meaning is darkened, obfuscated; and a more appropriate and expressive word could not have been used."
Act IV. Scene 1.—Othello, when the pretended proofs of Desdemona's guilt are accumulating upon him, and just before he falls into a fit, exclaims, "Nature would not invest herself in such shadowing passion without some instruction." Johnson thus explains the place, "It is not words which shake me thus. This passion which spreads its clouds over me, is the effect of some agency more than the operation of words: it is one of these notices which men have of unseen calamities." How near does that come to Campbell's fine line,
"And coming events cast their shadows before."
Yet "shadowing" is to be deleted, and shuddering substituted in its room. No, no, thou shadow—but not of Shakespeare—we cannot afford to be mulcted of so much fine poetry.
Scene 2.—We might have called attention more frequently, as we went along, to many instances which prove, what we have now not the smallest doubt of, that these new readings were never at all intended by the MS. corrector to be viewed as restorations of Shakespeare's text; but simply as avowed departures from his language, admitted innovations, which might better suit the tastes, as he thought, of a progenies vitiosior. That they were designed as restitutions of the true Shakespearian dialect is a pure hypothesis on the part of Mr Collier. It receives no countenance whatever from the handiwork of his corrector, whom, therefore, we exculpate from the crime of forgery, although his offences against good taste and common sense remain equally reprehensible. Mr Collier, we conceive, is greatly to blame for having mistaken so completely his protégé's intention. As an instance of a new reading in which the text is merely modernised, and certainly not restored, take the following, where Desdemona, speaking of Othello, says,
"How have I been behaved, that he might stick
The small'st opinion on my greatest abuse?"
This is the reading of the quartos. The folios have,
"The small'st opinion on my least misuse."
The latter of which words the corrector changes into misdeed, as more intelligible to the ears of the groundlings subsequent to Shakespeare.
Act V. Scene 2.—Æmilia, after the murder of Desdemona, declares that she will not hold her peace,
"No, I will speak as liberal as the north."
The old quarto reads air. The MS. corrector reads wind. "Why, we may ask," says Mr Collier, "should the old corrector make the change, inasmuch as no reasonable objection may be urged against the use of 'north,' which he deletes, not in favour of 'air' of the quarto 1622, but in favour of wind? We may presume that he altered the word because he had heard the line repeated in that manner on the stage." That is not at all unlikely. Actors sometimes take considerable liberties with the text of their parts, and they probably did so in the time of Shakespeare as well as now. A player might use the north, or the air, or the wind, according as the one or other of these words came most readily to his mouth. But that proves nothing in regard to the authentic text of Shakespeare. For this we must look to his published works in their earliest impressions. We attach little or no importance to the mere players' alterations, even though Mr Collier should be able to prove (what he is not) that many of his corrector's emendations were playhouse variations, for these were much more likely to have had their origin in individual caprice than in any more authoritative source.
Antony and Cleopatra.— Act I. Scene 2.—Before changing the following passage,
"The present pleasure,
By revolution lowering, does become
The opposite of itself,"
we should require better authority than that of the MS. corrector, who reads
"The present pleasure,
By repetition souring, does become
The opposite of itself."
This, however, is one of his most specious emendations. But the words, "by revolution lowering," are sufficiently intelligible,—and are indeed
