450 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 184. 



reason for not answering it was, that he had not 

 then within his reach the copy of " N. & Q." 

 wherein it had been proposed; politely adding, 

 that if I would reprint the Query, he would at 

 once answer it. 



Supposing, however, that Mr. Collier's absence 

 from his library would be only temporary, I 

 deemed it less troublesome to the Editor of " N. & 

 Q." to wait until Mr. Collier could refer to the 

 Query, as already printed. 



Two months have since elapsed, and I now no 

 longer hesitate to ask the Editor for an opportunity 

 of again referring to it, trusting that a sufficient 

 excuse will be found in the importance of the sub- 

 ject, as affecting the fundamental sense of a passage 

 in Shakspeare. A, E. B. 



Leeds. 



Mr. J. Payne Collier's " Notes and Emendations" 

 — There can be no doubt that many of these 

 emendations are rational and judicious ; but I can- 

 not help thinking, on the whole, that Mr. Collier 

 has rather overrated their value, and placed too 

 implicit faith in the infallibility of his unknown 

 guide. At all events, there is not a shadow of 

 authority given for any one of the corrections, and 

 we have therefore a full right to try them, as the 

 lawyers would say, "upon the merits;" or, in 

 other words, to treat them as mere speculative 

 alterations, and to adopt or reject them, as may 

 appear advisable in each particular case. It is 

 difficult to conjecture what can have been the 

 position in life, or the occupation of this myste- 

 rious annotator. That his pursuits were not 

 purely literary, I think is plain : first, from the 

 very circumstance of his not authenticating any of 

 his notes, which a literary inquirer would certainly 

 have done ; and, secondly, from the very minute 

 attention which is paid to the business of the scene 

 and the movements of the actors. These consi- 

 derations, coupled with the fixct of his frequently 

 striking out whole passages of the text (which a 

 literary enthusiast would not have done), would at 

 first lead us to suppose that the writer was a 

 theatrical manager, and that the alterations were 

 made to suit either the fancies, or perhaps the 

 peculiar qualifications of certain performers. But 

 in this case one can hardly suppose that the remarks 

 ■would have extended to more than a certain num- 

 ber of plays, which were most frequently acted. 

 Thus much, however, appears certain, that the 

 commentaries are rather those of an habitual play- 

 goer,, than of a studious critic ; and it will be easy 

 to show that a great portion of the new readings 

 he proposes are really changes ybr the worse, while 

 a still larger number are at least unnecessary ! I 

 shall content myself with only a few instances, on 

 this occasion, as I am unwilling to encroach too 

 far on your space ; but I can easily multiply them, 

 if I am encouraged to renew the subject. 



In the first place, I difier from Mr. Collier 

 entirely as to the famous passage from Henry VIII., 

 p. 324., which he brings so prominently forward a» 

 to give it special notice in his Introduction. To 

 me, I confess, the phrase — 



" To steal from spiritual labour a brief span," 

 appears quite tame and poor in comparison with 



" To steal from spiritual leisure a brief span," 



and, moreover, destroys all the poetry of the- 

 thought. Nor can I see the slightest difficulty in 

 the sense of the original passage. The king means 

 to say that Wolsey cannot steal from the little 

 leisure affiarded him by his spiritual labours " a 

 brief span, to keep his earthly audit:" and surely 

 this is much more poetical than the substituted 

 passage. 



In p. 323., from the same play, we have — 

 "to the sharp'st kind of justice," 



transformed to " sharp'st knife of justice :" but I 

 cannot assent to this change. The obvious mean- 

 ing of the poet is, that the contempt of the world, 

 '■'•shutting all doors'" against the accused, is a 

 sharper hind of justice than any which the law 

 could inflict : but, to be given up to " the sharp'st 

 knife of justice" could only mean, being consigned 

 to the public executioner, — which was just what 

 Katherine was deprecating. 



In p. 325. the lines relating to Wolsey's found- 

 ations at Ipswich and Oxford are printed thus ia 

 the folio — 



"one of which fell with him, 

 Unwilling to outlive the good that did it : " 



that is, unwilling to outlive the virtues whiclt 

 prompted it, — a passage teeming with poetical' 

 feeling : but the commentator has ruthlessly altered 

 it to — 



" Unwilling to outlive the good man did it ; " 



which, I submit, not only destroys all the poetry,, 

 but is decidedly not English ! 



The next passage I would notice is from Muck 

 Ado about Nothing, p. 76. How, I would ask, can 

 the phrase — 



" And sorrow wag," 



be a misprint for "call sorrow joy ?" No com- 

 positor, or scribe either, could possibly be misled 

 by any sound from the "reader" into such a mis- 

 take as that ! The words " and sorrow wag," I 

 admit, are not sense ; but the substitution of " call 

 sorrow joy" strikes me as bald and common-place 

 in the extreme, and there is no pretence for ita^ 

 having any authority. If, then, we are to have a 

 mere fanciful emendation, why not " bid sorrow 

 wag?" This would be doing far less violence to- 

 the printed text, for it would only require the 

 alteration of two letters in the word " and;" while 

 it would preserve the Shakspearian character of 

 the passage. " Wag " is a favourite expression ia 



