sidered the style and matter of Mr. White's
notes excellent. Indeed, to the purely illustrative notes we should
hardly make an exception. There are two or three which we think in
questionable taste, and one where the temptation to say a sharp
thing has led the editor to vulgarize the admirable Benedick, and to
misinterpret the text in a way so unusual for him that it is worth a
comment. When Benedick's friends are discussing the symptoms which show
him to be in love, Claudio asks,

"When was he wont to wash his face?"

Mr. White annotates thus:--

"That the benign effect of the tender passion upon _Benedick_ in this
regard should be so particularly noticed, requires, perhaps, the remark,
that in Shakspeare's time our race had not abandoned itself to that
reckless use of water, whether for ablution or potation, which has more
recently become one of its characteristic traits."

Now, if there could be any doubt that "wash" means _cosmetic_ here, the
next speech of Don Pedro ("Yea, or to _paint_ himself?") would remove
it. The gentlemen of all periods in history have been so near at least
to godliness as is implied in cleanliness. The very first direction in
the old German poem of "Tisch-zucht" is to wash before coming to table;
and in "Parzival," Gurnamanz specially inculcates on his catechumen the
social duty of always thoroughly cleansing himself on laying aside his
armor. Such instances could be multiplied without end.

In annotating Shakspeare, it would, perhaps, be asking too much of
an editor to give credit to its first finder for every scrap of
illustration. The immense mass of notes already existing may, perhaps,
be fairly looked upon as a kind of dictionary, open to every one,
and the use of which implies no indebtedness. Mr. White, in general,
indicates the source whence he has drawn, though we have sometimes found
him negligent in this respect. He says, in the Advertisement prefixed to
his second volume, "that in every case, where no such credit is
given for a restoration, a conjecture, or a quotation, the editor is
responsible for it; and as he is disinclined to the giving of much
prominence to claims of this sort, he has, in those cases, merely
remarked, that 'hitherto' the text has stood thus or so." We have not
been at the trouble of verifying every one of Mr. White's "hithertos,"
but we did so in two plays, and found in "Midsummer Night's Dream" four,
and in "Much Ado" two cases, where the reading cl