_A Passage in "The Taming of the Shrew."_--Perhaps I mistake it, but MR. C.
MANSFIELD INGLEBY seems to me to write in a tone as if he fancied I should
be unwilling to answer his questions, whether public or private. Although I
am not personally acquainted with him, we have had some correspondence, and
I must always feel that a man so zealous and intelligent is entitled to the
best reply I can afford. I can have no hesitation in informing him that, in
preparing what he terms my "monovolume Shakspeare," I pursued this plan
throughout; I adopted, as my foundation, the edition in eight volumes
octavo, which I completed in 1844; that was "formed from an entirely new
collation of the old editions," and my object there was to give the most
accurate representation of the text of the folios and quartos. Upon that
stock I engrafted the manuscript alterations in my folio 1632, in every
case in which it seemed to me possible that the old corrector might be
right--in short, wherever two opinions could be entertained as to the
reading: in this way my text in the "monovolume Shakspeare" was "regulated
by the old copies, and by the recently discovered folio of 1632."
MR. INGLEBY will see that in the brief preface to the "monovolume
Shakspeare," I expressly say that "while a general similarity (to the folio
1632) has been preserved, care has been taken _to rectify the admitted
mistakes of the early impression_, and to introduce such alterations of a
corrupt and imperfect text, as were warranted by better authorities. Thus,
while the new readings of the old corrector of the folio 1632, considerably
exceeding a thousand, are duly inserted in the places {74} to which they
belong, the old readings, which, during the last century and a half, have
recommended themselves for adoption, and have been derived from a
comparison of ancient printed editions, have also been incorporated." I do
not know how I could have expressed myself with greater clearness; and it
was merely for the sake of distinctness that I referred to the result of my
own labours in 1842, 1843, and 1844, during which years my eight volumes
octavo were proceeding through the press. Those labours, it will be seen,
essentially contributed to lighten my task in preparing the "monovolume
Shakspeare."
My answer respecting the passage in _The Taming of the Shrew_, referred to
by MR. INGLEBY, will, I trust, be equally satisfactory; it shall be equally
plain.
I inserted _ambler_, because it is the word substituted in manuscript in
the margin of my folio 1632. I adopted _mercatante_, as proposed by
Steevens, not only because it is the true Italian word, but because it
exactly fits the place in the verse, _mercatant_ (the word in the folios)
being a syllable short of the required number. In the very copy of Florio's
_Italian Dictionary_, which I bought of Rodd at the time when I purchased
my folio 1632, I find _mercatante_ translated by the word "marchant,"
"marter," and "trader," exactly the sense required. Then, as to "surely"
instead of _surly_, I venture to think that "surely" is the true reading:
"In gait and countenance surely like a father."
"Surely like a father" is certainly like a father; and although a man may
be _surly_ in his "countenance," I do not well see how he could be _surly_
in his "gait;" besides, what had occurred to make the pedant _surly_? This
appears to me the best reason for rejecting _surly_ in favour of "surely;"
but I have another, which can hardly be refused to an editor who professes
to follow the old copies, where they are not contradicted. I allude to the
folio 1628, where the line stands precisely thus:
"In gate and countenance surely like a Father."
The folio 1632 misprinted "surely" _surly_, as, in _Julius Caesar_, Act I.
Sc. 3., it committed the opposite blunder, by misprinting "surly" _surely_.
Another piece of evidence, to prove that "surely" was the poet's word in
_The Taming of the Shrew_, has comparatively recently fallen in my way; I
did not know of its existence in 1844, or it would have been of
considerable use to me. It is a _unique_ quarto of the play, which came out
some years before the folio 1623, and is not to be confounded with the
quarto of _The Taming of the Shrew_, with the date of 1631 on the
title-page. This new authority has the line exactly as it is given in the
folio 1623, which, in truth, was printed from it. It is now before me.