266 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 203. 



most distinguished critics this country has pro- 

 duced. Generally speaking, however, there is in 

 these mattei's such a tendency for reproduction, 

 I should for one hesitate to accuse any critic of 

 intentional unfairness, merely because he puts 

 forth conjectures as new, when they have been 

 previously published ; and I have found so many 

 of my own attempts at emendation, thought to be 

 original, in other sources, that I now hesitate at 

 introducing any as novel. These attempts, like 

 most others, have only resulted occasionally in 

 one that will bear the test of examination after it 

 •has been placed aside, and carefully considered 

 ■when the impression of novelty has worn off. I 

 think we may safely appeal to all ci-itics who 

 occupy themselves much with conjectural criti- 

 cism, and ask them if Time does not frequently 

 seriously impair the complacency with which they 

 regard their efforts on their first production. 



Vol. viii., p, 21G., contains more instances of 

 coincident suggestions, R. H. C. indulging in two 

 conjectures, both supported very ably, but in the 

 perfect unconsciousness that the first, 7'ude days, 

 was long since mentioned by Mr. Dyce, in his 

 JRemarJis, 1844, p. 172. ; and that the second, the 

 change of punctuation in All's Well that JEnds 

 Well, is the reading adopted by Theobald, and 

 it is also introduced by Mr. Knight in the text of 

 his " National Edition," p. 262., and has, I believe, 

 been mentioned elsewhere. It may be said that 

 this kind of repetition might be obviated by the 

 publication of the various readings that have been 

 suggested in the text of Shakspeare, but who is 

 there to be found Quixotic enough to undertake 

 so large and thankless a task, one which at best 

 can only be most imperfectly executed: the mate- 

 rials being so scattered, and often so worthless, the 

 compiler would, I imagine, abandon the design 

 before he had made great progress in it. No fair 

 comparison can be entertained in this respect 

 between the text of Shakspeare and the texts of 

 the classic authors. What has happened to 

 R. H. C, happens, as I am about to show, to all 

 who indulge in conjectural criticism. 



Any reader who will take a quantity of disputed 

 passages in Shakspeare, and happens to be igno- 

 rant of what has been suggested by others, will 

 discover that, in most of the cases, if he merely 

 tries his skill on a few simple permutations of the 

 letters, he will in one way or another stumble on 

 the suggested words. Let us take, for example, 

 what may be considered in its way as one of the 

 most incomprehensible lines in Shakspeare — 

 " Will you go, An-heircs ? " the last word being 

 printed with a capital. Running down with the 

 vowels from a, we get at once an apparently 

 plausible suggestion, " Will you go on here f " 

 but a little consideration will show how extremely 

 unlikely this is to be the genuine reading, and that 

 Mr. Dyce is correct in prefei-ring Mynheers — a 



suggestion which belongs to Theobald, and not, 

 as he mentions, to Hanmer. But what I main- 

 tain is, that on here would be the correction that 

 would occur to most readers, in all probability to 

 be at once dismissed. Me. Collier, howevei-, says 

 " it is singular that nobody seems ever to have 

 conjectured that on here might be concealed under 

 An-heires: " and it would have been singular had 

 this been the case ; but the suggestion of 07i here 

 is to be found in Theobald's common edition. 

 Oddly enough, about a year before Me. Colliee's 

 volume appeared, it was again suggested as if it 

 were new. 



Let us select a still more palpable instance 

 (Measure for Measure, Act IL Sc. 1.) : " If this 

 law hold in Vienna ten years, I'll rent the fairest 

 house in it after threepence a bay." If this read- 

 ing be wrong, which I do not admit, the second 

 change in the first letter creates an obvious altera- 

 tion, day, making at least some sort of sense, if not 

 the correct one. Some years ago, I was rash 

 enough to suggest day, not then observing the alter- 

 ation was to be found in Pope's edition ; and Me. 

 CoLLiEE has fallen into the same oversight, when he 

 gives it as one of the corrector's new emendations. 

 I regard these oversights as very pardonable, and 

 inseparable from any extensive attempt to correct 

 the state of the text. All Shakspearian conjec- 

 tures either anticipate or are anticipated. 



Mr. Dyce being par excellence the most judi- 

 cious verbal critic of the day, it will scarcely be 

 thought egotistical to claim for myself the priority 

 for one of his emendations — " Avoid thee, friend," 

 in the Few Notes, p. 31., a reading I had men- 

 tioned in print before the appearance of that 

 work. This is merely one of the many evidences 

 that all verbal conjecturers must often stumble on 

 the same suggestions. Even the MS. corrector's 

 alteration of the passage is not new, it being found 

 in Pope's and in several other editions of the last 

 century; another circumstance that exhibits the 

 great difficulty and danger of asserting a conjec- 

 ture to be absolutely unknown. 



J. O. IIalliwell. 



P.S. The subject is, of course, capable of almost 

 indefinite extension, but the above hasty notes will 

 probably occupy as much space as you would be 

 willing to spare for its consideration, 



Alcides' Shoes. — There is merit, in my opinion, 

 in elucidating, if it were only a single word in 

 our great dramatist. Even the attempt, though 

 mayhap a failure, is laudable. I therefore have 

 made, and shall make, hit or miss, some efforts 

 that way. For example, I now grapple with that 

 very odd line — 



" As great Alcides' shoes upon an ass." 



King John, Act II. Sc. 1. 



out of which no one has as yet extracted, or I 

 think ever will extract, any good meaning : Argal^ 



