In “Antonio and Mellida” (Vol.  I. pp. 50-51) occur some Italian verses, and here we hoped to fare better; for Mr. Halliwell (as we learn from the title-page of his Dictionary) is a member of the “Reale Academia di Firenze.”  This is the Accademia della Crusca, founded for the conservation of the Italian language in its purity, and it is rather a fatal symptom that Mr. Halliwell should indulge in the heresy of spelling Accademia with only one c.  But let us see what our Della Cruscan’s notions of conserving are.  Here is a specimen:—­

  “Bassiammi, coglier l’aura odorata
  Che in sua neggia in quello dolce labra. 
  Dammi pimpero del tuo gradit’ amore.”

It is clear enough that the first and third verses ought to read,

  “Lasciami coglier,—­Dammi l’impero,”

though we confess that we could make nothing of in sua neggia till an Italian friend suggested ha sua seggia.  But a Della Cruscan academician might at least have corrected by his dictionary the spelling of labra.

We think that we have sustained our indictment of Mr. Halliwell’s text with ample proof.  The title of the book should have been, “The Works of John Marston, containing all the Misprints of the Original Copies, together with a few added for the First Time in this Edition, the whole carefully let alone by James Orchard Halliwell, F.R.S., F.S.A.”  It occurs to us that Mr. Halliwell may be also a Fellow of the Geological Society, and may have caught from its members the enthusiasm which leads him to attach so extraordinary a value to every goose-track of the Elizabethan formation.  It is bad enough to be, as Marston was, one of those middling poets whom neither gods nor men nor columns (Horace had never seen a newspaper) tolerate; but, really, even they do not deserve the frightful retribution of being reprinted by a Halliwell.

We have said that we could not feel even the dubious satisfaction of knowing that the blunders of the old copies had been faithfully followed in the reprinting.  We see reason for doubting whether Mr. Halliwell ever read the proof-sheets.  In his own notes we have found several mistakes.  For instance, he refers to p. 159 when he means p. 153; he cites “I, but her life,” instead of “lip”; and he makes Spenser speak of “old Pithonus.”  Marston is not an author of enough importance to make it desirable that we should be put in possession of all the corrupted readings of his text, were such a thing possible even with the most minute painstaking, and Mr. Halliwell’s edition loses its only claim to value the moment a doubt is cast upon the accuracy of its inaccuracies.  It is a matter of special import to us (whose means of access to originals are exceedingly limited) that the English editors of our old authors should be faithful and trustworthy, and we have singled out Mr. Halliwell’s Marston for particular animadversion only because we think it on the whole the worst edition we ever saw of any author.