such is my own judgment, that none of them have any claim to be regarded as authentic: most of them are corruptions decidedly; but a considerable number may be justly spoken of as corrections; and some of them are exceedingly happy and valuable. To be sure, of those that may be called apt and good, the larger portion had been anticipated by modern editors, and so had passed into the current text. Still there are enough of original or unanticipated corrections to render the volume an important contribution towards textual rectification. Nevertheless they all stand on the common footing of conjectural emendation, and so carry no authority in their hand but that of inherent fitness and propriety.

Herewith I must also mention another copy of the same folio, which is sometimes referred to in my Critical Notes. This was owned by the late Mr. S. W. Singer, also one of the most learned and eminent Shakespearians of his time. All that need be said of it here may as well be given in Singer's own words: "In June, 1852, I purchased from Mr. Willis, the bookseller, a copy of the second folio edition of Shakespeare, in its original binding, which, like that of Mr. Collier, contains very numerous manuscript corrections by several hands; the typographical errors, with which that edition abounds, are sedulously corrected, and the writers have also tried their hands at conjectural emendation extensively. Many of these emendations correspond with those. in Mr. Collier's volume, but chiefly in those cases where the error in the old copy was pretty evident; but the readings often vary, and sometimes for the better."

Thus much may suffice for indicating generally the condition in which Shakespeare's plays have come down to us. Of course the early quartos and the first folio are, in the proper sense, our only authorities for the Poet's text. But his text has not been, and most assuredly never will be allowed to remain in the condition there given. The labours

and the judgment of learned, sagacious, painstaking, diligent workmen in the field have had, ought to have, must have, a good deal of weight in deciding how the matter should go. And now the question confronts us whether, after all, there is any likelihood of Shakespeare's text being ever got into a satisfactory state. Perhaps, nay, I may as well say probably, not. Probably the best to be looked for here is a greater or less degree of approximation to such a state. At all events, if it come at all, it is to come as the slow cumulative result of a great many minds working jointly, or severally, and successively, and each contributing its measure, be it more, be it less, towards the common cause. A mite done here, and a mite done there, will at length, when time shall cast up the sum, accomplish we know not what.

The Bible apart, Shakespeare's dramas are, by general consent, the greatest classic and literary treasure of the world. His text, with all the admitted imperfections on its head, is nevertheless a venerable and sacred thing, and must nowise be touched but under a strong restraining sense of pious awe. Woe to the man that exercises his critical surgery here without a profound reverence for the subject! All glib ingenuity, all shifty cleverness, should be sternly warned off from meddling with the matter. Nothing is easier than making or proposing ingenious and plausible corrections. But changes merely ingenious are altogether worse than none; and whoever goes about the work with his mind at all in trim for it will much rather have any corrections he may make or propose flatly condemned as bad, than have that sweetish epithet politely smiled, or sneered, upon them. On the other hand, to make corrections that are really judicious, corrections that have due respect to all sides of the case, and fit all round, and that keep strictly within the limits of such freedom as must be permitted in the presenting of so great a classic so deeply hurt with textual corruptions; this is, indeed, just

the nicest and most delicate art in the whole work of modern editorship. And as a due application of this art requires a most circumspective and discriminating judgment, together with a life-long acquaintance with the Poet's mental and rhythmic and lingual idiom; so, again, there needs no small measure of the same preparation, in order to a judicious estimate of any ripely-considered textual change.

The work of ascertaining and amending Shakespeare's text systematically began with Rowe in 1709, his first edition having came out that year, his second in 1714. The work was continued by Pope, who also put forth two editions, in 1723 and 1728. Pope was followed by Theobald, whose two editions appeared in 1733 and 1740. Then came Hanmer's edition in 1743, and Warburton's in 1749. All through the latter half of the eighteenth century the process was sedulously continued by Johnson, Capell, Steevens, Malone, Rann, and sundry others. Heath, though not an editor, was hardly inferior to any of them in understanding and judgment; and his comments remain to this day among the best we have. Most of these men were very strong and broad in learning and sagacity, and in the other furnishings needful for their task; none of them were wanting in respect for the Poet; and all of them did good service.

It must be admitted, however, that many, if not most, of these workmen handled the text with excessive freedom; and perhaps it may be justly said that, taken all together, they corrupted quite as much as they corrected it. They seem to have gone somewhat upon the principle of giving what, in their judgment, the Poet ought to have written; whereas the thing we want is not what anybody may think he ought to have written, but what, as nearly as can be judged, he actually did write. Accordingly much labour has since. had to be spent in undoing what was thus overdone.

During the present century the process of correction has

been kept up, but much more temperately, and by minds. well fitted and furnished for the task, though probably, as a whole, not equal to the earlier series of workmen. Among these are Singer, Collier, Dyce, Staunton, Halliwell, and White, faithful and highly competent labourers, whose names will doubtless hold prominent and permanent places in Shakespearian lore.

The excessive freedom in textual change used by the earlier series of editors has naturally had the effect of provoking a reaction. For the last forty years or thereabouts, this reaction has been in progress, and is now, I think, at its height, having reached an extreme fully as great, and not a whit more commendable than the former extreme. Of course this can hardly fail in due time to draw on another reaction; and already signs are not wanting that such a result is surely forthcoming. To the former license of correction there has succeeded a license, not less vicious, of interpretation. Explanations the most strained, far-fetched, and over-subtile are now very much the order of the day, things sure to disgust the common sense of sober, candid, circumspective, cool-judging minds. It is said that the old. text must not be changed save in cases of "absolute necessity"; and this dictum is so construed, in theory at least, as to prompt and cover all the excesses of the most fanciful, fine-drawn, and futile ingenuity. The thing has grown to the ridiculous upshot of glozing and conjuring stark printer's errors into poetic beauties, and the awkwardest hitchings and haltings of metre into "elegant retardations." To minds so captivated with their own ingenuity, an item of the old text. that is utter nonsense is specially attractive; because, to be sure, they can the more easily spell their own sense, or want of sense, into it. And so we see them doggedly tenacious of such readings as none but themselves can explain, and fondly concocting such explanations thereof as none but

themselves can understand; tormenting the meaning they want out of words that are no more akin to it than the multiplication-table is to a trilobite. Surely, then, the thing now most in order is a course of temperance and moderation, a calmness and equipoise of judgment, steering clear of both extremes, and sounding in harmony with plain old common sense, one ounce of which is worth more than a ton of exegetical ingenuity. For Shakespeare, be it observed, is just our great imperial sovereign of common sense; and sooner or later the study of him will needs kill off all the editors that run in discord with this supreme quality of his workmanship.

The present generation of Shakespearians are rather conspicuously, not to say ostentatiously, innocent of respect for their predecessors. They even seem to measure the worth of their own doings by their self-complacent ignoring or upbraiding of what has been done before. Might it not be well for them to bethink themselves now and then what sort of a lesson their contempt of the past is likely to teach the future? Possibly plain sensible people, who prefer small perspicuities to big obscurities, soft-voiced solidities to highsounding nihilities, may take it into their heads that wisdom was not born with the present generation, and will not die with it. After all, Rowe, Pope, Theobald, Hanmer, Warburton, Johnson, Capell, and others, though by no means infallible, yet were not fools: they knew several things; and their minds were at least tolerably clear of conceit and cant: I suspect they understood their business quite as well, and laboured in it quite as uprightly and fruitfully, as those who now insist on proceeding as if nothing had ever been done; as if it had been reserved exclusively for them to understand and appreciate the Poet. In this, as in some other matters, to "stand as if a man were author of himself, and knew no other kin," is not exactly the thing. The best that any of