Page:Some Textual Difficulties in Shakespeare.djvu/36

18 world." Clark and Wright, our modern standard authorities, evidently did not know that the particular vocalization of the words, to give the intended effect, would have to be something different from mere pentameter measure.

When an editor has no ear for dramatic poetry he naturally fails in all such places. Then we have the text altered according to his idea, or else it is queried as being the mistake of an early type-setter.

Fifth. Shakespearean scholarship accounts for the superfluous "airy" by a very good typographical theory. One of the common errors of a type-setter is that of setting a word twice. He has his attention called away from his work and when he resumes he sets the word he last had in mind instead of continuing where he left off.

But, let us ask—If a compositor set the word air, and then left off and resumed on the same word, what would the result be? It would be "air air," not "airy air." So also with the compositor of three hundred years ago. He set up "ayrie ayre" as we now find it in the First Folio. Here the adjective and the noun differences are observed, which would hardly be the case if it were such an error. It shows care and attention. The theory by which the word is discarded is the very one by which it should be kept.

I have dealt with this line somewhat formally