MR. COLLIER'S FOLIO SHAKSPEARE: A PASSAGE IN "AS YOU LIKE IT."
It appears to me so obvious that the degree of authority to be conceded to each particular correction or emendation in Mr. Collier's folio Shakspeare must depend in a great measure on the general character of the proposed alterations throughout the work, that I cannot help thinking it would be desirable to reserve all controversy on such points until after the appearance of the promised volume. Such a resolution I made for myself, and to it I shall religiously adhere. This much only I shall say, that, of the specimens given by Mr. Collier in the Athenæum,—sufficient at once to excite interest and to gratify curiosity,—some of the corrections appear to be of that nature that no conjecture could have supplied, while all are good enough to command a deferential consideration.
Your correspondent A. E. B. has attempted a defence of the original reading of two passages amended in Mr. Collier's folio. For the reason above given I shall neither answer your correspondent, nor even say whether I think him right or wrong; but it will not be overstepping the bounds I have prescribed myself, if I take up a collateral point he has raised in reference to one of these passages. To strengthen the case for the reading of the passage in Cymbeline, Act III. Sc. 4., "Whose mother was her painting," he cites a passage from As You Like It, Act III. Sc. 5., in which he says, "mother is directly used as a sort of warranty of female beauty!" Here is the passage:
"Who might be your mother,
That you insult, exult, and all at once,
Over the wretched?"
Shakspeare was, if I am not mistaken, one of those persons to whom a mother was, as some one expresses it, "the holiest thing alive." He concentrates this sentiment in the words of Troilus (Troilus and Cressida, Act V. Sc. 2.):
"Let it not be believ'd for womanhood:
Think we had mothers."
And again, in those of Palamon (which I have no doubt are Shakspeare's) in the Two Noble Kinsmen, Act V. Sc. 1.:
"I have been harsh
To large confessors, and have hotly ask'd them
If they had mothers? I had one, a woman,
And women t'were they wrong'd."
Now it seems to me that the same feeling is implied in Rosalind's reproof to Phebe; and that there is no ground whatever for saying that mother is used as a warranty for female beauty, but rather as one for feminine qualities. Rosalind in effect says, "who might your mother be that you should be so unfeeling?" And, as she tells her plainly she sees no beauty in her, it is clearly to be inferred that it must have been for some other quality that her mother was to be "warranty." Rosalind, in other words, might have said, "Had you a mother, a woman, that you can so discredit the character of womanhood as to exult, insult and all at once, over the wretched?"
It might however be contended, that Rosalind's question referred to the rank, condition, or personal appearance of the mother. The latter only bears upon this question; and with regard to that it may be said, that if beauty had been transmitted to the daughter (independently of the questioner having decided that it had not), the question was not needed. Rosalind, in short, seeks for a better cause for Phebe's pride or want of feeling than her own insufficient attractions, in the nature or quality of her mother. It will be observed that, in this view, I have conceded that who may be taken with something of the signification of what; but the answer to the question, taken strictly, must be the name of some individual who might be known to the Querist, and be in some measure a warranty for the disposition of the daughter, though for no personal beauty but her own.
Samuel Hickson.
NOTES ON BOOKS, NO. III.—LAURENCE HUMPHREY, PRESIDENT OF MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD,
AND DEAN OF WINCHESTER.
In the year 1558 a handsome volume was printed at Basle, in folio in Greek, by Jerome Frobenius and Nicholas Episcopius, with the following title:
"ΚΕΡΑΣ ΑΜΑΛΘΕΙΑΣ, Η ΩΚΕΑΝΟΣ. ΤΩΝ ΕΞΗΓΗΣΕΩΝ ΩΜΗΡΙΚΩΝ, ἐκ των του Ἐυσταθείου παρεκβολὼν συνηρμοσμένων—i.e. Copiæ Cornu sive Oceanus Enarrationum Homericarum, ex Eustathii in eundem commentariis concinnatarum, Hadriano Junio autore."
To an Oxford man, independent of its merit as a compendium of the prolix comment of Eustathius, this volume should be especially interesting, on account of the prefatory dissertation "Ad
Magdalinenses," entitled De Græcis Literis et Homeri Lectione et Imitatione, by Laurence Humphrey. This worthy was sometime Greek reader in the university, but went abroad on account of religion at the accession of Queen Mary, and did not return until happier times after her death. He seems to have been living at Basle with Frobenius and Episcopius in honestissimo loco, but he could not avoid often thinking of his native land,—of Newport-Pagnell in Bucks, where he was born,—of Cambridge, where he received the rudiments of Latin and Greek,—but more especially of Oxford, where he completed his education. His feeling panegyric of his Alma Mater, shows him to have been at least one of her grateful sons. The dissertation is highly creditable to him, considering the period at which it was written; and the passage in which he gives an account of the work is not devoid of interest.
"For the rest we give not Homer alone, but the Expositor Eustathius is subjoined. Yet not entire but reduced into a compendium by a man of untiring labour and noble learning—Hadrian Junius, not unknown to you,—for he lived some time in England, dedicated his Greek Lexicon to our royal Edward the Sixth, and has since published the Annals of Queen Mary, his Animadversiones, and Centuries Adagiorum, which issued from the press of Frobenius: he also effected this good work. Therefore although I had rather have the whole of Eustathius than the half, and to say the truth Epitomies never pleased me, yet because this author is prolix, and difficult to meet with, this perfect compendium of such an estimable work (which seems to me to be the best interpreter, poetical-elucidator, Greek lexicon, and onomasticon), will be useful to any one. I recommend, then, our Eustathio-Junian Homer to you."
In 1560 Laurence Humphrey seems to have been still at Basle; for in that year he printed at the press of Oporinus, in 12mo., a work which he dedicates to Queen Elizabeth, entitled Optimates, sive de Nobilitate, ejusque Antiqua Origine, Natura, Officiis, disciplina, et recta Christiana Institutione; at the end of which he printed the argument of Philo-Judæus, περὶ ευγενείας, with a Latin version. This found favour in the eyes of an English translator, and it was printed at London by Thomas Marshe in 1563, 16mo., under the following title:—
"The Nobles, or of Nobilitye. The original, duties, ryght, and Christian Institucion thereof, in three Bookes. Fyrste eloquentlye written in Latine by Laurence Humphrey, D. of Divinity and Presidente of Magdaleine College in Oxforde, lately Englished. Whereto, for the reader's commoditye and matters affinitye, is coupled the small treatyse of Philo a Jewe. By the same Author out of Greek Latined, now also Englished."
Antony à Wood gives a list of the writings of Laurence Humphrey, among which is a life of Bishop Jewell in Latin: he also speaks highly of his scholarship and proficiency in theology. After his return from abroad he became Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, and President of his college. In 1570 he was made Dean of Gloucester, and ten years afterward Dean of Winchester. His divinity was strongly tinctured with Calvinism, but he was a zealous and able defender of the Reformation. His death occurred in 1589-90.
S. W. Singer.