"The dram of eale
Doth all the noble substance of worth out
To his own scandal—
a passage which, as all Shakespearian scholars know, has been satisfactorily emended and explained. We turn to the notes for guidance, and find ourselves treated as poor Mrs. Quickly was treated by Falstaff, "fubbed off"—thus:—
"We leave this hopelessly corrupt passage as it stands in the two earliest quartos. The others read 'ease' for 'eale,' and modern writers have conjectured for the same word base, ill, bale, ale, evil, ail, vile, lead. For 'of a doubt' it has been proposed to substitute 'of worth out,' 'soul with doubt,' 'oft adopt,' 'oft work out,' 'of good out,' 'of worth dout,' 'often dout,' 'often doubt,' 'oft adoubt,' 'oft delase,' 'over-cloud,' 'of a pound,' and others."
This, it may be added, is the sort of stuff— incredibile dictu—that our children have to get by heart; for this Press, be it remembered, practically controls half the English Literature examinations in England. As students know quite well that nine examiners out of ten will set their questions from "the Clarendon Press notes," it is with "the Clarendon Press notes" that they are obliged to cram themselves. But to continue. Even a well-read man might be excused for not knowing the exact meaning of the following expression:—
"They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase
Soil our addition."
He turns to the notes, and having been briefly informed that clepe means "call," and addition "title," is left to flounder with what he can get out of—"Could Shakespeare have had in his mind any pun upon 'Sweyn,' which was a common name of the kings of Denmark?"
Another leading characteristic of the genus philologist, we mean the preposterous importance attached by them to the smallest trifles, finds ludicrous illustration in the following note:—