Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 1.djvu/895

"Copies, together with a few added for the First Time in this Edition, the whole carefully let alone by James Orchard Halliwell, F. R. S., F. S. A.” It occurs to us that Mr. Halliwell may be also a Fellow of the Geological Society, and may have caught from its members the enthusiasm which leads him to attach so extraordinary a value to every goose-track of the Elizabethan formation. It is bad enough to be, as Marston was, one of those middling poets whom neither gods nor men nor columns (Horace had never seen a newspaper) tolerate; but, really, even they do not deserve the frightful retribution of being reprinted by a Halliwell.

We have said that we could not feel even the dubious satisfaction of knowing that the blunders of the old copies had been faithfully followed in the reprinting. We see reason for doubting whether Mr. Halliwell ever read the proof-sheets. In his own notes we have found several mistakes. For instance, he refers to p. 159 when he means p. 153; he cites “I, but her life,” instead of “lip”; and he makes Spenser instead of “old Pithonus.” Marston is not an author of enough importance to make it desirable that we should be put in possession of all the corrupted readings of his text, were such a thing possible even with the most minute painstaking, and Mr. Halliwell’s edition loses its only claim to value the moment a doubt is cast upon the accuracy of its inaccuracies. It is a matter of special import to us (whose means of access to originals are exceedingly limited) that the English editors of our old authors should be faithful and trustworthy, and we have singled out Mr. Halliwell’s Marston for particular animadversion only because we think it on the whole the worst edition—we ever saw of any author.

Having exposed the condition in which our editor has left the text, we proceed to test his competency in another respect, by examining some of the emendations and explanations of doubtful passages which he proposes. These are very few; but had they been even fewer, they had been too many.

Among the dramatis personæ of the “Fawn,” as we said before, occurs a Granuffo, a silent lord.” He speaks only once during the play, and that in the last scene. In Act I., Scene 2, Gonzalo says, speaking to Granuffo,

"Now, sure, then art a man Of a most learned science, and one whose words Have bin most pretions to me.” This seems quite plain, but Mr. Halliwell annotates thus :—“Science.—Query, science? The common reading, silence, may, however, be that is intended.” That the spelling should have troubled Mr. Halliwell is remarkable; for elsewhere we find “god-boy” for “good-bye,” “sence” for “cense,” “bollice” for “boddice,” “pellice” for “policy,” “pititying” for “pitying,” “scence” for “sense,” “Mizentius” for “Mezentius,” “Feranze” for “Ferrarese,”—and plenty beside, equally odd. That he should have doubted the meaning is no less strange; for on page 44 of the same play we read, “My Lord Granuffo, you may likewise stay, for I know you't say nothing,”—on pp. 55–56, “This Granuffo is a right wise good lord, a man of excellent discourse and never speaks;” and on p. 94, we find the following dialogue:— “Gon. My Lord Granuffo, this Fawne is an excellent fellow. “Don. Silence. “Gon. I warrant you for my lord here.” In the same play (p. 44) are these lines :— “I apt for love? Let lazy idlenes, fit full of wine Heated with meates, high fedde with lustfall ease Goe dept on culler [color]. As for me, why, death a sence, I court the ladie?” This is Mr. Halliwell's note:—“Death a sence.—' Earth a sense,' ed. 1633. Mr. Dilke suggests:—For me, why, earth's as sensible.' The original is not necessarily corrupt. It may mean,—why, you might as well think Death has a sense, one of the senses. See a like phrase at p. 77.” What help we should get by thinking Death one of the senses, it would demand another Œdipus to unriddle. Mr. Halliwell can astonish us no longer, but we are surprised at Mr. Dilke, the very competent editor of the “Old English Plays,” 1815. From him we might have hoped for better things. “Death o' sence!” is an exclamation. Throughout these volumes we find a for o, as, “a clock,” for “o'clock,” “a the side” for “o the side.”"