SOME NEW EMENDATIONS TN SHAKESPEARE. 387 



I cannot help referring to a remarkable instance which this play 

 affords of a corrupt passage being retained in the text long after the 

 obviously true reading had been suggested. See III. Act, s. 2 : 



Elbow. — " He must before the Deputy, &c. 



The Deputy cannot abide a whoremaster. " 

 Duke {who is now aware what a hypocrite the Deputy is) says : 

 " That we were all as some would seem to be, 

 Free from our faults as faults from seeming free." 



The last line is sheer nonsense, and the ingenuity of all the com- 

 mentators from Warburton to Staunton has failed to extract any 

 sense from it. The simple transposition of faults and from in the 

 latter part of the line makes the whole passage perfectly clear, and 

 gives exactly the idea in the mind pi the Duke, namely, that 

 Angelo was not as faultless as he seemed to be. The same opinion of 

 Angelo is expressed by the Duke in other passages of the play : 



" Hence we shall see 

 If power change purpose what our seemers be." 



And again, when he says : 



' ' O, what may man within him hide, 

 Tho' angel or the outward side." 



When it occurred to me many years ago thus to correct the line, 

 I jumped at once to the conclusion that the suggestion had never- 

 been made before. For if made I thought it could not but have 

 been immediately adopted. What was my surprise then to find 

 that the suggestion had been actually proposed by Hamner, a very 

 sensible fellow by the way, more than 100 years ago. The correction 

 has not even now been generally adopted in the recent editions of 

 Shakespeare, which aim at special accuracy in the text. The cele- 

 brated "Globe" edition of Shakespeare, published within the last 

 twenty years, marks the passage with an obelus (f), indicating that 

 it is a corrupt one for which no admissible emendation has been 

 proposed. 



Let us take up now the tragedy of Macbeth, and turn to the 



king's speech (Act I., s. 4), which he addresses to Macbeth returning, 



after his victory : 



" worthiest cousin. 



Would thou hadst less deserved 

 That the proportion both of thanks and payment 

 Might have been mine." 



