not mean that we have senses so fine that we can distinguish between stars and stones, but senses so fine that we can count, or distinguish from one another, the stars themselves; and can also perceive a difference in the pebbles on the beach, though these be as like to one another as so many peas. This interpretation brings out clearly the sense of the expression, "numbered beach;" it means the beach on which the pebbles can be numbered; indeed, are numerically separated by us from each other, in spite of their homogeneousness, so delicate is our organ of vision by which they are apprehended; "yet," concludes Iachimo, as the moral of his reflections, "with organs thus discriminating, my friend Posthumus has, nevertheless, gone most lamentably astray." This explanation renders the substitution of unnumbered not only unnecessary, but contradictory. We cannot be too cautious how we tamper with the received text of Shakespeare. Even though a passage may continue unintelligible to us for years, the chances are a hundred to one that the original lection contains a more pregnant meaning than any that we can propose in its place.
Mr Collier is of opinion that the MS. corrector's bo-peeping is preferable to "by-peeping" or "lie peeping." We cannot at all agree with him. "By-peeping" is Shakespeare's phrase, "lie peeping" is Johnson's amendment. Either will do; and an editor ought not to go out of his way to make himself ridiculous.[1] A few lines further on, the substitution of pay for" play" is quite unnecessary, as Mr Collier himself admits in one of his supplementary notes. Neither is contemn any improvement upon "condemn."
Act II. Scene 2.—"Swift, swift," says Iachimo—
"Swift, swift, you dragons of the night! That dawning
May bare the raven's eye."
The MS. correction is, "may dare the raven's eye"—i.e., says Collier, may dazzle the eye of the raven. Surely the old commentator must here have been driven to his wits' end. We have little doubt that "the raven's eye" here means the nights eye. "May bare the raven's eye"—that is, may open the eye of darkness, and thus usher in the day. Has not Milton got "smoothing the raven down of darkness till it smiled?" This interpretation must be placed to the credit of Mr Singer (Shakespeare Vindicated, &c., p. 304), although it had occurred previously to ourselves.
Scene 5.—Instead of the line,
"Like a full-acorn'd boar—a German one,"
which is the common reading, the corrector proposes "a foaming one." Mr Singer suggests" a brimeing (i.e., a rutting) one," and this we greatly prefer. Iarmen is the original text—a word without any meaning.
Act III. Scene 4.—The competing versions of the following lines, in which the MS. corrector's is pitted against the original text, have given rise to much controversy and speculation. Mr Halliwell has written an ingenious, and, we believe, an exhaustive pamphlet on this single point. He advocates the old reading. We cannot say that we consider his arguments altogether convincing, or that he has been able to adduce any very
- ↑ The attempts made by a judicious foreigner to amend the text of our great dramatist are interesting, and deserve notice, even though not altogether successful.
Herr Delius proposes thereby; but we must give the whole passage. The false Iachimo, endeavouring to bring Posthumus into discredit with Imogen, says, "Had I such a wife, I certainly would not do as Posthumus does,
"Join gripes with hands
Made hard with hourly falsehood (falsehood as
With labour), then by peeping in an eye,
Base and illustrious as the smoky light
That's fed with stinky tallow.""Then by" is the original text, but it is ungrammatical. "then by" Dr Delius proposes to read thereby (dabei, unterdess—that is, besides, meanwhile). But this attempt, though creditable, is not successful. Thereby, as here used, is very nearly, but it is not quite an English idiom, and was certainly not Shakespeare's word.
