so poetical as Theobald's, strikes us as more natural and simple when taken with the context.
"He tells her something
Which wakes her blood Look on't! Good sooth, she is
The queen of curds and cream."
On second thoughts, we are not sure that this is not more poetical and dramatic than the other. At any rate, we give it our suffrage.
There is, it seems, an old word "jape," signifying a jest, which we willingly accept on the authority of the MS. corrector, in place of the unintelligible word "gap," in the speech where" some stretch-mouthed rascal" is said "to break a foul jape into the matter." The reading hitherto has been "gap." This, however, is a hiatus only mediocriter deflendus. The next is a very lamentable case.
Act V. Scene 3.—Here the corrector interpolates a whole line of his own, which we can by no means accept. The miserable Leontes, gazing on the supposed statue of his wife, Hermione, which is in reality her living self, says, according to the received text—
"Let be, let be,
Would I were dead; but that methinks already—
What was he that did make it? see, my lord,
Would you not deem it breathed, and that those veins
Did verily bear blood?"
Here the train of emotion is evidently this:—Would I were dead, but that methinks already (he is about to add) I am, when the life-like appearance of the statue forcibly impresses his sense, whereupon he checks himself and exclaims," What was he that did make it"—a god or a mere man, &c. The MS. corrector favours us with the following version—
"Let be, let be,
Would I were dead, but that methinks already
I am but dead, stone looking upon stone:
What was he that did make it? see, my lord,
Would you not deem it breathed?" &c.
The corrector is not satisfied with making Shakespeare write poorly, he frequently insists on making him write contradictorily, as in the present instance. I am stone, says Leontes, according to this version, looking upon stone, for see, my lord, the statue breathes, these veins do verily bear blood. Is not that a proof, my lord, that this statue is mere stone? Most people would have considered this a proof of the very contrary. Not so the MS. corrector, who is the father of the emendation; not so Mr Collier, who says that "we may be thankful that this line has been furnished, since it adds so much to the force and clearness of the speech of Leontes." Truly, we must be thankful for very small literary mercies! Mr Collier may be assured that the very thing which Leontes says most strongly, by implication, in this speech is, that he is not stone looking upon stone.
Our space being exhausted, we must reserve for our next Number the continuation of our survey of Shakespeare's Plays as amended by Mr Collier's anonymous corrector.
