The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2

Excerpt......... Dear Sir,—A year or two ago, I received as a present from a distinguished and literary family in Boston (United States), a small pamphlet (twin sister of that published by Mr Payne Collier) on the text of Shakspere. Somewhere in t ... Read more

Excerpt......... Dear Sir,—A year or two ago, I received as a present from a distinguished and literary family in Boston (United States), a small pamphlet (twin sister of that published by Mr Payne Collier) on the text of Shakspere. Somewhere in the United States, as here in England, some unknown critic, at some unknown time, had, from some unknown source, collected and recorded on the margin of one amongst the Folio reprints of Shakspere by Heminge & Condell, such new readings as either his own sagacity had summarily prompted, or calm reflection had recommended, or possibly local tradition in some instances, and histrionic tradition in others, might have preserved amongst the habitués of a particular theatre. In Mr P. Collier's case, if I recollect rightly, it was the First Folio (i. e., by much the best); in this American case, I think it is the Third Folio (about the worst) which had received the corrections. But, however this may be, there are two literary collaborateurs concerned in each of these parallel cases—namely, first, the original collector (possibly author) of the various readings, who lived and died probably within the seventeenth century; and, secondly, the modern editor, who stations himself as a repeating frigate that he may report and pass onwards these marginal variations to us of the nineteenth century. Less