"Malone gives it thus:—
'Twenty-five years have I but gone in travail
Of you my sons; until this present hour
My heavy burthen not delivered.'
"The MS. corrector," continues Mr Collier, "of the folio 1632 makes the slightest possible change in the second line, and at once removes the difficulty: he puts it—
"Thirty-three years have I been gone in travail
Of you my sons, and at this present hour
My heavy burthens are delivered."'
In his edition 1826, Mr Singer reads—
"Twenty-five years have I but gone in travail
Of you, my sons, and till this present hour
My heavy burthen ne'er delivered."
We are of opinion that a better reading than any here given, and than any ever given, might be proposed. Thus
"Thirty-three years have I but gone in travail
Of you, my sons, and till this present hour
My heavy burthen has delivered."
That is, I have done nothing but go in travail of you, my children, for thirty-three years; and, moreover (I have gone in travail of you), till this present hour has delivered me of my heavy burden. This reading brings her pains up to the present moment, when she declares herself joyfully relieved from them by the unexpected restoration of her children. This amendment seems to yield a more emphatic meaning than any of the others; and it departs as little as any of them from the original text of 1623.
Much Ado About Nothing.— Act I. Scene 3.—The brothers Don Pedro and Don John have quarrelled, and have been reconciled. Conrade remarks to the latter, "You have of late stood out against your brother, and he hath ta'en you newly into his grace." The MS. correction is, "till of late," which, as any one looking at the context even with half an eye, may perceive both spoils the idiom and impairs the meaning of the passage.
Act II. Scene. 1.—We admit that Shakespeare might—nay, ought—to have written as follows, but we doubt whether he did. "Wooing, wedding, and repenting," says Beatrice, "is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque-pace; the first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and fall as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly modest; as a measure full of state and ancienty; and then comes repentance, and, with his bad legs, falls into cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sink apace into his grave." "Apace" is MS. corrector's contribution.
In the following much-disputed passage, we are of opinion that Shakespeare uses somewhat licentiously the word "impossible" in the sense of inconceivable and that Johnson's and the MS. Corrector's substitution of "importable" (i.e. insupportable) is unnecessary. "She told me," says Benedick, speaking of Beatrice, "that I was the prince's jester, and that I was duller than a great thaw, huddling jest upon jest, with such impossible conveyance, upon me, that I stood like a man at mark with a whole army shooting at me." "Impossible conveyance" means inconceivable rapidity.
Act III. Scene 1.—There surely can be no question as to the superior excellence of the received reading in the following lines. The repentant Beatrice, who has overheard her character severely censured, says—
"What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true?
Stand I condemned for pride and scorn so much?
Contempt farewell, and maiden pride adieu!
No glory lives behind the back of such."
Beatrice means to say that contempt and maiden pride are never the screen to any true nobleness of character. This is well expressed in the line,
No glory lives behind the back of such."
A vigorous expression, which the MS corrector recommends us to exchange for the frivolous feebleness of
No glory lives but in the back of such."
This substitution, we ought to say, is worse than feeble and frivolous. It is a perversion of Beatrice's sentiments. She never meant to say that a maiden should lack maiden pride, but only that it should not occupy a prominent position in the front of her character. Let her have as much of it as she
