Notes and emendations to the text of Shakespeare's plays from eary manuscript corrections in a copy of the folio

Front matter

Book A^

Ph£. Owcc I encouiitrcd hiiTi,and thus 1 laid : Thou Maiden y oath, be vam^uiilit by a Maide. But with a provd Majeftkall high fcorne ^c m^S^Us^ '^ Heajifwer*d thus : Y ong Talhot was jiot bomt: i<;VbeW-/< To be tbcpjllageora Giglot Wenclv^^/'^ M'^'^ He left me proudly,as unwortbyJigbtT

iJ^r.DoubtleiTe he would have made a noble Knight: See where he iye5 inherced in the ar Dies Of the wiottMoody NurlTcr of hi« harmes . (HK 6t7^iX*j Baft. Hew ihem to peeces, hack their bones alTundcr, Whofe life was Englands glory,Gallia's wonder t

Introduction

In preparing the following sheets it has been a main object with me to give an impartial notion of the singular and interesting volume from which the materials have been derived. It is a copy of the folio of "Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies," which was published in 1632 : we need hardly say, that that edition was a reprint of a previous impression in the same form in 1623; and that it was again reprinted (with additional plays) in 1664, and for the fourth time in 1685. The reprint of 1632 has, therefore, been usually known as the second foho of the collected plays of Shakespeare.

The singularity and interest of the volume arise out of the fact, that, from the first page to the last, it contains notes and emendations in a hand-writing not much later than the time when it came from the press. Unfortunately it is not perfect: it begins, indeed, with "The Tempest," the earliest drama, but it wants four leaves at the end of " Cymbeline," the latest dr^ma, and there are several deficiencies in the body of the book,* while all the prehminary matter, consisting of dedication, address, commendatory verses, &;c., may be said to be wantino-, in as much as it has been supplied by a comparatively recent possessor, from another copy of the second folio, and loosely fastened within the cover.

Without adverting to sundry known mistakes of pagination, it may be stated that the entire volume consists of nearly 900 pages, divided between thirty-six plays ; and, besides the correction of literal and verbal errors, as well as lapses of a graver and more extensive kind, the punctuation has been carefully set right throughout. As there is no pao-e without from ten to thirty of these minor emendations, they do not, in the whole, fall short of 20,000 : most of them have, of

* It deserves remark that all the defects in the body of the book are in the division of " ffistories," the plays forming which have been especially thumbed and maltreated.

4 INTEODCCTION.

course, been introduced in modern editions, since the plain meaning of a passage often contradicts the old careless and absurd pointing ; but it will be seen hereafter, that in not a few instances the sense of the poet has thus been elucidated in a way that has not been anticipated.* With regard to changes of a different and more important character, where letters are added or expunged, where words are suppHed or struck out, or where hues and sentences, omitted by the early printer, have been inserted, together with all other emendations of a similar kind, it is difficult to form any correct estimate of their number. The volume in the hands of the reader includes considerably more than a thousand of such alterations ; but to have inserted all would have swelled its bulk to unreasonable dimensions, and would have wearied the patience of most persons, not merely by the sameness of the information, but by the monotony of the language in which it was necessarily conveyed.

Nothing that was deemed essential has been left out : no striking or valuable emendation has been passed over, and many changes have been mentioned, upon which the writer of the notes seems to have insisted, but in which, in some cases, concurrence must either be withheld, or doubt expressed. Whenever I have seen ground for dissenting from a proposed amendment, or for giving it only a qualified approbation, I have plainly stated my reasons, more particularly in the later portion of the work: I pursued, indeed, the same method, to a certain extent, in the earlier portion ; but while I have there, perhaps, more sparingly questioned the fitness of adopting some changes, I have also noticed others, which, as I proceeded, and as the matter accumulated, might possibly have been omitted.t If subsequent reflection or information appeared to warrant a modification of opinion, such modification will be found in the notes appended to the volume. I can only expect that each suggested alteration should be judged upon its own merits ; and though I can, in no respect, be answerable for more than submitting them to critical decision, I have thought myself called upon, where they appeared to deserve support or elucidation, to ofier the facts, arguments, or observations that occurred to me in their favor.

* As it is not easy to put the explanation of tliis apparently trifling matter m a short compass, the reader is referred particularly to pp. Ill, 117, 325, 399 and 507.

■f The old corrector of the folio, 1632, has himself allowed some apparent mistakes to escape him : thus, in "All's Well that Ends Well," Act in. Scene I., we might have expected that he would alter " the younger of our nature" into "the younger of our nation.^' Again, in "Henry IV. Part n.," Act IV. Scene H., it may seem that " success of mischief" ought to be ^^ successive mischief;" but neither of these variations from the old text is absolutely necessary.

In the history of the volume to which I have been thus indebted, I can offer Httle that may serve to give it authenticity.* It is very certain that the manuscript notes in its margins M^ere made before it was subjected to all the ill-usage it experienced. "When it first came into my hands, and indeed for some time afterwards, I imagined that the binding was the original rough calf in which many books of about the same date were clothed ; but more recent examination has convinced me, that this was at least the second coat it had worn. It is, nevertheless, in a very shabby condition, quite consistent with the state of the interior, where, besides the loss of some leaves, as already mentioned, and the loosening of others, many stains of wine, beer, and other liquids are observable : here and there, holes have been burned in the paper, either by the falling of the hghted snuff of a candle, or by the ashes of tobacco. In several places it is torn and disfigured by blots and dirt, and every margin bears evidence to frequent and careless perusal. In short, to a choice collector, no book could well present a more forbidding appearance.

I was tempted only by its cheapness to buy it, under the following circumstances : — In the spring of 1849 I happened to be in the shop of the late Mr. Rodd, of Great Newport street, at the time when a package of books arrived from the country: my impression is. that it came from Bedfordshire, but I am not at all certain upon a point which I looked upon as a matter of no importance. He opened the parcel in my presence, as he had often done before in the course of my thirty or forty years' acquaintance with him, and looking at the backs and title-pages of several volumes, I saw that they were chiefly works of little interest to me. Two folios, however, attracted my attention, one of them gilt on the sides, and the other in rough calf: the first was an excellent copy of Florio's " New World of Words," 1611, with the name of Henry Osborn (whom I mistook at the moment for his celebrated namesake, Francis) upon the first leaf; and the other a copy of the second folio of Shakespeare's Plays, much cropped, the covers old and greasy, and, as I saw at a glance on opening them,

? I am by no means convinced that this copy of the folio, 1632, is an entire novelty in the book-world ; but it is quite certain that its curiosity and importance were never till now understood, nor estimated. Sir Thomas Phillips, Bart., rf Middle Hill (the discoverer of the marriage-bond of Shakespeare, who has most readily aided me in my inquiries), recollects to have seen, many years ago, an annotated copy of the folio, 1632, wliich he has always regretted that he did not purchase ; and since the general contents of my volume became known, several gentlemen appear to be in possession of folios with manuscript emendations. I more than suspect, however, that one of these is the edition of 1685, formerly the property of the poet Southerne, with his autograph upon the title-page : of the notes it contains I was able, by the kindness of the then proprietor, to avail myself, when formerly editing the Shakespeare to wliich the present work is a Supplement.

imperfect at the beginning and end. Concluding hastily that the latter would complete another poor copy of the second folio, which I had bought of the same bookseller, and which I had for some years in my possession, and wanting the former for my use, I bought them both, the Florio for twelve, and the Shakespeare for thirty shillings.*

As it turned out, I at first repented my bargain as regarded the Shakespeare, because, when I took it home, it appeared that two leaves which I wanted were unfit for my purpose, not merely by being too short, but damaged and defaced : thus disappointed, I threw it by, and did not see it again, until I made a selection of books I would take with me on quitting London. In the mean time, finding that I could not readily remedy the deficiencies in my other copy of the foho, 1632, I had parted with it ; and when I removed into the country, with my family, in the spring of 1850, in order that I might not be without some copy of the second folio for the purpose of reference, I took with me that which is the foundation of the present work.

It was while putting my books together for removal, that I first observed some marks in the margin of this folio; but it was subsequently placed upon an upper shelf, and I did not take it down until I had occasion to consult it. It then struck me that Thomas Perkins, whose name, with the addition- of "his Booke," was upon the cover, might be the old actor who had performed in Marlowe's •' Jew of Malta,^' on its revival shortly before 1633. At this time I fancied that the binding was of about that date, and that the volume might have been his ; but in the first place, I found that his name was Pdchard Perkins, and in the next I became satisfied that the rough calf was not the original binding. Still, Thomas Perkins might have been a descendant of Eichard ; and this circumstance and others induced me to examine the volume more particularly : I then discovered, to my surprise, that there was hardly a page which did not present, in a hand-writing of the time, some emendations in the pointing or in the text, while on most of them they were frequent, and on many numerous.

Of course I now submitted the folio to a most careful scrutiny ; and as it occupied a considerable time to complete the inspection, how

* I paid the money for them at the time. Mr. "Wilkinson, of Wellington street, one of Mr. Rodd's executors, has several times obligingly afforded me the opportunity of inspecting Mr. Rodd's account-boots, in order, if possible, to trace from whence the package came, but without success. Mr. Redd does not appear to have kept any stock-book, showing how and when volumes came inlo his hands, and the entries in his day-book and ledger are not regular nor particular : his latest memorandum, on 19th April, only a short time before his sudden death, records the sale of "three books,'.' without specifying their titles, or giving the name of the purchaser. His m.emory was very faithful, and to that, doubt'ess, he often trusted. I am confident that the parcel was from the country ; but any inquiries, regarding sales there, could hardly L>e expected to be satisfactorily answered.

much more must it have consumed to make the alterations ? The ink was of various shades, differing sometimes on the same page, and I was once disposed to think that two distinct hands had been employed upon them : this notion I have since abandoned ; and I am now decidedly of opinion that the same writing prevails from beginning to end, but that the amendments must have been introduced from time to time, during, perhaps, the course of several years. The changes in punctuation alone, always made with nicety and patience, must have required a long period, considering their number; the other alterations, sometimes most minute, extending even to turned letters and typographical trifles of that kind, from their very nature could not have beea introduced with rapidity, while many of the errata must have severely tasked the industry of the old corrector.*

Then comes the question, why any of them were made, and why such extraordinary pains were bestowed on this particular copy of the folio, 1632 ? To this inquiry no complete reply, that I am aware of, can be given ; but some circumstances can be stated, which may tend to a partial solution of the difficulty.

Corrections only have been hitherto spoken of; but there are at least two other very peculiar features in the volume. Many passages, in nearly all the plays, are struck out with a pen, as if for the purpose of shortening the performance ;t and we need not feel much hesitation in coming to the conclusion, that these omissions had reference to the representation of the plays by some company about the date of the folio, 1632. To this fact we may add, that hundreds of stage-directions have been inserted in manuscript, as if for the guidance and instruction of actors, in order that no mistake might be made in what is usually denominated stage-business.J It is known that in this respect the old printed copies are very deficient ;§ and sometimes the written additions

* It ought to be mentioned, in reference to the question of the authority of the emendations, that some of them are upon erasures, as if the corrector had either altered his mind as to particular changes, or had obliterated sometliing that had been written before— possibly, 'By some person not so well informed as himself.

f " Antony and Cleopatra" is the only drama that is entirely exempt from this treatment : possibly, the old corrector never witnessed the performance of it. In all the other plays, more or less is " cut out," generally, it should seem, in proportion to popularity.

J In a few cases these manuscript stage-directions are of the highest importance in illustrating the wonderful judgmxcnt and skill of Shakespeare in conducting the business of his scenes. This matter cannot well be explained in the compass of a note ; but if the reader will turn to p. 5, it will be seen of what consequence the mere words. Put on robe again, are to understanding in what way the sudden somnolency of Miranda, which has always excited remark, had been produced, and was to be accounted for. It would be easy to point out other instances, but they will occur in the course of the volume.

\ Tliere is, I think, but one printed note of aside in the whole of the six-and-thirty plays ; but in manuscript the utmost care is taken so to mark all speeches intended to be heard by the audience, but not by the characters engaged in the scene.

of this kind seem even more frequent, and more explicit, than might be thought necessary. The erasures of passages and scenes are quite inconsistent with the notion that a new edition of the foHo, 1632, was contemplated ; and how are they, and the new stage-directions, and " asides," to be accounted for, excepting on the supposition that the volume once belonged to a person interested in, or connected with, one of our early theatres ? The continuation of the corrections and emendations, in spite of, and through the erasures, may show that they were done at a different time, and by a different person ; but who shall say which was done first, or whether both were not, in fact, the work of the same hand ?*

Passing by these matters, upon which we can arrive at no certain result, we must briefly advert to another point upon which, however, we are quite as much in the dark : — we mean the authority upon which these changes, of greater or of less importance, were introduced. How are we warranted in giving credit to any of them ?

The first and best answer seems to be that which one of the most acute of the commentators appHed to an avowedly conjectural emendation — that it required no authority — that it carried conviction on the very face of it.t Many of the most valuable corrections of Shakespeare's t3xt are, in truth, self-evident; and so apparent, when once suggested, that it seems wonderful how the plays could have passed through the hands of men of such learning and critical acumen, during the last century and a half (to say nothing of the period occupied by the publication of the four foUos), without the detection of. such indisputable blunders. Let us take an instance from " The Taming of the Shrew," Act I. Scene I., where Lucentio, arriving in Padua, to read at the university, Tranio, his man, entreats his master not to apply himself too severely to study : —

" Only, good master, while we do admire This virtue, and this moral discipline, Let's be no stoics, nor no stocks, I pray, Or so devote to Aristotle's checks.

As Ovid be an outcast quite abjur'd."

Such has been the invariable text from the first publication of the comedy, in 1623, until our own day ; yet it is unquestionably wrong, and wrong in the most important word in the quotation, as the old

* Some expressions and lines of an irreligious or indelicate character are also struck out, evincing, perhaps, the advance of a better, or purer, taste about the period when the emendator went over the volume.

t Monk Mason, in a note upon " Troilus and Cressida," Act m. Scene HI. ; which, however, was there singularly inapt.

corrector shows, and as the reader will be sure to acknowledge the moment the emendation is proposed : —

"Lei's be no stoics, nor no stocks, I pray, Or so devote to Aristotle's Ethics, As Ovid be an outcast quite abjur'd."

In the manuscript, from which the old printer worked, Ethics was, no doubt, written with a small letter, and with ke near the end of the word, as was then the custom, and the careless compositor mistook ethickes for " checkes," and so printed it : " checkes" is converted into ethickes in the hand-writing of the emendator of the folio, 1632 ; and it is hardly too much to say that this misprint can never be repeated.

Another proof of the same kind, but perhaps even stronger, may be taken from "Coriolanus," Act II. Scene III. It relates to a word which has puzzled all editors, and yet ought not to have delayed them for a moment, fhe corruption, when pointed out by an emendation in the foho, 1632, being so glaring. The hero, disdainfully soliciting the "sweet voices" of the plebeians, asks himself, —

" Wliy in this woolvish toge should I stand here, To beg of Hob and Dick ?"

Johnson says that " Avoolvish" is 7'ough, hirsute ; and Malone, Steevens, Ritson, Douce, &c., have all notes regarding wolves (as if wild beasts had any thing to do with the matter), and all erroneous, but Johnson's the most unfortunate, because it has been previously stated that the -'toge" (or gown) was not hirsute, but absolutely " napless." It seems astonishing, on this very account, that the right word was never guessed, as it is found in the margin of my volume :

' ' Why in this woolless toge should I stand here, To beg of Hob and Dick?"

Can there be an instant's hesitation about it ? The printer, or the scribe who wrote the copy used by the printer, mistook the termination of the word, and " woolvish" has been eternally reiterated as the real language of the poet. It seems impossible that "woolvish" should ever hereafter find a single supporter.

Other verbal amendments are restorations of words that were becoming somewhat obsolete in the time of Shakespeare, such as hisson, blind, Head, fruit, &c. ; but there is one instance of the sort so remarkable, that I cannot refuse to notice it here. It regards the expression " a woollen bagpipe," in "The Merchant of Venice," Act IV. Scene I. ; and it must appear strange that " woolless" in one play, and " woollen" in another, should have formed such hard and insuperable stumbhng-blocks to all the commentators. When Shylock observes, 1*

10 INTR0DUCTI02T.

" As there is no firm reason to be render'd, Why he cannot abide a gaping pig, Why he a harmless necessary cat, Why he a woollen bagpipe," &c.

ingenuity has been exhausted to explain, or to explain away, the epithet "woollen," as applied to a bagpipe. Some would have it ivoodeUj others swollen, and a third party (myself among the number) were for adhering, in a case of such difficulty, to the . text of the old editions. What turns out to be the fact ? that every body was in error, and that our great dramatist employed an old word, which he had already used in his '"Lucrece," 1594, and which means swollen, \'vL.,holhn : it is the participle of the verb holne, " to become puffed up or swollen," as Sir r. Madden states, in his excellent " Glossary to the WycHfiite Versions of the Bible." Bollen is spelt in various ways by old and modern lexicographers; but we may be confident that we shall never again see " woollen bagpipe" in any edition of the text of Shakespeare, unless it be reproduced by some one, who, having no right to use the emendation of our folio, 1632, adheres of necessity to the antiquated blunder, and pertinaciously attempts to justify it.

By the mention of the scribe, or copyist, who wrote the manuscript from which the printer composed, we are brought to the consideratir)n of another class of errors, for which, probably, the typographer was not responsible. If there be one point more clear than another, in connection with the text of Shakespeare as it has come down to us, it is that the person, or persons, who prepared the transcripts of the plays for the printer, wrote by the ear, and not by the eye: they heard the dialogue, and wrote it down as it struck them. This position has been completely established by Malone;* and only in this way can we explain many of the whimsical mistakes in the quartos and folios. It is very well known that associations of actors, who bought dramas of their authors, were at all times extremely averse to the publication of them, partly under the persuasion that the number of readers would diminish the number of auditors.! The managers and sharers did their utmost to prevent the appearance of plays in print; and it is the surreptitious manner in which pieces got out to the public that will account for the especial imperfectness, in respect to typography, of this department of our early literature. About half the productions of Shakespeare remained in manuscript until seven years after his death : not a few of those which were printed in his hfe-time were shamefully

* See Maione's Shakespeare, by Boswell, vii. p. 36 ; xi. p. 422 ; xii. pp. £C8, 287, 313 ; xiv. p. 26 ; xix. p. 472, &c.

f Another reason, of course, was the appreliension lest rival companies, then under very lax control, might act the piece.

INTEODUCTIOK. 11

disfigured, and not one can be pointed out to the publication of which he in any way contributed. When he finally retired to Stratford-upon- Avon, we cannot find that he took the slightest interest in works which had delighted living thousands, and were destined to be the admiration of unborn millions : he considered them the property of the theatre for which they had been written, and doubtless conceived that they were beyond his control.

If, therefore, popular dramas did make their way to the press, it was generally accomplished either by the employment of shorthand writers, who perfectly took down the words as they distinctly heard them, or by the connivance and aid of inferior performers, who, being "hirelings" at weekly wages, had no direct interest in the receipts at the doors. They may have furnished the booksellers with such parts as they sustained, or could in any way procure from the theatre ; and it is not unlikely that, listening, as they must have daily done, to the repetitions of the principal actors, they would be able to recite, with more or less accuracy, whole speeches, and even scenes, which a httle ingenuity could combine into a drama. We may readily imagine, that what these inferior performers had thus got by heart, they might dictate to some mechanical copyist, and thus many words, and even sentences, which sounded like something else, would be misrepresented in the printed editions, and nobody take the pains to correct the blunders. Of course, those who were sharers in theatres would be the last to remedy defects ; and in this way oral representations on our early stages, by the chief actors, might easily be more correct than the published copies of performances.

Upon this supposition we must account for not a few of the remarkable manuscript emendations in my foKo, 1632: the annotator of that volume may have been connected with one of our old play-houses ; he may have been a manager, or a member of a company, and as an admirer of Shakespeare, as well as for his own theatrical purposes, he may have taken the trouble, from time to time, to set right errors in the printed text by the more faithful dehvery of their parts by the principal abtors. This might have been accomplished by Him as a mere spectator, and he may have employed the edition nearest his own day as the receptacle of his notes ; Be may, however, have been aided by the prompt-books ; and the whole appearance of our volume seems to afford evidence that the work of correction was not done speedily, nor continuously, but as the misprints became apparent, and the means of correcting them occurred. Thus a long interval may have elapsed before this copy of the second folio was brought to the state in which it has reached us.

12 INTRODtJCTION.

An example or two will suffice to make what is meant intelligible ; and here, as in former instances, I take them from many, almost at random, for the real difficulty is selection. When Henry VIII. (Act III. Scene II.) tells Wolsey,—

" You have scarce time To steal from spiritual leisure a brief span, To keep your earthly audit ;"

he cannot mean that the Cardinal has scarcely time to steal from " leisure," but from labor : the word was misheard by the scribe ; and while "leisure" makes nonsense of the sentence, Za&or is exactly adapted to the place : —

" You have scare time To steal from spiritual labor a brief span."

The substituted word is found in the margin of the folio, 1632. This instance seems indisputable ; but we meet with a more striking proof of the same kind in " King Lear" (Act IV. Scene VII.), where, after he has read Groneril's letter of love to Edmund and hate to her husband? Edgar exclaims, as the poet's language has been represented,

" 0, undistinguish'd space of woman's will ! A plot upon her virtuous husband's life."

The commentators have striven hard to extract sense from the first hne, but not one of them satisfied another, nor indeed themselves. Edgar, in truth, is shocked at the profligate and uncontrollable licentiousness of Groneril : —

'- unextingaislihl blaze of woman's will !"

in other words, desire {i. e. " will" or lust) in the female sex bursts forth in a flame that cannot be subdued. The scribe did not understand what he put upon paper, misheard unextinguished Naze, and wrote "undistinguish'd space." Such was, probably, the origin of the hitherto received nonsense.

Another brief and laughable proof may be adduced from " Coriolanus :" it is where Menenius, in Act II. Scene I., is talking of himself to the Tribunes : — " I am known" (he says in all editions, ancient and modern) " to be a humorous patrician, and one that loves a cup of hot wine, with not a drop of allaying Tyber in it; said to be something imperfect in favoring the first complaint." Nobody has offijred a note explanatory of " the first complaint," and it has always passed current as the language of Shakespeare. Is it so ? Assuredly not ; for what has "a cup of hot wine" to do with "the first complaint?" The old corrector calls upon us to read " a cup of hot wine, with not a drop of allaying Tyber in it ; said to be something imperfect in favoring the thirst complaint," and the utterly lost humor of the passage is at once restored. The scribe misheard thirsty and wrote " first;" and the blunder has already lasted between two and three centuries, and might have lasted two or three centuries longer, but for the discovery of this corrected folio.