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Article WILLIAM SHAKSPERE. ← Page 15 of 17 →
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William Shakspere.
pated readers for scribbling trashy common-places on the pages of standard authors . To receive such corrections as the legitimate text of Shakspere would be to dispossess his works of a portion of their wonderful originality and intrinsic worth . The principles adopted by Mr . Charles Knight in the formation of the text in his numerous beautiful editionsappear to be
, our safest guides in this matter . The folio edition of 1623 was given to the world by authority , and it must ever serve as the basis for the text of our poet . Self-eA'ident blunders can be of course corrected ; the various readings of the former quarto editions , whenever such readings are entitled to consideration , can be added in foot-notes , and the more intelligent suggestions of
later commentators appended . These form the legitimate materials of foot-notes and illustrations , but they ought never to be given forth to the public as the words which Shakspere himself ¦ wrote . Our language has undergone many transformations since the days of Elizabeth , and numerous changes in circumstancesmannersand habitshave rendered allusions and
say-, , , ings obscure which in the days of the poet were intelligible enough even to the least enlightened of his readers ; and although every attempt to clear up an obscure passage , or to detect the solution of an apparently corrupt reading , merits our warmest commendation , such conjectural emendations must not be
received for more than they are worth . The editors of the first folio exhibited a most judicious caution in this respect . In their preface they say : — " It had been a thing , we confess , worthy to have been wished , that the author himself had lived to have set forth and overseen his own writings ; bnt since it hath been ordained otherwise , and he by death departed from that rihtwe do not his friends the office of their care and pain
g , pray you envy to have collected and published them ; and so to have published them , as where ( before ) you were abused with divers stolen and surreptitious copies , maimed and deformed by the frauds and stealths of injurious impostors , that exposed them : even those are now offered to your vieAV cured , and perfect of their limbs ; and all the rest , absolute in their members , as he conceived them : who , as he was a happy imitator of nature , was a most gentle expresser of it . His mind and hand went together ; and what he
thought lie uttered with that easiness , that we have scarce received from him a blot in his papers . " This edition was published seven years after the death of the poet , the preface from which the above extract is taken being signed by two of his intimate friends and associates ,- —John Heminge and Henry Condell . Their assertion that Shakspere
had not undertaken the correction of his works must be regarded as conclusive ; and this edition , making due allowance for the blunders that would inevitably occur in a work published Avhen printing had not attained any great excellence , must be accepted
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
William Shakspere.
pated readers for scribbling trashy common-places on the pages of standard authors . To receive such corrections as the legitimate text of Shakspere would be to dispossess his works of a portion of their wonderful originality and intrinsic worth . The principles adopted by Mr . Charles Knight in the formation of the text in his numerous beautiful editionsappear to be
, our safest guides in this matter . The folio edition of 1623 was given to the world by authority , and it must ever serve as the basis for the text of our poet . Self-eA'ident blunders can be of course corrected ; the various readings of the former quarto editions , whenever such readings are entitled to consideration , can be added in foot-notes , and the more intelligent suggestions of
later commentators appended . These form the legitimate materials of foot-notes and illustrations , but they ought never to be given forth to the public as the words which Shakspere himself ¦ wrote . Our language has undergone many transformations since the days of Elizabeth , and numerous changes in circumstancesmannersand habitshave rendered allusions and
say-, , , ings obscure which in the days of the poet were intelligible enough even to the least enlightened of his readers ; and although every attempt to clear up an obscure passage , or to detect the solution of an apparently corrupt reading , merits our warmest commendation , such conjectural emendations must not be
received for more than they are worth . The editors of the first folio exhibited a most judicious caution in this respect . In their preface they say : — " It had been a thing , we confess , worthy to have been wished , that the author himself had lived to have set forth and overseen his own writings ; bnt since it hath been ordained otherwise , and he by death departed from that rihtwe do not his friends the office of their care and pain
g , pray you envy to have collected and published them ; and so to have published them , as where ( before ) you were abused with divers stolen and surreptitious copies , maimed and deformed by the frauds and stealths of injurious impostors , that exposed them : even those are now offered to your vieAV cured , and perfect of their limbs ; and all the rest , absolute in their members , as he conceived them : who , as he was a happy imitator of nature , was a most gentle expresser of it . His mind and hand went together ; and what he
thought lie uttered with that easiness , that we have scarce received from him a blot in his papers . " This edition was published seven years after the death of the poet , the preface from which the above extract is taken being signed by two of his intimate friends and associates ,- —John Heminge and Henry Condell . Their assertion that Shakspere
had not undertaken the correction of his works must be regarded as conclusive ; and this edition , making due allowance for the blunders that would inevitably occur in a work published Avhen printing had not attained any great excellence , must be accepted