the Royal Irish Academy, perhaps it would be unfair to demand that he should write clear English. As one of Mr. Smith's editors, it was to be expected that he should not write it idiomatically. Some malign constellation (Taurus, perhaps, whose infaust aspect may be supposed to preside over the makers of bulls and blunders) seems to have been in conjunction with heavy Saturn when the Library was projected. At the top of the same page from which we have made our quotation, Mr. Halliwell speaks of "conveying a favorable impression on modern readers." It was surely to no such phrase as this that Ensign Pistol alluded when he said, "Convey the wise it call." A literal reprint of an old author may be of value in two ways: the orthography may in certain cases indicate the ancient pronunciation, or it may put us on a scent which shall lead us to the burrow of a word among the roots of language. But in order to this, it surely is not needful to undertake the reproduction of all the original errors of the press; and even were it so, the proofs of carelessness in the editorial department are so glaring, that we are left in doubt, after all, if we may congratulate ourselves on possessing all these sacred blunders of the Elizabethan type-setters in their integrity, and without any debasement of modern alloy. If it be gratifying to know that there lived stupid men before our contemporary Agamemnons in that kind, yet we demand abso⚫ lute accuracy in the report of the phenomena in order to arrive at anything like safe statistics. For instance, we find (Vol. I. p. 89) "ACTUS SECUNDUS, SCENA PRIMUS," and (Vol. III. p. 174) " exit ambo," and we are interested to know that in a London printing-house, two centuries and a half ago, there was a philanthropist who wished to simplify the study of the Latin language by reducing all the nouns to one gender and all the verbs to one number. Had his emancipated theories of grammar prevailed, how much easier would that part of boys which cherubs want have found the school-room benches! How would birchen bark, as an educational tonic, have fallen in repute ! How white would have been the (now black-and-blue) memories of Dr. Busby and so many other educational lictors, who, with their bundles of rods, heralded not alone the consuls, but all other Roman antiquities to us! We dare not, however, indulge in the grateful vision, since there are circumstances which lead us to infer that Mr. Halliwell himself (member though he be of so many learned societies) has those vague notions of the speech of ancient Rome which are apt to prevail in regions which count not the betula in their Flora. On page xv of his Preface, he makes Drummond say that Ben Jonson "was dilated" (delated, Gifford gives it in English, accused) "to the king by Sir James Murray," — Ben, whose corpulent person stood in so little need of that malicious increment ! What is Mr. Halliwell's conception of editorial duty? As we read along, and the once fair complexion of the margin grew more and more pitted with pencil-marks, like that of a bad proof-sheet, we began to think that he was acting on the principle of every man his own washerwoman, that he was making blunders of set purpose, (as teachers of languages do in their exercises,) in order that we might correct them for ourselves, and so fit us in time to be editors also, and members of various learned societies, even as Mr. Halliwell himself is. We fancied, that, magnanimously waving aside the laurel with which a grateful posterity crowned General Wade, he wished us "to see these roads before they were made," and develop our intellectual muscles in getting over them. But no; Mr. Halliwell has appended notes to his edition, and among them are some which correct misprints, and therefore seem to imply that he considers that service as belonging properly to the editorial function. We are obliged, then, to give up our theory that his intention was to make every reader an editor, and to suppose that he wished rather to show how disgracefully a book might be edited and yet receive the commendation of professional critics who read with the ends of their fingers. If this were his intention, Marston himself never published so biting a satire. Let us look at a few of the intricate passages, to help us through which Mr. Halliwell lends us the light of his editorial lantern. In the Induction to "What you Will" occurs the striking and unusual phrase, "Now out uppont," and Mr. Halliwell favors us with the following note: "Page 221, line 10. Up-pont. — That is, upon 't." Again in the same play we find "Let twattling fame cheatd others rest, I um no dish for rumors feast." Of course, it should read, "Let twattling [twaddling] Fame cheate others' rest, I am no dish for Rumor's feast." Mr. Halliwell comes to our assistance thus: "Page 244, line 21, [22 it should be,] I um, a printer's error for I am." Dignus vindice nodus! Five lines above, we have "whole" for "who 'll," and four lines below, "helmeth" for "whelmeth"; but Mr. Halliwell vouchsafes no note. In the "Fawn" we read, "Wise neads use few words," and the editor says in a note, "a misprint for heads"! Kind Mr. Halliwell! Having given a few examples of our Editor's " corrections, we proceed to quote a passage or two which, it is to be presumed, he thought perfectly clear. "A man can skarce put on a tuckt-up cap, A button'd frizado sute, skarce eate good meate, T And term'd phantasticall. By the muddy spawne Even of the bright immortal part of man. That bar'd, nought passeth past the baser court Most lively thinkes he sees the absent beauties In this case, also, the true readings are clear enough: and "And termed fantastical by the muddy spawn but, if anything was to be explained, why are we here deserted by our fida compagna? Again, (Vol. II. pp. 55, 56,) we read, "This Granuffo is a right wise good lord, a man of excellent discourse, and never speakes his signes to me, and men of profound reach instruct aboundantly; hee begges suites with signes, gives thanks with signes," etc. This Granuffo is qualified among the "Interlocutors" as 66 a silent lord," and what fun there is in the character (which, it must be confessed, is rather of a lenten kind) consists in his genius for saying nothing. It is plain enough that the passage should read, "a man of excellent discourse, and never speaks; his signs to me and men of profound reach instruct abundantly," etc. In both the passages we have quoted, it is not difficult for the reader to set the text right. But if not difficult for the reader, it should certainly not have been so for the editor, who should have done what Broome was said to have done for Pope in his Homer, "gone before and swept the way." An edition of an English author ought to be intelligible to English readers, and, if the editor do not make it so, he wrongs the old poet, for two centuries lapt in lead, to whose works he undertakes to play the gentleman-usher. A play written in our own tongue should not be as tough to us as Eschylus to a ten years' graduate, nor do we wish to be reduced to the level of a chimpanzee, and forced to gnaw our way through a thick shell of misprints and mispointings only to find (as is generally the case with Marston) a rancid kernel of meaning after all. But even Marston sometimes deviates into poetry, as a man who wrote in that age could hardly help doing, and one of the few instances of it is in a speech of Erichtho, in the first scene of the fourth act of "Sophonisba," (Vol. I. p. 197,) which Mr. Halliwell presents to us in this shape : A deathlesse majesty, though now quite rac'd, [razed,] Where tombs and beautious urnes of well dead men The last verse and a half are worthy of Chapman; but why did not Mr. Halliwell, who explains up-pont and I um, change "Joves acts were vively limbs" to "Jove's acts were lively limned," which was unquestionably what Marston wrote ? In the "Scourge of Villanie," (Vol. III. p. 252,) there is a passage which till lately had a modern application in America, though happily archaic in England, which Mr. Halliwell suffers to stand thus: |