The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-05-16

There are too many critics, too many and too
voluminous commentaries. Among them they
darken counsel and confuse tongues. The Shak-
spearean clubs now in existence outnumber
all that ever should have been. They are
breeders of pedants and hypercritics.
The best Shakspearean annotator cavilR
the least about the authors text. The most in
tellgent critic comedies that the Man Of STRAIT
ford knew what he was writing about and that
most of his supposed antiquities were made to
appear so by those who imagined the presence of
hidden meanings where Shakespeare either in
tended none or was careless in his speech.
When the great bard made the ghost in Ham
let" say:
"Doomedfor a certain time to walk the night,
And, for the day, confn d to fast IN fires, etc.,
he meant lin the second line) to convey the ter
rifying thought of double demonstrating and
burning. But the intelligent corrector has
changed the phrase, making il read, 'confn'd to
lasting fres' thereby not only weakening the
force of the line but oficously pitting his opin-
ion against that of Shakespeare as to the fitness
of certain descriptives.
Charles Knight has done excellent service for
literature by taking Shakespeare at his word
and restoring many garbled or mutiated pas
sage. knight is the safest of all critics. because
he makes the great poet his own Interpreters
"a rule. The best edited Shakespeare" Is the
one least edited. The author is usually his own
''best authority"
Some time ago, Samuel r. Reed, one of the
editorial writers of the Cincinnati Commercial
Gazette, expended his critical force in two
column article, in which he attempted to prove
| Shakespeare guilty of "subterfuge," at a juno
ture when trifing would have been almost a
crime. The passage in which this accusation
finds its pretext is also in Hamlet" When the
ghost declares solemnly:
| But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison house,
could tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, etc.
Mr.. Reed becomes irritable, and charges the
dramatist with evasion and subterfuge. 'This, .
says the great Chamberlain, lis attempt to
| evade task rendered imperative by the oc-
casion himself had created" And yet
| the average Shakespearean reader must
| feel that the hypercritscism of the learned
essayists is far more apparent that the ''subter
| fuge" it processes to expose. Who cannot per-
| ceive that the horror of the situation is only
| heightened by the great masters implied con-
fession that it defed even his powers OF descrip
tion2 Dante and all the priests had already made
the imagination of man tired" with their detailed
| Innings of the internal realm, and doubtless
| Shakespeare felt that "a fearful looking-for OF
| fiery Indignation was, the Scripture hints,
even more appalling than any SKETCH however
| faithfully drawn.
| Byron. Gray, and others have likewise suf-
| fered One popular but pedantlc ''editor" Of a
! well-known school text book ventures an "emen-
dation" in the following passage from The Song
| of the Greek Bard"
My own the burning tear-drop laves
Te-think such breasts must suckle slaves.
| This mock moralist was indecent enough to
| put a construction upon the thought in the
| last line that precluded him from approaching
the Byronc idea-that of infusng life and blood
| through the natural channels-so he altered the
| line. making it read:
To think such breasts must pillow slaves.
| This is Of piece with several unjustifable al
| terations in Gray's Elegy and other selections
| adapted for the model reader in question. One
| or two additional examples will suffice. In the
immortal and perfect "Elegy in a Country
Churchyard." one line reads:
| Save where the beetle wheels his droning fight;
And this astute compiler has it corrected thus:
Save where the beetle whirls his drony fight.
In another line the poet describes the ancient
oak
That wreaths its old fantastic root so high;
And the text-corrector changes the word
| '.wreaths" to ''writhes."
All commentaries. notes, corrections amenda-
| tions, ETC., are appended to the works of great
men either for the purpose Of 'enlightening"
the reader (which is often Quixiotic presump-
| toni, or showing the commentators acuteness
! and learning AS am inclined to accept the
| latter hypothesis. never encounter these mar
ginal barnacles without great sympathy-for the
author. j. q. OCHLTREE
INDIANAPOLIS, May -