The Press.
London, England, 1856-04-26 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

The Edinburgh reviewer selects from Timon of
Athens an alteration of the corrector, to show that
he could not have worked by guess alone. In act ii.
sc. 2 Timon, at the end of his conference with the
Athenian senators, instructs them how the citizens
may avoid "wild Alcibiades' wrath "

Whoso please
To stop affliction, let him take his haste,
Come hither, ere my tree hath felt the axe,
And hang himself.
The students of Shakespeare know that the phrase
" take his haste " has often engaged the attention of
commentators, and that corruption has been sus-
pected. Now Mr. Collier, in his edition of 1853,
says that it comprised " the manuscript cor-
rections recently discovered by the editor;" and
further, "the new readings of the old corrector of
" the folio 1632, considerably exceeding a thousand,
" are duly insetted in the places to which they be•
" long." In this very edition the passage is printed
as it appears above, just as it appears in all previous
editions, ancient and modern. But the Edinburgh
reviewer authoritatively informs us that there is " a
" recent discovery in the folio which, from the pale-
" mess of the ink, and defaced state of many pages,
" has not even yet been thoroughly examined."
This "recent discovery " for "let him take his
haste," substitutes "let him take his halter." And
the reviewer triumphantly asks—" Can this be a
guess!" The suggestion is itself extremely inge-
nious ; but we must say that the hint thus given us,
that further " discoveries " are in progress, three
years after Mr. Collier had professed to publish the
whole of the corrections, tends more to raise our sus-
picions than any circumstance we have yet heard.
Passing over that point, we wish to show that from
other corrections in this same play it is impossible
that the corrector could have bad, as the reviewer
plainly intimates, the genuine text of Shakespeare
before him.

When Timon is first aroused to a sense of his ne-
cessity, he calls his servants and bids them follow his
directions :

Timon. I will despatch you severally.—Yon to Lord
Lucius, to Lord Lucullus you ; I hunted with his honour
to-day ; you to Sempronius: commend me to their loves ;
and, I am proud to say, that my occasions have found time
to use them toward a supply of money : let the request be
fifty talents.

Of the servants two are specially named. One is
Flaminius, the other Servilius. The former pro-
ceeds to Lucullus; the latter to Lucius. Flaminius
delivers his errand correctly, and says that his lord,
" having great and instant occasion to use fifty
" talents, bath sent to your lordship to furnish him."
Servilius proceeds to Lucius ; and we print from Mr.
Knight's last edition the text in dispute as it has
usually been given :
Servilius. May it please your honour, my lord bath
sent—

Lucius. Ha! what has he sent? I am so much en•
deared to that lord ; he's ever sending: How shall I
thank him, think'st thou? And what has he sent now?
Set vilius. He has only sent his present occasion, now,
my lord ;—requesting your lordship to supply his instant
use with so many talents.
Lucius. I know his lordship is but merry with me; he
cannot want fifty-five hundred talents.
Servilius. But in the meantime he wants less, my
lord.
If his occasion were not virtuous,
I should not urge it half so faithfully.
There can be no doubt that the passage is corrupt,
and the wonder is that it should be so printed in all
the standard editions. Let us see how Mr. Collier,
with the aid of his MS. corrector, deals with it. We
extract from his edition of 1853:

Servilius. He has only sent his present occasion now,
my lord ; requesting your lordshi, to supply his instant
use with five hundred talents.
Lucius. I know his lordship is but merry with me.
He cannot want five hundred talents.
Servilius. But in the meantime he wants less, my
lord.
If his occasion were not virtuous
I should not urge it half so faithfully.
This is the alteration of a corrector who we are re-
quired to believe had the very text of Shakespeare
under his eye. So far from clearing the text, and
restoring the original meaning, it makes confusion
worse confounded. Servilius was sent to borrow
fifty talents. Is it likely he would ask for five
hundred ? Ann then what absolute nonsense is
made of the subsequent reply of Servilius. "But in
" the meantime he wants less, my lord." The
corrector, going over the play superficially, was led
into his gross blunder by the remark of Lucius,
"He cannot want fifty-five hundred talents." The
writer of this notice had long since proposed to read
the whole passage as follows ;
Servilius. He has only sent his present occasion now,
my lord; requesting your lordship to:supply his instant use
with fifty talents.
Lucius. I know his lordship is but merry with me. He
cannot want fifty hundred talents. _

Servilius. But in the meantime he wants less, my lord.
If his occasion were not virtuous, I should not urge it half
so faithfully.

Between these readings we leave the lovers of
Shakespeare to decide. Some alteration is plainly
wanted in the common text The alteration we pro•
pose is but slight, and may be supposed not un-
reasonably to restore what Shakespeare wrote, though
there must always be a doubt whether we should
read "fifty hundred talents," or "fifty five hundred
talents." The alteration of the corrector is consi-
derable, and, beyond all manner of doubt, wanders
farther from the pure text of Shakespeare than the
error it pretends to amend.
We had not intended to return to the subject
again. But we find we cannot include in this paper
some remarks which appear to us necessary to coun-
teract the very pernicious tendency of the Edinburgh
article, evidently intended to cry up the worth of Mr.
Collier's "discovery ;" and the question raised by the
reviewer is of too great importance to be hastily die-
missed. The text of Shakespeare cannot be too
diligently examined, or too scrupulously guarded;
and it will be tolerably safe so long as it is preserved
from the plague of spurious " authoritative correc-
tion," since it is not possible for any alterations to
be generally received until they obtain general con
sent. Since criticism first exercised its vigilance on
Shakespeare's page the text has been in continual
process of purification ; and persons must be grossly
ignorant of what "conjectural emendation " has
achieved since the first folio who would disparage its
labours. The mind which has the finest feeling for
Shakespeare must always be most successful in per-
ceiving his sense, and in clearing it from disfiguring
errors. After the Bible, his works are the most im-
portant book in our language--the most widely read,
and the most universal in their humanity. It was
Pope, if we recollect rightly, who said that if the
world and its inhabitants were destroyed, the being
of another sphere might gather an adequate idea of
the nature of man, and of his life on this planet, if
a copy of Shakespeare's works had escaped the
general wreck. Nothing can be trivial which con-
cerns the integrity of his text, or is likely to
elucidate disputed points; though on the whole
we have reason to he thankful that Heminge
and Condell fulfilled their part so well as they did.
To invest the corrections of Mr. Collier's folio with
authority would be to involve the text of Shakespeare
in irremediable confusion. We therefore propose to
make some further remarks on this subject, and
shall be happy to hear from any of our readers who
feel interested in it, or who have suggestions on the
text of Shakespeare to propose.

PUBLICATIONS RECE I V ED.-Asir. 24.
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situ 4rts.

NEW SOCIETY OF WATER-COLOURS.
THE twenty-second exhibition of this society was
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tions the three hundred works displayed in the
Gallery in Pall•mall fully sustain the reputation of
the society, and while there is a decided increase in
the subject.s taken from history and poetry, and in
genre, the landscapes still maintain their ancient
numerical supremacy.