Page:Appreciations of Horace Howard Furness.djvu/35

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Dr. Furness prints conscientiously two solid pages of notes anent this mysterious epithet, giving us every suggestion that has been proffered and discarded concerning its possible significance; at the close of which exhaustive survey he adds serenely: 'In view of the formidable, not to say appalling combination of equine qualities and armourer's art which has been detected in this adjective, Antony would have been more than mortal had he not approached his steed with extreme caution,and mounted it "soberly."

Far more remarkable is the incurious attitude preserved by Dr. Furness in regard to the chronology of Shakespeare's plays, his indifference to dates which have cost other commentators years of study and speculation. Many and stern were the reproaches hurled at him for this indifference, but he remained indifferent still. Indeed it was his most noteworthy characteristic that, while regarding his own work with a steadfast and sane humility, he was wholly unvexed and unmoved by criticism. Immaculately free from what Dr. Johnson terms 'the acrimony of scholiasts,' he never assumed an editor's role to be an 'intellectual egg-dance' amid a host of sensitive interests. Nor did he begrudge, even to the youngest critic, the pleasure of flaunting some innocent rags of research—the mere swaddling clothes of learning—in the face of his