Читать книгу The Shakespeare-Expositor - Thomas Keightley - Страница 56

To me most fatal, me most it concerns.

Par. Reg. iv. 205: Todd's 4th edit.

Here, again, the true reading is so; yet, as most makes good sense, if the error had been in the original edition it would in all probability never have been detected. Opening by chance Bloomfield's pretty poem of The Farmer's Boy (ed. 1857), I met with

Till when up-hill the destined hill he gains.

Winter, 173.

We may find in Chaucer—

What ladies fairest ben or best dauncing,

Or which of hem can daunce best or sing.

Knt's Tale.

Here for dauncing we should probably read loking.

Of his gladnesse he gladed her anone.

Tr. and Cr. i.

The poet probably wrote goodnesse.

For though a man forbide drunkenesse,

He not forbides that every creature

Be drunkeles for alway, as I gesse.

Ib. ii.

We should read commaundes in the second line.

Witness the daily libels almost ballads

In every place, almost in every province,

Are made upon your lust.

Thierry and Theodoret, i. 1.

We should for the first almost, which must be wrong, probably read and the. Mr. Dyce seems never to have seen this; for he had no conception of this source of error: yet I wonder common sense did not suggest that something must be wrong.

The things that grievous were to do or bear

Them to renew, I wote, breeds no delight;

Best music breeds delight in loathing ear.

F. Q. i. 8. 44.

For delight in the last line we might read dislike, but I think we should rather read annoy; for in these cases, as we may see, no resemblance in form or sound is to be sought. I therefore in Othel. iii. 3, reject the emendation of Pope and 4to 1630 of feels for keeps, because it was evidently suggested by the slight similarity of form, and does not perfectly suit the context. The reader will find an excellent instance in As You Like It, ii. 3.

My news shall be the news to that great feast.

Ham. ii. 2.

So the folio reads; the 4to has more correctly fruit.

Surely Shakespeare never wrote

To seek thy help, by beneficial help.

Com. of Err. i. 1.

He that they cannot help him,

They that they cannot help.

All's Well, i. 3.

As this error never occurs in Jonson and Massinger, and only, I believe, in the instance given above in Beaumont and Fletcher, and has no æsthetic advantage or beauty to recommend it, it seems quite absurd to suppose that Shakespeare, whose vocabulary was the largest of all, and whose ear was so fine and correct, should have found pleasure in it. Surely a just critic will sooner lay the blame on the printer and the careless editors, very different in this respect from those of Beaumont and Fletcher, who seem never to have hesitated to correct an error when they discovered it.

The resemblance in form above alluded to is of great importance, under the name of ductus literarum, in the eyes of Mr. Dyce, and it should always be attended to; for it is usually caused by the attempt of the printer to make out illegible writing. The following are striking instances:—

In Peele's Edward I. these lines occur.

To calm, to qualify, and to compound,

Thank England's strife of Scotland's climbing peers.

That the last line is nonsense was clear to every one; but no critic ever could emend it. The true reading, however, is doubtless The enkindled, which flashed suddenly on my mind one time when I was considering the passage. It was probably the resemblance of sound chiefly that misled the printer.

At the end of Marston's Insatiate Countess we meet the following unmeaning line,

Like Missermis cheating of the brack,

which Steevens corrected most happily thus—

Like Mycerinus cheating of the oracle,

having discerned the allusion to Herod. ii. 133.

It is very curious that the word substituted is often the very opposite of the right word. I myself once wrote—and so it is printed—diameter for circumference. In Mrs. C. Clarke's most valuable Concordance we have "humorous plebeian" for "humorous patrician." I have met with next for last and none for some; so in The Mer. of Ven., ii. 2, where the folio has "Is sum of nothing," the 4tos read "Is sum of something." In Lear v. 3, the folio reads

The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices

Make instruments to plague us;

while the 4tos have "pleasant virtues."

In All's Well, iii. 2, and Taming of the Shrew, iii. 1, we have old for new. In a proof-sheet which I lately saw there was a quotation of

The paths of glory lead but to the grave;

and the printer had substituted life for "grave," though, as the entire stanza was given, he had the rime to guide him. Many instances of this practice will be found in Love's Labour's Lost. In La Giovanezza, a poem of the Italian poet Pindemonte, I have just met with brutte where the rime and the sense require belle.

It does not seem to have been observed that printers will actually insert words, for the sake of sense or metre, when they have made a mistake. In my Life of Milton, I had occasion to quote a passage from his prose works containing "with a conscience that would retch;" and of this the printer made "with a conscience that he would relish;" and so, I am sorry to say, it is printed. See on Mer. of Ven. iv. 1.

And stones did cast, yet he for nought would swerve.

F. Q. v. 12. 43.

As the rimes are deserved, preserved, observed, the poet must have written e'er swerved or nothing swerved.

In her right hand a fire-brand she did toss.

F. Q. iii. 12, 17.

The rimes are embost, lost, so that Spenser must have written tost, making, as usual, a dissyllable of fire. That it was not the poet himself that made the mistake is clear; for in

Till Arthur all that reckoning defrayed (ii. 10, 49)

the edition of 1750 has did defray.

A contrary error to this is where the printer has made one word of two, caused either by sound or by illegible writing. For instances, see on Com. of Err. iii. 1, Tw. Night, i. 1, Mer. Wives, v. 5, Ant. and Cleop. iv. 9, Macb. iii. 4.

The fact of effacement in the manuscript, on which I have laid such stress in the section on Omission, has also been a cause of substitution; for, the original word having become nearly or totally illegible, the transcriber or compositor, in order to make sense, used to give some term of his own. Thus we have yes for I will, Meas. for Meas. iii. 1, yea for even so, Rich. II. iii. 1, ay for I will, Ham. iv. 7, as is proved by the metre. These are all at the beginning of the line, and hence their liability to effacement. See also on All's Well, ii. 1, Twelfth Night, iv. 3, Rich. II. i. 3, and elsewhere.

Finally, substitutions are often quite capricious, making no sense whatever. For "he went circuit," where my manuscript was perfectly legible, I once got "the local circuit;" so also "the merits" for "there an echo;" "establishment" for "established government." In Alison's Life of Lord Castlereagh, one of the pall-bearers at the funeral of the Duke of Wellington was Sir Peregrine Pickle (Maitland); in all editions of Joseph Andrews we have in one place "Sir John" for "Sir Thomas" Booby.

It is to be observed that to unto, till until, on upon, though although, e'er ever, &c., were frequently confounded. It is therefore the merest printer-worship to hesitate at altering them when the metre requires it. A further observation is, that even down into the eighteenth century, it was the custom to write y for th in monosyllables beginning with this last (þ, A. S.), as y^e the, yⁿ then, y^t that, y^u thou; y^r your was another abridgment; and hence confusion has often arisen. In these plays we have that for then in four places (see on Tr. and Cr. i. 2); and in Paradise Regained (i. 137) we have then for thou, and also, I think, in Tw. Night, v. 1.