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Article WILLIAM SHAKSPERE. ← Page 14 of 17 →
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William Shakspere.
pute ; and a short time since , a critic , Avell known by his former zealous and judicious labours in the fields of dramatic criticism , frighted " the isle from its propriety" by putting forth a volume of emendations , Avhich he declared to be worthy of adoption . He even Avent so far as to publish a volume of the collected works of our poetin which these emendations were incorporated
, Avith the text . As may be very readily conceived , these supposed corrections were at once submitted to the most searching examination and scrutiny ; reviews , magazines , and newspapers for many months teemed with criticisms upon them ; and they have been so generally condemned , that it Avould be almost a work of supererogation for us to enter into any analysis of their
merits or defects . Three-fourths of the supposed emendations have been clearly shewn to be altogether inadmissible ; and most of those which can stand the test of examination have either been suggested by former commentators , or were to be found in some earlier editions of the poet ' s works . Mr . Collier certainly committed an indiscretion in relying implicitly upon the
annotations of some uuknoAvn critic ; to receive them as authoritative emendations was an act of rashness which very much surprises us in a gentleman of such universally acknoAvledged discretion , ability , and attainments . The danger of placing any reliance upon marginal corrections in old copies of Shakspere's Avorks has been very happily illustrated by Mr . HalliAvell in the essay on the formation of the text prefixed to his UBAV edition : —
"In the library of Count Gondomar , which was lately preserved at the Cascc del Sol at Yalladolid , was an exemplar ofthe first folio , formerly belonging to the count , the margins of which , according to M . de Gayangos , who saw the book in the year 1832 , ' were in several places covered with writing , in an English hand of the time , and some of this additional matter was in verse . ' The count had no doubt obtained this volume in England , and the annotations miht have been the work of some of the layers of the time . The late
g p Mr . Dent possessed a copy of the third folio , which realised a large sum at his sale on account of a number of MS . emendations in a hand very nearly coeval with the date of the publication . Through the kindness of its present owner , I have had the opportunity of making a minute examination of the alterations ; but although many of them are exceedingly ingenious and plausible , I am convinced they are entirely conjectural . I have also seen other ies ofthe second and third foliosand one of
cop , copy the fourth , partly annotated in a similar manner . It is my sincere conviction that all variations obtained from such sources should be received with the utmost caution . " * The admission of such anonymous emendations would only encourage the absurd propensity evinced by certain shalloAV-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
William Shakspere.
pute ; and a short time since , a critic , Avell known by his former zealous and judicious labours in the fields of dramatic criticism , frighted " the isle from its propriety" by putting forth a volume of emendations , Avhich he declared to be worthy of adoption . He even Avent so far as to publish a volume of the collected works of our poetin which these emendations were incorporated
, Avith the text . As may be very readily conceived , these supposed corrections were at once submitted to the most searching examination and scrutiny ; reviews , magazines , and newspapers for many months teemed with criticisms upon them ; and they have been so generally condemned , that it Avould be almost a work of supererogation for us to enter into any analysis of their
merits or defects . Three-fourths of the supposed emendations have been clearly shewn to be altogether inadmissible ; and most of those which can stand the test of examination have either been suggested by former commentators , or were to be found in some earlier editions of the poet ' s works . Mr . Collier certainly committed an indiscretion in relying implicitly upon the
annotations of some uuknoAvn critic ; to receive them as authoritative emendations was an act of rashness which very much surprises us in a gentleman of such universally acknoAvledged discretion , ability , and attainments . The danger of placing any reliance upon marginal corrections in old copies of Shakspere's Avorks has been very happily illustrated by Mr . HalliAvell in the essay on the formation of the text prefixed to his UBAV edition : —
"In the library of Count Gondomar , which was lately preserved at the Cascc del Sol at Yalladolid , was an exemplar ofthe first folio , formerly belonging to the count , the margins of which , according to M . de Gayangos , who saw the book in the year 1832 , ' were in several places covered with writing , in an English hand of the time , and some of this additional matter was in verse . ' The count had no doubt obtained this volume in England , and the annotations miht have been the work of some of the layers of the time . The late
g p Mr . Dent possessed a copy of the third folio , which realised a large sum at his sale on account of a number of MS . emendations in a hand very nearly coeval with the date of the publication . Through the kindness of its present owner , I have had the opportunity of making a minute examination of the alterations ; but although many of them are exceedingly ingenious and plausible , I am convinced they are entirely conjectural . I have also seen other ies ofthe second and third foliosand one of
cop , copy the fourth , partly annotated in a similar manner . It is my sincere conviction that all variations obtained from such sources should be received with the utmost caution . " * The admission of such anonymous emendations would only encourage the absurd propensity evinced by certain shalloAV-