Page:Appreciations of Horace Howard Furness.djvu/33

 Rh arranging and codifying the notes of others, sifting evidence and recording verdicts, Dr. Furness emerged gradually into the broad light of day. In the later volumes, every note dealing with a disputed point, closes with a judgment, or dismisses the dispute as futile. A shrewd humor, held well in check, illuminates the dusty path of learning. To distinction of style has been added the magnetic grace of personality. If we cannot say of the Preface, 'With this key Dr. Furness unlocked his heart,' we can at least learn from it how much of his heart he gave smilingly away to a lady of such doubtful merit (what is the worth of merit in a bad world!) as Cleopatra.

For the first five plays, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Hamlet, King Lear, and Othello, Dr. Furness formed his own text. The remaining nine were reprinted from the First Folio.

'Who am I,' observes the conservative editor, in justification of this change of plan, 'that I should thrust myself in between the student and the text, as though in me resided the power to restore Shakespeare's own words?' This instinct of conservatism strengthened in Dr. Furness with every year of work, until it became a guiding principle, making for vigilance and lucidity. 'Those who know the most,' he was wont to say, 'venture the least'; and his own ventures are so carefully considered as to lose all chance of hazard. Upon internal evidence, 'which is of imagination all compact,' he looked forever