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III
Against such a theory stand at once two highly significant facts, one acknowledged by Dr. Walker and one ignored. No clear typographical links between Q2 and F have been discovered and considerable passages in Q2 are omitted from F. These omissions, mostly explicable as theatrical cuts and natural enough in a playhouse manuscript prepared for performance,[16] are difficult to account for if the printers of F, which aimed at giving Shakespeare's plays "perfect of their limbes", were working from a copy of Q2 in which these passages were included. Moreover, while Dr. Walker has painstakingly collected evidence which would support her case, she has neglected items, even in her own categories of spelling and punctuation, which go against it.
Divergences between Q2 and F need perhaps even more careful handling than similarities. Anomalies common to two texts can sometimes establish that one was printed from the other; but in the nature of things it is difficult to prove the negative. This is especially so when divergences can be explained as (1) emendations made by a corrector of Q2 based upon the manuscript with which he was collating, as well as (2) the inevitable errors and alterations of the F compositors. Even so the divergences

Erroneous readings. If the F text was in fact set up from a corrected copy of Q2, then the manuscript used by the hypothetical corrector of Q2 was certainly at one and possibly at more removes from Shakespeare's autograph; and it had also undergone alteration by or for the players. It had therefore plenty of opportunity for the corruption and vulgarization which have given in F so many inferior readings. But the question that arises is how far such corruptions would have been transferred by the collator to the copy of Q2 on which he worked. It is a necessary postulate of Dr. Walker's theory that the corrector sought mechanically to bring the Q2 text into line with the manuscript he was using, exercising no editorial discrimination; but granted that the aim was to secure a better text for F, I find it difficult to accept correction of so extremely mechanical a pattern as it would be necessary to infer.[17] A mechanical corrector might conceivably have introduced such nonsense as the notorious 'or Norman' for 'nor man' at III.ii.36 or 'our Nation' for 'the Nation' at IV.vii.95-if indeed these are not attributable to compositors' errors-perhaps even 'their corporall' for 'th'incorporall' at III.iv.118. But was 'inobled' deliberately introduced for the 'mobled' Queen? Without Q2 to guide him either a transcriber or a compositor might easily have so misread a manuscript copy; but, with 'mobled' twice in front of him in print, one would have expected a collator to pause before insisting on this reading and a compositor not to make this error three times over. Other nonsensical readings which could have arisen from the misreading of manuscript copy but which a corrector might have been expected to refrain from introducing into Q2 include: II.ii.580, warm'd (Q2 wand, = wann'd); III.i.48, surge (Q2 sugar); III.i.99, then perfume left (Q2 their perfume lost); IV.iii.7, neerer (Q2 neuer); IV.vii.143, I but dipt (Q2 that but dippe); IV.vii.156, commings (Q2 cunnings); IV.vii.183, buy (Q2 lay). It would have to be a very mechanical correction indeed which substituted readings such as these. And again one cannot well impute them all to simple errors of a compositor working from a printed copy. Some of them might of course have arisen from compositor's errors which, as we know often happened, a proof- corrector emended by guesswork without reference to copy. The complete collation of the Folger Folios which is now being undertaken might throw some light on this. But in the present state of my

Stage-directions and speech-headings. In the matter of stage- directions, although a few small similarities have been noticed, the most obvious thing that emerges from a comparison of Q2 and F is the remarkable nonconformity of the two texts. A corrector of Q2 who achieved this result would have had to carry out a very thorough-going revision. This of course cannot be ruled out, for something of the kind was apparently done with Q6 of Richard III, if scholars are right in holding that F printed from that quarto.[19] But it is worth noting that the Hamlet alterations embrace a number of quite pointless variations. Among these I cite: I.ii.159, Q2 Enter Horatio, Marcellus, and Bernardo F Enter Horatio, Barnard, and Marcellus; II.ii.221, Q2 Enter Guyldersterne, and Rosencraus, F Enter Rosincran and Guildensterne; III.ii.52, Q2 Enter Polonius, Guyldensterne, & Rosencraus, F Enter Polonius, Rosincrance, and Guildensterne. In the last two a transcriber might easily have given Rosencrantz the priority normally accorded him elsewhere, but a deliberate transposition of the Q2 order, either by collator or compositor, is unlikely. At II.ii.39, Q2 has Exeunt Ros. and Guyld., and it is difficult to see why a corrector or a compositor with plenty of room should have wished to replace this explicit direction with the single word Exit. I do not think the correction of Q2 from a manuscript is a sufficient explanation of these changes.
A comparison of speech-headings yields similar results. My own fragmentary observations confirm the conclusion of Dr. Philip Williams that in plays set from quartos the Folio compositors tended to be guided by the speech-headings in their copy.[20] But of course the speech-headings of a quarto might reach the F compositors already heavily altered by a collator, as Richard III, again, suggests. So perhaps not too much should be made of the discrepancy in III.iv. and IV.i. of Hamlet, where Q2 heads the Queen's speeches, with one exception, Ger., while F sticks steadily to Qu. The replacement of short by longer forms of speech-heading requires a different explanation. A compositor familiar with the play, if we could assume such, might, I suppose, have substituted such longer forms as

Punctuation. A consideration of the punctuation provides more clues. It is true that there are passages showing a high degree of correspondence between the two texts. Dr. Walker has cited the 'To be or not to be' soliloquy, and another example might be the speech of Claudius which ends IV.iii. But the opposite situation is notorious in the 'What a piece of work is a man' speech, and whatever one's view of the alternative methods of punctuating this, the one thing that is clear is that the F punctuation did not derive from Q2.
It is Dr. Walker's observation of the Folio compositors that they "normally reproduced the majority of the parentheses in their quarto copy".[23] This does not suggest that their copy for Hamlet was Q2, where, discounting passages of text which are not present in F at all, I count eleven instances of parenthesis and find as many as nine of these not reproduced in F. Yet the F Hamlet gives plenty of evidence of compositor B's recognized penchant for parenthesis, which occasionally leads him into error. A good example occurs at II.ii.140 with '(my yong Mistris)', which is absurdly taken for a vocative. Yet in the same speech this compositor missed an obvious opportunity in the line which Q2 points

I.ii.202 | Q2 |
Goes slowe and stately by them; thrice he walkt
|
F |
Goes slow and stately: By them thrice he walkt,
|
|
II.iv.56 | Q2 |
With thoughts beyond the reaches of our soules
|
F |
With thoughts beyond thee; reaches of our Soules
|
|
II.i.41 | Q2 |
Marke you, your partie in conuerse,
|
F |
Marke you your party in conuerse;
|
|
II.ii.145-6 | Q2 |
she tooke the fruites of my aduise:
And he repell'd, a short tale to make, |
F |
she tooke the Fruites of my Aduice,
And he repulsed A short Tale to make, |
|
IV.iii.24-6 | Q2 |
your fat King and your leane begger is but variable seruice, two
dishes but to one table, that's the end. |
F |
Your fat King, and your leane Begger is but variable seruice to
dishes, but to one Table that's the end. |
|
IV.v.112 | Q2 |
Where is this King? sirs stand you all without.
|
F |
Where is the King, sirs? Stand you all without.
|
|
IV.vii.45-6 | Q2 |
to see your kingly eyes, when I shal first asking you pardon,
there-vnto recount |
F |
to see your Kingly Eyes. When I shall (first asking your Pardon thereunto) recount
|
|
IV.vii.58-9 | Q2 |
And how should it be so, how otherwise,
Will you be rul'd by me? |
F |
as how should it be so:
How otherwise will you be rul'd by me? |

Two further passages deserve more detailed consideration. The first is I.iii.8-10:
Q2 |
lasting,
The perfume and suppliance of a minute No more. |
F |
lasting
The suppliance of a minute? No more. |
Q2 |
If one could match you; the Scrimures of their nation
He swore had neither motion, guard, nor eye, If you opposd them; sir this report of his |
F |
If one could match you Sir. This report of his
|
Spellings. Divergences of spelling are difficult to argue from. Abnormal spellings common to two texts-and Dr. Walker, as we have seen, has revealed a few pertinent ones in Hamlet-may well suggest dependence. But since the compositor was under no obligation to follow the spelling of his copy, the converse is not true. Yet there is one kind of word in which the compositor would normally be guided by his copy. I refer to proper names. Not all of these of course are significant: a compositor will have his own way of spelling Gloucester[24] and the names of other English earls or counties, as well as those of the classical figures who throng the Roman plays. But there are other names which must have been strange to the compositor, who would approach them without predilection. Hamlet has a number of these. The most striking are, to adopt

The F spelling of these two names is, then, consistently different from that of Q2. And it cannot be attributed to a compositor, for both the compositors who worked on the F Hamlet followed exactly the same practice. The inference is inevitable that when they set up 'Rosincrance' and 'Guildensterne', together with speech-headings Rosin. and Guil. or Guild., they were following their copy. And therefore their copy could not have been Q2. This single piece of evidence seems to me conclusive.
Other rare names in Hamlet give confirmation. 'Fortinbrasse' or 'Fortenbrasse' in Q2 becomes 'Fortinbras' invariably in F, both compositors again being involved. F's substitution of 'Gertrude' for 'Gertrard' may be accounted mere normalization, but since it too is quite consistent with both compositors, it cannot be ignored. Q2 always spells 'Elsonoure', but in all three instances in II.ii, shared between the two compositors, F prints the name 'Elsonower'. It is true that at I.ii.174 compositor A spells it 'Elsenour', but even here the medial vowel and the absence of the final e do not suggest that the spelling derives from Q2. Osric, either in full or in abbreviated speech-headings, is in Q2 eight times spelt with a t- 'Ostr(ick(e)'-before appearing twice without it; but 'Osr(icke)' without the t is always used by both compositors in F.[25]
When a name is confined to that part of the play set up by one of the

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