brightness and darkness into picturesque contrast—as the sun is bright, or "burnished," so am I his retainer dark, or "shadowed." "To speak of the sun," continues Mr Collier, "as artificially 'burnished,' is very unworthy." True: but Shakespeare speaks of it as naturally burnished; and so far is this from being unworthy, it is, in the circumstances, highly poetical.
Act II. Scene 9—To change the words "pries not to the interior," into "prize not the interior," in the following lines, is wantonly to deface the undoubted language of Shakespeare.
"What many men desire!—that many may be meant
Of the fool multitude, that chuse by show,
Not learning more than the fond eye doth teach,
Which pries not to the interior; but, like the martlet,
Builds in the weather, on the outward wall."
Act III. Scene 2.—The MS. corrector proposes a very plausible reading in the lines where Bassanio is moralising on the deceitfulness of external appearance.
"Thus ornament is but the guiled surf
To a moot dangerous sea, the beauteous scarf
Veiling an Indian beauty; in a word,
The seeming truth winch cunning times put on,
To entrap the wisest"
The corrector proposes to put a full stop after Indian, and to read on—"beauty, in a word," (is) "the seeming truth," &c. Mr Singer says, "this variation in the pointing is no novelty; it occurs in an edition of Shakespeare, published by Scott and Webster in 1833, and has been satisfactorily shown to be erroneous and untenable by a correspondent in Notes and Queries, vol. v. p. 483." We regret that it is not in our power, at this time, to consult the volume of Notes and Queries referred to; but we confess that we see no very serious objection to this new reading, except the awkwardness and peculiarly unShakespearian character of the construction which it presents. That there is a difficulty in the passage is evident from the changes that have been proposed. Sir Thomas Hanmer gave "Indian dowdy"—Mr Singer, "Indian gipsy," which, however, he now abandons. We still confess a partiality for the old text, both in the words and in the pointing. "An Indian beauty" may mean the worst species of ugliness, just as a Dutch nightingale means a toad. Still we believe that a good deal might be said in favour of the MS. corrector's punctuation.
Bassanio, descanting on the portrait of Portia, and on the difficulties the painter must have had to contend with, thus expresses his admiration of the eyes—
"How could he see to do them? having made one,
Methinks, it should have power to steal both his,
And leave itself unfurnished."
The corrector reads "unfinished," which Johnson long ago condemned. "Unfurnished" means, as Mr Collier formerly admitted, unprovided with a counterpart—a fellow-eye.
We willingly concede to Mr Collier the "bollen" instead of the "woolen" bagpipe. And when he next "blaws up his chanter," may the devil dance away with his anonymous corrector, and the bulk of his emendations, as effectually as he ever did with the exciseman.
As You Like It.—Act I. Scene 2.—In opposition to Mr Collier, we take leave to say that Sir Thomas Hanmer was not right in altering "there is such odds in the man" to "there is such odds in the men." What is meant to be said is, "there is such superiority (of strength) in the man;" and "odds" formerly signified superiority, as may be learnt from the following sentence of Hobbes—" The passion of laughter," says Hobbes, "proceedeth from the sudden imagination of our own odds and eminency."[1] Mr Collier's man, who concurs with Sir Thomas Hanmer, is, of course, equally at fault.
Act I. Scene 3.—"Safest haste"—that is, most convenient despatch—is much more probable than "fastest haste," inasmuch as the lady to whom the words "despatch you with your
- ↑ Molesworth's edition, vol. iv. p. 46.
