As he was especially the poet of real life, so he was emphatically the poet of common sense; and to the verdict of common sense I am willing to submit all the more material alterations recommended on the authority before me. If they will not bear that test, as distinguished from mere verbal accuracy in following old printed copies, I, for one, am content to relinquish them. Hitherto the quartos and folios have been our best and safest guides; but it is notorious that in many instances they must be wrong; and while, in various places, the old corrector does not attempt to set them right, probably from not possessing the means of doing so, the very fact, that he has here refrained from purely arbitrary changes, ought to give us additional confidence in those emendations he felt authorized to introduce. I shall probably be told, in the usual terms, by some whose prejudices or interests may be affected by the ensuing volume, that the old corrector knew little about the spirit or language of Shakespeare; and that, in the remarks I have ventured on his emendations, I prove myself to be in a similar predicament. The last accusation is probably true: I have read and studied our great dramatist for nearly half a century, and if I could read and study him for half a century more, I should yet be far from arriving at an accurate knowledge of his works, or an adequate appreciation of his worth. He is an author whom no man can read enough, nor study enough; and as my ambition always has been to understand him properly, and to estimate him sufficiently, I shall accept, in whatever form reproof may be conveyed, any just correction thankfully. UNIV. OF CALIFO! THE TEMPEST. ACT I. SCENE I. P. 9. THE introductory stage-direction in the old folios, especially with the manuscript addition in that of 1632 (which we have marked in Italics) is striking and picturesque : "A tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning heard: Enter a Shipmaster, and a Boatswain, as on shipboard, shaking off wet." In Malone's Shakspeare, by Boswell, (vol. xv. p. 19,) it stands only,-"A storm with thunder and lightning. Enter a Ship-master and Boatswain;" but, from the corrected folio, 1632, it appears that the two actors who began the play entered as if on deck, shaking the rain and spray from their garments as they spoke, and thus giving an additional appearance of reality to the scene. "Enter Mariners, wet," occurs soon afterwards, and we are left to conclude that they showed the state of their dress in the same way, but we are not told so, either in print or manuscript. Alonso, Sebastian, Antonio, Ferdinand, Gonzalo, and the rest, come up From the cabin, (a part of the direction also supplied in manuscript, in the folio, 1632,) meaning, no doubt, that they ascended from under the stage, and are consequently supposed not to be in the same dripping condition. P. 9. "Alon. Good boatswain, have care." It may be just worth remark, that the colloquial expression is, "Have a care;" and a is inserted in the margin of the corrected folio, 1632, to indicate, probably, that the poet so wrote it, or, at all events, that the actor so delivered it. B AMBORLIAD SCENE II. P. 12. The reading of all editions has been this: "The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch, But that the sea, mounting to the welkin's cheek, Dashes the fire out." The manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, has substituted heat for "cheek," which is not an unlikely corruption by a person writing only by the ear. The welkin's heat was occasioned by the flaming pitch, but the fire was dashed out by the fury of the waves. The firing of the "welkin's cheek" seems a forced image; but, nevertheless, we meet elsewhere with "heaven's face," and even the "welkin's face." P. 12. Miranda exclaims: "A brave vessel, Who had, no doubt, some noble creature in her, Creatures, for "creature," was the reading of Theobald, and he was right, though it varies from all the old copies. The corrector of the folio, 1632, added the necessary letter in the margin. Miranda speaks also of "those she saw suffer," and calls them "poor souls." P. 13. The emendation in the subsequent lines, assigned to Prospero, is important. The reading, since the publication of the folio, 1623 (with one exception to be noticed immediately) has invariably been as follows: : "The direful spectacle of the wreck, which touch'd The very virtue of compassion in thee, I have with such provision in mine art Betid to any creature in the vessel." The only exception to the above text was a corruption which found its way into the folio, 1632, where "compassion" of the second line was repeated in the third :— "I have with such compassion in mine art," &c. the printer having caught the word from the preceding line. "I have with such provision in mine art," |