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    * ' It was while putting my books together for removal , that I first observed some marks in the margin of this folio ; but it was subsequently placed upon an upper shelf , and I did not take it down until I had occasion to consult it . It then struck me that Thomas Perkins , whose name , with the addition of' his Booke , ' was upon the cover , might be the old actor who had performed in Marlowe ' s ' Jew of Malta , ' on its revival shortly before 1633 . At this time I fancied that the binding was of about that date , and that the volume might have been his ; but in the first place , I found that his name was Richard Perkins , and in the next I became satisfied that the rough calf was not the original binding . Still , Thomas Perkins might have been a descendant of Eicliard ; and this circumstance and others induced me to examine the volume more particularly : I then discovered , to my surprise , that there was hardly a page which did not present , in a hand-writing of the time , some emendations in the pointing or in the text , while on most of them they were frequent , and on manv numerous .

    " Of course I now submitted the folio to a most careful scrutiny- ; and as it occupied a considerable time to complete the inspection , how much more must it have consumed to make the alterations ? The ink was of various shades , differing sometimes on the same page , and I was once disposed to think that two distinct hands had been employed upon them : this notion I have since abandoned ; and I am now decidedly of opinion that the same writing prevails from beginning to end , but that the amendments must have been introduced from time to time , during , perhaps , the course of several years . The changes in punctuation alone , always made with nicety and patience , must have required a long period , considering their number ; the other alterations , sometimes most minute , extending even to turned letters and typographical trifles of that kind , from their very nature could not have been introduced with rapidity , while many of the errata must have severely tasked the industry of the old corrector . "

    Mr . Collier thinks that the corrector was some manager or actor—some one connected with our early theatres . This supposition explains the erasure of whole speeches , the insertion of stage directions , and the insertion also of lines and passages which connect the disjointed meanings of the text . He estimates these corrections of punctuation , printing , and meaning at little less than 20 , 000 ! We scarcely know what to say to the assault made on the authenticity of our old friends , Heminge and Condell , Shakspeare's first editors and his fellow-actors .

    " It is to be observed that these last emendations apply to plays which were printed for the first time in the folio , 1623 . This fact tends to prove that the manuscript , put into the hands of the printer by Heminge and Condell , in spite of what they say , was not in a much better condition than the manuscript used by stationers for the separate plays which they had previously contrived to publish . The effect of the ensuing pages must be considerably to lessen our confidence in the text furnished by the player-editors , for the integrity of which I , among others , have always strenuously contended . Consequently , I ought to be among the last to admit the validity of objections to it ; and it was not until after long examination of the proposed alterations , that I was compelled to allow their general accuracy and importance .

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    January 29 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER , * 13

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    " It was , as may be inferred , very little , if at all , the babit of dramatic authors , in the time of Shakespeare , to correct the proofs of their productions ; and as we know that , in respect to the plays which had been published in quarto before 1623 , all that Heminge and Condell did , was to put the latest edition into the hands of their printer , so , possibly , in respect to the plays which for the first time appeared in the folio , 1623 , all that they did might be to put the manuscript , such as it was , into the hands of their printer , and to leave to him the whole process of typography . It is not at all unlikely that they borrowed playhouse copies to aid them ; but these might consist , sometimes at least , of the separate parts allotted to the different actors , and , for the sake of speed in so long a work , scribes might be employedto whom the manuscript was read as they proceeded with their transcripts .

    , Tliis supposition , and the fraudulent manner in which plays in general found their way into print , may account for many of the blunders they unquestionably contain in tho folios , and especially for tlie strange confusion of verse and prose which they sometimes exhibit . The not unfrcquent errors in prefixes , by which words or lines arc assigned to one character , wliich certainly belong to another , may thus also bo explained : the render of the drama to the scribe did not at all times accurately distinguish the persons engaged in tho dialogue ; and if lie had only the separate parts , and what are technically called the cues , to guide him , we need not be surprised at the circumstance . Tlio following is a single proof , tho first that occurs to memory : it is from llomeo and Juliet , Act III . Scone V ., where tho heroine declares to her mother that , if who must marry , her husband shall bo Romeo : —

    'And when I do , I swear , It shall ho Romeo , whom you know I hato , Itather than Paris . —These aro news indeed !' This is tho universal regulation ; but , us we may very well believe , tho closing words , ' These aro news , indeed V do not belong to Juliet , but to Lady Capulot , who thus expresses her astonishment at her daughter ' s resolution : therefore , her speech ought to begin earlier than it appears in any extant copy . Juliet ends , —

    ' A ml when I do , I swear , It » hall bo Romeo , whom you know I halo , Itathor than Paris . Jj ( t . Cap . These- aro news , indeed ! Hero comes your father ; toll him so yourself , And hoo how lio will take il . at your hands . ' Then ; cannot surely bo any dispute that this is tho mode in which tho poet distributed tho linos , and in wliieh tho old corrector of the folio , 1032 , had heard the dialogue divided on the stage in his time . "

    Fur bo it from us to put on oven tlio show of teaching Mr . Collier anything on such . a subject , as thin ; yet wo cannot forbear recalling to his attention 1 , 1 io phrase used by Momingo and Condoll , in opposition to that passage w herein lie speaks of their manuscrip t ,, " such as it was , " having been borrowed from playhouHo copies , which might sometimes consist of tho sopnmto parts allotted to different ; uel . ors—a passage which throws unmerited discredit , on the lirst , folio . The language of those player editors is precise , unequivocal . Referring to th , o surreptitious copies which had before boon printed , " evon those aro now offeredlo your view , cured , ami p erfect ; of their limbs ; and all tho rest absolute in their numborB , n « he conceived them , Who , ae ho was a happy imitator of nature .

    was a gentle expresser of it . Sis mind and hand went together ; and what he thought he uttered with that easiness that we have scarce received from him a Hot in his papers . " This passage , be pleased to observe , not only records an interesting literary fact—viz ,, that Shakspeare , like Goethe , Voltaire , Scott , Dickens , and other men of great intellectual energy , wrote without hesitation , without " blotting "—but it also distinctly states thatthe papers from which Heminge and Condell printed were written by Shakspeare ' s hand , and were not playhouse copies or actors' parts . Now , of two suppositions , one : either Hemmge and Condell deliberately lied ; or their word is absolute on this point . We leave it to critics to settle the question .

    Respecting the emendations themselves , only a caretul perusal ol the book will convey an adequate idea of their importance . It is curious to see them cutting short the vexed disputes of commentators in the simplest way . It is curious also to see the new significance given to passages by an altered punctuation , or tho insertion of a line . We will cull , ad aperturam , a passage or two . In the celebrated passage of the Twelfth Night" It had a dying fall ; O , it came o ' er my ear like the sweet south That breat hes upon a bank of violets ,

    Stealing and giving odour . The reading of all the editions until Pope ' s time was"O , it came o ' er my ear like the sweet sound " And Charles Knight has returned to the old reading . In the long note he appends to this passtge we see his perverse erudition and ingenuity striving in vain against common sense . A sound may be said to breathe , but how can it be said to give or steal odours ? Moreover , Shakspeare does not compare the sound of music to the sound of the breeze , but the effect of music to the effect of the breeze on a bank of violets . The " old corrector , " whom Mr . Collier follows , anticipated Pope , and corrected " sound" into " south . " In the same way this old corrector anticipated Theobald in the obvious correction of " weary" for " merry , " disdained by Charles Knight . Bosalind , in As you Like it , says" O Jupiter ! how weary are my spirits !" Whereupon Touchstone answers" I care not for my spirits , if my legs were not weary . " This answer , one would think , sufficiently explains the old misprint" O Jupiter I how merry are my spirits I " But Charles Knight prefers sticking to the folio , and restores " merry , " adding in a note , that " Whiter , with great good sense , suggests that Rosalind ' s merriment was assumed as well as her dress" ! This great good sense never asked itself why Bosalind Bhould assume merriment in presence of Touchstone , nor why , if the merriment was assumed , her remark following To % ichstones answer should be , " I could find in my heart to disgrace my man ' s apparel , and cry like a woman . " The effect of slight alterations may be judged from these two

    specimens : " P . 540 . All appeals failing to move Shylock , Antonio entreats for judgment , observing , as the lines are printed in the folio , 1632 , — ' Or even as woll use question with the wolf , Tho ewe bleat for the lamb : when you behold . ' Such are the words , and such the punctuation ; but tho earlier folio , of 1623 , gives the sentence even more imperfectly : — ' Or even as well uso question with tho wolf , The ewe bleat for tho lamb ;' the rest of the line being wanting . How , then , is the defect remedied by the corrector of tho folio , 16 . 32 ? Simply by a transposition and the removal of a colon , wliieh accomplishes all that is wanted by making tho meaning indisputable : he

    reads , — ' Or even as well uao question with tho wolf , When you behold the ewe bleat for tho lamb . ' " P . 557 . At the end of Portia ' s speech we have this passage , as it is found in all tho old copies :- — ' Peaco ! how ( lie moon sloops with Endymion , And would riot bo awnk'd . ' Malono changed it to < Peace , boa ! the moon , ' Ac ; but the manuscript-corrector of tho folio , 1 GH 2 , tells us that the error was not how for ' boa , ' but how for ' now : ' this is the more likely , because when the folios mine from the press it was not usual to spell the interjection 'lion , ' but ho ; and we know that it was a very common mistake to print' bow' for now , and -vice vcrsd ; therefore we ought to read , —

    ' Peace ! now tho moon sleeps with Kndymion , And would not bo uwak'd . '" Have wo fired your curiosity P If so , we have , done enough . Possess the book by all means , if you liuve any care for Shakspearo ' s text . GltKfl'H ESSAYS ON SOCI AL \ scn < : N ( M < :. Essays on Volitical and Social , Nwwr , contributed chujhi to tho " Mdinhurgh iLncwr By William It . ( Jr » . a vols . Longman and Co . Mit . W . R . Gkku is among Mio active contributors to our Kovievva , and by no means one of Iho least able ; but wo mnnol , l > n , itf ourHolvos to to jUHlily Llioir

    reregard his fugitive articles as of Kullicient importance publication in this imposing form . They can liavono protonH . on to stand on tho shelf beside Macaulay , . Irrtroy , Sidney SiiuMi , and Macintosh ; --indeed , on a far lower shelf they would bo oul , of place . Mr . Henry Kogors reprinted his articles , , m , l was justified b y i ho permanence of his topics , no less than by ( ho thoughtful eare and ability <>( thoir treatment . Mr . Greg writes in newspaper * and reviews on passing subjects ; writes well , wo are bound to add , but . not , hotter than hundreds of others , and not so woll as several who do not renrint Uioir ephemera ; and we are at a loss to divine tho motive which could have suggested Uioso reprints from the . Edinburgh , Westminster , North lirithh , and Kconowist . Mr . Greg lias no views of his own to justify ro-pubheahon , nor doea he make tho views of others forcible in novel applications j ho brings a well'

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 29, 1853, page 113, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1971/page/17/