somehow got it fixed in his head, that they were to be authoritative on others, and the prerogative of overruling them limited to himself. This of course provoked a good deal of controversy. Dyce and Singer, both veteran Shakespearians, put forth each a volume stoutly repudiating the claim of those changes to be received as authentic, but admitting, in respect of some of them, whatever claim could grow from intrinsic fitness.

Not long afterwards, Mr. Collier set forth, evidently for popular use, a reprint of his text of 1842-4, incorporating therein those aforesaid verbal changes. Surely, in every right view of the matter, this was a very unwarrantable procedure. Shakespeare is the great English classic. As such, his text is a sacred thing, and ought to be so held. And no man must arrogate to himself the prerogative of making and circulating such a wholesale innovation. Moreover, Mr. Collier was in all justice precluded, by his own mode of treating those changes, from the liberty of thus giving them to the public as a part of the Poet's authentic text. In his first edition, he took extreme ground against textual changes, even going so far as to reject many valuable and some indispensable corrections. In his second, he vaulted plump into the opposite extreme, setting forth as authentic a huge mass of ignorant tampering, and thereby, so far as in him lay, corrupting the text more than all the other modern editors put together.

There is in literature, as in many other things, a sort of common law which, in so grave and delicate a matter as the text of Shakespeare, requires that changes, especially if at all numerous and important, should in some way be passed upon by the literary public or its representatives, before being admitted into popular use and circulation. Nor can any individual, however learned and sagacious, set up a peculiar, much less an exclusive, jurisdiction of

Shakespeare's text: there is a literary Senate to whose collective judgment questions of that nature must be referred. For men, and editors of Shakespeare as well as others, are naturally partial to their own notions and discoveries; and when these are on trial the case is so much their own that they can hardly be indifferent judges. They who, at least in a moral sense, are best qualified for such an office, will be most apt to distrust their own judgment, and to invoke a more disinterested verdict upon the points in issue.

That some of the emendations in question are exceedingly apt and valuable, is now commonly admitted; and our foot-notes in Coriolanus will furnish enough, we apprehend, to satisfy any fair-minded reader that such is the case. A portion of them, no doubt, will pass at once into the Poet's text, not to be disputed by future editors. But the number of such is not very large in comparison of the whole list. Of by far the larger portion, some are, to say the least, of very questionable merit, and many of very unquestionable demerit. To do the thing out somewhat in detail: The whole number of verbal changes found in Mr. Collier's folio of 1632 falls, in our counting, a little short of 3,500. Of these, only about 500, it seems to us, can be justly regarded as deserving of any consideration. Of these 500, again, about one-half had been adopted into the text, or proposed for adoption, long before any thing was heard of Mr. Collier's second folio; a portion of those so adopted being taken from the quarto copies of such plays as were first printed in that form. And of the remaining 250, more than 100 are of doubtful merit, plausibility being the best that can be affirmed of them. Which leaves us less than 150 desirable or admissible changes to be credited to the unknown manuscript corrector. This estimate proceeds, too, upon a pretty free and

liberal view of the matter: any thing like severity of criticism would considerably reduce the amount of obligation to the corrector aforesaid.

But, small, comparatively, as is the number of acceptable changes from this source, there are yet enough to deserve our grateful acknowledgment; and we freely confess that the cause of Shakespearian literature is in no slight measure indebted to Mr. Collier's discovery. It is indeed a very important addition to our means of arriving at a satisfactory text of the Poet. It does an old Shakespearian's heart good to light, for instance, upon such an item of relief as the substitution of bisson multitude for bosom multiplied, in Coriolanus, Act iii., Scene i., vol. viii., page 226:

"How shall this bisson multitude digest

The Senate's courtesy?"

Also, the substitution of mirror'd for married in Troilus and Cressila, Act iii., Scene iii., vol. vii., page 450:

"For speculation turns not to itself,

Till it hath travell'd, and is mirror'd there
Where it may see itself."

Yet these changes are not more happy than that proposed by Singer, which substitutes wearer's for weary in As You Like It, Act ii., Scene vii., vol. iii., page 186:

"Doth it not flow as hugely as the sea,

Till that the wearer's very means do ebb?"

Still more delightful, perhaps, is Mr. Richard Grant White's restoration in The Winter's Tale, Act iii., Scene iii., vol. iv., page 74: "A god, or a child, I wonder?" where the old copy has boy instead of god.

Having said thus much, perhaps we ought to add that, highly as we prize some of the old corrector's work, we would nevertheless much rather part with it all than be obliged to accept it all. If he had not made six times as many bad changes as good ones, and in numerous instances marred the text merely because he did not understand it, we might perhaps be justified in accepting a few doubtful cases on account of the good company they were in. As to his having access to some authentic source, all we have to say is, that, if so, then he certainly mixed up with what he derived therefrom such a mass of clumsy and awkward conjecture as to deprive his work of all external support. Such, for example, is his turning of mother into smother, in Cymbeline, Act iii., Scene iv., vol. ix., page 91:

"Some jay of Italy,

Whose mother was her painting, hath betray'd him.”

And again, his substitution of boast for beast, in Macbeth, Act i., Scene vii., vol. iv., page 264:

"Macbeth.

Pr'ythee, peace!

I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more is none."

"Lady Macbeth.

What beast was't, then,

That made you break this enterprise to me?

When you durst do it, then you were a man."

All which infers, plainly enough, that we do not regard the changes in question as standing on any thing that can properly be termed authority. Any claim or pretence of that kind is simply absurd. We can discover no reasonable or even plausible ground for adopting any of them, but their intrinsic fitness; precisely the same as in case of any other editorial emendations. And the only argument worth considering that has been urged for

their authenticity rests upon this very fitness, and has no other basis; which of course concludes only such of them to be authentic as are judged to be fit, and so leaves us just where we were before. In fact, with the best study we could give them, which is somewhat more than a little, we have not been able to tie up in any general rules concerning them: we have still had to consider them severally, and to form a separate and independent judgment of each one of them, as it came before us; which, we are right well persuaded, is the only judicious or safe way of treating them. This is indeed a slow and tedious process, and by no means agreeable to one who aspires to the honour of despatching a great work all in a lump nevertheless it stands within the scope of the old maxim, "Stay awhile, and make an end the sooner."

But indeed Mr. Collier himself has not been able to rest in his first conclusion upon the matter. In the Preface to his Notes of Coleridge's Lectures, published in 1856, he confesses to have fallen back upon his old common-sense principles in regard to Shakespeare's text. "I am more and more convinced," says he, "that the great majority of the corrections were made, not from better manuscripts, still less from unknown printed copies of the plays, but from the recitations of old actors while the performance was proceeding;" and he takes this as going far to explain what would else be 86 an anomalous instance of one and the same mind displaying a sagacity worthy of Bentley, and yet capable of sinking below the dullest pedant." It is a real pleasure to us to record such proofs of this old Shakespearian's happy return to reason and sobriety.

Well, the question has since been taken in hand by the most competent authorities; the character of the corrections has been sifted thoroughly; chemical science and paleographic skill have been brought to bear upon