 'twas strange," &c. (act i. sc. 3); which is certainly not a misprint, but an improvement introduced by some actor who thought that the older reading, "a world of sighs," was comparatively tame. 9 Gifford,-note on Jonson's Works, v. 163. curtailing the pieces in representation.1o-For the strange inconsistency of such a procedure with what the editors of 1623. professed to do, Mr. W. N. Lettsom has perhaps satisfactorily accounted when he suggests, "that, in their eyes, autographs, transcripts to the third and fourth generation, and printed books, were all much on a level, if they were only used and sanctioned by their company."-As to the original manuscripts of Shakespeare's plays, it is altogether improbable that any of them (especially when we recollect that the Globe Theatre was burned down in 1613) should have existed in 1623: we know, on the testimony of Sir Henry Herbert, Master of the Revels, that the original manuscript of The Winter's Tale,-one of our poet's latest compositions,-was "missing" in August 1623.12 The editor of the second folio, which appeared in 1632, was alike ignorant of Shakespeare's phraseology and versification: hence he vitiated the text in numerous instances by capriciously altering what he did not understand, and by interpolating words in lines where he thought the metre halted. All he did in the way of real correction was to set right some of the more obvious mistakes of the first folio, while he left others as he found them, and not unfrequently substituted new errors for the old. Since whatever changes he made were merely arbitrary, for he certainly never consulted manuscript copies of the plays, the second folio cannot be considered as an independent authority. After what has been said, it is almost unnecessary to add that the text of this edition is eclectic. Mr. Collier justly 66 10 With a boldness of assertion similar to that of Shakespeare's earliest editors,-Humphrey Moseley, in an address "To the Readers," prefixed to the folio of Beaumont and Fletcher's Comedies and Tragedies, 1647, declares, now you have both all that was acted, and all that was not; even the perfect full originals, without the least mutilation:" which is certainly not true with respect to two of the plays, The Humorous Lieutenant and The Honest Man's Fortune, and is probably untrue with respect to many others. (See my ed. of Beaumont and Fletcher's Works.) 11 Preface to Walker's Shakespeare's Versification, &c., p. xvii. 12 See Introduction to The Winter's Tale. remarks of Hamlet, that " any editor who should content himself with reprinting the folio, without large additions from the quartos, would present but an imperfect notion of the drama as it came from the hand of the poet. The text of 'Hamlet' is, in fact, only to be obtained from a comparison of the editions in quarto and folio:"13 and the remark is applicable to nearly all the other plays which were first printed in quarto; for even when the quartos do not supply absolute deficiencies, and though in various passages they may be themselves defective or corrupt, they frequently enable us to restore the language of Shakespeare where it has suffered from the tampering of the players.1 14 Of the modern editions of Shakespeare, from Rowe's to the most recent, I need make no mention here. But on the Emendations of Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector, which are still the subject of acrimonious dispute, I feel myself compelled to give an opinion: and, waving the question, for how much of that immense farrago the Corrector is really answerable, I am bound to say, that, with all his ignorance and rashness,— the far greater proportion of his nova lectiones being either 13 Introd. to Hamlet. 14 That Horne Tooke knew little or nothing of the quartos is manifest : if he had ever examined them even with ordinary attention, it is impossible that a man of his acuteness could have written about the folio in these extravagant terms: "The first Folio, in my opinion, is the only edition worth regarding. And it is much to be wished, that an edition of Shakespeare were given literatim according to the first Folio: which is now become so scarce and dear, that few persons can obtain it. For, by the presumptuous license of the dwarfish commentators, who are for ever cutting him down to their own size, we risque the loss of Shakespeare's genuine text; which that Folio assuredly contains; notwithstanding some few slight errors of the press, which might be noted, without altering." "Ereа Птeρóevта, &c., vol. ii. 54, ed. 1829. Nor is Mr. Knight's encomium on the folio less extravagant: "Perhaps," he says, "all things considered, there never was a book so correctly printed as the first folio of Shakspere" (see first note on act iv. sc. 5 of Troilus and Cressida): yet throughout his editions Mr. Knight has very great obligations to the quartos. Mr. Hunter gives the true character of the folio: "Perhaps in the whole annals of English typography there is no record of any book of any extent and any reputation having been dismissed from the press with less care and attention than the first folio." Preface to New Illust. of Shakespeare, p. iv. grossly erroneous or merely impertinent,-he yet deserves. our thanks for having successfully removed some corruptions, and must be allowed the honour of having anticipated several happy conjectures of Theobald and others. 15-Mr. Collier complains of the reception which the Emendations have met with in certain quarters :16 but, even granting that they have 15 1863. But the unanimous opinion now is, that the manuscript emendations throughout Mr. Collier's folio, in spite of their antique appearance, are of modern date. See, among other publications on this subject, Mr. Hamilton's Inquiry into the Genuineness of the Manuscript Corrections in Mr. J. Payne Collier's Annotated Shakspere, &c. 16 In his Preface to Seven Lectures on Shakespeare and Milton by Coleridge, &c., Mr. Collier writes at great length about those who have assailed the Emendations,-about their animosity to the Corrector and to himself; and, p. lxvi., speaking of what he conceives to be unfair dealing on the part of Mr. Singer, he says, "I dislike using hard words: all who are acquainted with me know that it has never been my practice; but if I acquit Mr. Singer of intentional misrepresentation, the assertio falsi, how is he to answer the accusation of suppressio veri? Of this minor offence proofs present themselves to me," &c. Further on, after attempting to support the Corrector's foolish alteration in King Henry the Eighth, act i. sc. 2, "I'm sorry that the Duke of Buckingham Is one in your displeasure," Mr. Collier notices certain mistakes in early books which have arisen from "the inability of some people to sound the letter r," and then observes, p. lxxxv., that "the most remarkable proof to the same effect occurs in Webster's Appius and Virginia' (Edit. Dyce, ii. 160), where this passage is met with as it is printed in the old copy: 'Let not Virginia wate her contemplation So high, to call this visit an intrusion.' It is clear that 'wate' must be wrong, and the editor suggests waie (i.e. weigh) as the fit emendation; when he did not see that it is only a blunder of w for r, because the person who delivered the line could not pronounce the letter r read rate for 'wate,' and the whole difficulty vanishes." Now, in my edition of Webster the passage stands verbatim thus; "Let not Virginia rate her contemplation So high, to call this visit an intrusion:" and with the following note; "rate] So the editor of 1816. The old copy, 'wate.' Qy. if a misprint for 'waie,' i. e. weigh." Yet Mr. Collier,-who charges Mr. Singer with want of candour,-most carefully conceals the fact that "rate" is the reading in my text of Webster. 1863. In a note on his second edition of Shakespeare, vol. iv. p. 375, Mr. Collier, speaking of this passage of Webster, absolutely asserts that the reading "rate" never occurred to any one except himself. not always been fairly criticised, he has himself, in a measure, to blame. He went far to create a prejudice against, if not to provoke a spirit of opposition to, the Corrector's labours en masse, when, in the commentary with which he encumbered them, he advocated hundreds of the most unnecessary changes ever devised by perverse ingenuity; and when, moreover, from his limited knowledge of what conjecture had attempted on the poet's text during the eighteenth century, he paraded as novelties a number of alterations already to be found in the editions of Pope, of Hanmer, and elsewhere.-It would seem that Mr. Collier's judgment, nay, his recollection of the phraseology of our old writers, was at times affected by his blind admiration of the Corrector. E. g. In The Two Gentlemen of Verona, act iv. sc. 2, the first folio has "Her eyes are grey as glass," &c.; on which line Theobald aptly cites from Chaucer, "hire eyen grey as glas." But the second folio, by a misprint, has "Her eyes are grey as grass," &c. The Corrector,--who used the second folio,-not perceiving that the error lay in the word "grass," altered the unoffending epithet "grey" to "green," "Her eyes are green as grass," &c. ; "and such," says Mr. Collier, "we have good reason to suppose was the true reading;" though a little before he admits that the first folio "may be right." In The Second Part of King Henry the Fourth, act iv. sc. 1, the old copies have "and your tongue divine To a loud trumpet and a point of war." The Corrector substitutes "and your tongue divine To a loud trumpet and report of war;" which Mr. Collier declares "ought to be printed in future," for "here 'point of war' can have no meaning:" yet Mr. Col |