The next passage I would notice is from Much Ado about Nothing, p. 76. How, I would ask, can the phrase—
"And sorrow wag,"
be a misprint for "call sorrow joy?" No compositor, or scribe either, could possibly be misled by any sound from the "reader" into such a mistake as that! The words "and sorrow wag," I admit, are not sense; but the substitution of "call sorrow joy" strikes me as bald and common-place in the extreme, and there is no pretence for its having any authority. If, then, we are to have a mere fanciful emendation, why not "bid sorrow wag?" This would be doing far less violence to the printed text, for it would only require the alteration of two letters in the word "and;" while it would preserve the Shakspearian character of the passage. "Wag" is a favourite expression in
the comedies of the Bard, and occurs repeatedly in his works. The passage would then run thus—
"If such a one will smile and stroke his beard,
Bid sorrow wag—cry hem! when he should groan."
In p. 73. we find—
"Soul-tainted flesh," &c.
substituted for "foul tainted flesh;" and we are told that the critics have been all wrong, who supposed that Shakspeare intended any "metaphor from the kitchen!" If so, what meaning can be attached to the line—
"And salt too little which may season give?"