_Difficulty of avoiding Coincident Suggestions on the Text of
Shakspeare._--A correspondent in Vol. viii., p. 193., is somewhat
unnecessarily severe on MR. COLLIER and MR. SINGER, for having overlooked
some suggestions in Jackson's work: the enormous number of useless
conjectures in that publication rendering it so tedious and unprofitable to
consider them attentively, the student is apt to think his time better
engaged in investigating other sources of information. I think, therefore,
little of MR. COLLIER overlooking the few coincident suggestions in
Jackson, which are smaller in number than I had anticipated; the real cause
for wonder consisting in the ignoring so many conjectures that have been
treated of years ago, often at great length, by some of the {266} most
distinguished critics this country has produced. Generally speaking,
however, there is in these matters such a tendency for reproduction, I
should for one hesitate to accuse any critic of intentional unfairness,
merely because he puts forth conjectures as new, when they have been
previously published; and I have found so many of my own attempts at
emendation, thought to be original, in other sources, that I now hesitate
at introducing any as novel. These attempts, like most others, have only
resulted occasionally in one that will bear the test of examination after
it has been placed aside, and carefully considered when the impression of
novelty has worn off. I think we may safely appeal to all critics who
occupy themselves much with conjectural criticism, and ask them if TIME
does not frequently impair the complacency with which they regard their
efforts on their first production.
Vol. viii., p. 216., contains more instances of coincident suggestions,
R. H. C. indulging in two conjectures, both supported very ably, but in the
perfect unconsciousness that the first, _rude day's_, was long since
mentioned by Mr. Dyce, in his _Remarks_, 1844, p. 172., and that the
second, the change of punctuation in _All's Well that Ends Well_, is the
reading adopted by Theobald, and it is also introduced by Mr. Knight in the
text of his "National Edition," p 262., and has, I believe, been mentioned
elsewhere. It may be said that this kind of repetition might be obviated by
the publication of the various readings that have been suggested in the
text of Shakspeare, but who is there to be found Quixotic enough to
undertake so large and thankless a task, one which at best can only be most
imperfectly executed: the materials being so scattered, and often so
worthless, the compiler would, I imagine, abandon the design before he had
made great progress in it. No fair comparison can be entertained in this
respect between the text of Shakspeare and the texts of the classic
authors. What has happened to R. H. C., happens, as I am about to show, to
all who indulge in conjectural criticism.
Any reader who will take a quantity of disputed passages in Shakspeare, and
happens to be ignorant of what has been suggested by others, will discover
that, in most of the cases, if he merely tries his skill on a few simple
permutations of the letters, he will in one way or another stumble on the
suggested words. Let us take, for example, what may be considered in its
way as one of the most incomprehensible lines in Shakspeare--"Will you go,
_An-heires_?" the last word being printed with a capital. Running down with
the vowels from _a_, we get at once an apparently plausible suggestion,
"Will you go _on here_?" but a little consideration will show how extremely
unlikely this is to be the genuine reading, and that Mr. Dyce is correct in
preferring _Mynheers_--a suggestion which belongs to Theobald, and not, as
he mentions, to Hanmer. But what I maintain is, that _on here_ would be the
correction that would occur to most readers, in all probability to be at
once dismissed. MR. COLLIER, however, says "it is singular that nobody
seems ever to have conjectured that _on here_ might be concealed under
_An-heires_;" and it would have been singular had this been the case, but
the suggestion of _on here_ is to be found in Theobald's common edition.
Oddly enough, about a year before MR. COLLIER'S volume appeared, it was
again suggested as if it were new.
Let us select a still more palpable instance (_Measure for Measure_, Act
II. Sc. 1.): "If this law hold in Vienna ten years, I'll rent the fairest
house in it after threepence a _bay_." If this reading be wrong, which I do
not admit, the second change in the first letter creates an obvious
alteration, _day_, making at least some sort of sense, if not the correct
one. Some years ago, I was rash enough to suggest _day_, not then observing
the alteration was to be found in Pope's edition, and MR. COLLIER has
fallen into the same oversight, when he gives it as one of the corrector's
new emendations. I regard these oversights as very pardonable, and
inseparable from any extensive attempt to correct the state of the text.
All Shakspearian conjectures either anticipate or are anticipated.
Mr. Dyce being _par excellence_ the most judicious verbal critic of the
day, it will scarcely be thought egotistical to claim for myself the
priority for one of his emendations--"_Avoid thee_, friend," in the _Few
Notes_, p. 31., a reading I had mentioned in print before the appearance of
that work. This is merely one of the many evidences that all verbal
conjecturers must often stumble on the same suggestions. Even the MS.
corrector's alteration of the passage is not new, it being found in Pope's
and in several other editions of the last century; another circumstance
that exhibits the great difficulty and danger of asserting a conjecture to
be absolutely unknown.