cheek,' and Mr. Collier and Mr. Dyce alike reject the alteration; Shakespeare speaks elsewhere of the welkin's face and cheeks of heaven. The ship with some noble creature in her.' The Corrector here reads creatures;' so did Theobald, so do Mr. Dyce and Mr. Collier. Prospero speaks of 'provision in mine art;' and upon this the MS. Corrector suggests, as Mr. Hunter had suggested, prevision. Mr. Dyce, perceiving that provision means foresight, does not accept the change. As Mr. Collier shows, the passage in its usual form was clear enough to A. W. Schlegel, who translated provision, Vorsicht. Provisions are so called because they are foreseen supplies. There is no occasion for the proposed change, and Mr. Dyce is quite right in excluding it. The next alteration is the prosaic change of 'thou wast not Out three years old' to' thou wast not quite three years old,' and it has very properly been declined by Mr. Collier himself as well as Mr. Dyce. Prospero having told Miranda that her father was a prince of power, she asks, 'Sir, are not you my father?' he assents, adding ' and thy father Was Duke of Milan, and his only heir And princess, no worse issued.' The old Corrector turns the second 'and' into a 'thou,' and so makes some species of sense. Mr. Dyce turns the third 'and' into 'a, and in a note cites four passages in which 'and' has been printed for 'a.' Of the two emendations this is not only the more natural, but the one that yields by far the best construction. "Thou his only heir and princess' is a phrase unpoetical and clumsy. Once more, therefore, the MS. Corrector fails. In the next passage, we find Mr. Collier himself again abandoning his guide. Prospero speaking of his brother, whom he had set in his place, says 'He being thus lorded, The Corrector, in a fit of dulness, wishes to read loaded; and Mr. Collier thinks 'lorded may perhaps stand without material objection.' The The next MS. emendation is adopted by Mr. Collier notwithstanding that it converts the clearest sense into the very reverse. The words of the passage, put by a slight transposition into the order of plain prose, say that the false brother, being invested with ducal honours, believed himself to be indeed the dukelike one who by telling of his own lie had made of his memory such a sinner unto truth (as) to credit it.' The emendator wishes us to read 'sinner to untruth;' which is to assert that the brother was so false to lying as by frequent repetition to learn to believe in his own lie. A liar may be false to truth, but persistence in lying does not make him false to lies. Such absolute nonsense Mr. Collier admits as part of Shakespeare's text; by Mr. Dyce it is discarded. The next emendation restores in the second folio a word misprinted from the first, most' for much.' Mr. Dyce follows the earlier and better text, and says nothing, of course, about the MS. Corrector, whom there is no need to consult in the matter. The following innovation we will neither censure nor accept :— 'One midnight Fated to the purpose, did Antonio open The gates of Milan; and i' the dead of darkness, The annotator sees tautology in the expression ministers for the purpose' following so close upon the phrase upon the 'midnight fated to the purpose' of the treason. Therefore, as practice implies treason, and begins with p, he would read 'midnight fated to the practice.' This is precisely such correction as eleven schoolmasters in twelve would make in a boy's theme; nevertheless, we suspect there is more lost than gained by getting rid of the repetition. Deprived of the emphasis of iteration, the line that speaks of ministers for the purpose' loses in strength, and the passage on the whole has less force than before. 'A rotten carcase of a butt' is rightly altered into boat, and Mr. Dyce accepts the correction. Prospero might have called the bark in which he was turned adrift a rotten butt; but a rotten carcase of a butt, not rigg'd, nor tackle, sail, nor mast,' can only be the carcase of a boat. The carcase of a butt is simply the butt itself; the carcase of a boat is such as Prospero describes it. In the same lines there is an indifferent change of 'have' into ' had.' Before Miranda sleeps, there is a stage direction, inserted by the Corrector, indicating where Prospero resumes his robe, which Mr. 6 Mr. Dyce accepts, and offends Mr. Collier by not acknowledging as the important and entirely new stage direction from the corr. fo. 1632.' The next correction is very prosaic. Ariel says that the dispersed ships 'all have met again And are upon the Mediterranean flote The emendator' would read all have met again, and all upon the Mediterranean float,' &c. Here is not only the conversion of poetry to prose, but the manufacture of an iteration clumsier than the one he had just thought it his duty to correct. If he could not endure two purposes' in three lines, why does he force upon us two 'alls' in five words, especially when, the chief ship being absent, stress upon 'all' is less appropriate? The next correction, an omission of thee,' Mr. Collier declines, and Mr. Dyce, without adopting, is disposed to favour. We distinctly side with Mr. Collier in retaining told thee no lies, made thee no mistakings.' The succeeding alteration, which is also trivial, Mr. Dyce and Mr. Collier unite in rejecting, as they do also the next, the last in the first act, where, instead of 'when thou camest first,' the Corrector would read when thou cam'st here first.' Here we may well pause: for we have given instances enough to satisfy, we think, all persons that, however just may be many of the Corrector's suggestions; however authentic, perhaps, many of his stage-directions; however ingenious he may have appeared when his best ideas were presented in a compact mass, yet directly we begin to follow him step by step there is abundance to justify the contempt which Mr. Dyce appears to entertain for his abilities. Whoever goes through the entire series of his alterations must either himself want a sense of poetry or feel that the poetic element had been very sparingly granted to this unknown individual. Whence then did he derive the large number of true suggestions that we find embedded in his dulness? We do not believe them to be of more recent date than the best conjectural readings of Theobald, Hanmer, and Johnson, which they frequently corroborate. We are compelled therefore to suppose that for many of his changes the Corrector must have had some warrant beyond his own sagacity, and that the pleasures of revision tempted him, wholly incompetent as he was, to labour further on the text for his private amusement. Since, however, he does not speak with a sustained authority, his alterations can only rest on their own merits. Misled by a natural partiality for his own discovery, and more accom plished plished as an antiquarian than as a literary critic, Mr. Collier has adopted in his new edition of Shakespeare many changes which in our opinion are decided corruptions of the text. Even in more dubious cases there is a certain wise conservatism in literature against which a small number of trivial emendations where no clear title can be shown, will contend in vain. For it is true,' says Bacon,' that what is settled by custom, though it be not good, yet at least it is fit; and those things which have long gone together, are, as it were, confederate within themselves." Therefore the benefit of every doubt is due, we conceive, to the established reading. Mr. Dyce has succeeded in a department where so many have failed. He unites, indeed, the necessary qualifications in a singular degree. He is an admirable classical scholar, is deeply read in Elizabethan literature, has a fine ear for metre, and a strong sense of poetic beauty. His industry is on a par with his accomplishments. Any one may settle a text of Shakespeare as good, or better, than is to be found in the majority of editions, with the same rapidity that he reads. But to settle a text which will bear the investigation of poetic students, not only requires a rare familiarity with the language and customs of Shakespeare's day, but an amount of thought which few could continue through a single play. The taste, knowledge, and reflection which are embodied in these volumes can only be appreciated by persons who have trod the same paths, and who know that almost every page raises questions which require not only hours of present meditation but years of past reading to solve. No prejudices have interfered with the free exercise of Mr. Dyce's powers. He is not the partisan of quartos or folios, of printed readings or conjectural emendations. He is the partisan of sense and of poetry. The inclination of his mind is doubtless against innovation, and we believe that he might with advantage have revised some passages with a bolder hand; but over-caution, as we have already intimated, is preferable to rashness in the instances where there is much to be said on both sides. This at least is beyond doubt, that we have never possessed so admirable a text of Shakespeare before; and we would suggest to the thousands of people who are always inquiring for something interesting to read, that they should read again the works of the monarch of literature, and read him in the edition of Mr. Dyce. 'Notes,' says Dr. Johnson, are often necessary, but they are necessary evils. Let him that is unacquainted with the powers of Shakespeare, and who desires to feel the highest pleasure that the drama can give, read every play from the first scene to the last with utter negligence of all his commentators. When his 6 fancy fancy is once on the wing, let it not stoop at correction or explanation. Let him read on through brightness and obscurity; let him preserve his comprehension of the dialogue and his interest in the fable. And when the pleasures of novelty have ceased, let him attempt exactness, and read the commentators.' ART. III.-Report from the Select Committee on Consular Service and Appointments, together with the Proceedings of the Committee and Minutes of Evidence. London, 1858. AT T the Liverpool meeting of the professors of 'Social Science,' Sir James Stephens introduced to our language the happy phrase of 'statistical chloroform.' We are sometimes compelled, in the course of our duty as general purveyors of literature, to administer to our readers the analogous preparation of condensed Blue-book.' On the present occasion, however, it is our own fault if the article we present is either distasteful or narcotic, for the ingredients of the volume before us are certainly neither dull nor unpalatable. Its contents, indeed, mainly consist of dialogues on commercial and political geography between a Committee of the House of Commons and gentlemen from all parts of the world, who either have been or are actually engaged in the consular service, and who, after a monotonous repetition of a certain formula as to the total inadequacy of their present salaries, discourse pleasantly enough on the peculiarities and requirements of their respective positions and on their views of the nature and duties of the Consular Office. The long and careful examination of Mr. Hammond, and other very competent gentlemen in the same department commences, and the statement of some witnesses respecting alleged abuses and proposed improvements in the present system terminates an inquiry which, from accidental circumstances, has been invested with a somewhat factitious interest and regarded with much personal anxiety from all portions of the globe. For many years the Foreign Office had been literally beset with complaints and remonstrances from the consular body, which could not be altogether set aside as unreasonable or unjust, but which it was most difficult to satisfy or to silence. The current of public opinion of late had run strongly in the direction of a stricter economy in the payment of foreign agents, and a Committee on Official Salaries had already recommended considerable reductions in that quarter. To propose, therefore, any alteration which involved a considerable addition |