Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 074.djvu/196

190 old reading, in spite of Mr Collier's assertion that it is corrupt, and "seems little better than nonsense. To spare heaven is not nonsense; it means to refrain from sin. To serve heaven means something more; it means to practise holiness. The difference is but slight, but it is quite sufficient to establish the language of Shakespeare as greatly superior to that of his anonymous corrector, because the point here in question is much rather abstinence from vice than the positive practice of virtue.

In ''Act II. Scene 4'', the following somewhat obscure expression occurs: "in the loss of question "—what does it mean? "It means," says Mr Singer (p. 11), "in the looseness of conversation." That is a most satisfactory explanation. Yet if Mr Collier and his emendator had their own way, we should be deprived of this genuine Shakesperian phrase, and be put off with the unmeaning words "In the force of question."

In ''Act III. Scene 1'', the alteration of "blessed" into "boasted," in the speech in which the Duke so finely moralises on the vanity of human life, cannot be too decidedly condemned—

Some people may not be able to understand how the period of youth can, in one and the same breath, be called blessed, and yet miserable as old age. They look on that as a contradiction. Such people ought never to read poetry. At any rate, they ought first to learn that the poet is privileged, nay, is often bound to declare as actual that which is only potential or ideal. Thus, he may say that blessed youth is a miserable season of existence, meaning thereby that misery overspreads even that time of life which ought to be, and which ideally is, the happiest in the pilgrimage of man. The manuscript corrector has but an obtuse perception of these niceties, and hence he substitutes boasted for blessed—converting Shakespeare's language into mere verbiage.

— Act I. Scene 1.—The alteration of the word "nature" into "fortune" in the following lines, is an undoubted departure from the genuine language of Shakespeare, and a perversion of his sense. Ægeon, whose life has been forfeited by his accidental arrival at Ephesus, says—

Mr Collier, slightly doubtful of the propriety of the new reading (fortune), says, "Possibly by 'nature' we might understand the natural course of events." We say, certainly this is what we must understand by the word. I die by nature, says Ægeon, not by vile offense; or, as Warburton interprets it, "My death is according to the ordinary course of Providence, and not the effects of Divine vengeance overtaking my crimes. But the word "fortune," had Ægeon used it, would rather have implied that he regarded himself as an object of Divine displeasure; and there-fore this word must not only not be adopted, but it must be specially avoided, if we would preserve the meaning of Shakespeare. In this case, the internal evidence is certainly in favour of the ordinary reading.

In a subsequent part of the same scene, the Duke, who is mercifully inclined towards Ægeon, advises him

"To seek thy help by beneficial help."

That is, he recommends him to borrow such a sum of money as may be sufficient to ransom his life. The MS. corrector reads not very intelligibly—

"To seek thy hope by beneficial help."

And Mr Collier, explaining the obscurum per obscurius, remarks that Ægeon was to seek what he hoped to obtain (viz, money to purchase his life) by the 'beneficial help' of some persons in Ephesus." The "beneficial help" was itself the money by which he was to "seek his help," or save his life. "Beneficial help" means "pecuniary assistance," and therefore we are at a loss to understand Mr Collier when he says that Ægeon was to seek money by the "beneficial help" or pecuniary assistance of