The republic. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1849-1853, 1853-05-17

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A literary friend, who is unwilling to reln
quish his old readings of SaAKspEARE for the
emendatlons lately given to the public by Mr.
COLLIER, sends us the following:
NEw READINGS OF SHAKsrsARE-Some enter
prsing imposor, not having the fate of Cha
before his eyes, has discovered an antique copy
Of the plays Of Shakespeare which he alleges are
recorded they pronounced by the bard
or contemporary acting with him. We suppose
after due delay and dispdtation, the modern origin
of these plays will be established, and then the
enraged republic of letters will sentence the un-
lucky inventor of the new readings to starvation,
unless he shall have first made due provision out
of their credulity to ride out the stofmof their dis
pleasure without damage, and the opinions of the
commentators will again become orthodox. But,
for part, we have always detested their
notes; they more often cloud than clarity the
text We have an old folio copy Of that much
abused author, Shakespeare, reprint from Hen
ming and Condell's fret edition, with large, open
eyed likeness Of the bard, his hair combed carefully
back, bis neck bare q school-boy's as that of
prisoner at the block. The neck cuts the plane
of a collar, looking wide and white as Liver
pool dish, or as that of St. John might have done
served up on a charger. Then, our old volume
contains every thing that the first edition did, with
the plays of the Widow of Watley Street, and Lo
cinie, Sir John Oldham, and others, which the
ruthless critics have pronounced iilegitimate
There are also the with their initial capitals
and there are the dear old blunders just as the
'sharloty players" left them, in inexplicabie alb
surdity-a foil to the beauties, as the rude quartz
is to the precious gold which it encIoses.
There it is, in its native magni6cence, before the
hov, IF boo H. \
1.-THE of his own book, invading the splendid
balls of thought which yet ring with the echoes of
his inspration and sending the relics of the bard
into the garnet, that they might themselves mo.
nopolize the tenement. We love our old book be-
cause we can float in the sea of abstraction with
out a shoal or ripple to disturb us. We are not
required1Rfter perusing line at the top of the
page, to devour by way of roughness dozen per-
haps contradictory paragraphs contributed by
those banditti, Stevens, Malone, johnson, Rowe,
Theobald, Pope, Cibber, ct i'd omne genus. They
make one forget the obvious meaning of the author
without being able to acquire that of his common
tators-the ragmen and gutter rakers of uncon-
sidered triaes
How would lover feel when upon his knees,
swearing in agonized suspense, if some BOBBY
should lntrude to ask change for shilling; or
politician, expounding a conclusive point, inter-
rupted by a familiar auditor proposing drink to
moisten the argument; or divine whose hearers
coolly postponed Interpolation of the manner in
which they might escape the burning lake for fear
their dinner should get cold in the interval? So
with the lover Of Shakespeare. MIR. Malone inter
polates the appeal Of Hermon with an essay upon
orthoepy. Mr.. Stevens impoitey interrupts
Lady Macbeth.
But, to return to the matter of the new readings,
having always thought that the right not to listen
or to read were the great correIative rights
intended to check any abuse of the freedom of
speech and of the press, we have therefore main
tanned these sacred privileges of freemen as re-
ciproca and inseparable; but we have nevertheless
believed that commentators ought to be restrained
by injunction from preying upon the remains of
dead and defenceless authors, or that statute like
those which have extinguished the Funks and ter
rhed the body snatchers should be enacted for the
purpose of protecting alike the reader and the
author.