e which deserves to rank as a classic in English literature. The
title runs 'Shakespeare Restored, or a specimen of the many errors as
well committed as unamended by Mr. Pope in his late edition of this poet,
designed not only to correct the said edition but to restore the true
reading of Shakespeare in all the editions ever yet publish'd.' There at
page 137 appears Theobald's great emendation in Shakespeare's account of
Falstaff's death (Henry V, II. iii. 17): 'His nose was as sharp as a pen
and a' babbled of green fields,' in place of the reading in the old
copies, 'His nose was as sharp as a pen and a table of green fields.' In
1733 Theobald brought out his edition of Shakespeare in seven volumes.
In 1740 it reached a second issue. A third edition was published in
1752. Others are dated 1772 and 1773. It is stated that 12,860 copies
in all were sold. Theobald made the First Folio the basis of his text,
although he failed to adopt all the correct readings of that version, but
over 300 corrections or emendations which he made in his edition have
become part and parcel of the authorised canon. Theobald's principles of
textual criticism were as enlightened as his practice was triumphant. 'I
ever labour,' he wrote to Warburton, 'to make the smallest deviation that
I possibly can from the text; never to alter at all where I can by any
means explain a passage with sense; nor ever by any emendation to make
the author better when it is probable the text came from his own hands.'
Theobald has every right to the title of the Porson of Shakespearean
criticism. {317a} The following are favourable specimens of his insight.
In 'Macbeth' (I. vii. 6) for 'this bank and school of time,' he
substituted the familiar 'bank and shoal of time.' In 'Antony and
Cleopatra' the old copies (v. ii. 87) made Cleopatra say of Antony:

For his bounty,
There was no winter in't; an Anthony it was
That grew the more by reaping.

For the gibberish 'an Anthony it was,' Theobald read 'an autumn 'twas,'
and thus gave the lines true point and poetry. A third notable instance,
somewhat more recondite, is found in 'Coriolanus' (II. i. 59-60) where
Menenius asks the tribunes in the First Folio version 'what harm can your
besom conspectuities [_i.e._ vision or eyes] glean out of this
character?' Theobald replaced the meaningless epithet 'besom' by
'bisson' (_i.e._ purblind), a recognised Elizabethan word which
Shak