Part 25
Having now run cursorily through the series of Mr. Smith’s reprints, we come to the closer question of _How are they edited?_ Whatever the merit of the original works, the editors, whether self-elected or chosen by the publisher, should be accurate and scholarly. The editing of the Homer we can heartily commend; and Dr. Rimbault, who carried the works of Overbury through the press, has done his work well; but the other volumes of the Library are very creditable neither to English scholarship nor to English typography. The Introductions to some of them are enough to make us think that we are fallen to the necessity of reprinting our old authors because the art of writing correct and graceful English has been lost. William B. Turnbull, Esq., of Lincoln’s Inn, Barrister at Law, says, for instance, in his Introduction to Southwell: “There was resident at Uxendon, near Harrow on the Hill, in Middlesex, a Catholic family of the name of Bellamy whom [which] Southwell was in the habit of visiting and providing with religious instruction when he exchanged his ordinary [ordinarily] close confinement for a purer atmosphere.” (p. xxii.) Again, (p. xxii,) “He had, in this manner, for six years, pursued, with very great success, the objects of his mission, when these were abruptly terminated by his foul betrayal into the hands of his enemies in 1592.” We should like to have Mr. Turnbull explain how the _objects_ of a mission could be terminated by a betrayal, however it might be with the mission itself. From the many similar flowers in the Introduction to Mather’s “Providences,” by Mr. George Offor, (in whom, we fear, we recognize a countryman,) we select the following: “It was at this period when, [that,] oppressed by the ruthless hand of persecution, our Pilgrim Fathers, threatened with torture and death, succumbed not to man, but trusting on [in] an almighty arm, braved the dangers of an almost unknown ocean, and threw themselves into the arms of men called savages, who proved more beneficent than national Christians.” To whom or what our Pilgrim Fathers _did_ succumb, and what “national Christians” are, we leave, with the song of the Sirens, to conjecture. Speaking of the “Providences,” Mr. Offor says, that “they faithfully delineate the state of public opinion two hundred years ago, the most striking feature being an implicit faith in the power of the [in-]visible world to hold visible intercourse with man:--not the angels to bless poor erring mortals, but of demons imparting power to witches and warlocks to injure, terrify and destroy,”--a sentence which we defy any witch or warlock, though he were Michael Scott himself, to parse with the astutest demonic aid. On another page, he says of Dr. Mather, that “he was one of the first divines who discovered that very many strange events, which were considered preternatural, had occurred in the course of nature or by deceitful juggling; that the Devil could not speak English, nor prevail with Protestants; the smell of herbs alarms the Devil; that medicine drives out Satan!” We do not wonder that Mr. Offor put a mark of exclamation at the end of this surprising sentence, but we do confess our astonishment that the vermilion pencil of the proof-reader suffered it to pass unchallenged. Leaving its bad English out of the question, we find, on referring to Mather’s text, that he was never guilty of the absurdity of believing that Satan was less eloquent in English than in any other language; that it was the British (Welsh) tongue which a certain demon whose education had been neglected (not _the_ Devil) could not speak; that Mather is not fool enough to say that the Fiend cannot prevail with Protestants, nor that the smell of herbs alarms him, nor that medicine drives him out. Anything more helplessly inadequate than Mr. Offor’s preliminary dissertation on Witchcraft we never read; but we could hardly expect much from an editor whose citations from the book he is editing show that he had either not read or not understood it.
Mr. Offor is superbly Protestant and iconoclastic,--not sparing, as we have seen, even Priscian’s head among the rest; but, _en revanche_, Mr. Turnbull is ultramontane beyond the editors of the _Civiltà Cattolica_. He allows himself to say, that, “after Southwell’s death, one of his sisters, a Catholic in heart, but timidly and blamably simulating heresy, wrought, with some relics of the martyr, several cures on persons afflicted with desperate and deadly diseases, which had baffled the skill of all physicians.” Mr. Turnbull is, we suspect, a recent convert, or it would occur to him that doctors are still secure of a lucrative practice in countries full of the relics of greater saints than even Southwell. That father was hanged (according to Protestants) for treason, and the relic which put the whole pharmacopœia to shame was, if we mistake not, his neckerchief. But whatever the merits of the Jesuit himself, and however it may gratify Mr. Turnbull’s catechumenical enthusiasm to exalt the curative properties of this integument of his, even at the expense of Jesuits’ bark, we cannot but think that he has shown a credulity that unfits him for writing a fair narrative of his hero’s life, or making a tolerably just estimate of his verses. It is possible, however, that these last seem prosaic as a necktie only to heretical readers.
We have singled out the Introductions of Messrs. Turnbull and Offor for special animadversion because they are on the whole the worst, both of them being offensively sectarian, while that of Mr. Offor in particular gives us almost no information whatever. Some of the others are not without grave faults, chief among which is a vague declamation, especially out of place in critical essays, where it serves only to weary the reader and awaken his distrust. In his Introduction to Wither’s “Hallelujah,” for instance, Mr. Farr informs us that “nearly all the best poets of the latter half of the sixteenth century--for that was the period when the Reformation was fully established--and the whole of the seventeenth century were sacred poets,” and that “even Shakespeare and the contemporary dramatists of his age sometimes attuned their well-strung harps to the songs of Zion.” Comment on statements like these would be as useless as the assertions themselves are absurd.
We have quoted these examples only to justify us in saying that Mr. Smith must select his editors with more care if he wishes that his “Library of Old Authors” should deserve the confidence and thereby gain the good word of intelligent readers,--without which such a series can neither win nor keep the patronage of the public. It is impossible that men who cannot construct an English sentence correctly, and who do not know the value of clearness in writing, should be able to disentangle the knots which slovenly printers have tied in the thread of an old author’s meaning; and it is more than doubtful whether they who assert carelessly, cite inaccurately, and write loosely are not by nature disqualified for doing thoroughly what they undertake to do. If it were unreasonable to demand of every one who assumes to edit one of our early poets the critical acumen, the genial sense, the illimitable reading, the philological scholarship, which in combination would alone make the ideal editor, it is not presumptuous to expect some one of these qualifications singly, and we have the right to insist upon patience and accuracy, which are within the reach of every one, and without which all the others are wellnigh vain. Now to this virtue of accuracy Mr. Offor specifically lays claim in one of his remarkable sentences: “We are bound to admire,” he says, “the accuracy and beauty of this specimen of typography. Following in the path of my late friend William Pickering, our publisher rivals the Aldine and Elzevir presses, which have been so universally admired.” We should think that it was the product of those presses which had been admired, and that Mr. Smith presents a still worthier object of admiration when he contrives to follow a path and rival a press at the same time. But let that pass;--it is the claim to accuracy which we dispute; and we deliberately affirm, that, so far as we are able to judge by the volumes we have examined, no claim more unfounded was ever set up. In some cases, as we shall show presently, the blunders of the original work have been followed with painful accuracy in the reprint; but many others have been added by the carelessness of Mr. Smith’s printers or editors. In the thirteen pages of Mr. Offor’s own Introduction we have found as many as seven typographical errors,--unless some of them are to be excused on the ground that Mr. Offor’s studies have not yet led him into those arcana where we are taught such recondite mysteries of language as that verbs agree with their nominatives. In Mr. Farr’s Introduction to the “Hymns and Songs” nine short extracts from other poems of Wither are quoted, and in these we have found no less than seven misprints or false readings which materially affect the sense. Textual inaccuracy is a grave fault in the new edition of an old poet; and Mr. Farr is not only liable to this charge, but also to that of making blundering misstatements which are calculated to mislead the careless or uncritical reader. Infected by the absurd cant which has been prevalent for the last dozen years among literary sciolists, he says,--“The language used by Wither in all his various works--whether secular or sacred--is pure Saxon.” Taken literally, this assertion is manifestly ridiculous, and, allowing it every possible limitation, it is not only untrue of Wither, but of every English poet, from Chaucer down. The translators of our Bible made use of the German version, and a poet versifying the English Scriptures would therefore be likely to use more words of Teutonic origin than in his original compositions. But no English poet can write English poetry except in English,--that is, in that compound of Teutonic and Romanic which derives its heartiness and strength from the one and its canorous elegance from the other. The Saxon language does not sing, and, though its tough mortar serve to hold together the less compact Latin words, porous with vowels, it is to the Latin that our verse owes majesty, harmony, variety, and the capacity for rhyme. A quotation of six lines from Wither ends at the top of the very page on which Mr. Farr lays down his extraordinary _dictum_, and we will let this answer him, Italicizing the words of Romance derivation:--
“Her true _beauty_ leaves behind _Apprehensions_ in the mind, Of more sweetness than all _art_ Or _inventions_ can _impart_; Thoughts too deep to be _expressed_, And too strong to be _suppressed._”
Mr. Halliwell, at the close of his Preface to the Works of Marston, (Vol. I. p. xxii,) says, “The dramas now collected together are reprinted absolutely from the early editions, which were placed in the hands of our printers, who thus had the advantage of following them without the intervention of a transcriber. They are given as nearly as possible in their original state, the only modernizations attempted consisting in the alternations of the letters _i_ and _j_, and _u_ and _v_, the retention of which” (does Mr. Halliwell mean the letters or the “alternations”?) “would have answered no useful purpose, while it would have unnecessarily perplexed the modern reader.”
This is not very clear; but as Mr. Halliwell is a member of several learned foreign societies, and especially of the Royal _Irish_ Academy, perhaps it would be unfair to demand that he should write clear English. As one of Mr. Smith’s editors, it was to be expected that he should not write it idiomatically. Some malign constellation (Taurus, perhaps, whose infaust aspect may be supposed to preside over the makers of bulls and blunders) seems to have been in conjunction with heavy Saturn when the Library was projected. At the top of the same page from which we have made our quotation, Mr. Halliwell speaks of “conveying a favorable impression _on_ modern readers.” It was surely to no such phrase as this that Ensign Pistol alluded when he said, “_Convey_ the _wise_ it call.”
A literal reprint of an old author may be of value in two ways: the orthography may in certain cases indicate the ancient pronunciation, or it may put us on a scent which shall lead us to the burrow of a word among the roots of language. But in order to this, it surely is not needful to undertake the reproduction of all the original errors of the press; and even were it so, the proofs of carelessness in the editorial department are so glaring, that we are left in doubt, after all, if we may congratulate ourselves on possessing all these sacred blunders of the Elizabethan type-setters in their integrity, and without any debasement of modern alloy. If it be gratifying to know that there lived stupid men before our contemporary Agamemnons in that kind, yet we demand absolute accuracy in the report of the phenomena in order to arrive at anything like safe statistics. For instance, we find (Vol. I. p. 89) “ACTUS SECUNDUS, SCENA PRIMUS,” and (Vol. III. p. 174) “_exit ambo_,” and we are interested to know that in a London printing-house, two centuries and a half ago, there was a philanthropist who wished to simplify the study of the Latin language by reducing all the nouns to one gender and all the verbs to one number. Had his emancipated theories of grammar prevailed, how much easier would that part of boys which cherubs want have found the school-room benches! How would birchen bark, as an educational tonic, have fallen in repute! How white would have been the (now black-and-blue) memories of Dr. Busby and so many other educational _lictors_, who, with their bundles of rods, heralded not alone the consuls, but all other Roman antiquities to us! We dare not, however, indulge in the grateful vision, since there are circumstances which lead us to infer that Mr. Halliwell himself (member though he be of so many learned societies) has those vague notions of the speech of ancient Rome which are apt to prevail in regions which count not the _betula_ in their _Flora_. On page xv of his Preface, he makes Drummond say that Ben Jonson “was dilated” (_delated_,--Gifford gives it in English, _accused_) “to the king by Sir James Murray,”--Ben, whose corpulent person stood in so little need of that malicious increment!
What is Mr. Halliwell’s conception of editorial duty? As we read along, and the once fair complexion of the margin grew more and more pitted with pencil-marks, like that of a bad proof-sheet, we began to think that he was acting on the principle of every man his own washerwoman,--that he was making blunders of set purpose, (as teachers of languages do in their exercises,) in order that we might correct them for ourselves, and so fit us in time to be editors also, and members of various learned societies, even as Mr. Halliwell himself is. We fancied, that, magnanimously waving aside the laurel with which a grateful posterity crowned General Wade, he wished us “to see these roads _before_ they were made,” and develop our intellectual muscles in getting over them. But no; Mr. Halliwell has appended notes to his edition, and among them are some which correct misprints, and therefore seem to imply that he considers that service as belonging properly to the editorial function. We are obliged, then, to give up our theory that his intention was to make every reader an editor, and to suppose that he wished rather to show how disgracefully a book might be edited and yet receive the commendation of professional critics who read with the ends of their fingers. If this were his intention, Marston himself never published so biting a satire.
Let us look at a few of the intricate passages, to help us through which Mr. Halliwell lends us the light of his editorial lantern. In the Induction to “What you Will” occurs the striking and unusual phrase, “Now out up-pont,” and Mr. Halliwell favors us with the following note: “Page 221, line 10. _Up-pont._--That is, upon’t.” Again in the same play we find--
“Let twattling fame cheatd others rest, I um no dish for rumors feast.”
Of course, it should read,--
“Let twattling [twaddling] Fame cheate others’ rest, I am no dish for Rumor’s feast.”
Mr. Halliwell comes to our assistance thus: “Page 244, line 21, [22 it should be,] _I um_,--a printer’s error for _I am_.” _Dignus vindice nodus!_ Five lines above, we have “whole” for “who’ll,” and four lines below, “helmeth” for “whelmeth”; but Mr. Halliwell vouchsafes no note. In the “Fawn” we read, “Wise _neads_ use few words,” and the editor says in a note, “a misprint for _heads_”! Kind Mr. Halliwell!
Having given a few examples of our “Editor’s” corrections, we proceed to quote a passage or two which, it is to be presumed, he thought perfectly clear.
“A man can skarce put on a tuckt-up cap, A button’d frizado sute, skarce eate good meate, _Anchoves_, _caviare_, but hee’s satyred And term’d phantasticall. By the muddy spawne Of slymie neughtes, when troth, phantasticknesse That which the naturall sophysters tearme _Phantusia incomplexa_--is a function Even of the bright immortal part of man. It is the common passe, the sacred dore, Unto the prive chamber of the soule; That bar’d, nought passeth past the baser court Of outward scence by it th’inamorate Most lively thinkes he sees the absent beauties Of his lov’d mistres.” (Vol. I. p. 241.)
In this case, also, the true readings are clear enough:--
“And termed fantastical by the muddy spawn Of slimy newts”;
and
“ ... past the baser court Of outward sense”;--
but, if anything was to be explained, why are we here deserted by our _fida compagna_? Again, (Vol. II. pp. 55, 56,) we read, “This Granuffo is a right wise good lord, a man of excellent discourse, and never speakes his signes to me, and men of profound reach instruct aboundantly; hee begges suites with signes, gives thanks with signes,” etc. This Granuffo is qualified among the “Interlocutors” as “a silent lord,” and what fun there is in the character (which, it must be confessed, is rather of a lenten kind) consists in his genius for saying nothing. It is plain enough that the passage should read, “a man of excellent discourse, and never speaks; his signs to me and men of profound reach instruct abundantly,” etc.
In both the passages we have quoted, it is not difficult for the reader to set the text right. But if not difficult for the reader, it should certainly not have been so for the editor, who should have done what Broome was said to have done for Pope in his Homer,--“gone before and swept the way.” An edition of an English author ought to be intelligible to English readers, and, if the editor do not make it so, he wrongs the old poet, for two centuries lapt in lead, to whose works he undertakes to play the gentleman-usher. A play written in our own tongue should not be as tough to us as Æschylus to a ten years’ graduate, nor do we wish to be reduced to the level of a chimpanzee, and forced to gnaw our way through a thick shell of misprints and mispointings only to find (as is generally the case with Marston) a rancid kernel of meaning after all. But even Marston sometimes deviates into poetry, as a man who wrote in that age could hardly help doing, and one of the few instances of it is in a speech of _Erichtho_, in the first scene of the fourth act of “Sophonisba,” (Vol. I. p. 197,) which Mr. Halliwell presents to us in this shape:--
----“hardby the reverent (!) ruines Of a once glorious temple rear’d to Jove Whose very rubbish ... ... yet beares A deathlesse majesty, though now quite rac’d, [razed,] Hurl’d down by wrath and lust of impious kings, So that where holy Flamins [Flamens] wont to sing Sweet hymnes to Heaven, there the daw and crow, The ill-voyc’d raven, and still chattering pye, Send out ungratefull sounds and loathsome filth; Where statues and Joves acts were vively limbs,
* * * * *
Where tombs and beautious urnes of well dead men Stood in assured rest,” etc.
The last verse and a half are worthy of Chapman; but why did not Mr. Halliwell, who explains _up-pont_ and _I um_, change “Joves acts were vively limbs” to “Jove’s acts were lively limned,” which was unquestionably what Marston wrote?
In the “Scourge of Villanie,” (Vol. III. p. 252,) there is a passage which till lately had a modern application in America, though happily archaic in England, which Mr. Halliwell suffers to stand thus:--
“Once Albion lived in such a cruel age Than man did hold by servile vilenage: Poore brats were slaves of bondmen that were borne, And marted, sold: but that rude law is torne And disannuld, as too too inhumane.”
This should read--
“_Man_ man did hold in servile villanage; Poor brats were slaves (of bondmen that were born)”;
and perhaps some American poet will one day write in the past tense similar verses of the barbarity of his forefathers.
We will give one more scrap of Mr. Halliwell’s text:--
“Yfaith, why then, caprichious mirth, Skip, light moriscoes, in our frolick blond, Flagg’d veines, sweete, plump with fresh-infused joyes!”
which Marston, doubtless, wrote thus:--
“I’faith, why then, capricious Mirth, Skip light moriscoes in our frolic blood! Flagg’d veins, swell plump with fresh-infused joys!”
We have quoted only a few examples from among the scores that we had marked, and against such a style of “editing” we invoke the shade of Marston himself. In the Preface to the Second Edition of the “Fawn,” he says, “Reader, know I have perused this coppy, _to make some satisfaction for the first faulty impression; yet so urgent hath been my business that some errors have styll passed, which thy discretion may amend_.”
Literally, to be sure, Mr. Halliwell has availed himself of the permission of the poet, in leaving all emendation to the reader; but certainly he has been false to the spirit of it in his self-assumed office of editor. The notes to explain _up-pont_ and _I um_ give us a kind of standard of the highest intelligence which Mr. Halliwell dares to take for granted in the ordinary reader. Supposing this _nousometer_ of his to be a centigrade, in what hitherto unconceived depths of cold obstruction can he find his zero-point of entire idiocy? The expansive force of average wits cannot be reckoned upon, as we see, to drive them up as far as the temperate degree of misprints in one syllable, and those, too, in their native tongue. _A fortiori_, then, Mr. Halliwell is bound to lend us the aid of his great learning wherever his author has introduced foreign words and the old printers have made _pie_ of them. In a single case he has accepted his responsibility as dragoman, and the amount of his success is not such as to give us any poignant regret that he has everywhere else left us to our own devices. On p. 119, Vol. II., _Francischina_, a Dutchwoman, exclaims, “O, mine aderliver love.” Here is Mr. Halliwell’s note. “_Aderliver._--This is the speaker’s error for _alder-liever_, the best beloved by all.” Certainly not “the _speaker’s_ error,” for Marston was no such fool as intentionally to make a Dutchwoman blunder in her own language. But is it an error for _alderliever_? No, but for _alderliefster_. Mr. Halliwell might have found it in many an old Dutch song. For example, No. 96 of Hoffmann von Fallersleben’s “Niederländische Volkslieder” begins thus:--
“Mijn hert altijt heeft verlanghen Naer u, die _alderliefste_ mijn.”
But does the word mean “best beloved by all”? No such thing, of course; but “best beloved of all,”--that is, by the speaker.