The Press. — London, England, 1856-03-29 00:00:00

. 1 1 .111111 An earnest conj•iration from the King, As England was his faithful tributary; As love between them like the palm might flourish, And Peace should still her wheaten garland wear, And stand a comma 'tween their amities. Why comma? The only signification attached to " comma " is that of a point to note the separation of clauses of a sentence, and its meaning is therefore directly opposed to the whole idea of the above passage. Besides, it has a strictly technical sense ; it is confined to punc tuation, and can have nothing to do with any bond of union between the two countries. Yet " comma" is preserved even in Mr. Knight's edition now before us. Mr. Singer proposes to read " co-mere." Mere is an old English word for boundary or landmark. In this sense it is used by Lord Bacon : The mislayer of a mere-stone is to blame ; but it is the unjust judge that is the capital remover of landmarks who defineth amiss of lands. If we adopt this reading, the signification is that Peace shall stand as a mutual landmark between the two countries. Whether is it more probable that Shakespeare wrote this than that he wrote that a note of punctuation should stand between them ? Mr. Singer observes justly that an elephant would make as good sense of the passage as comma. The word is undoubtedly corrupt, and we can hardly question that Mr. Singer has with rare sagacity restored the true reading. His emendation strikes us as singularly felicitous, and if it stood alone, it would entitle him to an undisputed place among Shakesperian commentators. To show the corruption of the first folio, Mr. Singer quotes a passage from The Comedy of Errors, act ii., sc. 1. Adriana, lamenting her supposed desertion by her husband, ex claims : I see the lewell best enameled Will loose his beautie; yet the gold bides still That others touch, and often touching will, Where gold and no man that bath a name, By falsehood and corruption doth it shame? The passage, at first sight, seems hopelessly corrupt, but successive editors have brought it into shape, and in a late edition it reads : I see the jewell best enamelled Will lose his beauty ; and though gold bides still That others touch, yet often touching will Wear gold; and so no man that bath a name But falsehood and corruption doth it shame. The passage is obviously much improved ; some points in it are not satisfactory, but the weakest part is " That others touch." Mr. Singer proposes to read—" The trier's touch." The passage would, with some minor altera tions, then read : I see the jewell best enamelled Will lose his beauty ; yet though gold bides still The trier's touch, an often touching will Wear gold; and no man that hath a name But falsehood and corruption doth it shame. The last line but one is so obviously short of a syllable, that the particle "so " may he con veniently admitted into it. The passage is then so different from that of the folio that we cannot positively affirm it to be what Shake speare wrote ; but there are so many proba bilities in its favour, and it is so like Shake speare's manner, that in the absence of any better suggestions, which we think improbable, the lines as amended by Mr. Singer ought to constitute the text. We might carry these details to much greater length, but the instances we have given will show the value of Mr. Singer's labours. Other emendations brought to light in our day are of great value in clearing the text. Both Mr. Singer and Mr. Knight ac• knowledge the value of Mr. Collier's folio cor rection iu Timon of Athens, act iv., sc. 3, where Timon, asserting that it is position which gives honour, exclaims : Raise me this beggar, and deny't that lord The senator shall bear contempt hereditary, The begar native honour ; It is the pa-tore lards the brother's sides, The want that makes him lean. So in the folio ; but the MS. corrector alters " brother" to " rother," a word explained by Mr. Knight in his glossary : Phillips, in his " World of Worlda" (11;98), says—" Rollser beasts, a word used in old statutes, and still in the northern parts of England for horned beasts, as cows, oxen, steers, heifers, Scc." The correction here is unquestionable, and of great value. It is of importance to re-enrich (do to speak) our language with words whose THE PRESS. signification has nearly been lost through disuse. Other corrections from the same source, though generally affirmed, are open in Mr. Kinght's opinion to question. Such is the one in Cymbeline. Imogen is lamenting the incon stancy of Posthumous : Some jay of Italy Whose mother was her painting, hath betrayed him. Poor I am stale, a garment out of fashion. The MS. corrector would read : Who smothers her with painting. Mr. Knight adheres to the original, not with out some show of reason. The " jays of Italy" so altered nature by their tricks that their art became their parent, and their mother was their painting. In this sense the passage is intelligible, though we think far-fetched. The case is one of those which an editor must deal with according to his own discretion. We should feel inclined to adopt the more obvious read ing, in spite of Mr. Knight's sneer, that the " correction is prosaic enough to suit any " Shakspere made easy." We may notice that Mr. Singer has previously entered the field against some of the absurdities adopted by Mr. Collier. Neither in his past nor his pre sent position does the latter gentleman show that he possesses sufficient sagacity to consti tute him an authority on the text of his author. Without going more at large into the critical merits of the editions by Mr Singer and Mr. Knight, we will take the first play in each, The Tempest, to show that the text of Shakespeare is not yet nearly so clear as we may one day hope to possess it. In act i., sc. 2, Caliban appears at the mandate of his master with curses on his lips, and Prospero threatens him with punishment. Mr. Singer prints the passage : Prospero. For this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have cramps, Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up ; urchins Shall, for that vast of night that they may work All exercise on thee ; thou shalt be pinch'd As thick as honey-comb, each pinch more stinging Than bees that made them. " That vast of night" is correctly explained by Mr Singer to mean midnight, as in Hamlet : In the dead waist and middle of the night. But the passage as it stands is not intelligible. Mr. Knight adds a comma to "work," at the end of the line, and the passage has then a kind of meaning, though not satisfactory. It amserts that urchins shall all exercise on Cali ban during that vast of night that they are permitted to work. But Prospero would then limit his power over spirits at the time when he is asserting it; and the expression "urchins shall all exercise on thee," wants definiteness. We propose to read : Urchins Shall forth at vast of night, that they may work All exercise on thee. The correction only requires the movement of " th" from the beginning of " that" to the end of " for." Prospero would then declare authoritatively that urchins shall forth at mid night to work all exercise on Caliban ;—that is, to torment him to the utmost extent of their power. We have no doubt that this is the true reading, and we commend it to the attention of our Shakesperian friends, with the belief that it will hereafter pass into the text. In act ii., sc. 1, Antonio tempts Sebastian to murder his brother Alonzo while he sleeps. Sebastian, only imperfectly comprehending the drift of Antonio's discourse, yet thinking it too strange and horrible for reality, regards it as language spoken in a dream, and says : Surely It is a sleety language; and thou speak'st Out of thy sleep: What is it thou didat say? This is a strange repose, to he asleep With eyes wide open ; standing, speaking, moving, And yet so fast asleep. Antonio. Noble Sebastian, Thou leest thy fortune sleep—die rather; wink'at Whiles thou art. sleeping. Sebastian. Thou dolt snore distinctly. What is the meaning of " " at the end of the line ? Shall we read it inter rogatively as a question addressed to Sebas tian, " Wink'st, whilst thou art waking?" Our editors do not sanction this reading, yet they give us no other. We propose to omit the word altogether, reading the passage thus : SATURDAY, Antonio. Noble Thou let'st thy fortune sleep—.die rather--whiles Thou art waking. Seba4lian. Thou dost snore distinctly. Sebastian asserts that Antonio is performing the actions of waking life —standing, speaking, moving, while he is asleep ; and Antonio retorts that Sebastian lets his fortune sleep—die rather —while he is waking. Sebastian persists in his metaphor, and returns, " Thou dost snore dis tinctly." We appeal to the candour of our readers, whether this correction should not, bo incorporated with the text in future editions? We are not favorable to that sty le of criti cism which would justify all necessary changes by showing how an author may have omitted to dot his i s and loop his l's, or how the com positor may have transposed a letter or a space, because we think that the sources of error are too numerous to be cleared up by any such mode of explanation; yet it may sometimes be resorted to, in order to strengthen probabilities. If we suppose that through inadvertence " whiles," or " whilst,' was, either by author or transcriber, after having been written at the end of one line, repeated at the beginning of the next, we can easily understand how the printer should have taken it for " wink'st ;" and on the prin ciple that, Your true meaning puzzles more than wit; so it may have remained to this day. Twenty lines further on Antonio reasons upon the improbability of the persuasion used by Gonzalo to show the King that his son Ferdinand may be still alive. The text given by Mr. Singer runs:— Although this lord of weak remembrance—this _... ... .. . Who titian be of as little memory, When he is earth'd, hath here almost persuaded ( For he's a spirit of persuasion, only Professes to persuade) the King, his son's alive ; 'Tis as impossible that he's undrown'd, As he that sleeps here swims. Mr. Knight prints the passage in the same way, except that the clause "who shall be," &c., is placed between parentheses. Mr. Singer has a suspicion that the passage is corrupt ; as well he may have, for the word " this "at the end of the first line is clearly superfluous, remembrance being sounded long, as of four syllables ; while Gonzalo, con stantly ridiculed by Antonio and Sebastian, is described as " a spirit of persuasion." In the character of Gonzalo we perceive the poet's exquisite knowledge of character. He is an honest. but a very prosaic personage. The tone of his address to the King, act ii., se. 2, is in the style of that vulgar consola tion which finds comfort in the midst of disas ter, by reflecting on its universality, or by observing that it might have been worse. It is absurd to suppose that Antonio would gravely term him " a spirit of persuasion." We read the passage:— Although this lord of weak rememberance— Who shall be of as little memory When he is eartlCd—hath here almost persuaded (For he a spirit of persuasion only Professes to persuade) the King his son's clove. 'Tis as impossible that he's uudrown'd, As he that sleeps here swims. That is—This lord, who will be of as little memory when he is earthed, as he is now of little remembrance, bath nearly persuaded (for he does not profess more than to impart, or to persuade, a sense of persuasion) the King that his son's alive, &c. Between these readings the lovers of Shakespeare will hardly hesitate which to choose. We have marked many other passages in this same play, but cannot afford to dwell on them. When Stephano, speculating on the value of Caliban, could lie get him safely away, is made to say, If I can recover him and keep him tame, I will not take too much for him ; he shall pay for him that bath him, and that soundly, it is obvious that the word " too " should be omitted ; when Ferdinand, on Miranda ask ing hint if he will be hf:r husband, replies— Ay, with a heart as willing As bondage e'er of freedom ; here's my hand, we feel sure that the passage is corrupt, though we can think of no satisfactory emendation. The sense seems to require something rescrubling—" e'er took freedom. We have adduced these instances only to show the probability that a close examination I