proposed by a critic of the present day, would have met with deserved contempt. As to "comfort" being "used ironically," see my Remarks on Collier's and Knight's eds. of Shakespeare, p. 88. Act ii. sc. 2. "K. John. France, hast thou yet more blood to cast away? Say, shall the current of our right roam on," &c. So Malone, Mr. Collier, and Mr. Knight, because the first folio has "rome." But "rome" is manifestly a misprint for "runne" (or perhaps for "ronne," as the мs. might have had that spelling); and the editor of the second folio rightly substituted "run." Steevens justly remarks; "The King would rather describe his right as running on in a direct than in an irregular course, such as would be implied by the word roam." (In this play the first folio is not uniform in the spelling of run; but it has "runnes tickling vp and downe," act iii. sc. 3; "when we haue runne so ill," act iii. sc. 4; runne to meet displeasure," act v. sc. 1.) 66 Act iii. sc. 1. "Cons. O Lewis, stand fast! the devil tempts thee here, In likeness of a new untrimmed bride." On the word "untrimmed," how have the commentators written! how have I myself written! how foolishly, all of us! I now see* (and with wonder at my former blindness) that nothing more is required than the change of a single letter,—that, beyond the possibility of doubt, Shakespeare wrote, "In likeness of a new up-trimmed bride.” Compare what he elsewhere says of a bride; "Go, waken Juliet; go, and trim her up.” So too Marlowe ; "But by her glass disdainful pride she learns, Act iii. sc. 3. "If the midnight bell Did, with his iron tongue and brazen mouth, So the old copies. "The folio, 1632, as amended, has, 'Sound on into the drowsy ear of night,' instead of 'race of night,' as it stands in the folios: when 'ear' was spelt eare, as was most frequently the case, the mistake was easy, and we may now be pretty sure that 'race' was a mistake." Collier's Notes and Emendations, &c. p. 205. Whether the emendation "ear" originated with the *This emendation was mentioned as mine by Mr. Singer in Notes and Queries for July 3d, 1852. Manuscript-corrector, or whether he derived it from some prompter's copy,-I feel assured that it is the poet's word. The same correction occurred, long ago, to myself: it occurred also to Mr. Collier, while he was editing the play; and (as appears from his note ad l.) he would have inserted it in the text, had not his better judgment been overpowered by a superstitious reverence for the folio. 66 But, if the Manuscript-corrector considered "on" to be an adverb (and we are uncertain how he understood it,"on" and "one" being so often spelt alike), my conviction would still remain unshaken, that the recent editors, by printing on," have greatly impaired the grandeur and the poetry of the passage. Steevens well observes; "The repeated strokes have less of solemnity than the single notice, as they take from the horror and awful silence here described as so propitious to the dreadful purposes of the king. Though the hour of one be not the natural midnight, it is yet the most solemn moment of the poetical one; and Shakespeare himself has chosen to introduce his Ghost in Hamlet, 'The bell then beating one." As to the "contradiction" which the recent editors object to in "the midnight bell sounding one," I can only say that, in such a passage, a poet may be forgiven for not expressing himself according to the exact matter of fact, when even prose-writers, from the earliest times to the present, occasionally employ very inaccurate language in speaking of the hours of darkness: e.g.; "It happened that betweene twelve and one a clocke at midnight, there blew a mighty storme of winde against the house," &c. The Famous History of Doctor Faustus, sig. K 3, ed. 1648. "We marched slowly on because of the carriages we had with us, and came to Freynstat about one a clock in the night perfectly undiscover'd." Defoe's Memoirs of a Cavalier, p. 119, first ed. "Left Ostend in the steam-boat at three o'clock in the night." Journal by Cary, the translator of Dante,—Memoir of him by his Son, vol. ii. 254. Act iv. sc. 1. "Yet, I remember, when I was in France, Young gentlemen would be as sad as night, "I doubt," says Malone, "whether our author had any authority for attributing this species of affectation to the French. He generally ascribes the manners of England to all other countries." The French may or may not have been the inventors of this singular mark of gentility, which, it is well known, was once highly fashionable in England. But Nash, in one of his tracts, expressly mentions an assumed melancholy as one of the follies which " idle travellers" brought home from France. The passage is very curious. "What is there in Fraunce to be learnd more than in England, but falshood in fellowship, perfect slouenrie, to loue no man but for my pleasure, to sweare Ah par la mort Dieu when a mans hammes are scabd? For the idle Traueller (I meane not for the Souldiour), I have knowen some that haue continued there by the space of halfe a dozen yeare, and when they come [came] home, they haue hyd a little weerish leane face vnder a broad French hat, kept a terrible coyle with the dust in the streete in their long cloakes M of gray paper, and spoke English strangely. Nought else haue they profited by their trauell, saue learnt to distinguish of the true Burdeaux grape, and knowe a cup of neate Gascoygne wine from wine of Orleance; yea, and peraduenture this also, to esteeme of the poxe as a pimple, to weare a veluet patch on their face, and walke melancholy with their armes folded." The Vnfortunate Traveller. Or, The Life of Jacke Wilton, 1594, sig. L 4. Act v. sc. 2. "This unheard sauciness, and boyish troops," &c. So the old copies. "The manuscript-corrector gives no countenance to Theobald's proposal to read unhair'd for 'unheard;' and that his attention was directed to the line, is evident from the fact that he makes an emendation, though not of much importance, in it; he reads: 'This unheard sauciness of boyish troops.' Collier's Notes and Emendations, &c. p. 210. Theobald did more than "propose to read unhair'd,"— he fearlessly inserted it in the text; and all his successors, excepting Mr. Collier, have retained it. The Manuscript-corrector's alteration (made, I presume, because he had forgotten that hair and hair'd were often spelt hear and heard,—e. g. ; "In face, in clothes, in speech, in eyes, in heare." Harington's Orlando Furioso, B. xliii. st. 34. "Franticke Ambition, Enuie, shagge-heard Lust." Chapman's Euthymniæ Raptus, &c. 1609, sig. F.) |