Properties
- end_line
- 9473
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T06:24:48.293Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 9408
- text
- IV
State of the text.
The corrupt state of the text of Thorpe’s edition of 1609 fully confirms the conclusion that the enterprise lacked authority, and was pursued throughout in that reckless spirit which infected publishing speculations of the day. The character of the numerous misreadings leaves little doubt that Thorpe had no means of access to the author’s MS. The procurer of the ‘copy’ had obviously brought together ‘dispersed transcripts’ of varying accuracy. Many had accumulated incoherences in their progress from pen to pen.² The ‘copy’ was constructed out of the papers circulating in private, and often gave only a hazy indication of the poet’s
¹ What was the name of which W. H. were the initials cannot be stated positively. I have given reasons for believing them to belong to one William Hall, a freeman of the Stationers’ Company, who seems to have dealt in unpublished poems or ‘dispersed transcripts’ in the early years of the seventeenth century and to have procured their publication; cf. *Life of Shakespeare*, p. 418 seq.
² Like Sidney’s sonnets, which long circulated in ‘private’ MSS., Shakespeare’s collection ‘being spread abroad in written copies, had gathered much corruption by ill writers (i.e. scriveners)’. Cf. the publisher Thomas Newman’s dedicatory epistle before the first (unauthorized) edition of Sidney’s *Astrothel and Stella* (1591). Thorpe’s bookselling friend, Edward Blount, when he gathered together, without the author’s aid, the scattered essays by John Earle, which Blount published in 1628 under the title of *Micro-cosmographie*, described them as ‘many sundry dispersed transcripts, some very imperfect and surreptitious’.
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# SONNETS OF SHAKESPEARE
meaning. The compiler had arranged the poems roughly in order of subject. The printer followed the manuscript with ignorant fidelity. Signs of inefficient correction of the press abound, and suggest haste in composition and press-work. The book is a comparatively short one, consisting of forty leaves and 2,156 lines of verse. Yet there are probably on an average five defects per page or one in every ten lines.
Of the following thirty-eight misprints, at least thirty misprints, play havoc with the sense:—
XII. 4. And sable curls *or* siluer’d ore with white: (for *all*).
XXIII. 14. To heare *wit* eies belongs to loues fine *wibt*: (for *with* and *wit*).
XXVI. 11. And puts apparrell on my *tottered* louing: (for *tattered*).
XXVIII. 14. And night doth nightly make greefees *length* seeme stronger: (for *strength*).
XXXIX. 12. Which time and thoughts so sweetly *dost* deceiue: (for *doth*).
XL. 7. But yet be blam’d, if thou *this* selfe deceauest: (for *thy*).
XLIV. 13. Receiving naughts by elements so sloe.
XLVII. 11. For thou *nor* farther then my thoughts canst moue: (for *not* or *no*).
LI. 10. Therefore desire (of perfects love being made).
LIV. 14. When that shall vade, *by* verse distils your truth: (for *my*).
LVI. 13. *As* cal it Winter, which being ful of care: (for *or*).
LXIII. 2. With times iniurious hand *chrusht* and ore-worne: (for *crush’d*).
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# SONNETS OF SHAKESPEARE
Misprints.
LXV. 12. Or who his spoile *or* beautie can forbid (for *of*).
LXIX. 3. All toungs (the voice of soules) giue thee that *end*: (for *due*).
LXXIII. 4. Bare *rn’wd* quiers, where late the sweet birds sang: (for *ruin’d*).
LXXVI. 7. That euery word doth almost *fel* my name: (for *tell*).
LXXVII. 10. Commit to these waste *blacks*, and thou shalt finde: (for *blanks*).
LXXXVIII. 1. When thou shalt be *dispode* to set me light: (for *disposed*).
XC. 11. But in the onset come, so *stall* I taste: (for *shall*).
XCI. 9. Thy loue is bitter then high birth to me: (for *better*).
XCIV. 4. Vnmooued, *could*, and to temptation slow: (for *cold*).
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