Читать книгу The Shakespeare-Expositor - Thomas Keightley - Страница 53

Addition.—Of this also we meet with instances; but, as might naturally be expected, they are not so numerous as those of omission. In the following pages I place between brackets such words as I regard as additions made by the compositor or transcriber. As proofs of such additions being made I give the following, from the reprint of the text in my own edition of Milton's Poems.

But swollen with [the] wind and the rank mist they draw.

Lyc. 126.

Which after [this] held the sun and moon in fee.

Son. xii.

To stand approved in [the] sight of God though worlds.

P. L. vi. 36.

From Heaven-gate not [distant] far, founded in view.

Ib. vii. 618.

With Hallelujahs; thus was [the] Sabbath kept.

Ib. vii. 634.

Nor [is] this unvoyageable gulf obscure.

Ib. x. 366.

Against a foe to doom express assigned [to] us.

Ib. x. 926.

To which I add the following:—

And out of sight escaped at the least;

Yet not [of sight] escaped from the due reward

Of his bad deeds.

F. Q. iii. 5. 14.

So it is printed in the edition of 1750.

I may here add that printers have a wonderful propensity to add or omit—the former much more frequently—the letter s at the end of words. I remember having one time had to strike out in a single page no less than five of these ss thus liberally bestowed upon me. So also—but whether owing to the poet or the printer is dubious—we meet in Shakespeare with whom used as a nominative. See on Winter's Tale, v. 3, ad fin. In making corrections relating to these finals, our only guides therefore must be grammar, logic, and poetic melody.