The cutting antithesis of "What beast" in retort to her husband's assertion, "I dare do all that may become a man," was tamely rendered by the lady, in obedience to Mr. Collier's folio, "What boast was it, then,"a change that any one possessed of poetical or dramatic perception would have submitted to upon nothing short of the positive demonstration of the author's having so written the passage.
Opinions were, indeed, divided as to the intrinsic merit of the emendations or alterations. Some of the new readings were undoubted improvements, some were unimportant, and others again were beyond all controversy inferior to the established text of the passages; and it seemed not a little difficult to reconcile the critical acumen and poetical insight of many of the corrections with the feebleness and prosaic triviality of others.
Again, it was observed by those conversant with the earlier editions, especially with the little read or valued Oxford edition, that a vast number of the passages given as emendations in Mr. Collier's folio were precisely the same in Hanmer's text. Indeed, it seems not a little remarkable that neither Mr. Collier nor his opponents have thought it worth their while to state that nearly half, and that undoubtedly the better half, of the so-called new readings are to be found in the finely printed, but little esteemed, text of the Oxford Shakspeare. If, indeed, these corrections now come to us with the authority of a critic but little removed from Shakspeare's own time, it is remarkable that Sir Thomas Hanmer's, or rather Mr. Theobald's, ingenuity should have forestalled the fiat