It is therefore surprising that none of them should have discovered a trace of Shakspeare in the occupation of ship-boy; since in no calling has he shown a more accurate knowledge of technicalities; and his seamanship has satisfied the strictest professional criticism. It is to this circumstance my attention is more especially directed at present by a singular blunder which I have observed in one of the illustrations to Knight's Illustrated Shakspeare.
The artist, W. Dicks, professes to illustrate Ægeon's description of his shipwreck, taking for his text these lines in the first scene of the Comedy of Errors:
"We were encounter'd by a mighty rock,
Which being violently borne upon
Our helpful ship was splitted in the midst."
But if he had studied the context he would have perceived that the "helpful ship" was not a goodly argosy, as he has depicted it, but "a small spare mast, such as seafaring men provide for storms."
Now, it must not be said that the inadvertence is Shakspeare's, because the term helpful, indicative of sudden resource, and these lines immediately following—
"So, that in this unjust divorce of us
Fortune had left to both of us alike
What to delight in—what to sorrow for"—