mendationon Mr Hunter for a very ingenious reading, or rather for what is better, a very acceptable restoration of the old text, which had been corrupted by Rowe and all subsequent editors. In the same speech, Tranio, who is advising Lucentio not to study too hard, says, according to all the common copies—
"Talk logic wi' th' acquaintance that you have."
The elder copies read—
"Balk logic, wi' th' acquaintance that you have."
This means, cut logic, with such a smattering of it as you already possess; or, as Mr Hunter explains it, "give the go-by to logic, as satisfied with the acquaintance you have already gained with it." "Balk" ought certainly to replace "talk" in all future editions, and our thanks are due to Mr Hunter for the emendation.[1]
How scandalous it is to change "mould" into "mood" in the following lines, addressed by Hortensio to the termagant Kate:—
"Mates, maid! how mean you that? No mates for you:
Unless you were of gentler, milder mould."
Kate was not, at least so thought Hortensio, one of those,
"Quas meliore luto finxit præcordia Titan."
Act II. Scene 1.—We greatly prefer Mr Singer's amendment of what follows to the MS. corrector's. The common text is this
"Petruchio (to Kate).—Women were made to bear, and so were you.
Katherine.—No such jade, sir, as you, if me you mean."
This being scarcely sense, the corrector says—
"No such jade to bear you, if me you mean."
Mr Singer says,
"No such load as you, sir, if me you mean."
Act IV. Scene 2.—"An ancient angel coming down the hill" has puzzled the commentators. The margins read "ambler." We prefer the received text—the word "angel" being probably used in its old sense of messenger, with a spice of the ludicrous in its employment.
Act V. Scene 1.—Vincentio, who is on the point of being carried to jail, exclaims—
"Thus strangers may be haled and abused."
The MS. corrector proposes "handled;" and Mr Collier says that "haled" is a misprint, and the line "hardly a verse." It is a very good verse; and "haled" is the very, indeed the only, word proper to the place. On turning, however, to Mr Collier's appendix, we find that he says, "lit may be doubted whether 'haled' is not to be taken as hauled; but still the true word may have been. handled." This is not to be doubted; "haled" is certainly to be taken for hauled, and "handled" cannot have been the right word.
All's Well That Ends Well.— Act I. Scene 1.—In Helena's soliloquy, near the end of the scene, the corrector, by the perverse transposition of two words, changes sense into nonsense. She says—
"The mightiest space in fortune nature brings
To join like likes and kiss like native things."
The lady is in love with Bertram, who is greatly above her in rank and in fortune; and the meaning is, that all-powerful nature brings things (herself, for example, and Bertram) which are separated by the widest interval of fortune, to join as if they were "likes" or pairs, and to kiss as if they were kindred things. The MS. corrector reverses this meaning, and reads—
"The mightiest space in nature fortune brings
To join like likes and kiss like native things."
But there was no "space" at all between Helena and Bertram in point of "nature." They were both unexceptionable human beings. They were separated. only by a disparity of "fortune." Why does the MS. corrector go so assiduously out of his way for the mere purpose of blundering, and why does Mr Collier so patiently endorse his eccentricities? That is indeed marvellous.
- ↑ See New Illustrations, &c., vol. i. p. 356.
