to go to press, there are many corrections and emendations, which we have referred to as ' Capell мs.' This volume appears afterwards to have passed through Farmer's hands, as there is a note in his handwriting at the end of the Advertisement.' Possibly, therefore, it may have been seen by Malone, and as many of the alterations proposed by Capell were adopted by Malone or subsequent editors, we have indicated this coincidence by quoting them as 'Malone (Capell Ms.)' or the like."

This note struck me as likely to suggest to some readers that Malone might have profited by Capell's Ms. notes without saying so. I, therefore, called Mr. Aldis Wright's attention to it, and he assured me that nothing could be farther from his intention than to convey any such impression. He said that on further consideration he did not think that Farmer had ever owned Capell's copy, but rather that he had written the note after the volume had come into the possession of the College; he added that there was no evidence that Malone ever saw the book in question.

I asked Mr. Wright if I was at liberty to say this, and he said he should be very glad if I would do so. In passing I may say that Farmer's note is of no importance; as for Capell's emendations, they are almost always sensible, but there are few, if any, which would not readily suggest themselves to any intelligent reader who was editing the Sonnets, and trying to correct Q's very numerous errors.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) in 1771 published his edition of the Plays in twelve volumes, the thirteenth volume consisting of what professes to be Shakespeare's Poems, but is in reality only a reprint of Benson's medley, with the spelling modernized. "No better proof of Johnson's indolence, and, one is tempted to add, of

his unfitness to edit Shakespeare at all, can be found than the fact that five years after Steevens had reprinted the text of Q with great fidelity, Johnson should be still content to pass off Benson's medley as Shakespeare's Poems.1

In 1774 J. Bell and C. Etherington published an edition of the Plays in eight volumes, with a supplementary volume containing the Poems. They again content themselves with reprinting Benson's medley. The anonymous writer of the preface to the Poems

says:

"If Shakespeare's merit as a poet, a philosopher, or a man, was to be estimated from his Poems, though they possess many instances of powerful genius, he would, in every point of view, sink beneath himself in these characters. Many of his subjects are trifling, his versification mostly laboured and quibbling, with too great a degree of licentiousness."

1 From a letter headed "Samuel Johnson and Samuel Butler " and signed Gordon Crosse, which was published in the Times Literary Supplement, 13th May 1920, it appears that Johnson never attempted to edit Shakespeare's Sonnets, or, indeed, any of the Poems. Johnson confined himself to the Plays; his edition of these appeared in 1765 and was several times re-issued. The edition of Shakespeare dated 1771 to which Butler refers is based, so far as the Plays are concerned, on Johnson; but the publisher (Ewing of Dublin) reprinted the Poems in the form in which they were then commonly current.-A.T.B.

E

DMOND MALONE (1741-1812) PUBLISHED in 1780 the Poems of Shakespeare as a supplementary volume to Johnson and Steevens' 1778

edition of the Plays, and with this book, which appeared 171 years after the original Quarto, we have the first serious attempt at textual emendation and intelligent critical notes. Steevens was quite correct in saying, as already quoted, that Malone was the only intelligent editor of the Poems of Shakespeare; indeed so far as the Sonnets are concerned he might have gone further and said that he was their only editor-for a mere reprint such as those of Lintott and Steevens can hardly claim to be called an edition.

But waiving this, Malone was the first writer to publish an edition of the Sonnets which shows the instincts of a scholar and a gentleman. Granted that he was a shade too conservative, as for example in sonnet 85 (65 Q), line 10, where he rejects the emendation quest" for "chest," though he tells us that it had occurred to him, and that Theobald had also proposed it. Or again in sonnet 23, line 9, where he retains "O, let my books be then the eloquence," when "looks" is obviously right. Malone tells us that this emendation had been suggested to him by a correspondent whose suggestions he has marked with the letter C, and who, as I have said, is generally believed to have been Capell.

He also rejects the emendation" grief's strength " for grief's length," line 14 of sonnet 28, which he again says had been suggested to him by an anonymous correspondent, whose favours are distinguished by the letter C." Sometimes he makes an emendation that does not carry conviction, but though I remember to have rejected one or two, I cannot lay my hand on an example; on the whole, however, I find his text preferable to that of the Cambridge editors, who reject many

of his emendations, which one would say commend themselves to common sense. Those, however, which they have adopted are enough to establish him as having done more for the text of the Sonnets than anyone (except perhaps Capell, who, however, did not publish) had done before, or than can ever be done again.

He is not always accurate. First class men will sometimes blunder worse than any sloven; it is for the most part only third rate men whose accuracy never fails them. In his original edition of the Poems he wrote:

"Mr. Tyrwhitt has pointed out to me a line in the twentieth Sonnet which inclines me to think that the initials W. H. [in the dedication'] stand for William Hughes. Speaking of this person the poet says

'A man in hew all Hews in his controlling-'

So the line is exhibited in the old copy. [The name Hughes was formerly written Hews.] When it is considered that one of these Sonnets is formed entirely on a play on our author's Christian name, this conjecture does not seem improbable. To this person, whoever he was, one hundred and twenty of the following poems are addressed. The remaining twentyeight are to a lady."

In this short paragraph, in a preface, too, when people are generally most careful, there are three considerable mistakes, and one considerable omission. There is another matter, also on the same page, to which exception may be justly taken. Malone gives Thorpe's dedicatory preface, but he does not adhere to the punctuation of the original.

In the first place, "the old copy " does not exhibit

1, 2 The words enclosed in brackets do not appear in the 1780 edition, but are found in that of 1794.

3 Corrected to a hundred and twenty-six" in 1794.

the line quoted by Malone, in the form he gives. Q does not print the word "hew" in italics. It is the Hews which is alone italicized, and the correct form of the Quarto version lends more support to Mr. Tyrwhitt's suggestion than the incorrect form in which Malone has given it. The error here noted is repeated in the 1794 edition, and in Boswell's edition of 1821.

Secondly, Malone meant to say not that 120, but that 126, of the sonnets were addressed to Mr. W. H. 120 and 28 make 148, whereas the Sonnets are 154 in number. This error is corrected in the 1794 edition and in Boswell's edition of 1821; I should perhaps say that the Boswell here named is not Johnson's biographer, but his son.

Thirdly, even a cursory examination of the last 28 sonnets should have convinced Malone that some of them were not written to a woman, and that of the others, several, though written to a woman, were not intended to be taken by that woman as coming from Shakespeare.

The omission above referred to consists in the failure to observe what Mr. Wyndham has more than once urged. I mean that many of the last 28 sonnets belong to the series 40-42, and are therefore misplaced in Q.1

As regards Malone's assertion that the last 28 of the sonnets were written to a woman, 129 Q cannot be so held; 145 Q is not addressed to a woman, though it has a woman for its subject; 153, 154 Q are mere paraphrases, addressed to nobody; 146 Q is an occasional introspective meditation, priceless, as revealing Shakespeare's truest and most unclouded mind more certainly and directly than anything else he has left us. It contains nothing to suggest its having been written to or for a woman.

Wyndham's Poems of Shakespeare, pp. cx, cxi, and 325.