As great Alcides' shows upon an ass."
| "The folio reads 'Great Alcides' shoes.' Theobald says, 'But why shoes, in the name of propriety? For let Hercules and his shoes have been really as big as they were ever supposed to be, yet they (I mean the shoes) would not have been an overload for an ass.'" | "The 'shoes of Hercules' were as commonly alluded to in our old poets, as the ex pede Herculem was a familiar allusion of the learned. It was not necessary that the ass should be overloaded with the shoes—he might be shod (shoed) with them." |
Now who, in reading these parallel notes, but would suppose that it is Mr. Knight who restores shoes to the text, and that it is Mr. Knight who points out the common allusion by our old poets to the shoes of Hercules? Who would imagine that the substance of this correction of Theobald was written by Steevens a couple of generations back, and that, consequently, Theobald's proposed alteration had never been adopted?
I should not think of pointing out this, but that Mr. Knight himself, in this same prospectus, has taken Mr. Collier to task for the very same thing; that is, for taking credit, in his Notes and Emendations, for all the folio MS. corrections, whether known or unknown, necessary or unnecessary.
Indeed, the very words of Mr. Knight's complaint against Mr. Collier are curiously applicable to himself:
"It requires the most fixed attention to the nice distinctions of such constantly-recurring 'notes and emendations,' to disembarrass the cursory reader from the notion that these are bonâ fide corrections of the common text....
"Who cares to know what errors are corrected in" (the forthcoming Stratford edition), "that exist in no other, and which have never been introduced into the modern text?"—Specimen, &c., p. xxiv.
The impression one would receive from Mr. Knight's note upon Theobald is, that Shakspeare had his notion of the shoes from "our old poets," while the learned had theirs from ex pede Herculem; but where the analogy lies, wherein the point, or what the application, is not explained. Steevens' original note was superior to this, in so much that he quoted the words of these old poets, thereby giving his readers an opportunity of considering the justness of the deduction. The only set-off to this omission by Mr. Knight is the introduction of "ex pede Herculem," the merit of which is doubtless his own.
But it so happens that the size of the foot of Hercules has no more to do with the real point of the allusion than the length of Prester John's; therefore ex pede Herculem is a most unfortunate illustration,—particularly awkward in a specimen sample, the excellence of which may be questioned.
It is singular enough, and it says a great deal for Theobald's common sense, that he saw what the true intention of the allusion must be, although he did not know how to reconcile it with the existing letter of the text. He wished to preserve the spirit by the sacrifice of the letter, while Mr. Knight preserves the letter but misinterprets the spirit.