Thomas Keightley

“ It has been argued, from a passage in Twelfth Night, in which a man is advised always to marry a woman younger than himself, that Shakespeare had felt the evil consequences of the opposite course. But surely we should not press thus closely language resulting from the situation of a character in a drama. And if Shakespeare was so convinced of the ill consequences of such a procedure, how came it that only a few months before his death he gave an apparently cheerful consent to the marriage of his daughter Judith with Thomas Quiney, who was four years her junior? ”

“ I entirely disagree with those critics who think they discern in it the hand of another poet; for there is not a play in the whole collection more thoroughly Shakespearian in every scene. The conclusion certainly is huddled up in a way not elsewhere to be met with in these plays; but that is no proof of this theory; for if Shakespeare had taken up the work of another, the conclusion is the very part he would have been most likely to develope. ”

“ Singer read rumourers, against which little objection can be made. My own opinion—to which I was led by Singer's reading, and in which I find I had been anticipated by Heath and Mr. Grant White—is, that the poet's word may have been Rumour's. In the poem on which this play is founded, Juliet, when pondering, before her marriage, on what might be the consequence of admitting Romeo to a lover's privilege, says:—
"So, I defil'd, Report shall take her trump of black defame,
Whence she, with puffed cheek, shall blow a blast so shrill
Of my dispraise, that with the noise Verona she shall fill." ”

“ Surely, for example, it is not to be supposed that a man of Shakespeare's business-habits would, when winding-up, as we may term it, leave behind him, in the hands of the House, an unfinished drama, and that what he left should have been the beginning and the end of a play! It is pretty generally agreed that the entire play, except the first and fifth acts, is by Fletcher. To me it seems certain that the first act, though the work of a superior poet, is not Shakespeare's; and I feel quite confident that the first, as well as the second, scene of the last act is by Fletcher ”

“ The word 'blanket' certainly seems too familiar and even vulgar an expression, especially as the more dignified 'pall thee' had just been used. Malone quotes from Drayton's Mortemeriados, 1596, "The sullen night in misty rug is wrapp'd." But even this is not so low as 'blanket.' Collier's folio reads blankness, but that surely is whiteness. Perhaps we might venture to read blackness, as in Ant. and Cleop. (i. 4) we have "Night's blackness." At that time 'peep' was to gaze earnestly and steadily at anything; not furtively, as now. 'To cry' in the next line may be crying. See Introd. ”

“ Spedding, I find, conjectured visage or feature, apparently taking them to be synonymous.
"Nor none of thee, thou pale and common drudge."
For 'pale' Farmer read stale, perhaps needlessly.
"Thy paleness moves me more than eloquence."
Warburton read plainness, of which Mr. Dyce approves, and perhaps with reason. I have, however, made no change. Lead in fact never is pale; for its surface is always oxydized. Shakespeare, moreover, would hardly use the same term of two distinct substances. ”

“ Fuller has left us some account of the wit-combats that used to take place at the Mermaid between our poet and Ben Jonson.
The relations between Shakespeare and his family during this time are in a state of ambiguity, which no conjecture can fully clear up. There is not the slightest ground for supposing that he ever was on ill terms with his wife; and surely we have no right to suppose that, like La Fontaine, he left her in the country while he himself lived in the metropolis; for Shakespeare was a householder, while La Fontaine lived usually in the hôtels of his patrons. ”

“ Need we, then, wonder at omissions in Shakespeare?
The omission is generally, as in these cases, of single words, from noun to interjection, all parts of speech included, and also of single letters or syllables. It is rather curious, too, that when a word has been repeated by the poet it is sometimes omitted by the printer. Thus "What wheels? what racks? what fires?" W. T. iii. 2, is printed, "What wheels? racks? fires?" There is another instance in the same play, and many in the other plays. In Chaucer the instances are numerous. ”

“ A syllable is lost. Pope read 'the cold'; Steevens 'coldest.' I read 'underneath,' as in Jonson's line, "Underneath this stone doth lie."
"Rebellious head rise never."
This is Theobald's reading for dead of the folio. Hanmer reads 'Rebellions,' which may be right, but 'head,' often means insurrectionary forces. ”

“ Act V. Sc. 1.
"That is hot ice, and wondrous strange snow."
'Strange' is a very feeble word here. If, as I have ventured to do, we read 'sable snow,' we have a parallel to 'hot ice.' Upton read black; Staunton swarthy; Hanmer scorching.
"And what poor duty cannot do, noble respect
Takes it in might not merit."
As there are no short lines in this play, I think a word has been lost in the first line. I read faltering, Theobald read 'willing duty.'
"His speech was like unto a tangled chain." ”

“ Some critics read 'by-peeping'; but then a verb is wanting. We might for 'by' read be, or, with Johnson, lie; but I rather suspect the poet's word was bide; for 'bide peeping' would be pronounced 'bi peeping,' and the printer went by his ear (see Introd. p. 52) . A most unhappy conjecture, though adopted and greatly admired by Mr. Collier, is that of his folio 'bo-peeping'; for there is no such verb. 'Illustrous' may be the right word, but Rowe's 'unlustrous' has been generally adopted.
"With diseased ventures
That play with all infirmities for gold
Which rottenness can lend nature." ”

“ A 'dying deck' is an odd expression; sinking would apparently make better sense. Yet dying bed, i.e. death-bed, may still be heard.
"Who would be so mock'd with glory? or to live
But in a dream of friendship, and survive
To have his pomp and all what state comprehends
But only painted, like his varnish'd friends?"
I have ventured on these corrections, as this part of the speech is in rime. The folio reads 'compounds.' Collier's folio and Sidney Walker also propose comprehends. For 'or to live' we might read 'or would live.' See Temp. iii. 1. ”

“ Notwithstanding all this, there are editors of Shakespeare who, rejecting the evidence of sense, grammar, and logic, obstinately adhere to the printed text, terming that alone authority, and even holding the second and later folios to be such; and it is really pitiable to see them superstitiously retaining for instance 'tis or it's when the metre requires it is, and syncopated forms as lov'd, own'd, etc., when the verse has need of the complete word, and vice versâ. These I denominate Printer-worshipers; for it is in reality to the authority of the printer, not of the poet, that they bow. ”

“ Beside all those forms of verse, the plays of our old dramatists contain a large quantity of prose. But it84 is only prose to the eye; for it is in reality as metrical as what is printed in separate metric lines, consisting of lines of five or six feet, each of two or three syllables, but printed continuously like prose. I therefore denominate it "Metric Prose" as being metric in substance, prose in form, and as, moreover, it is termed prose both by Chaucer and Shakespeare, probably from its less elevated character and from its being written continuously and without rime or alliteration. ”

“ I am disposed to regard it as anterior to The Tempest, which was probably the last play that ever Shakespeare wrote. When we consider the probable date of this play, we see how utterly untenable is the theory of some writers that it was an indirect apology for Anne Boleyn, and a direct compliment to her royal daughter. I may here observe that those ingenious persons who find allusions (except in a very few plain instances) to public events and public persons in Shakespeare's plays merely waste their own and their readers' time. Thus Sir Philip Sidney died the very year the poet came to London ”

“ We must recollect that Shakespeare was a man endowed with genius of the very highest order, and that he must have aspired to a wider field for its exercise than his native town could afford, that he had a family, and that his circumstances were very slender, while those of his father, as we have sufficient evidence, had been greatly reduced. ”

“ It is obvious that by so doing we shall greatly diminish the risk of failure. It is a curious fact, that not unfrequently two or even three corrections are so equally good, that it is exceedingly difficult to choose between them, and that the final choice thus becomes a matter of mere chance. In such cases I think the critic should select the one which is the most poetic and most worthy of the poet. The coincidence of two or more independent critics in a correction is, in general, a proof of its truth ”

“ Now the plays of Shakespeare are, as is well known, full of passages of which it is nearly impossible to make any good sense, and they abound in imperfect and inharmonious verses. On the other hand, the poems of Venus and Adonis, and of Lucrece, which he himself probably saw through the press, are almost entirely free from error, and do not contain a single unmelodious verse. ”

“ I am now convinced that the reading of the 2nd folio, when properly pointed, is the true one. I point it thus: "Ay, right.—Good creature! wheresoe'er she is." The 'Ay, right,' expresses the widow's assent to the truth of her daughter's observation; she then proceeds to speak of Helena. To my great surprise and gratification, I found, after I had made this natural and certain correction, that I had been completely anticipated in it by Capell. How it does provoke one to think of the wilful blindness or obtuseness of editors! ”

“ Merry Wives, ii. 1.
"You will not own it.—More than I am mistress of."
So also Hanmer corrected.
"Thy brat hath been cast out, like to itself,
No father owning it."
202 If we read 'left to itself' we might get better sense.
"But yet hear this; mistake me not. No! life—
I prize it not a straw.... But, for mine honour."
So we may best punctuate, with Hanmer. We might perhaps read 'For life,' as above.
"Which you knew great, and to the hazard boldly."
The 2nd folio reads 'certain hazard.'
"What studied torments, tyrant, hast thou for me? ”

“ A well-educated person in England, who has been at a public school and at the university, who reads his Bible, his Shakespeare, the Times, and all the books of Mudie's Library, seldom uses more than about 3000 or 4000 words in actual conversation. ”

“ Capell sagaciously saw that in this speech, from "For when would you" to "From whence doth spring," and from "For where is any" to "And in that vow," are passages which the poet had cancelled in the "corrected and augmented" play. The same occurs in Rich. III. v. 3, and on a much smaller scale, however, in Rom. and Jul. iii. 3, iv. 1.
"Why, universal plodding prisons up."
There can be no doubt of this, the reading of Theobald—prisons for poisons.
"For where is any author in the world
Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye."
As beauty is not taught, we should perhaps read wisdom. ”

“ In his early plays Shakespeare very rarely puts the preposition or conjunction at the end of one line and the noun or verb at the beginning of the next; in his succeeding ones he does so more frequently, and in his latest he is rather profuse of the practice. Now this construction is as frequent in Henry VIII. as in Coriolanus, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, and his other later ones, whence it might seem that it should be referred to the same epoch. ”

“ There rarely occurs a play on words, and the language is in general easy and natural.
The third phase may extend from 1603 to 1609. It contains Measure for Measure, Lear, Macbeth, Troilus and Cressida, Timon of Athens, and Coriolanus. In this the poet returned to the practice of giving passages of several lines in rime, though not in stanzas, and his language is obscured by periphrases, inversions, and ellipses to such an extent that many places—the speeches of Ulysses, for instance, in Troilus and Cressida—must have been perfectly unintelligible to an ordinary audience. ”

“ It is most certain that 'school' cannot have been the poet's word. The usual reading is that of Warburton, scowl; but that substantive is not used by Shakespeare, and it gives but an indifferent sense. Theobald read stole, which also is not Shakespearian; I myself cloak, as the "cloak of night" occurs in R. and J. ii. 2, Rich. II. iii. 2. But the Cambridge editors seem to have hit on the exact word, suit written, as pronounced, shoot. In the Puritan (ii. 1) , we have a play on suitor and archer, i.e. shooter; we retain this sound in sure and sugar. ”

“ I must here, en passant, impress it on the reader as a maxim, that no word should be used in correction that is not to be found in the poet himself, or in his contemporaries.
6.
A printer is a transcriber or copyist, with the only difference that he uses type instead of a pen. He looks at the copy, as it is termed, and takes up the whole or part of a sentence in his mind, and then goes on composing or setting up the type. Meanwhile he is very possibly engaged in conversation, or he is listening to that of others, or he is thinking of something else. ”

“ No one has been able to make any sense of 'orphan-heirs,' which may therefore be treated as a corruption. Warburton read 'ouphen-heirs,' which Singer adopts; but there is no such word as ouphen. My own opinion is that the poet wrote ouphes and heirs; and as in general the d in and is not pronounced, even before vowels, and the ou might easily be mistaken for or, the printer made orphan. The line, we may see, thus forms a parallel to the preceding line. The poet seems to have used 'heirs' in the sense of children. ”

“ We have no reason to suppose that the great tragic poets of Greece, any more than those of France, excelled also in comedy; while the dramatists of Spain notoriously failed in tragedy, and their comedy, gay, spritely and animated as it is, depends chiefly on plot and intrigue, and is greatly deficient in variety of character.
Mr. Dyce has justly observed how absurd it is to say that Shakespeare was, though the greatest, only one of a race of contemporary giants. The poetic greatness of Jonson, Fletcher, and Massinger was doubtless beyond17 that witnessed in most other ages of the world ”

“ For 'graves' Warburton and Hanmer read glaives, Steevens, greaves. Neither of these words occurs in Shakespeare, and I rather suspect that the poet's word was braves, i.e. bravadoes, boasts. "I will not bear these braves of thine" (Tam. of Shr. iii. 1) . "Now where's the Bastard's braves?" (1 Hen. VI. iii. 2) .
"And are enforc'd from our most quiet there."
For 'there' Warburton read sphere; perhaps we might read haven. But, as in Lear (i. 1) we have "Thou losest here a better where to find," 'there' is probably the poet's word, both it, here and where being used as nouns signifying place. ”