THE PASSAGE IN KING HENRY VIII., ACT III. SC. 2.
(Vol. vii., pp. 5. 111.)
Having no desire to enter into unnecessary controversy, I do not often reply to objections made to my conjectural emendations of passages in Shakspeare; but on the present occasion I think it incumbent on me to appeal to the common sense of those who take interest in such matters, by merely placing in juxta-position the reading I have proposed, and that of your Leeds correspondent, and thus leave it to their impartial decision without fear of the result. It may be necessary, as your correspondent has adverted to
what precedes, to give the passage as it stands in the folio at some length. Wolsey having said—
"For your great Graces
Heap'd upon me (poore Undeserver) I
Can nothing offer but my Allegiant thankes,
My Prayres to heaven for you; my Loyaltie
Which ever ha's, and ever shall be growing
Till death (that Winter) kill it."
The King replies:
"Fairely answer'd:
A Loyal, and obedient Subject is
Therein illustrated, the Honor of it
Does pay the Act of it, as i'th' contrary
The fowlenesse is the punishment. I presume
That as my hand ha's open'd Bounty to you,
My heart dropt Love, my powre rain'd Honor, more
On you, then any: So your Hand, and Heart,
Your Braine, and every Function of your power,
Should, notwithstanding that your bond of duty,
As 'twer in Love's particular, be more
To me your Friend, then any."
Wolsey rejoins:
"I do professe
That for your Highnesse good, I ever labour'd
More then mine owne: that am, haue, and will be
(Though all the world should crack their duty to you,
And throw it from their Soule, though perils did
Abound, as thicke as thought could make 'em, and
Appeare in formes more horrid) yet my Duty,
As doth a Rocke against the chiding Flood,
Should the approach of this wilde River breake,
And stand unshaken yours."
I read:
"I do profess
That for your highness' good I ever labour'd
More than mine own: that I'm true, and will be,
Though all the world should lack their duty to you,
And throw it from their soul: though perils did
Abound, as thick as thought could make them, and
Appear in forms more horrid; yet my duty
(As doth a rock against the chiding flood)
Should the approach of this wild river break,
And stand unshaken yours."
Your Leeds correspondent would read:
"I do profess
That for your highness' good I ever labour'd
More than mine own.—That, am I, have, and will be,
Though all the world should crack their duty to you
And throw it from their soul," &c.
For his arguments I must refer to his note (p. 111. antè), merely observing that I cannot conceive how any alteration in the punctuation of the King's speech could connect it with this! Making That emphatic helps nothing, as there is no antecedent to which it can refer; and if "we can by no means part with have," we must interpolate been after it to make it any way intelligible, to the marring of the verse.
With regard to the substitution of lack for crack in my former note, it should be recollected that I then said "I do not insist upon this." We might, however, substitute slack, if change should be deemed necessary, and it would be still nearer in form to the suspected word.
I may safely leave the palpable error in As You Like It to the decision of common sense.
As I am dealing with corrections in the play of King Henry VIII., I may take occasion to observe that Mr. Collier, in his recent supplemental volume of Notes and Emendations, has, I have no doubt unwittingly, stated that a passage, Act IV. Sc. 2., has been absurdly pointed, "over and over again, from the year 1623 to our own day." Whereas it will be found corrected, exactly as it stands in his second folio, in the edition I gave of Shakspeare in 1826, with a note adverting to the absurdity of the old pointing. I may further add, that the first instance Mr. Collier gives in his preface of the corrections in his folio, is in the same predicament. He has stated that the reading of "Aristotle's cheeks" for "Aristotle's ethics," in the first scene of the Taming of the Shrew, "has been the invariable text from the first publication in 1623 until our own day;" when the fact is, that it stands properly corrected in my edition in 1826, with the following note:
"Blackstone suggests that we should read ethics, and the sense seems to require it; I have therefore admitted it into the text."
It is possible that Mr. Collier may have never looked into my edition of the poet, and I may honestly say that I regret it, not on my own account but on his, for I think, had he consulted it, his own would not have been the worse for it.
S. W. Singer.
Manor Place, South Lambeth.