422 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



textual criticism. Many excellent editors, like R. G. White, leave 

 them as above. The fact that the folio omits them, and that we have 

 only quarto authority for. their existence, does not help us. Still, some- 

 thing has been done, and one or two points may be accepted as proved ; 

 and as such they will be assumed here. 1st. The word eale is a strange 

 misprint for some word denoting harm; as, had, hale, hase, evil, or ill. 

 2d. Of contains the elements of oft. 3d. The words a dovht contain 

 a verb to which doth is the auxiliary ; and dram and suhstance supply 

 the subject and object. 



" Hence have resulted a variety of conjectural emendations, all more 

 or less plausible as far as their resemblance in letters goes. The gen- 

 eral sense of them is the same, and is that of the following, which I 

 give, not as a possible reading, but as a kind of paraphrase of what all 

 emendations convey : — 



The dram of wrong 

 Doth all the noble substance oft infect 

 To his own scandal ; 



making dram the subject and suhstance the object. 



" Now it seems to me that all emendations in this direction miss the 

 fact that it is the noble substance that suffers scandal. The drain of 

 corruption can get no scandal ; yet in this thought it is the agent — 

 the subject — that does something to its own scandal ; for own cannot 

 be used of the object or thing acted on. This is purely a grammati- 

 cal necessity independently of the sense, and will be seen by putting 

 JTand jTfor the dram and the suhstance. 



" Therefore, to give oivn its proper force, it must refer to the sub- 

 ject of doth [1^], that is, tJie noble substance is the subject, the dram 

 of [X] must be the object, and the missing verb must be one prop- 

 erly expressing what a noble nature does to a small element of cor- 

 ruption. 



" I do not pretend to decide on the proper reading for eale. I am 

 inclined to prefer ill; but as far as the verb goes, I feel little doubt. 



" Read, 



Tliis dram of ill (?) 

 Dotli all the noble substance ojl adopt 

 To his own scandal. 



" If adopt were read off to some Ilolofernes of the printing-oflice 

 who refnsed to say '■ dout, fine, when he should pronounce doubt,' we 

 have the beginnings of the textus receptus at once." « 



