69.

V. iii. 125. "By thee was punchèd full of deadly holes."

The Folio omits 'deadly,' leaving an imperfect line. From this we may gather that one of the later Quartos was used for 'copy.' the Quartos except the first omit 'deadly.'

70.

V. iii. 152. "Let us be lead within thy bosom, Richard."

All

The Folio (following again all the Quartos except the first) reads laid for lead.

71.

V. iii. 154. "Thy nephews souls bid thee despair and die."

The Folio has :

"Thy nephews soul bids thee despair and die."

A new blunder of its own.

72.

V. iii. 180. "The lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight." The Folio (following again all the Quartos except the first) reads:"It is not dead midnight."

73.

V. iii. 196. "Perjury, perjury, in the high'st degree."

The Folio (following all the Quartos except the first and second) omits the second 'perjury,' leaving an imperfect line.

V. iii. 212.

74.

King. Oh Ratcliffe, I have dreamed a fearful dream. What thinkest thou? will all our friends prove true? Rat. No doubt, my Lord.

King. Oh Ratcliffe, I fear, I fear."

Here we have a considerable error peculiar to the Folio, but still it is one with which no corrector had anything to do. The first three lines are omitted altogether, no doubt by one of the most ordinary accidents of the press. Of the two lines beginning "King. Oh Ratcliffe," the compositor's eye had lighted on the last. Or it may have been the transcriber's mistake. Every practised transcriber knows how easily such an accident may occur.

75.

V. iii. 250. "A base foul stone made precious by the foil."

The Folio (following once more all the Quartos except the first and second) reads soil for foil.

76.

V. iii. 255. "If you do sweat to put a tyrant down."

The Folio (following all the Quartos except the first and second) reads:-"If you do swear."

77.

V. iii. 293. "My foreward shall be drawn out all in length." All the Quartos except the first omit 'out all,' and the Folio follows them, reading" My foreward shall be drawn in length."

78.

V. iii. 307. "Go gentlemen every man unto his charge." The Folio reads to his charge; an error of its own.

79.

V. iii. 338. "Fight gentlemen of England, fight bold yeomen." For Fight the Folio reads Right.

80.

V. iii. 351. "Upon them: Victory sits on our helms."

For helmes the Folio reads helpes; and so do four of the Quartos,the 3rd, 5th, 6th, and 7th.

81.

V. v. 7. "Wear it, enjoy it, and make much of it."

The Folio (following again all the Quartos except the two first) omits 'enjoy it,' leaving an imperfect line.

82.

V. v. 11. "Whither, if it please you, we may now withdraw us." The Folio (this time without the authority of any previous edition)

reads:

"Whither if you please we may now withdraw us."

?

83.

Besides those which I have set down, there are, I think, only 17 places in which the Folio varies from the first Quarto, after the 46th line of the third scene. The variations are all verbal, and all but one unimportant. But in Scene iv., line 10, where all the Quartos agree in reading,—

"Slave I have set my life upon a cast,

And I will stand the hazard of the day,"the Folio reads "hazard of the dye;" which seems like an intelligent correction. In the other cases it would not be easy to make a choice. This last Act contains 458 lines, of which 89 exhibit some alteration.

For the satisfaction of my own mind I have already carried the inquiry far enough, and might be content to end it here. For the variations which I have quoted being the only ones which I cannot suppose to have been designed by Shakspere himself,-and they being easily accounted for in almost every instance without supposing anybody besides the printer to have meddled with the text,-it follows that in my judgment no inference in favour of the Cambridge editors' theory can be drawn from those which remain. the case against their theory would be left incomplete without some intimation of the number and nature of those other variations which have all the appearance of corrections deliberately and carefully made, and are in accordance with Shakspere's known practice at a later stage in his career as a dramatic writer.

But

Foremost among these come, of course, the inserted passages. "Passages," say the editors, "which in the Quarto are complete and consecutive are amplified in the Folio: the expanded text being quite in the manner of Shakspere. The Folio, too, contains passages not in the Quartos, which though not necessary to the sense, yet harmonise so well in sense and tone with the context, that we can have no hesitation in attributing them to the author himself." These being admitted to be Shakspere's own, I need not quote them; but as their importance with respect to the question at issue is not adequately conveyed by so general a statement, it may be well to give Preface, p. xvi.

some idea of their number, quantity, and distribution. This may be done by a simple enumeration, with reference to the places where they come in. Referring to the acts, scenes, and lines of the Cambridge edition, the lines indicated by the following numbers will be found in the first Folio, and not in any of the Quartos.

NEW LINES INSERTED IN RICHARD III. AS PRINTED IN THE FOLIO OF 1623.

36, 37, 69-72, 113, 114, 165, 212. (256-259, 263, 265.)1

89-100, 123-140.

172-174.

Act

Scene

ii.

iii.

67.

27, 28, 43.

7, 8, 15.

104-107.

7, 103-105.

5, 6, 37, 98, 99, 120, 127, 144-153, 202, 245.
2-6, 37, 98-104.

20, 21, 28, 52, 53, 103, 159, 172, 179, 221-234,
276, 277, 288-342, 400.

Here, then, we have 193 new lines in all; but they are made up in great part of ones and twos-I see that out of the 45 insertions noted above, 22 consist of one line only, and 9 of only two-which being scattered irregularly through the whole of the first four Acts, indicate not merely the addition of a scene or a speech here and there, but a general revision and correction of the entire composition. Now, if Shakspere took so much trouble with the small additions and amplifications, why should we not suppose that he took as much with the corrections? The only reason I can imagine is, that the additions are judged to be worthy of him, and the corrections not. The Cambridge editors are so decidedly of this opinion that, while they admit into their text all the additional lines (with two

The numbers within the brackets form a consecutive passage of 6 lines in the Folio. The separation is due to the modern editors. For the Globe edition the last eight numbers must be altered to these:-115, 116, 222, 266— 269, 273, 275. The lines indicated by II. i. 67, and III. iii. 15, will be found in the foot-notes of the Cambridge edition, but not in the Globe edition at all.

exceptions) which they find in the Folio, they refuse more than two thirds of the corrections, in favour of the original readings of the Quarto. And since they assume that the text of the Folio is founded upon a copy of "the author's original MS., revised by himself, with corrections and additions, interlinear, marginal, and on inserted leaves" (Preface, p. xviii.), it is plain that every one of these corrections, unless there be some positive reason for ascribing it to another hand, has a right to its place in the text, as being that which the author preferred, whether we prefer it or not. Some positive reason of the kind they appear to have seen; for they "find in the Folio" (they say) "some insertions and many alterations which they may with equal certainty affirm not to be due to Shakspere:" with a certainty (that is) equal to that with which they affirm that the amplifications, expansions, and additions are due to him. But when I seek for the grounds of this certainty, I find nothing more definite than the following remarks in the Preface :"Sometimes the alterations seem merely arbitrary, but more frequently they appear to have been made in order to avoid the recurrence of the same word, even where the recurrence adds to the force of the passage, or to correct a supposed defect of metre, although the metre cannot be amended except by spoiling the sense. Occasionally we seem to find indications that certain turns of phrase, uses of words or metrical licences, familiar enough to Shakspere and his earlier contemporaries, had become obsolete in the time of the corrector, and the passages modified accordingly." (Ib., p. xvii.)

Now, it is plain that the question whether we have here good reasons for concluding that these alterations were not due to Shakspere, or no reasons at all, depends entirely upon the truth of the assertion implied in the clauses which I have printed in italic. Where the recurrence of the same word adds force to the passage, the substitution of another in order to avoid its recurrence would be a good reason for thinking that Shakspere did not make the alteration. To remove a defect of metre at the expense of the meaning, is a thing which Shakspere cannot be suspected of-since he was certainly capable of making his metre perfect without spoiling his sense. But where are these alterations of phrase or metre from