Malone prefers, though he retains the old text. Not only will the forms into which the materials were arranged disappear," the Cloud-capt Towers," &c.-but their very wracks, wrecks, ruins, will vanish from human sight, as the pageant has utterly faded away.

And on this passage I would further observe that, if I have been successful in establishing the early date of this play, the question moved in the notes seems to be decided whether Shakespeare or Sir William Alexander were the imitator, if there is any imitation in either, for passages such as this are to be found in the poetry of all ages and nations. The Darius in which the resembling passage occurs was not published before 1603.

The word "wrack," altered to wreck, occurs in another passage, where a delicate ear will perceive that something is lost in point of melody by this uncalled-for change:

The direful spectacle of the wreck, which touch'd

The very virtue of compassion in thee,

I have with such provision in mine art, &c.-Act i. Sc. 2.

The word "provision" is the reading of the original copy, and I believe of all later editions; but the following passage from the Modern Policies, a book attributed to Sancroft, of which the fifth edition was published in 1654, would seem to suggest and justify the change to "prevision:"

We allow the disburthening of a ship in imminent peril of wrack, but this will not excuse those who, upon a fond or feigned prevision of a state-tempest, shall immediately cast law and conscience overboard, discard and quit rudder and steerage, and thus assist the danger they pretend to fear.

It serves also to justify the phrase in the first scene, which requires justification, "You do assist the storm." The second folio has a misprint, repeating "compassion " from the line above.

It may be here remarked, as a general observation on the text of Shakespeare, that the second folio contains many most

valuable readings, evidently corrections of the text of the first edition made by some judicious hand, and doubtless by some person who was not venturing upon conjectural emendations, but proceeding on the authority of the manuscripts belonging to the theatre, or of the traditions of the actors, of which the same scene affords a very remarkable instance. The first folio has the reading "through all the signories," and, adopting that reading, Malone gives the passage in this confused and scarcely intelligible manner :

As at that time,

Through all the signories it was the first,

And Prospero the prime duke; being so reputed
In dignity, and, for the liberal arts

Without a parallel; these being all my study,
The government I cast upon my brother,

And to my state grew stranger.-Act i. Sc. 2.

But the second folio for "through" has the word "though :"

Though all the signories it was the first, &c.

Where "though" is to be read as if followed by "of," (such kind of elision being extremely common in the early editions of these plays)-and the whole passage may be adjusted thus:

As at that time,

Though of all the seignories it was the first,
And Prospero the prime duke; (being so reputed
In dignity:) and for the liberal arts

Without a parallel. These being all my study, &c.

Shakespeare meant to point to the pre-eminence which was claimed for the Duchy of Milan above all the other duchies of Europe, Botero saying expressly, that "Milan claims to be the first duchy in Europe,”* and its Univer

* Relations of the most famous Kingdoms and Commonwealths, 4to. 1630, p. 337 but there is an earlier edition.

sity of Pavia was, at the period to which the action of this play is to be referred, in high reputation. The sense now becomes complete and consecutive, though the expression is dramatic and colloquial :-" Though Milan was accounted the first of the great seignories, and Prospero, as the Duke of Milan, was regarded the prime duke in Europe, (having the general reputation and allowance of this precedence and dignity); and had also the higher reputation for the liberal arts; he neglected the affairs of state, threw the government on his brother, and devoted himself entirely to those studies."

Perhaps it may be expected that the elision on which this criticism and the whole turn of the passage so much depend should be justified. Without going beyond the present play, we have the following passages, in which the words in crotchets require to be supplied to make the sense or metre complete :

Had I [the] plantation of this isle.-Act ii. Sc. 1.

All but [the] mariners.-Act ii. Sc. 1.

I am more serious than my custom: you

Must be so too, if [ye] heed me.-Act ii. Sc. 1.

My dukedom since you have given [it] me again.

Act v. Sc. 1.

We were dead on sleep,

And (how we know not) all clapp'd under [the] hatches.

Act v. Sc. 1.

The minute corrections, such as these, which the received text requires, are innumerable; but with these, except in a few of the more remarkable instances, it is not proposed to trouble the reader. They are rather changes to be silently made in a text that has undergone a thorough revision, to the successful execution of which highly necessary work two things are requisite-access to the original editions, and great critical discernment, first to distinguish among the

various readings of the old copies that which is most worthy to be adopted, and next to penetrate to the intention of the author where his words have come down to us manifestly corrupted by his transcribers and early editors. It is easy to say, go to the original copies; but, though this is undoubtedly a sound principle, and ought in editorial labour to be considered the first duty, yet no one can doubt that the original copies contain many very gross corruptions, (and this is true both of quartos and folios,) and also that in some passages there are happy restorations made by the editors of the middle period of Shakespeare criticism, as they have undoubtedly been eminently successful in other departments, leaving us who follow but gleaners after them.

190

THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.

It is quite true, as the commentators have informed us, that the translation by Bartholomew Yonge of the earliest of the pastoral romances, the Diana of George of Montemayor, was not published in print before the year 1598; and that, therefore, Shakespeare cannot have been indebted to this printed volume for his knowledge of the story of Felismena in the Second Book, which is supposed to be the origin of the main portion of the plot of The Two Gentlemen of Verona. But, with the information of the time when this translation was committed to the press, they would have done well to place in the Prolegomena the further information respecting it that the translation was actually finished by Yonge sixteen years before, since this fact ought to be in view when we are inquiring into the possibility of Shakespeare's having become acquainted with this Spanish romance by means of Yonge's translation, if we must suppose that for his knowledge of Italian and Spanish writers he usually resorted to translations and not to the original works.

This information would at least have prevented Mr. Collier from being guilty of the oversight of saying that the Diana "was not translated into English by B. Yonge until 1598."*

Yonge fixes very precisely the period when he was engaged in this translation:

About nineteen years past, courteous gentlemen, coming out of Spain into my native country, and having spent well-nigh three years in some serious studies and certain affairs with no means or occasion to exercise the Spanish tongue, by discontinuance whereof it had almost shaken hands with me, it was

• Works of Shakespeare, vol. i. p. 89.