In order, then, to carry out what we conceive to be a good work—the task, namely, of defending the text of Shakespeare from the impurities with which Mr Collier wishes to inoculate it—we return to the discussion (which must necessarily be of a minute and chiefly verbal character) of the new readings. We shall endeavour to do justice to the old corrector, by bringing forward every alteration which looks like a real emendation. Two or three small matters may perhaps escape us, but the reader may be assured that they are very small matters indeed. It will be seen that the unwise substitutions constitute—overwhelming majority. The play that stands next in order is "King John."
King John—Act II. Scene 1.—In this play the new readings are of no great importance. A few of them may equal the original text—one or two may excel it—but certainly the larger portion fall considerably below it in point of merit. The best emendation occurs in the lines in which young Arthur expresses his acknowledgments to Austria—
"I give you welcome with a powerless hand,
But with a heart full of unstained love,"
The MS. corrector proposes "unstrained love," which perhaps is the better word of the two, though the change is by no means necessary. The same commendation cannot be extended to the alteration which is proposed in the lines where Constance is endeavouring to dissuade the French king from engaging precipitately in battle. She says—
"My lord Chatillon may trust England bring
That right in peace, which here we urge in war;
And then we shall repent each drop of blood,
The hot rash haste so indirectly shed."
"Indirectly" is Shakespeare's word. The MS. corrector suggests "Indiscreetly"—a most unhappy substitution, which we are surprised that the generally judicious Mr Singer should approve of. "Indiscreetly" means imprudently, inconsiderately. "Indirectly" means wrongfully, iniquitously, as may be learnt from these lines in King Henry V., where the French king is denounced as a usurper, and is told that Henry
"bids you, then, resign
Your crown and kingdom, indirectly held
From him the native and true challenger."
It was certainly the purpose of Constance to condemn the rash shedding of blood as something worse than in-discreet—as criminal and unjust—and this she did by employing the term "indirectly" in the Shakesperian sense of that word.
In this same Act, Scene 2, a new reading—also approved of by Mr Singer, and pronounced "unquestionably right" by Mr Collier—As proposed in the lines where the citizen says—
"That daughter there of Spain, the Lady Blanch
Is near to England."
For "near" the MS. correction is niece. But the Lady Blanch is repeatedly, throughout the play, spoke of as niece to King John ad the Queen-mother. Therefore, if for no other reason than that of varying the expression, we must give our suffrage most decidedly in favour of the original reading. "Near to England" of course means nearly related to England; and seems much more natural, as well as more poetical, that the citizen should speak in this general way of Lady Blanch, than that he should condescend on her particular degree of relationship, and style in the "niece to England." At the end of this Act, in the soliloquy of Faulconbridge, a very strange perversion on the part or the MS. corrector comes before us. Faulconbridge is railing against what he calls "commodity"—that is, the morality of' self-interest. He then goes on to represent himself as no better than his neighbor, in these words—
"And why rail I on this commodity?
But for because he hath not woo'd me yet;
Not that I have the power to clutch my hand,
When his fair angels would salute my palm."
The meaning of these lines is certainly sufficiently obvious. Yet Mr Collier's corrector is not satisfied with them. He reads—
"Not that I have no power to clutch my hand," &c.
But unless Mr Collier can prove—what will be difficult—that "power" here means inclination, it is evident that this reading directly reverses
