"Thirtie three yeares haue I but gone in trauaile Mr. Dyce and Mr. Singer read, "and till this present hour My heavy burden ne'er delivered." Mr. Collier, "and till this present hour My heavy burden undelivered." Theobald and Mr. Knight, "nor, till this present hour My heavy burdens are delivered." Blackwood's Magazine,-Aug. 1853, "and till this present hour My heavy burden has delivered." It seems plain to me that Emilia refers to place no less than to time. After her long travail, it was there, as well as then, that she was delivered. Should we not read? Twenty-five years have I but gone in travail Of you my sons; and till this present hour That is, of course,-'I have but gone in travail till this present hour delivered me here of my heavy burthen.' It should be noticed that 'here' is much more like the 'are,' of the original than either 'ne'er,' 'un,' or 'has' are; and that by this reading, the substitution of nor for "and" is not required. Thus, by the least possible change from the original text, we obtain the most exact and descriptive expression of Emilia's position. It is possible that some of my readers may need to be reminded that "thirty-three" of the original text is shown by the internal evidence of the play, to be an error for twenty-five. The last two lines of this speech evidently contain a typographical error each, which Mr. Singer, in his Vindication of the text, &c., corrects by reading : "Nativity" was probably repeated by the compositor, who had the word still in his mind after having set it up at the end of the line next but one before; "and joy" might be easily misprinted "and go." I had written en-joy on the margin of my Shakespeare, for "and go;" but Mr. Singer's conjecture is more like the original text, and is therefore entitled to the preference. 12 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. ACT I. SCENE 1. "Leon. How many gentlemen have you lost in this action? Upon this passage Mr. Dyce remarks: "According to Monk Mason, ' of any sort' means—of any kind whatsoever; an interpretation which, though manifestly wrong, has found approvers. The reply of the Messenger is equivalent to-But few gentlemen of any rank, and none of celebrity. So presently he says to Beatrice, 'I know none of that name, lady; there was none such in the army of any sort.' So, too, in Midsummer Night's Dream, act iii. sc. 2; "none of noble sort Would so offend a virgin; " and in Jonson's Every Man in his Humour,-Works, i. 24, ed. Gifford; "A gentleman of your sort, parts," &c. and in A Warning for Faire Women, 1599; "The Queene our mistris Allowes this bounty to all commers, much more To gentlemen of your sort.” A Few Notes, &c., p. 38. A I cannot see the force of Mr. Dyce's reasons. The Messenger means, according to my understanding of his words, 'But few gentlemen of any description, and none of distinction.' fool is word in sim, alent 8 s Mr. Dyce's quotations do not aid him; because either of the synonymous words 'description,' 'condition,' 'posi- . tion,' 'kind,' fills the place of "sort" in all the passages an cited by him. Thus: "I know none of that name, lady; there was none such in the army of any description." 66 none of noble kind Would so offend a virgin." "A gentleman of your position, parts," &c. "The Queene, our mistris, Allowes this bounty to all commers, much more If'sort' mean 'rank,' par excellence, i. e. noble rank, -to say 'noble sort' would be to be guilty of the worst sort of tautology. 'Sort' would, in that case, need,—in fact, admit, no such adjective before it; and the lines from A Midsummer-Night's Dream furnish proof positive that 'sort,' when thus used, means merely 'kind.' The word is applied to persons, in this sense, and with various adjectives before it, throughout Shakespeare's works; as,-"spirits of vile sort," "the vulgar sort of market-men;" and even, "the poor men of your sort," and "the younger sort," as well as gentlemen of good sort" and "prisoners of good sort; and we have also "a sort of men," and "all sorts of men." There is only one passage in all Shakespeare's works which would seem to sustain Mr. Dyce, and which, strange to say, so accomplished a Shakesperian scholar as he has failed to quote. In Measure for Measure 'sort' is used, without άι an adjective, evidently to mean, high rank or station. The Duke is about to return to Vienna, and Angelo says to Escalus: "Well, I beseech you, let it be proclaim'd: Betimes i' the morn, I'll call you at your house. Give notice to such men of sort and suit, As are to meet him." But here it is used as we sometimes use 'character;' saying, 'a man of character,' i. e. a man of excellent character. Such cannot be the use of 'sort' in the instances previously quoted by Mr. Dyce; for unless circumstances evidently point to such a signification, and a word is used absolutely and without an adjective, it cannot be thus arbitrarily raised from its inferior and general sense to one higher and particular. ACT II. SCENE 3. “Claud. Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses,-"O sweet Benedick! God give me patience!" Here "curses" is, almost without a doubt, an error of the press for cries, to which it is changed by the corrector of Mr. Collier's folio. ACT III. SCENE 1. Hero being asked when she is to be married, replies, "Why, evrie day, to-morrow." The answer is incomprehensible, on account of a misprint which is thus corrected in Mr. Collier's folio, "Why, in a day,-to-morrow." There can be no doubt that this restores the author's words. |