in
1774. This system is one which a man of Mr. Collier's years would be
likely to use, and the purport of the memorandum is obvious. Would Mr.
Collier have us believe that this also was introduced in the British
Museum?

We have chosen the word "begging" for fac-simile not merely because of
the marked character of its chirography. It has other significance. Mr.
Collier asks, "What is gained by it?" and says, that, as there is no
corresponding change in the text, "'begging' must have been written in
the margin ... merely as an explanation, and a bad explanation, too, if
it refer to 'pregnant' in the poet's text."[oo] It is, of course, no
explanation; but it seems plainly that it is the memorandum for a
proposed, but abandoned, substitution. Who that is familiar with the
corrections in Mr. Collier's folio does not recognize this as one of
those which have been so felicitously described by an American critic as
taking "the fire out of the poetry, the fine tissue out of the thought,
and the ancient flavor and aroma out of the language"?[pp] The corrector
in this case plainly thought of reading,

"And crook the begging hinges of the knee";

but, doubtful as to this at first, (for we regard the
interrogation-point as a query to himself, and not as indicating the
insertion of that point after "Dost thou hear,") he finally came to the
conclusion, that, although he, and many a respectable poet, might have
written "begging" in this passage, Shakespeare was just the man to write
"pregnant,"--an instance of critical sagacity of which he has left us
few examples. Now it is remarkable that the majority of the changes
proposed by Mr. Collier in the notes to this edition of Shakespeare
(8 vols., 8vo., 1842-3) evince a capacity for the apprehension of
figurative language and for conjectural emendation of the very calibre
indicated by this proposed change of "pregnant hinges" to "_begging_
hinges." He has throughout his literary career, which began, we believe,
with the publication of the "Poetical Decameron," in 1820, shown
rather the faithfulness, the patience, and the judgment of a literary
antiquary, than the insight, the powers of comparison, the sensibility,
and the constructive ingenuity of a literary critic. And one of the
great improbabilities against his authorship of all the corrections in
his folio is, that it is not according to Nature that so late in life he
should develop the constructive ability necessary for the pro