Had the phrase
occurred in Shakspeare, we should have had somebody defending it as
tenderly poetical. We cannot but think it a sacrifice in Mr. White that
he has given up the _whatsomeres_ of the Folio. He does retain _puisny_
as the old form, but why not spell it _puisne_ and so indicate its
meaning? Mr. White informs us that "the grammatical form in use in
Shakspeare's day" was to have the verb govern a nominative case!
Accordingly, he perpetuates the following oversight of the poet or
blunder of the printer:--
[Footnote H: _Suppression of the Monasteries_, p. 13.]
"What he is, indeed,
More suits you to conceive, than _I_ to speak of."
Again, he says that _who_, as an objective case, "is in accordance with
the grammatical usage of Shakspeare's day," (Vol. II. p. 86,) and that,
"considering the unsettled state of minor grammatical relations in
Shakspeare's time," it is possible that he wrote _whom_ as a nominative
(Vol. V. p. 393). But the most extraordinary instance is where he makes
a nominative plural agree with a verb in the second person singular,
(Vol. III. p. 121,) and justifies it by saying that "such disagreements
... are not uncommon in Shakspeare's writings, and those of his
contemporaries." The passage reads as follows in Mr. White's edition:--
"A breath thou art,
Servile to all the skiey influences
That dost this habitation where thou keep'st
Hourly afflict."
Hanmer (mistaking the meaning) read _do_.
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