Spedding, in
the edition of Bacon already referred to, furnishes us with an example
of blunder[E] precisely the reverse, in which one word of eight letters
is given for two of ten, (_sciences_ for _six princess_,)--the printer
in both cases having set up his first impression of what the word was
for the word itself. Had this occurred in Shakspeare, instead of Bacon,
we should have had a series of _variorum_ notes like this:--
[Footnote E: Bacon's Works, by Ellis, Spedding, & Heath. Vol. III. p.
303, _note_.]
"That _sixpence_ was the word used by our author scarcely admits of
doubt. From a number of parallel passages we select the following:--
'Live on _sixpence_ a day, and earn it.'--_Abernethy_.
'I give thee sixpence? I will see thee and-so-forthed
first!'--_Canning_.
'Be shot for _sixpence_ on a battlefield.'--_Tennyson_.
'Half a crown, two shillings and _sixpence_.'--_Niemand's Dictionary_.
Moreover, we find our author using precisely the same word in the
'Midsummer Night's Dream':--
'Thus hath he lost sixpence a day during his life.'" JONES.
"Had the passage read '_two_ princes,' we might have thought it genuine;
since 'the two kings of Brentford' must have been familiar to our great
poet, and he was also likely to have that number deeply impressed on
his mind by the awful tragedy in the tower, (see _Richard the Third_,)
where, it is remarkable, precisely that number of royal offspring
suffered at the hands of the crook-backed tyrant.
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