LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

cases I think the critic should select the one which is the most poetic and most worthy of the poet. The coincidence of two or more independent critics in a correction is, in general, a proof of its truth; yet even this is not infallible. See on Merry Wives, ii. 3.

      For correction, then, the first requisite is a thorough knowledge of the poet's language, the acquisition of which is a work demanding both time and close attention. Shakespeare's vocabulary, as we have seen, is extremely copious, and from his not having had the advantage of a regular education his plays present more anomalies, and offer more difficulties to the modern reader than those of the contemporary dramatists.

      In his early pieces there is an incessant play on words; and in his later the language is often very elliptical and the sentences greatly involved. These difficulties are enhanced by the ignorance of punctuation, or neglect of it, with which the editors are chargeable. Thus it is only in very plain cases that they notice the break in sense caused by the aposiopesis, the anacoluthon, or an interruption, of which the reader will find so many examples in my Edition and in the following pages, marked for the first time, and designated by the sign (…). I would particularly direct his attention to Temp. iii. 1, 2 Hen. IV. iv. 1, Ham. i. 2, i. 4.

       12.

      In the dramas and other works of those days we may observe the following peculiarities.

      The infinitive mood is used with or without to differently from the present usage—prefixed where we omit, omitted where we prefix. It is also employed, like the Hebrew infinitive absolute, where we use the present participle active, sometimes with a preposition, ex. gr.,

      Copious in words, and one that much time spent

      To jest.

      Lydgate, Book of Troy.

      Even in Cowley we meet with

      The sun himself, although all eye he be,

      Can find in love more pleasure than to see.

      The Gazers.

      Here it is plain we should use the participle in seeing.

      In "He is grown too proud to be so valiant," Cor. i. l, "to be" seems to be i. q. being; too being apparently used in the sense of trop, Fr., i.e. excessively.

      The passive participle was continually used in the place of the present or past participle active or of the future. Chapman, for instance, is profuse in his use of it in his Homer. Of this, as of the former, we have some remains among us still, but few indeed compared with what our forefathers had. The perfect was also frequently used as a part. past, and of this also we have still some remains.

      In imitation of the Latin and French, the writers of the sixteenth century—for we do not meet with it in Chaucer or Gower—used the verb as a noun, as dispose for disposal, suspect for suspicion.

      A further peculiarity was the use of what grammarians call collectives, i.e., the singular noun used for the plural. We still retain this in sheep, swine, fowl, and partially in year, day; but in our older writers we meet with it in horse (Much Ado, i. 1, Hen. V. iv. 1, and in Chapman's Homer continually), pearl (Macb. ad fin.), tree, corpse, witness, business, subject, princess (Temp. i. 2), and other words.

       Writers of those days—and Shakespeare more than any—were fond of using verbs in a causative sense, as fall for cause to fall, let fall, fear for make fear. In these plays we meet, in a causative sense, with cease, linger, neglect, silence, faint, perish, &c. Thus learn became teach, take give. It is only thus that "smiles his cheek in years" (L. L. L. v. 2) becomes sense.

      13.

      There was a peculiarity of the grammar of those days which is now confined to the vulgar, namely, that of joining a plural nominative with a singular verb, ex. gr.,

      That in this spleen ridiculous appears,

      To check their folly, passions solemn tears.

      L. L. L. v. 2.

      The rimes here and in several other places prove that this is no printer's error; and this construction is actually most frequent in Peele, Marston, and Fletcher—all University men! Editors, Mr. Dyce for example, are in the habit of taking the most unwarrantable liberty of altering this construction, except where restrained by the rimes. This practice is highly reprehensible and should be avoided; for we should give the text as it came from the poet's pen.

      The origin of this structure is very simple. In the Anglo-Saxon the verbs made their plural in th, not in n, as afterwards became the usage. This plural of the verb occurs continually in the Vision of Piers Ploughman, and we find it not unfrequently even in the State Papers of the early Tudor period, in its later form; for, as in the singular, the th was gradually changed to s.

      In the more artistic compositions of Chaucer and Gower, however, it is very rare. The following line in Chaucer,

      As flakès fallès in grete snowes,

      House of Fame.

       shows that even in his time the th had been converted into s. The present practice, then, we may see is merely a change of fashion, and our ancestors' mode of forming the plural was perfectly correct and grammatical, with one exception—of which we still meet instances—that of using is and was as a plural. In my Edition of our poet's plays, I have therefore very generally preserved this structure; for we may alter orthography and punctuation, but not grammar.

      On the other hand, I must maintain, in opposition to Mr. Dyce, that the union of a single noun with a plural verb was never a rule of the language, but always an error of the copyist, or a slip of the writer. Of this I can give positive instances.

      I one day met in my own History of England the following words, "The blood of Catesby and two others alone were shed;" and on looking at the first edition I found of course that my word had been was. In Mr. Lloyd's Critical Remarks on Measure for Measure, in Singer's Shakespeare, we may read "the five acts of the first part of Promos and Cassandra concludes the iniquity of the deputy." Nor is this confined to English; in the Gerusalemme Liberata, and unnoticed by any editor, we find

      Non si conviene a te, cui fatto il corso

      Delle cose e de' tempi han si prudente.—x. 41.

      In all cases it will be found to be the consequence of a noun of a different number having intervened between the nominative and the verb. Mr. Dyce, however, tries to make a rule of it by saying that "our early writers" did it when a genitive plural intervened; but that will not apply to passages like these—

      Whose youth, like wanton boys through bonfires,

      Have skipt thy flame.—Two Noble Kinsmen, v. 1.

      The sea,

      With his proud mountain-waters envying heaven,

      When I say 'still!' run into crystal mirrors.

      Valentinian, iv. 1.

      Of others' voices, that my adder's sense,

      To critic and to flatterer stopped are.

      Shakespeare, Son. cxii.

      This last is the error of the poet, who probably had ears in his mind; yet sense may be a collective: all the others are perhaps to be ascribed to the original printers.

      The intensive particle be was prefixed to verbs much more frequently than at present. There was also a frequent ellipsis of the first personal pronoun before such verbs as cry, beseech, beshrew, &c.; and finally the habit—still retained by the vulgar—of

Скачать книгу