We have spoken of Mr. White’s remarkable qualifications.  We shall now state shortly what seem to us his faults.  We think his very acumen sometimes misleads him into fancying a meaning where none exists, or at least none answerable to the clarity and precision of Shakspeare’s intellect; that he is too hasty in his conclusions as to the pronunciation of words and the accuracy of rhymes in Shakspeare’s day, and that he has been seduced into them by what we cannot help thinking a mistaken theory as to certain words, as moth and nothing, for example; that he shows, here and there, a glimpse of Americanism, especially misplaced in an edition of the poet whose works do more than anything else, perhaps, to maintain the sympathy of the English race; and that his prejudice against the famous corrected folio of 1632 leads him to speak slightingly of Mr. Colier, to whom all lovers of our early literature are indebted, and who alone, in the controversy excited in England by the publication of his anonymous corrector’s emendations, showed, under the most shameful provocation, the temper of a gentleman and the self-respect of a scholar.  But after all these deductions, we remain of the opinion that Mr. White has given us the best edition hitherto published, and we do not like him the less for an occasional crotchet.  For though Shakspeare himself seemed to think with regret that the dirge of the hobby-horse had been sung, yet, as we ourselves have given evidence, it is impossible for any one to write on this subject without taking an occasional airing on one or more of those imaginary steeds that stand at livery with no risk of eating off their own heads.  We shall take up the subject again in our next number, and by extracts justify both our commendation and our criticisms of Mr. White.

[Footnote 1:  The Works of William Shakspeare.  Edited, etc., by RICHARD GRANT WHITE.  Vols.  II., III., IV, and V. Boston:  Little, Brown, & Co. 1858.]

[Footnote 2:  As where Ben Jonson is able to say,—­“Men may securely sin, but safely never.”]

[Footnote 3:  “Vulgarem locutionem appellamus eam qua infantes adsuefiunt ab adsistentibus cum primitus distinguere voces incipiunt:  vel, quod brevius dici potest, vulgarem locutionem asserimus quam sine omni regula, nutricem imitantes, accepimus.”  Dante, de Vulg.  Eloquio, Lib.  I. cap. i.]

[Footnote 4:  Gray, himself a painful corrector, told Nicholls that “nothing was done so well as at the first concoction,”—­adding, as a reason, “We think in words.”  Ben Jonson said, it was a pity Shakspeare had not blotted more, for that he sometimes wrote nonsense,—­and cited in proof of it the verse

  “Caesar did never wrong but with just cause.”

The last four words do not appear in the passage as it now stands, and Professor Craik suggests that they were stricken out in consequence of Jonson’s criticism.  This is very probable; but we suspect that the pen that blotted them was in the hand of Master Heminge or his colleague.  The moral confusion in the idea was surely admirably characteristic of the general who had just accomplished a successful coup d’etat, the condemnation of which he would fancy that he read in the face of every honest man he met, and which he would therefore be forever indirectly palliating.]