In proof of what we have said, we will refer to a few of the notes which have particularly pleased us, and which show originality of view.
(Tempest, Act ii. Sc. 2.)
"'Nor scrape trenchering, nor wash, dish.'
"Dryden, Theobald, Dyce, Halliwell, and Hudson would have 'trenchering' a typographical error for 'trencher,' which they introduce into the text. Surely they must all have forgotten that Caliban was drunk, and, after singing 'firing' and 'requiring,' would naturally sing 'trenchering.' There is a drunken swing in the original line which is entirely lost in the precise, curtailed rhythm of—
'Nor scrape trencher, nor wash dish.'"
Other editors had retained "trenchering," but none, that we know, ever gave so good a reason for it. Equally good is his justification of himself for omitting Theobald's interpolation of "Did she nod?" in "Two Gentlemen of Verona," Act i. Sc. 1. Other examples may be found in the readings, "There is a lady of Verona here," (same play, Act iii. Sc. 1); "Yet reason dares her on," (Measure for Measure, Act iv. Sc. 4); "Hark, how the villain would glose now," (same play, Act v. Sc. 1); "The forced fallacy," (Comedy of Errors, Act ii. Sc. 1); in the note on "Cupid is a good hare-finder," (Much Ado, Act i. Sc. 3); the admirable note on "Examine those men," (same play, Act iii. Sc. 1); the readings, "Out on thee! Seeming!" (same play, Act iv. Sc. 1); "For I have only silent been," (ibid.); "Goodly Count-Confèct," and note, (same play, Act iv. Sc. 2); the note on "I do beseech thee, remember thy courtesy," (Love's Labor's Lost, Act v. Sc. 1); on "Mounsieur Cobweb," and "Help Cavalery Cobweb to scratch," (Mid. Night's D., Act iv. Sc. 1); on "Or in the night," etc. (same play, Act v. Sc. 1); on "Is sum of nothing," (Merchant of Venice, Act iii. Sc. 2); on "Stays me here at home unkept," (As you like it, Act i. Sc. 1); on "Unquestionable spirit," (same play, Act iii. Sc. 2); on "Move the still-piecing air," (All's Well, etc., Act ii. Sc. 2); and on "What is not holy," (same play, Act iv. Sc. 2). We have referred to a few only out of the many instances that have attracted our notice, and these chiefly for their bearing on what we have said of the editor's refinement of appreciation and originality of view. The merely illustrative and explanatory notes are also full and judicious, containing all that it is important the reader should know, and a great deal which it will entertain him to learn. In the Introductions to the several plays, too, we find many obiter dicta of Mr. White which are excellent in their clearness of critical perception and conciseness of phrase. From that to the "Comedy of Errors" we quote the following sentence:—
"Concerning the place and the period of the action of this play, it seems that Shakspeare did not trouble himself to form a very accurate idea. The Ephesus of "The Comedy of Errors" is much like the Bohemia of "The Winter's Tale,"—a remote, unknown place, yet with a familiar and imposing name, and therefore well suited to the purposes of one who, as poet and dramatist, cared much for men and little for things, and to whose perception the accidental was entirely eclipsed by the essential. Anachronisms are scattered through it with a profusion which could only be the result of entire indifference,—in fact, of an absolute want of thought on the subject."—Vol. III. 189.
We think this could not be better said, if only we might supplant "things" with the more precise word "facts"; for about things Shakspeare was never careless. It is only that deciduous foliage of facts which every generation leaves heaps of behind it dry, and dead, that he rustles through with eyes so royally unconcerned. As a good example of Mr. White's style, we should be inclined to cite the Introduction to "Love's Labor's Lost," from which we detach this single crystal:—
"It is ever the ambitious way of youthful genius to aim at novelty of form in its first essays, while yet in treatment it falls unconsciously into a vein of reminiscence; afterward it is apt to return to established forms, and to show originality of treatment."
The temptation which too easily besets an editor of Shakspeare is to differ, if possible, from everybody who has gone before him, though but as between the N.E. and N.N.E. points in the circumference of a hair. We do not find Mr. White guilty in this respect for what he has done, but sometimes for what he has left undone in allowing the Folio text to remain. The instance that has surprised us most is his not admitting (As You Like it, Act iv. Sc. 1) the reading,—"The foolish coroners of that age found it was Hero of Sestos," instead of the unmeaning one, "chroniclers." He has been forced, for the sake of sense, to make some changes in the Folio text which seem to us quite as violent, and we cannot help thinking that the gain in aptness of phrase and coherence of meaning would have justified him in doing as much here. He admits, in his note on the passage, that the change is "very plausible"; but adds, "If we can at will reduce a perfectly appropriate and uncorrupted word of ten letters to one of eight, and strike out such marked letters as h, l, and e, we may re-write Shakspeare at our pleasure." Mr. White has already admitted that "chroniclers" is not perfectly appropriate in admitting that the change is "very plausible"; and he has no right to assume that the word is uncorrupted,—for that is the very point in question. As to the disparity in the number of letters, no one familiar with misprints will be surprised at it; and Mr. Spedding, in the edition of Bacon already referred to, furnishes us with an example of blunder[E] precisely the reverse, in which one word of eight letters is given for two of ten, (sciences for six princess,)—the printer in both cases having set up his first impression of what the word was for the word itself. Had this occurred in Shakspeare, instead of Bacon, we should have had a series of variorum notes like this:—