9*s.i. APRIL so, m] NOTES AND QUERIES.
359
loweyer, in the search after the personal and
lutobiographical element in the poems, these and
)ther writers have sacrificed to that tempting,
)ut comparatively unremunerative pursuit the
ontemplation or, at least, the exposition of the
yrical and imaginative graces of the works in
r act, their literary import and significance. From
.hose who treat the Sonnets "as private letters,
written to assuage emotion, with scarcely a
r,hought for art," the latest editor dissents, pre-
jerring to see, with the most enlightened contem-
poraries of Shakspeare, in the ' Venus and Adonis,'
i he ' Lucrece,' and the Sonnets, poems lyrical and
olegiac " concerned chiefly with the delight and the
pathos of beauty." As a preliminary to the views
lie maintains, Mr. Wyndham undertakes an eloquent
defence of ' Titus Andronicus,' passages from which
he quotes, as stamped with the sign-manual of the
lyrical poet who lived in Arden and wrote ' Romeo
and Juliet,' 'Love's Labour's Lost,' 'A Midsum-
mer Night's Dream,' 'The Two Gentlemen of
Verona,' the ' Venus,' the ' Lucrece,' and the
Sonnets. Continuing his opening paragraphs, Mr.
Wyndham holds that it is not Shakspeare's likeness
as a man to other men that concerns the lover of
art, but his distinction from them ; and he says,
beautifully, that that distinction is that "through
all the vapid enervation and the vicious excitement
of a career which drove some immediate fore-
runners down most squalid roads to death, he saw
the beauty of this world, both in the pageant of the
year and in the passion of his heart, and found for
its expression the sweetest song that has ever
triumphed and wailed over the glory of loveli-
I ness and the anguish of decay." An excellent
j life of Shakspeare follows, showing, necessarily, his
' relations to Southampton and Pembroke. Many
I deeply interesting pages are devoted to what,
! after Dekker, is called the " poetomachia," in which
i Dekker and Jonson were protagonists. Concern-
| ing Shakspeare's connexion, if it may be so called,
with this, Mr. Wyndham ventilates some unfamiliar
i views in dealing, in his notes, with Sonnets Ixxviii.
I and Ixxxiii. It is impossible to do justice to these,
or, indeed, to indicate a hundredth part of the
matters of interest he advances. No less difficult
is it to deal in any form with the views expressed
concerning the narrative poems and the Sonnets.
A magazine article would scarcely be adequate to
the examination of the points raised. Our duty
extends no further than telling the students of
Shakspeare who, of course, form a solid contingent
of our readers that a work of supreme value has
been given the world, and that a writer with most
penetrative insight and warmest sympathy, and
with a style singularly nervous and beautiful, has
come forward to deal with the most important
portion of our literary history. We wish heartily
we could discuss the treatment of Renaissance
influences on Shakspeare, and especially what is
said concerning Renaissance Platonism, the in-
fluence of which is not confined in England to Shak-
sneare among poets. In a note to Sonnet Ixxxi.
Mr. Wyndham states, on the authority of Lord
Pembroke, that a letter, now mislaid, from Lady
Pembroke, the mother of the third earl, to her son,
telling him to bring over from Salisbury James I.
to witness a performance of ' As You Like It.' and
taming the words, ' ' We have the man Shak-
e with us," was in existence. It is to be hoped
this precious letter will be retraced. Mean-
hile, we recommend afresh Mr, Wyndham's edition
of the poems as a book to gladden the Shakspeare
student s heart and to find him matter for endless
meditation.
A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare. Edited by Horace Howard Furness, Hon. Ph.D. Vol. XL The Winter's Tale. (Philadelphia, Lippincott.) LOVERS of Shakspeare are to be congratulated on the steady progress that has been made by Dr. Horace Howard Furness with his new 'Variorum Shakespeare,' one of the most monumental tasks undertaken by an individual. A quarter of a cen- tury has elapsed since the first volume, ' Romeo and. Juliet,' saw the light, making the rate of pro-
gress a volume in each two and a half years. One as only to look at the present volume, with over four hundred closely printed pages, and note the minuteness and thoroughness of detail with which the whole has been carried out, to recognize the significance of the accomplishment with which the editor is to be credited. Not easy is it, indeed, to over-estimate either the importance or the diffi- culties of the task. The minuteness of the colla- tion would daunt all but the most zealous workers. In the case of 'The Winter's Tale' the labour has, on the whole, been less arduous than in some previous volumes. The differences between the folios are in this instance comparatively slight, the only variation of importance consisting in the omission, by accident, from the second folio of an entire line, Act II. sc. iii. 1. 26, which, curiously enough, disappears from the following folio and from the edition of Rowe, who adopted the fourth folio, and was first restored by Pope. The line in question makes part of a speech condensed and obscure beyond the average in a play that abounds with condensations and obscurities, and its omission by the compositor might easily have passed, as it did pass, unnoticed. Its restoration, even, leaves the speech of Leonatus more than sufficiently- crabbed and difficult. No quarto of ' The Winter's Tale ' is, moreover, available, and none practically exists, the quarto mentioned in a catalogue of plays of a hundred and fifty years ago having never been seen, and its existence being " justly discredited." For the first edition Dr. Furness claims that it was, fortunately, committed by the printers to "un- usually intelligent compositors,* and is in one typographical respect "unparalleled by any other play/' Dr. Furness also draws attention to a curious feature in the first folio, which we have, rather superfluously, verified. 'Twelfth Night, which precedes 'The Winter's Tale,' ends upon p. 275, the verso of which is blank, ' The Winter's Tale ' beginning on p. 277 and extending to p. 303. Another blank page follows, and then, with a new pagination, begins ' The Life and Death of King John.' It has, accordingly, been assumed that in collecting the plays Heminge and Condell over- looked 'The Winter's Tale,' and added it to the comedies after the series was complete. Similar blank pages separate the histories from the tra- gedies. Dr. Furness adds that a copy of the first folio has been found from which The Winter's Tale' is missing, 'King John' following imme- diately ' Twelfth Night/ This looks, indeed, as if ' The Winter's Tale ? had been added as an after- thought, and lends some colour to the supposi- tion that it was at one time intended to be placed among the tragedies, with which some have wished to class it, and was at the last moment put in its right position among the comedies. This opens out
