Page:On Shakespeare, or, What You Will, Furness, 1908.djvu/25

1908.] ter in his translation of Homer. His power of unraveling a tangled sophistication of the printers amounted almost to inspiration, and several hundred of his emendations are adopted in our text of to-day. He published a quarto volume of errors of omission or commission in Pope’s edition of Shakespeare, and in retaliation the savage little autocrat in literature made him the hero of the first edition of his “Dunciad.” Poor fellow! he was a bookseller’s hack and was for ever tormented by poverty. Hogarth’s picture of “” is supposed to be his portrait. Pope’s revenge turned against the luckless Theobald all his contemporaries. In recent times, however, his reputation has been steadily and deservedly rising.

The outward circumstances of Capell were the reverse of Theobald’s. He was affluent, and assuredly had a most enviable amount of leisure, videlicet: he copied every word of Shakespeare’s plays ten times; what he gained thereby it is impossible to imagine; it certainly was not a lucid style; no English with which I am acquainted is more gnarled and unwedgeable than his. Dr. Johnson said that had he come to him he would have endowed his purposes with words. And yet when you have penetrated to the meaning of his Notes, you will find sound sense. He was the earliest to make much use of the Quartos, and his punctuation is truly admirable. He greatly, nay mainly, influenced Dyce. Dyce greatly influenced the Cambridge Editors, the Cambridge Editors put forth “The Globe Edition,” which has been almost accepted as the final text. Thus after a turbulent history, the text of to-day has nearly settled into a condition of stable equilibrium between the Folio and the Quartos, and, textually, there is hardly a comma to choose between the different editions now published.

Archaeological notes explain allusions to manners, customs, and sports, now obsolete, and to the thousand and one things which go to make up a nation’s life, public and private, in town and country, high-born and low-born.

Lastly, we come to aesthetic and critical notes, the chief nourisher in our feast. Textual and archaeological notes find their fruition only in the aid they bring to aesthetic notes, which enable us to comprehend Shakespeare’s meaning, always the butt and sea-mark of our utmost sail. And here let me say one word as to the Shakespearean contributions of our German brothers. Beware