Shake spea rian Cr it ic ism . 



Among the conjectures concerning the occupation of Shakespeare 

 before he became a player, none is more entertaining than that of 

 Steevens, founded on the passage : 



•« There's a divinity that shapes our ends, 

 Rough-hew them how we will." 



The commentator is alluding to the trade of Shakespeare's father as 

 a wool dealer or butcher, and conjectures that the poet followed the 

 same business before he came up to London. He first gives the pas- 

 sage in support of this theory, and then proceeds: "Dr. Farmer in- 

 forms me that these words are merely technical. A woolman, butcher 

 and dealer in skewers " — and he emphasizes the point by the aid of 

 italics — " lately observed to him that his nephew, an idle lad, could 

 only assist in making them — 'he could rough-hew them, but I was 

 obliged to shape their ends.' Whoever recollects the profession of 

 Shakespeare's father, will admit that his son might be no stranger to 

 such a term. I have seen packages of wool pinned up with skewers." 

 It has always seemed to us a mystery how Shakespeare's spirit could 

 wait for Staevens to die a natural death after writing that. Perhaps 

 the poet thought that it was one of the decrees of Providence that 

 poets are always to be misunderstood, and that the passage in question 

 might fitly be read thus : 



These specimens encourage us to look a little further into the mis- 

 carrying labors of Shakespeare's editors and commentators. One of 

 the choicest of these gentlemen is Becket, who might have been 

 served as Henry treated his great namesake, without anv necessity for 

 repentance. A few samples will suffice. '"Hamlet. "Govern these 

 ventages with your fingers and thumb, give it breath with your 

 mouth, and it will discourse most excellent music' 'Ventages with 

 your fingers and thumb,' I would read thus : 1 Govern these ventages 

 and the umbo with your fingers,' etc. Umbo (Lat.) a knob, a hitton. 

 The piece of brass at the end of a flute might very well be called a 

 button." Oh, if one could stop such ventages as this with fingers and 

 thumbs, what a dispensation it would be ! But again : Hamlet in the 

 grave with Laertes says : 



^Woo't weep ? woo't fight ? woo't fast ? woo't tear thyself ? 



On this Becket is thus delivered : "This proposition of Hamlet is 

 too extravagant, too ridiculous to remain in the text. By such a 

 reading the Danish prince appears to be a very Dragon of Wantley 

 for voraciousness. I regulate the passage thus : 



