The note of Mr. White is as follows:
“Upton gave us the Adam which takes the place of ‘Abraham’ in all the current editions, except Mr. Knight’s. But, as Mr. Dyce says, there is not the slightest authority for the change. The last-named gentleman conjectures that ‘Abraham’ in this line is a corruption of Auburn; as it is unquestionably in the following passages which he quotes:
‘Where is the oldest sonne of Pryam,
That Abraham coloured Troian? Dead.’
—Soliman and Perseda, 1599, sig. H, 3.
‘A goodlie, long, thicke Abram colored beard.’
—Middleton’s Blurt, Master-Constable, 1602, sig. D.
And in Coriolanus, act ii. sc. iii.
‘Not that our heads are some browns, some blacke, some Abram,’
as we read in the first three folios.
“The suggestion is more than plausible; and we at least owe to Mr. Dyce the efficient protection which it must give to the original text. Cupid is always represented by the old painters as auburn-haired.”[84]