In Act III, scene ii., Warburton's emendation of 'airy' to 'fiery' had
in Coleridge's day been received into the text of the Bastard's lines:--
'Now by my life, this day grows wondrous hot;
Some airy devil hovers in the sky.'
On which Coleridge writes:--
'I prefer the old text: the word 'devil' implies 'fiery.' You need
only to read the line, laying a full and strong emphasis on 'devil,'
to perceive the uselessness and tastelessness of Warburton's
alteration.'
The test is absolutely convincing--a poet's criticism of poetry. But
that Coleridge went astray not once but many times, under the influence
of his idolatry of Shakespeare, corroborates the general conclusion that
is forced upon any one who will take the trouble to read a whole volume
of the modern _Variorum_. There has been much editing, much comment, but
singularly little criticism of Shakespeare; a half-pennyworth of bread
to an intolerable deal of sack. The pendulum has swung violently from
niggling and insensitive textual quibble to that equally distressing
exercise of human ingenuity, idealistic encomium, of which there is a
typical example in the opening sentence of Mr Masefield's remarks upon
the play: 'Like the best Shakespearean tragedies, _King John_ is an
intellectual form in which a number of people with obsessions illustrate
the idea of treachery.
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