meant was "I can scarcely bear him;" "It is all I can do to tolerate him ;" or, to use an old verb, "I can scarcely abide him." Thus "Cæsar doth bear me hard," Cæsar barely endures me, bitterly dislikes me.

=

=

Hard then hardly, as the quotation from Richard III. shows. So "to run hard," &c. With this form of the adverb compare such phrases as "speak me fair in death,” &c.

Dr. Johnson explains bear in the phrase before us as = "press," and alongside of it quotes from Addison: "These men bear hard upon the suspected party." But bear upon and bear cannot be bracketed in this way. Bear upon is quite a different phrase like xaλɛπws pépɛiv with ɛì and a dative, and is still of extremely common occurrence. Nearer the Shakespearian phrase in sense is "bear with," where perhaps bear is used absolutely, be bearing or tolerant, i.e., patient in dealing with.

The phrase in Julius Cæsar, I. ii. 35

"You bear too stubborn and too strange a hand
Over your friend who loves you."

may perhaps be illustrated by Lear, III. i. 27 :

"The hard rein which both of them have borne
Against the kind old king."

In the Academy for Dec. 29, 1883, Mr. A. H. Bullen quotes from Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady, iv.

2

"If he start well,

Fear not, but cry 'St. George,' and bear him hard.
When you perceive his wind grows hot and wanting,

Let him a little down; he's fleet, ne'er doubt him.”

Here clearly bear him hard is an equestrian phrase, to be

illustrated, perhaps, by the last quotations made above, or to be explained by taking bear in the sense of "to hold up." In the Academy for Jan. 26, 1884, Mr. W. T. Lendrum aptly quotes an old rime :

"Up the hill spare me ;
Down the hill bear me;
On the level spare me not."

(Another version of the last line is, I think :

:

"On the level never fear me.")

Of course it is possible the phrase that is the subject of this paper may be identical with this equestrian phrase. But this is far from certain. Undoubtedly there are two phrases to bear hard: (i.) the Latinistic phrase which appears beyond question in the quotation given above from 1 Henry IV., I. iii. 70, and (ii.) the equestrian phrase which appears beyond question in the quotation just repeated from The Scornful Lady.

T

XXI.

A NEW VARIORUM EDITION OF

SHAKESPEARE.'

(From the Athenæum for Oct. 20, 1877.)

‘O his editions of Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth, Mr. Furness has now added one of Hamlet, in every way sustaining the high character which the preceding volumes of his series have won. The amount of work which these volumes represent almost defies calculation. Whole wildernesses have been traversed, dense forests penetrated, wide bogs and swamps struggled across. For Hamletian literature is now of quite portentous dimensions. Scribimus indocti doctique. Everybody believes he has something to say on the subject, and he must needs print it. He cannot be content to explain his views to his family, or disclose them to a few privileged friends. Criticism, like murder, will out; and so library shelves grow crowded with "essays," and 66 studies," ," and "lectures"; and chaos seems come again. What do we not owe to one who adventures to grapple with all this infinite host of commentators, who indefatigably encounters each of them, and takes something of him, if anything is found worth taking, and, finally, arranges his spoils for our use in two excellently printed and manageable octavos? It is not easy to overstate our debt, if such a service is executed vigorously and intelligently; and cer

1 A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare. Edited by Horace Howard Furness. Vol. III.-Hamlet. 2 vols. (Lippincott and Co.)

tainly Mr. Furness's labours may be so described. His researches have extended far and wide, from elaborate volumes to Notes and Queries. Germany and France, no less than America and England, are well represented in his pages. In a word, he has produced a work that may fairly be termed encyclopædic.

The first volume contains the text, with various readings, and an abundant selection of notes. The second, which is called "Appendix," consists of some thirty-six pages discussing "the date and the text "; of copies of the 1603 4to., The Hystorie of Hamblet, Fratricide Punished (a translation of the old German play), and 250 pages of selected criticisms.

That there are no faults both of omission and commission we will not undertake to say, or rather we will say it is impossible there should not be such faults. Such a compilation cannot be exhaustive; and, on the other hand, one may now and then wonder whether certain notes quite deserve the room they occupy. Such a suggestion, for example, as Keightley's with regard to "upspring," in a well-known line that has given rise to much controversy—“it is used,” he says, "collectively for the risers from the table, a mode of expression not yet obsolete" (as if one should say "the rise" for the risers, or "the jump" for the jumpers)—is of so little value that we rather grudge it its place. But, on the whole, Mr. Furness has done his part with singular discretion as well as with comprehensive knowledge.

We congratulate Mr. Furness on having proceeded so far with his great undertaking, and wish him all success in his further progress. Our generation sorely needs its Variorum. The value of the old one is still considerable. Though it has in it much rubbish, it has, at the same time, much that is extremely useful and suggestive. But it is out

of date. Though we would carefully eschew the vulgar error of underrating the services of the old annotators, yet we may fairly assert that many valuable lights have been thrown on the pages of Shakespeare since their time; and the fresh decipherings need a judicious collection. In another century Mr. Furness's work, too, may be superseded-superseded as the standard Variorum of the time; as an excellent compendium of Shakespearian knowledge and interpretation as they are in the Victorian age, it is never likely to be superseded.

But that it may soon require additions no one can know better than its editor; for, in the course of his work, he has been forced specially to observe how rapid nowadays is the growth of Shakespearian literature. Every week brings its contributions of more or less value; and it is certain that a more thorough familiarity with other Elizabethan literature will yield yet new aids to the understanding of passages that at present have a wrong interpretation given them, or, when editors speak frankly, no interpretation at all.

The fact is, the subject is simply inexhaustible. The study of Shakespeare is as the study of Nature herself, whose favourite son he was. And the best of Shakespearestudents, if we ask him, as Charmian asked the soothsayer, "Is't you, sir, that know things?" will reply, the more humbly and sincerely the better he is,

"In Nature's infinite book of secrecy

A little I can read."

"A little I can read "-that is all that the truly competent scholar will dare to say.

Even with regard to such a trite subject as Hamlet's madness, forty pages are devoted to it by Mr. Furness, there is yet much more to be suggested and considered. It has