"This volume contains several hundred very curious and important
corrections, amongst which I may mention an entirely new reading of the
difficult passage at the commencement of _Measure for Measure_, which
carries conviction with it; and shows, what might have been reasonably
expected, that _that to_ is a misprint for _a verb_."--MR. HALLIWELL in
_Notes & Queries_, p. 485.
In common, doubtless, with many other of your readers, I am curious to know
what this _verb_ can be, which, while _carrying conviction with it_, is yet
so mysteriously withheld from publication.
In a small pamphlet, published a month or two since by MR. HALLIWELL, in
opposition to _Mr. Collier's_ folio, he lays down at p. 7. "a canon in
philology;" from which he deduces the following as one of the
"_circumstances under which no manuscript emendation of so late a date as
1632 will be admissible_."
"It will not be admissible in any case where good sense can be
satisfactorily made of the passage as it stands in the original, even
although the correction may appear to give greater force or harmony to
the passage."
Now, in the case referred to from _Measure for Measure_, I had previously
("N. & Q." Vol. v., p. 410.) shown to MR. HALLIWELL that "_good sense can
be satisfactorily made of the passage as it stands in the original_;" and
therefore I feel the greater curiosity to know what _this verb_ can be
which carries conviction to him _even in the face of his own canon_?