Steevens was of opinion that authors in the time of
Shakspeare never read their own proof-sheets; and Mr. Spedding, in his
recent edition of Bacon, comes independently to the same conclusion.[B]
We may be very sure that Heminge and Condell did not, as vicars, take
upon themselves a disagreeable task which the author would have been too
careless to assume.
[Footnote B: Vol. III. p. 348, _note_. He grounds his belief, not on the
misprinting of words, but on the misplacing of whole paragraphs. We were
struck with the same thing in the original edition of Chapman's _Biron's
Conspiracy and Tragedy_. One of the misprints which Mr. Spedding notices
affords both a hint and a warning to the conjectural emendator. In the
edition of _The Advancement of Learning_ printed in 1605 occurs the
word _dusinesse_. In a later edition this was conjecturally changed to
_business_; but the occurrence of _vertigine_ in the Latin translation
enables Mr. Spedding to print rightly, _dizziness_.]
Nevertheless, however strong a case may be made out against the Folio of
1623, whatever sins of omission we may lay to the charge of Heminge and
Condell, or of commission to that of the printers, it remains the only
text we have with any claims whatever to authenticity. It should be
deferred to as authority in all cases where it does not make Shakspeare
write bad sense, uncouth metre, or false grammar, of all which we
believe him to have been more supremely incapable than any other man who
ever wrote English.
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