¹ On the other hand it is but fair to note that he observed that “every comma should be held sacred” if there were “any evidence that Shakespeare had ever corrected the proof-sheets” or that the plays were “printed from his manuscript.” (Romeo & Juliet, Preface, p. xi.) And he made at least one remark which represents an exceedingly mild form of the doctrine of Mr. Pollard and Mr. Dover Wilson: “A full stop in the middle of a line is so unusual in F1 that it deserves more attention than the punctuation in that edition generally merits. Frequently it indicates a change of address.” (As You Like It, p. 204).

² Fugitive discussion of the theories here to be considered will be found in letters written by Mr. William Pool, Mr. Bernard Shaw, Mr. A. W. Pollard, and Mr. Dover Wilson to the editor of the London Times Literary Supplement in February, March, and April 1921; see pages 91, 107, 127, 178, 196, 211, 228, 244, 259. Also in two or three letters concerning Sir Sidney Lee's criticism of the theories in question, in his revision of his Life of Shakespeare; see the Literary Supplement of 1922, pp. 459, 476.

³ Compare Dr. Furness's observation to the effect that The Winter's Tale was printed with unusual care, as evidenced by eight instances of the apostrophe to indicate the absorption of one consonant in another: e.g., “le 't not bs doubted.” (New Variorum ed., pp. vi, 71.)

⁴ Since this paper was begun, I have noted in students' manuscripts these examples: “To him, he was indebted for practically all his material;” “Contrast, there certainly is.”

⁵ The practice, however, remained common well into the nineteenth century. Compare the following, from the collected essays of Francis Jeffrey (1844) : “It is scarcely possible to regret the subversion of a form of government, that admitted, if but once in a century, of abuses so enormous as this: But the tone in which M. Grimm notices it, as a mere foiblesse on the part of le Grand Maurice, gives us reason to think that it was by no means without a parallel in the contemporary history” (I. 358).

⁶ In like manner I cannot agree with the observation of Dr. Furness, cited in the first note to this paper, respecting the rarity of a full stop in the middle of a line in the Folio. Strong stops of any kind are pretty few, of course, in the middle of lines in Shakespeare's plays of the earlier periods. Turning to some of the late plays in which they become fairly frequent, I note in a single column of the Folio text of Timon (p. 90b) 11 instances of full stops inside the line, excluding interrogation points, and not counting the ends of speeches; in one column of Antony & Cleopatra (354a) 7 instances; in one of Coriolanus (22b) 11 instances; in one of Cymbeline (373b) 12 instances; in one of The Winter's Tale (279a), 9 instances. On the other hand it is interesting to find in the text of The Tempest a marked tendency to use the colon where a period would be expected, precisely as Furness and Pollard allege of the Folio as a whole. That this was a mere mannerism of some copyist or compositor, and not a matter of careful intent, would seem to be indicated by the appearance of the practice where the result is certainly unfortunate; in other words, where a period is demanded by the principles of Pollard as well as of modern printing. Such a case is the appearance of a colon after “sleepe” in Prospero's great speech in Act IV:

⁷ It may also be noted that we are left in doubt whether an emphatic word is to be indicated by a special stop before or after it. In the lines just cited Simpson is of the opinion that the pause is intended to throw special stress upon the following words, whereas in the quotations from the Sonnet, just above, it was intended to stress the word standing before it.

⁸ I need hardly observe that this is confirmed by Mr. Dover Wilson's note on the “Emphasis capitals” of the Folio, quoted above. The great number of such capitals, he recognizes, are non-Shakespearean, but “here and there we can catch a Shakespearian emphasis.” It is surely to be hoped that here and there we can, but, under such doubtful circumstances, what the capitals have to do with it might well be asked.

⁹ There are some interesting remarks bearing on this matter in the correspondence of Mr. Bernard Shaw and others in the Times Supplement; see Note 2 above.

¹⁰ Pollard further supports his view of Shakespeare's preference for a rapid, light-stopped style, by citing Hamlet's address to the players, where he asks them to speak the speech “trippingly on the tongue.” This is certainly an interesting conjecture, though one on which it is difficult to speak with assurance. I suppose that most readers understand Hamlet to be referring primarily to an agile distinctness of enunciation, an easy and flexible naturalness of utterance, such as is characteristic of the cultivated as distinguished from the uncultivated speaker, of the sensitive-minded gentleman in contrast with the town crier, popular orator, or vulgar actor, who “mouths” his lines with solemn clumsiness. It is therefore very doubtful whether it involves punctuation. But on this point one student's conjecture may be as good as another's; and I am not at all concerned to disprove the view that Shakespeare's actors spoke his lines far more rapidly than their modern successors,—a point whereon the wish may well be father to the thought.

¹¹ Typical cases ere the change of “I should thinke of shalLöwes and of flatts,” to “I should thinke of shallows, and of flats,” and the change to a colon of the comma after “lost” in the following from the quarto: