As knowledge advances, pleasure passes from the eye to the ear, but
returns, as it declines, from the ear to the eye. Those to whom our
author's labours were exhibited had more skill in pomps or processions
than in poetical language, and, perhaps, wanted some visible and
discriminated events, as comments on the dialogue. He knew how he should
most please; and whether his practice is more agreeable to nature, or
whether his example has prejudiced the nation, we still find that on our
stage something must be done as well as said, and inactive declamation
is very coldly heard, however musical or elegant, passionate or sublime.
Voltaire expresses his wonder, that our author's extravagancies are
endured by a nation, which has seen the tragedy of Cato. Let him be
answered, that Addison speaks the language of poets, and Shakespeare of
men. We find in Cato innumerable beauties, which enamour us of its
author, but we see nothing that acquaints us with human sentiments or
human actions; we place it with the fairest and the noblest progeny
which judgment propagates by conjunction with learning; but Othello is
the vigorous and vivacious offspring of observation impregnated by
genius. Cato affords a splendid exhibition of artificial and fictitious
manners, and delivers just and noble sentiments, in diction easy,
elevated, and harmonious, but its hopes and fears communicate no
vibration to the heart; the composition refers us only to the writer; we
pronounce the name of Cato, but we think on Addison.
The work of a correct and regular writer is a garden accurately formed
and diligently planted, varied with shades, and scented with flowers;
the composition of Shakespeare is a forest, in which oaks extend their
branches, and pines tower in the air, interspersed sometimes with weeds
and brambles, and sometimes giving shelter to myrtles and to roses;
filling the eye with awful pomp, and gratifying the mind with endless
diversity. Other poets display cabinets of precious rarities, minutely
finished, wrought into shape, and polished into brightness. Shakespeare
opens a mine which contains gold and diamonds in unexhaustible plenty,
though clouded by incrustations, debased by impurities, and mingled with
a mass of meaner minerals.
It has been much disputed, whether Shakespeare owed his excellence to
his own native force, or whether he had the common helps of scholastick
education, the precepts of critical science, and the examples of ancient
authors.
There has always prevailed a tradition, that Shakespeare wanted
learning, that he had no regular education, nor much skill in the dead
languages. Jonson, his friend, affirms, that "he had small Latin and
less Greek;" who, besides that he had no imaginable temptation to
falsehood, wrote at a time when the character and acquisitions of
Shakespeare were known to multitudes. His evidence ought, therefore, to
decide the controversy, unless some testimony of equal force could be
opposed[12].
Some have imagined, that they have discovered deep learning in many
imitations of old writers; but the examples which I have known urged
were drawn from books translated in his time; or were such easy
coincidences of thought, as will happen to all who consider the same
subjects; or such remarks on life, or axioms of morality, as float in
conversation, and are transmitted through the world in proverbial
sentences.
I have found it remarked, that, in this important sentence, "Go before,
I'll follow," we read a translation of, _I prae, sequar_. I have been
told, that when Caliban, after a pleasing dream, says, "I cry'd to sleep
again," the author imitates Anacreon[13], who had, like every other man,
the same wish on the same occasion.
There are a few passages which may pass for imitations, but so few, that
the exception only confirms the rule; he obtained them from accidental
quotations, or by oral communication, and as he used what he had, would
have used more if he had obtained it.
The Comedy of Errors is confessedly taken from the Menaechmi of
Plautus[14]; from the only play of Plautus which was then in English.
What can be more probable, than that he who copied that, would have
copied more; but that those which were not translated were inaccessible?
Whether he knew the modern languages is uncertain. That his plays have
some French scenes proves but little; he might easily procure them to be
written, and probably, even though he had known the language in the
common degree, he could not have written it without assistance. In the
story of Romeo and Juliet, he is observed to have followed the English
translation, where it deviates from the Italian: but this, on the other
part, proves nothing against his knowledge of the original. He was to
copy, not what he knew himself, but what was known to his audience.
It is most likely that he had learned Latin sufficiently to make him
acquainted with construction, but that he never advanced to an easy
perusal of the Roman authors. Concerning his skill in modern languages,
I can find no sufficient ground of determination; but as no imitations
of French or Italian authors have been discovered, though the Italian
poetry was then high in esteem, I am inclined to believe, that he read
little more than English, and chose for his fables only such tales as he
found translated.
That much knowledge is scattered over his works is very justly observed
by Pope; but it is often such knowledge as books did not supply. He that
will understand Shakespeare, must not be content to study him in the
closet; he must look for his meaning sometimes among the sports of the
field, and sometimes among the manufactures of the shop.
There is, however, proof enough that he was a very diligent reader; nor
was our language then so indigent of books, but that he might very
liberally indulge his curiosity without excursion into foreign
literature. Many of the Roman authors were translated, and some of the
Greek[15]; the Reformation had filled the kingdom with theological
learning; most of the topicks of human disquisition had found English
writers; and poetry had been cultivated, not only with diligence, but
success. This was a stock of knowledge sufficient for a mind so capable
of appropriating and improving it.
But the greater part of his excellence was the product of his own
genius. He found the English stage in a state of the utmost rudeness; no
essays, either in tragedy or comedy, had appeared, from which it could
be discovered to what degree of delight either one or other might be
carried. Neither character nor dialogue were yet understood. Shakespeare
may be truly said to have introduced them both amongst us, and in some
of his happier scenes to have carried them both to the utmost height.
By what gradations of improvement he proceeded, is not easily known; for
the chronology of his works is yet unsettled. Rowe is of opinion, that
"perhaps we are not to look for his beginning, like those of other
writers, in his least perfect works; art had so little, and nature so
large a share in what he did, that for aught I know," says he, "the
performances of his youth, as they were the most vigorous, were the
best." But the power of nature is only the power of using to any certain
purpose the materials which diligence procures, or opportunity supplies.
Nature gives no man knowledge, and, when images are collected by study
and experience, can only assist in combining or applying them.
Shakespeare, however favoured by nature, could impart only what he had
learned; and, as he must increase his ideas, like other mortals, by
gradual acquisition, he, like them, grew wiser, as he grew older, could
display life better, as he knew it more, and instruct with more
efficacy, as he was himself more amply instructed.
There is a vigilance of observation and accuracy of distinction which
books and precepts cannot confer; from this almost all original and
native excellence proceeds. Shakespeare must have looked upon mankind
with perspicacity, in the highest degree curious and attentive. Other
writers borrow their characters from preceding writers, and diversify
them only by the accidental appendages of present manners; the dress is
a little varied, but the body is the same. Our author had both matter
and form to provide; for, except the characters of Chaucer, to whom I
think he is not much indebted, there were no writers in English, and,
perhaps, not many in other modern languages, which showed life in its
native colours.
The contest about the original benevolence or malignity of man had not
yet commenced. Speculation had not yet attempted to analyze the mind, to
trace the passions to their sources, to unfold the seminal principles of
vice and virtue, or sound the depths of the heart for the motives of
action. All those inquiries, which from that time that human nature
became the fashionable study, have been made sometimes with nice
discernment, but often with idle subtilty, were yet unattempted. The
tales, with which the infancy of learning was satisfied, exhibited only
the superficial appearances of action, related the events, but omitted
the causes, and were formed for such as delighted in wonders rather than
in truth. Mankind was not then to be studied in the closet; he that
would know the world, was under the necessity of gleaning his own
remarks, by mingling as he could in its business and amusements.
Boyle congratulated himself upon his high birth, because it favoured his
curiosity, by facilitating his access. Shakespeare had no such
advantage: he came to London a needy adventurer, and lived for a time by
very mean employments. Many works of genius and learning have been
performed in states of life that appear very little favourable to
thought or to inquiry; so many, that he who considers them is inclined
to think that he sees enterprize and perseverance predominating over all
external agency, and bidding help and hindrance vanish before them. The
genius of Shakespeare was not to be depressed by the weight of poverty,
nor limited by the narrow conversation to which men in want are
inevitably condemned; the encumbrances of his fortune were shaken from
his mind, "as dewdrops from a lion's mane".
Though he had so many difficulties to encounter, and so little
assistance to surmount them, he has been able to obtain an exact
knowledge of many modes of life, and many casts of native dispositions;
to vary them with great multiplicity; to mark them by nice distinctions;
and to show them in full view by proper combinations. In this part of
his performances he had none to imitate, but has himself been imitated
by all succeeding writers; and it may be doubted, whether from all his
successors more maxims of theoretical knowledge, or more rules of
practical prudence, can be collected, than he alone has given to his
country.
Nor was his attention confined to the actions of men; he was an exact
surveyor of the inanimate world; his descriptions have always some
peculiarities, gathered by contemplating things as they really exist. It
may be observed, that the oldest poets of many nations preserve their
reputation, and that the following generations of wit, after a short
celebrity, sink into oblivion. The first, whoever they be, must take
their sentiments and descriptions immediately from knowledge; the
resemblance is, therefore, just, their descriptions are verified by
every eye, and their sentiments acknowledged by every breast. Those whom
their fame invites to the same studies, copy partly them and partly
nature, till the books of one age gain such authority, as to stand in
the place of nature to another, and imitation, always deviating a
little, becomes at last capricious and casual. Shakespeare, whether life
or nature be his subject, shows plainly that he has seen with his own
eyes; he gives the image which he receives, not weakened or distorted by
the intervention of any other mind; the ignorant feel his
representations to be just, and the learned see that they are complete.
Perhaps it would not be easy to find any author, except Homer, who
invented so much as Shakespeare, who so much advanced the studies which
he cultivated, or effused so much novelty upon his age or country. The
form, the characters, the language, and the shows of the English drama
are his. "He seems," says Dennis, "to have been the very original of our
English tragical harmony, that is, the harmony of blank verse,
diversified often by dissyllable and trisyllable terminations. For the
diversity distinguishes it from heroick harmony, and by bringing it
nearer to common use makes it more proper to gain attention, and more
fit for action and dialogue. Such verse we make when we are writing
prose; we make such verse in common conversation.[16]"
I know not whether this praise is rigorously just. The dissyllable
termination, which the critick rightly appropriates to the drama, is to
be found, though, I think, not in Gorboduc, which is confessedly before
our author; yet in Hieronymo[17] of which the date is not certain, but
which there is reason to believe, at least, as old as his earliest
plays. This, however, is certain, that he is the first who taught either
tragedy or comedy to please, there being no theatrical piece of any
older writer, of which the name is known, except to antiquaries and
collectors of books, which are sought because they are scarce, and would
not have been scarce, had they been much esteemed.
To him we must ascribe the praise, unless Spenser may divide it with
him, of having first discovered to how much smoothness and harmony the
English language could be softened. He has speeches, perhaps, sometimes
scenes, which have all the delicacy of Rowe, without his effeminacy. He
endeavours, indeed, commonly to strike by the force and vigour of his
dialogue, but he never executes his purpose better, than when he tries
to sooth by softness.
Yet it must be at last confessed, that as we owe every thing to him, he
owes something to us; that, if much of his praise is paid by perception
and judgment, much is, likewise, given by custom and veneration. We fix
our eyes upon his graces, and turn them from his deformities, and endure
in him what we should in another loathe or despise. If we endured
without praising, respect for the father of our drama might excuse us;
but I have seen, in the book of some modern critick, a collection of
anomalies, which show that he has corrupted language by every mode of
depravation, but which his admirer has accumulated as a monument of
honour.
He has scenes of undoubted and perpetual excellence; but, perhaps, not
one play, which, if it were now exhibited as the work of a contemporary
writer, would be heard to the conclusion. I am, indeed, far from
thinking that his works were wrought to his own ideas of perfection;
when they were such as would satisfy the audience, they satisfied the
writer. It is seldom that authors, though more studious of fame than
Shakespeare, rise much above the standard of their own age; to add a
little to what is best will always be sufficient for present praise; and
those who find themselves exalted into fame, are willing to credit their
encomiasts, and to spare the labour of contending with themselves.
It does not appear, that Shakespeare thought his works worthy of
posterity, that he levied any ideal tribute upon future times, or had
any further prospect, than of present popularity and present profit.
When his plays had been acted, his hope was at an end; he solicited no
addition of honour from the reader. He, therefore, made no scruple to
repeat the same jests in many dialogues, or to entangle different plots
by the same knot of perplexity; which may be at least forgiven him, by
those who recollect that of Congreve's four comedies, two are concluded
by a marriage in a mask, by a deception, which, perhaps, never happened,
and which, whether likely or not, he did not invent.
So careless was this great poet of future fame, that, though he retired
to ease and plenty, while he was yet little _declined into the vale of
years_, before he could be disgusted with fatigue, or disabled by
infirmity, he made no collection of his works, nor desired to rescue
those that had been already published from the depravations that
obscured them, or secure to the rest a better destiny, by giving them to
the world in their genuine state.
Of the plays which bear the name of Shakespeare in the late editions,
the greater part were not published till about seven years after his
death; and the few which appeared in his life are apparently thrust into
the world without the care of the author, and, therefore, probably
without his knowledge.
Of all the publishers, clandestine or professed, the negligence and
unskilfulness has, by the late revisers, been sufficiently shown. The
faults of all are, indeed, numerous and gross, and have not only
corrupted many passages, perhaps, beyond recovery, but have brought
others into suspicion, which are only obscured by obsolete phraseology,
or by the writer's unskilfulness and affectation. To alter is more easy
than to explain, and temerity is a more common quality than diligence.
Those who saw that they must employ conjecture to a certain degree, were
willing to indulge it a little further. Had the author published his own
works, we should have sat quietly down to disentangle his intricacies,
and clear his obscurities; but now we tear what we cannot loose, and
eject what we happen not to understand.
The faults are more than could have happened without the concurrence of
many causes. The style of Shakespeare was in itself ungrammatical,
perplexed, and obscure; his works were transcribed for the players by
those who may be supposed to have seldom understood them; they were
transmitted by copiers equally unskilful, who still multiplied errours;
they were, perhaps, sometimes mutilated by the actors, for the sake of
shortening the speeches; and were at last printed without correction of
the press[18].
In this state they remained, not, as Dr. Warburton supposes, because
they were unregarded, but because the editor's art was not yet applied
to modern languages, and our ancestors were accustomed to so much
negligence of English printers, that they could very patiently endure
it. At last an edition was undertaken by Rowe; not because a poet was to
be published by a poet, for Rowe seems to have thought very little on
correction or explanation; but that our author's works might appear like
those of his fraternity, with the appendages of a life and
recommendatory preface. Rowe has been clamorously blamed for not
performing what he did not undertake; and it is time that justice be
done him, by confessing, that, though he seems to have had no thought of
corruption beyond the printer's errours, yet he has made many
emendations, if they were not made before, which his successors have
received without acknowledgment, and which, if they had produced them,
would have filled pages and pages with censures of the stupidity by
which the faults were committed, with displays of the absurdities which
they involved, with ostentatious expositions of the new reading, and
self-congratulations on the happiness of discovering it.
As of the other editors I have preserved the prefaces, I have likewise
borrowed the author's life from Howe, though not written with much
elegance or spirit; it relates, however, what is now to be known, and,
therefore, deserves to pass through all succeeding publications.
The nation had been for many years content enough with Mr. Rowe's
performance, when Mr. Pope made them acquainted with the true state of
Shakespeare's text, showed that it was extremely corrupt, and gave
reason to hope that there were means of reforming it. He collated the
old copies, which none had thought to examine before, and restored many
lines to their integrity; but, by a very compendious criticism, he
rejected whatever he disliked, and thought more of amputation than of
cure.
I know not why he is commended by Dr. Warburton for distinguishing the
genuine from the spurious plays. In this choice he exerted no judgment
of his own; the plays which he received were given by Hemings and
Condel, the first editors; and those which he rejected, though,
according to the licentiousness of the press in those times, they were
printed during Shakespeare's life, with his name, had been omitted by
his friends, and were never added to his works before the edition of
1664, from which they were copied by the later printers.
This was a work which Pope seems to have thought unworthy of his
abilities, being not able to suppress his contempt of _the dull duty of
an editor_. He understood but half his undertaking. The duty of a
collator is, indeed, dull, yet, like other tedious tasks, is very
necessary; but an emendatory critick would ill discharge his duty,
without qualities very different from dulness. In perusing a corrupted
piece, he must have before him all possibilities of meaning, with all
possibilities of expression. Such must be his comprehension of thought,
and such his copiousness of language. Out of many readings possible, he
must be able to select that which best suits with the state, opinions,
and modes of language prevailing in every age, and with his author's
particular cast of thought, and turn of expression. Such must be his
knowledge, and such his taste. Conjectural criticism demands more than
humanity possesses, and he that exercises it with most praise, has very
frequent need of indulgence. Let us now be told no more of the dull duty
of an editor.
Confidence is the common consequence of success. They whose excellence
of any kind has been loudly celebrated, are ready to conclude that their
powers are universal. Pope's edition fell below his own expectations,
and he was so much offended when he was found to have left any thing for
others to do, that he passed the latter part of his life in a state of
hostility with verbal criticism.
I have retained all his notes, that no fragment of so great a writer may
be lost; his preface, valuable alike for elegance of composition and
justness of remark, and containing a general criticism on his author, so
extensive that little can be added, and so exact that little can be
disputed, every editor has an interest to suppress, but that every
reader would demand its insertion.
Pope was succeeded by Theobald, a man of narrow comprehension, and small
acquisitions, with no native and intrinsick splendour of genius, with
little of the artificial light of learning, but zealous for minute
accuracy, and not negligent in pursuing it. He collated the ancient
copies, and rectified many errours. A man so anxiously scrupulous might
have been expected to do more, but what little he did was commonly
right.
In his reports of copies and editions he is not to be trusted without
examination. He speaks sometimes indefinitely of copies, when he has
only one. In his enumeration of editions, he mentions the two first
folios as of high, and the third folio as of middle authority; but the
truth is, that the first is equivalent to all others, and that the rest
only deviate from it by the printer's negligence. Whoever has any of the
folios has all, excepting those diversities which mere reiteration of
editions will produce[19]. I collated them all, at the beginning, but
afterwards used only the first.
Of his notes I have generally retained those which he retained himself
in his second edition, except when they were confuted by subsequent
annotators, or were too minute to merit preservation. I have sometimes
adopted his restoration of a comma, without inserting the panegyrick in
which he celebrated himself for his achievement. The exuberant
excrescence of his diction I have often lopped, his triumphant
exultations over Pope and Howe I have sometimes suppressed, and his
contemptible ostentation I have frequently concealed; but I have in some
places shown him, as he would have shown himself, for the reader's
diversion, that the inflated emptiness of some notes may justify or
excuse the contraction of the rest.
Theobald, thus weak and ignorant, thus mean and faithless, thus petulant
and ostentatious, by the good luck of having Pope for his enemy, has
escaped, and escaped alone, with reputation, from this undertaking. So
willingly does the world support those who solicit favour against those
who command reverence; and so easily is he praised whom no man can envy.
Our author fell then into the hands of Sir Thomas Hanmer, the Oxford
editor, a man, in my opinion, eminently qualified by nature for such
studies. He had, what is the first requisite to emendatory criticism,
that intuition by which the poet's intention is immediately discovered,
and that dexterity of intellect which despatches its work by the easiest
means. He had undoubtedly read much; his acquaintance with customs,
opinions, and traditions, seems to have been large; and he is often
learned without show. He seldom passes what he does not understand,
without an attempt to find or to make a meaning, and sometimes hastily
makes what a little more attention would have found. He is solicitous to
reduce to grammar what he could not be sure that his author intended to
be grammatical. Shakespeare regarded more the series of ideas, than of
words; and his language, not being designed for the reader's desk, was
all that he desired it to be, if it conveyed his meaning to the
audience.
Hanmer's care of the metre has been too violently censured. He found the
measure reformed in so many passages by the silent labours of some
editors, with the silent acquiescence of the rest, that he thought
himself allowed to extend a little further the license, which had
already been carried so far without reprehension; and, of his
corrections in general, it must be confessed, that they are often just,
and made commonly with the least possible violation of the text.
But, by inserting his emendations, whether invented or borrowed, into
the page, without any notice of varying copies, he has appropriated the
labour of his predecessors, and made his own edition of little
authority. His confidence indeed, both in himself and others, was too
great; he supposes all to be right that was done by Pope and Theobald;
he seems not to suspect a critick of fallibility; and it was but
reasonable that he should claim what he so liberally granted.
As he never writes without careful inquiry and diligent consideration, I
have received all his notes, and believe that every reader will wish for
more.
Of the last editor it is more difficult to speak. Respect is due to high
place, tenderness to living reputation, and veneration to genius and
learning; but he cannot be justly offended at that liberty of which he
has himself so frequently given an example, nor very solicitous what is
thought of notes, which he ought never to have considered as part of his
serious employments, and which, I suppose, since the ardour of
composition is remitted, he no longer numbers among his happy effusions.
The original and predominant errour of his commentary is acquiescence in
his first thoughts; that precipitation which is produced by
consciousness of quick discernment; and that confidence which presumes
to do, by surveying the surface, what labour only can perform, by
penetrating the bottom. His notes exhibit sometimes perverse
interpretations, and sometimes improbable conjectures; he at one time
gives the author more profundity of meaning than the sentence admits,
and at another discovers absurdities, where the sense is plain to every
other reader. But his emendations are likewise often happy and just; and
his interpretation of obscure passages learned and sagacious.
Of his notes, I have commonly rejected, those against which the general
voice of the publick has exclaimed, or which their own incongruity
immediately condemns, and which, I suppose, the author himself would
desire to be forgotten. Of the rest, to part I have given the highest
approbation, by inserting the offered reading in the text; part I have
left to the judgment of the reader, as doubtful, though specious; and
part I have censured without reserve, but, I am sure, without bitterness
of malice, and, I hope, without wantonness of insult.
It is no pleasure to me, in revising my volumes, to observe how much
paper is wasted in confutation. Whoever considers the revolutions of
learning, and the various questions of greater or less importance, upon
which wit and reason have exercised their powers, must lament the
unsuccessfulness of inquiry, and the slow advances of truth, when he
reflects that great part of the labour of every writer is only the
destruction of those that went before him. The first care of the builder
of a new system, is to demolish the fabricks which are standing. The
chief desire of him that comments an author, is to show how much other
commentators have corrupted and obscured him. The opinions prevalent in
one age, as truths above the reach of controversy, are confuted and
rejected in another, and rise again to reception in remoter times. Thus
the human mind is kept in motion without progress. Thus sometimes truth
and errour, and sometimes contrarieties of errour, take each other's
place by reciprocal invasion. The tide of seeming knowledge, which is
poured over one generation, retires and leaves another naked and barren;
the sudden meteors of intelligence, which for awhile appear to shoot
their beams into the regions of obscurity, on a sudden withdraw their
lustre, and leave mortals again to grope their way.
These elevations and depressions of renown, and the contradictions to
which all improvers of knowledge must for ever be exposed, since they
are not escaped by the highest and brightest of mankind, may, surely, be
endured with patience by criticks and annotators, who can rank
themselves but as the satellites of their authors. How canst thou beg
for life, says Homer's hero to his captive, when thou knowest that thou
art now to suffer only what must another day be suffered by Achilles?
Dr. Warburton had a name sufficient to confer celebrity on those who
could exalt themselves into antagonists, and his notes have raised a
clamour too loud to be distinct. His chief assailants are the authors of
The Canons of Criticism, and of The Revisal of Shakespeare's Text; of
whom one ridicules his errours with airy petulance, suitable enough to
the levity of the controversy; the other attacks them with gloomy
malignity, as if he were dragging to justice an assassin or incendiary.
The one stings like a fly, sucks a little blood, takes a gay flutter,
and returns for more; the other bites like a viper, and would be glad to
leave inflammations and gangrene behind him. When I think on one, with
his confederates, I remember the danger of Coriolanus, who was afraid
that "girls with spits, and boys with stones, should slay him in puny
battle;" when the other crosses my imagination, I remember the prodigy
in Macbeth:
A falcon tow'ring in his pride of place,
Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and kill'd.
Let me, however, do them justice. One is a wit, and one a scholar[20].
They have both shown acuteness sufficient in the discovery of faults,
and have both advanced some probable interpretations of obscure
passages; but when they aspire to conjecture and emendation, it appears
how falsely we all estimate our own abilities, and the little which they
have been able to perform might have taught them more candour to the
endeavours of others.
Before Dr. Warburton's edition, Critical Observations on Shakespeare had
been published by Mr. Upton[21], a man skilled in languages, and
acquainted with books, but who seems to have had no great vigour of
genius or nicety of taste. Many of his explanations are curious and
useful, but he, likewise, though he professed to oppose the licentious
confidence of editors, and adhere to the old copies, is unable to
restrain the rage of emendation, though his ardour is ill seconded by
his skill. Every cold empirick, when his heart is expanded by a
successful experiment, swells into a theorist, and the laborious
collator at some unlucky moment frolicks in conjecture.
Critical, historical, and explanatory notes have been, likewise,
published upon Shakespeare by Dr. Grey, whose diligent perusal of the
old English writers has enabled him to make some useful observations.
What he undertook he has well enough performed; but as he neither
attempts judicial or emendatory criticism, he employs rather his memory
than his sagacity. It were to be wished that all would endeavour to
imitate his modesty, who have not been able to surpass his knowledge.
I can say, with great sincerity, of all my predecessors, what I hope
will hereafter be said of me, that not one has left Shakespeare without
improvement; nor is there one to whom I have not been indebted for
assistance and information. Whatever I have taken from them, it was my
intention to refer to its original author, and it is certain, that what
I have not given to another, I believed when I wrote it to be my own. In
some, perhaps, I have been anticipated; but if I am ever found to
encroach upon the remarks of any other commentators, I am willing that
the honour, be it more or less, should be transferred to the first
claimant, for his right, and his alone, stands above dispute; the second
can prove his pretensions only to himself, nor can himself always
distinguish invention, with sufficient certainty, from recollection.
They have all been treated by me with candour, which they have not been
careful of observing to one another. It is not easy to discover from
what cause the acrimony of a scholiast can naturally proceed. The
subjects to be discussed by him are of very small importance; they
involve neither property nor liberty; nor favour the interest of sect or
party. The various readings of copies, and different interpretations of
a passage, seem to be questions that might exercise the wit, without
engaging the passions. But whether it be that "small things make mean
men proud," and vanity catches small occasions; or that all contrariety
of opinion, even in those that can defend it no longer, makes proud men
angry; there is often found in commentaries a spontaneous strain of
invective and contempt, more eager and venomous than is vented by the
most furious controvertist in politicks against those whom he is hired
to defame.
Perhaps the lightness of the matter may conduce to the vehemence of the
agency; when the truth to be investigated is so near to inexistence, as
to escape attention, its bulk is to be enlarged by rage and exclamation:
that to which all would be indifferent in its original state, may
attract notice when the fate of a name is appended to it. A commentator
has, indeed, great temptations to supply by turbulence what he wants of
dignity, to beat his little gold to a spacious surface, to work that to
foam which no art or diligence can exalt to spirit.
The notes which I have borrowed or written are either illustrative, by
which difficulties are explained; or judicial, by which faults and
beauties are remarked; or emendatory, by which depravations are
corrected.
The explanations transcribed from others, if I do not subjoin any other
interpretation, I suppose commonly to be right, at least I intend by
acquiescence to confess, that I have nothing better to propose.
After the labours of all the editors, I found many passages which
appeared to me likely to obstruct the greater number of readers, and
thought it my duty to facilitate their passage. It is impossible for an
expositor not to write too little for some, and too much for others. He
can only judge what is necessary by his own experience; and how long
soever he may deliberate, will at last explain many lines which the
learned will think impossible to be mistaken, and omit many for which
the ignorant will want his help. These are censures merely relative, and
must be quietly endured. I have endeavoured to be neither superfluously
copious, nor scrupulously reserved, and hope that I have made my
author's meaning accessible to many, who before were frighted from
perusing him, and contributed something to the publick, by diffusing
innocent and rational pleasure.
The complete explanation of an author not systematick and consequential,
but desultory and vagrant, abounding in casual allusions and light
hints, is not to be expected from any single scholiast. All personal
reflections, when names are suppressed, must be in a few years
irrecoverably obliterated; and customs, too minute to attract the notice
of law, such as modes of dress, formalities of conversation, rules of
visits, disposition of furniture, and practices of ceremony, which
naturally find places in familiar dialogue, are so fugitive and
unsubstantial, that they are not easily retained or recovered. What can
be known will be collected by chance, from the recesses of obscure and
obsolete papers, perused commonly with some other view. Of this
knowledge every man has some, and none has much; but when an author has
engaged the publick attention, those who can add any thing to his
illustration, communicate their discoveries, and time produces what had
eluded diligence.
To time I have been obliged to resign many passages, which, though I did
not understand them, will, perhaps, hereafter be explained; having, I
hope, illustrated some, which others have neglected or mistaken,
sometimes by short remarks, or marginal directions, such as every editor
has added at his will, and often by comments more laborious than the
matter will seem to deserve; but that which is most difficult is not
always most important, and to an editor nothing is a trifle by which his
author is obscured.
The poetical beauties or defects I have not been very diligent to
observe. Some plays have more, and some fewer judicial observations, not
in proportion to their difference of merit, but because I gave this part
of my design to chance and to caprice. The reader, I believe, is seldom
pleased to find his opinion anticipated; it is natural to delight more
in what we find or make, than in what we receive. Judgment, like other
faculties, is improved by practice, and its advancement is hindered by
submission to dictatorial decisions, as the memory grows torpid by the
use of a table-book. Some initiation is, however, necessary; of all
skill, part is infused by precept, and part is obtained by habit; I
have, therefore, shown so much as may enable the candidate of criticism
to discover the rest.
To the end of most plays I have added short strictures, containing a
general censure of faults, or praise of excellence; in which I know not
how much I have concurred with the current opinion; but I have not, by
any affectation of singularity, deviated from it. Nothing is minutely
and particularly examined, and, therefore, it is to be supposed, that in
the plays which are condemned there is much to be praised, and in those
which are praised much to be condemned.
The part of criticism in which the whole succession of editors has
laboured with the greatest diligence, which has occasioned the most
arrogant ostentation, and excited the keenest acrimony, is the
emendation of corrupted passages, to which the publick attention, having
been first drawn by the violence of the contention between Pope and
Theobald, has been continued by the persecution, which, with a kind of
conspiracy, has been since raised against all the publishers of
Shakespeare.
That many passages have passed in a state of depravation through all the
editions, is indubitably certain; of these the restoration is only to be
attempted by collation of copies, or sagacity of conjecture. The
collator's province is safe and easy, the conjecturer's perilous and
difficult. Yet, as the greater part of the plays are extant only in one
copy, the peril must not be avoided, nor the difficulty refused.
Of the readings which this emulation of amendment has hitherto produced,
some from the labours of every publisher I have advanced into the text;
those are to be considered as, in my opinion, sufficiently supported;
some I have rejected without mention, as evidently erroneous; some I
have left in the notes without censure or approbation, as resting in
equipoise between objection and defence; and some, which seemed specious
but not right, I have inserted with a subsequent animadversion.
Having classed the observations of others, I was at last to try what I
could substitute for their mistakes, and how I could supply their
omissions. I collated such copies as I could procure, and wished for
more, but have not found the collectors of these rarities very
communicative. Of the editions which chance or kindness put into my
hands I have given an enumeration, that I may not be blamed for
neglecting what T had not the power to do.
By examining the old copies, I soon found that the later publishers,
with all their boasts of diligence, suffered many passages to stand
unauthorised, and contented themselves with Rowe's regulation of the
text, even where they knew it to be arbitrary, and with a little
consideration might have found it to be wrong. Some of these alterations
are only the ejection of a word for one that appeared to him more
elegant or more intelligible. These corruptions I have often silently
rectified; for the history of our language, and the true force of our
words, can only be preserved, by keeping the text of authors free from
adulteration. Others, and those very frequent, smoothed the cadence, or
regulated the measure: on these I have not exercised the same rigour; if
only a word was transposed, or a particle inserted or omitted, I have
sometimes suffered the line to stand; for the inconstancy of the copies
is such, as that some liberties may be easily permitted. But this
practice I have not suffered to proceed far, having restored the
primitive diction wherever it could for any reason be preferred.
The emendations, which comparison of copies supplied, I have inserted in
the text: sometimes, where the improvement was slight, without notice,
and sometimes with an account of the reasons of the change.
Conjecture, though it be sometimes unavoidable, I have not wantonly nor
licentiously indulged. It has been my settled principle, that the
reading of the ancient books is probably true, and, therefore, is not to
be disturbed for the sake of elegance, perspicuity, or mere improvement
of the sense. For though much credit is not due to the fidelity, nor any
to the judgment of the first publishers, yet they who had the copy
before their eyes were more likely to read it right, than we, who read
it only by imagination. But it is evident that they have often made
strange mistakes by ignorance or negligence, and that, therefore,
something may be properly attempted by criticism, keeping the middle way
between presumption and timidity.
Such criticism I have attempted to practise, and, where any passage
appeared inextricably perplexed have endeavoured to discover how it may
be recalled to sense, with least violence. But my first labour is,
always to turn the old text on every side, and try if there be any
interstice, through which light can find its way; nor would Huetius
himself condemn me, as refusing the trouble of research, for the
ambition of alteration. In this modest industry I have not been
unsuccessful. I have rescued many lines from the violations of temerity,
and secured many scenes from the inroads of correction. I have adopted
the Roman sentiment, that it is more honourable to save a citizen than
to kill an enemy, and have been more careful to protect than to attack.
I have preserved the common distribution of the plays into acts, though
I believe it to be in almost all the plays void of authority. Some of
those which are divided in the later editions have no division in the
first folio, and some that are divided in the folio have no division in
the preceding copies. The settled mode of the theatre requires four
intervals in the play; but few, if any, of our author's compositions can
be properly distributed in that manner. An act is so much of the drama
as passes without intervention of time, or change of place. A pause
makes a new act. In every real, and, therefore, in every imitative
action, the intervals may be more or fewer, the restriction of five acts
being accidental and arbitrary. This Shakespeare knew, and this he
practised; his plays were written, and, at first, printed in one
unbroken continuity, and ought now to be exhibited with short pauses,
interposed as often as the scene is changed, or any considerable time is
required to pass. This method would at once quell a thousand
absurdities.
In restoring the author's works to their integrity, I have considered
the punctuation as wholly in my power; for what could be their care of
colons and commas, who corrupted words and sentences? Whatever could be
done by adjusting points, is, therefore, silently performed, in some
plays with much diligence, in others with less; it is hard to keep a
busy eye steadily fixed upon evanescent atoms, or a discursive mind upon
evanescent truth.
The same liberty has been taken with a few particles, or other words of
slight effect. I have sometimes inserted or omitted them without notice.
I have done that sometimes, which the other editors have done always,
and which, indeed, the state of the text may sufficiently justify.
The greater part of readers, instead of blaming us for passing trifles,
will wonder that on mere trifles so much labour is expended, with such
importance of debate, and such solemnity of diction. To these I answer
with confidence, that they are judging of an art which they do not
understand; yet cannot much reproach them with their ignorance, nor
promise that they would become in general, by learning criticism, more
useful, happier, or wiser.
As I practised conjecture more, I learned to trust it less; and after I
had printed a few plays, resolved to insert none of my own readings in
the text. Upon this caution I now congratulate myself, for every day
increases my doubt of my emendations.
Since I have confined my imagination to the margin, it must not be
considered as very reprehensible, if I have suffered it to play some
freaks in its own dominion. There is no danger in conjecture, if it be
proposed as conjecture; and while the text remains uninjured, those
changes may be safely offered, which are not considered, even by him
that offers them, as necessary or safe.
If my readings are of little value, they have not been ostentatiously
displayed or importunately obtruded. I could have written longer notes,
for the art of writing notes is not of difficult attainment. The work is
performed, first by railing at the stupidity, negligence, ignorance, and
asinine tastelessness of the former editors, and showing, from all that
goes before and all that follows, the inelegance and absurdity of the
old reading; then by proposing something, which to superficial readers
would seem specious, but which the editor rejects with indignation; then
by producing the true reading, with a long paraphrase, and concluding
with loud acclamations on the discovery, and a sober wish for the
advancement and prosperity of genuine criticism.
All this may be done, and, perhaps, done sometimes without impropriety.
But I have always suspected that the reading is right, which requires
many words to prove it wrong; and the emendation wrong, that cannot
without so much labour appear to be right. The justness of a happy
restoration strikes at once, and the moral precept may be well applied
to criticism, "quod dubitas ne feceris."
To dread the shore which he sees spread with wrecks, is natural to the
sailor. I had before my eye so many critical adventures ended in
miscarriage, that caution was forced upon me. I encountered in every
page, wit struggling with its own sophistry, and learning confused by
the multiplicity of its views. I was forced to censure those whom I
admired, and could not but reflect, while I was dispossessing their
emendations, how soon the same fate might happen to my own, and how many
of the readings which I have corrected may be, by some other editor,
defended and established.
Critics I saw, that others' names efface,
And fix their own, with labour, in the place;
Their own, like others, soon their place resign'd,
Or disappear'd, and left the first behind.
POPE.
That a conjectural critick should often be mistaken, cannot be
wonderful, either to others or himself, if it be considered, that in his
art there is no system, no principal and axiomatical truth that
regulates subordinate positions. His chance of errour is renewed at
every attempt; an oblique view of the passage, a slight misapprehension
of a phrase, a casual inattention to the parts connected, is sufficient
to make him not only fail, but fail ridiculously; and when he succeeds
best, he produces, perhaps, but one reading of many probable, and he
that suggests another will always be able to dispute his claims.
It is an unhappy state, in which danger is hid under pleasure. The
allurements of emendation are scarcely resistible. Conjecture has all
the joy and all the pride of invention, and he that has once started a
happy change, is too much delighted to consider what objections may rise
against it.
Yet conjectural criticism has been of great use in the learned world;
nor is it my intention to depreciate a study, that has exercised so many
mighty minds, from the revival of learning to our own age, from the
bishop of Aleria[22] to English Bentley. The criticks on ancient authors
have, in the exercise of their sagacity, many assistances, which the
editor of Shakespeare is condemned to want. They are employed upon
grammatical and settled languages, whose construction contributes so
much to perspicuity, that Homer has fewer passages unintelligible than
Chaucer. The words have not only a known regimen, but invariable
quantities, which direct and confine the choice. There are commonly more
manuscripts than one; and they do not often conspire in the same
mistakes. Yet Scaliger could confess to Salmasius how little
satisfaction his emendations gave him: "Illudunt nobis conjecturæ
nostræ, quarum nos pudet, posteaquam in meliores codices incidimus." And
Lipsius could complain that criticks were making faults, by trying to
remove them: "Ut olim vitiis, ita nunc remediis laboratur." And, indeed,
where mere conjecture is to be used, the emendations of Scaliger and
Lipsius, notwithstanding their wonderful sagacity and erudition, are
often vague and disputable, like mine or Theobald's.
Perhaps I may not be more censured for doing wrong, than for doing
little; for raising in the publick expectations which at last I have not
answered. The expectation of ignorance is indefinite, and that of
knowledge is often tyrannical. It is hard to satisfy those who know not
what to demand, or those who demand by design what they think impossible
to be done. I have, indeed, disappointed no opinion more than my own;
yet I have endeavoured to perform my task with no slight solicitude. Not
a single passage in the whole work has appeared to me corrupt, which I
have not attempted to restore; or obscure, which I have not endeavoured
to illustrate. In many I have failed, like others; and from many, after
all my efforts, I have retreated, and confessed the repulse. I have not
passed over, with affected superiority, what is equally difficult to the
reader and to myself, but, where I could not instruct him, have owned my
ignorance. I might easily have accumulated a mass of seeming learning
upon easy scenes; but it ought not to be imputed to negligence, that,
where nothing was necessary, nothing has been done, or that, where
others have said enough, I have said no more.
Notes are often necessary, but they are necessary evils. Let him, that
is yet unacquainted with the powers of Shakespeare, and who desires to
feel the highest pleasure that the drama can give, read every play, from
the first scene to the last, with utter negligence of all his
commentators. When his fancy is once on the wing, let it not stoop at
correction or explanation. When his attention is strongly engaged, let
it disdain alike to turn aside to the name of Theobald and of Pope. Let
him read on through brightness and obscurity, through integrity and
corruption; let him preserve his comprehension of the dialogue and his
interest in the fable. And when the pleasures of novelty have ceased,
let him attempt exactness, and read the commentators.
Particular passages are cleared by notes, but the general effect of the
work is weakened. The mind is refrigerated by interruption; the thoughts
are diverted from the principal subject; the reader is weary, he
suspects not why; and at last throws away the book which he has too
diligently studied. Parts are not to be examined till the whole has been
surveyed; there is a kind of intellectual remoteness necessary for the
comprehension of any great work in its full design and in its true
proportions; a close approach shows the smaller niceties, but the beauty
of the whole is discerned no longer.
It is not very grateful to consider how little the succession of editors
has added to this author's power of pleasing. He was read, admired,
studied, and imitated, while he was yet deformed with all the
improprieties which ignorance and neglect could accumulate upon him;
while the reading was yet not rectified, nor his allusions understood;
yet then did Dryden pronounce "that Shakespeare was the man, who, of all
modern and, perhaps, ancient poets, had the largest and most
comprehensive soul. All the images of nature were still present to him,
and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily: when he describes any
thing, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those, who accuse him to
have wanted learning, give him the greater commendation: he was
naturally learned: he needed not the spectacles of books to read nature;
he looked inwards, and found her there. I cannot say he is every where
alike; were he so, I should do him injury to compare him with the
greatest of mankind. He is many times flat and insipid; his comick wit
degenerating into clinches, his serious swelling into bombast. But he is
always great when some great occasion is presented to him: no man can
say, he ever had a fit subject for his wit, and did not then raise
himself as high above the rest of poets,
Quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupressi."
It is to be lamented that such a writer should want a commentary; that
his language should become obsolete, or his sentiments obscure. But it
is vain to carry wishes beyond the condition of human things; that which
must happen to all, has happened to Shakespeare, by accident and time;
and more than has been suffered by any other writer since the use of
types[23], has been suffered by him through his own negligence of fame,
or, perhaps, by that superiority of mind, which despised its own
performances, when it compared them with its powers, and judged those
works unworthy to be preserved, which the criticks of following ages
were to contend for the fame of restoring and explaining.
Among these candidates of inferiour fame, I am now to stand the judgment
of the publick; and wish that I could confidently produce my commentary
as equal to the encouragement which I have had the honour of receiving.
Every work of this kind is by its nature deficient, and I should feel
little solicitude about the sentence, were it to be pronounced only by
the skilful and the learned.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Dr. Johnson's Preface first appeared in 1765. Malone's Shakespeare,
i. 108. and Boswell's Life of Johnson, i.
[2] Est vetus atque probus, centum qui perficit annos. Hon. Ep. II. 1.
v. 39.
[3] With all respect for our great critic's memory we must maintain,
that love has the _greatest_ influence on the sum of life: and every
popular tale or poem derives its main charm and power of pleasing
from the incidents of this universal passion. Other passions have,
undoubtedly, their sway, but love, when it does prevail, like
Aaron's rod, swallows up every feeling beside. It is one thing to
introduce the fulsome _badinage_ of compliment with which French
tragedy abounds, and another to exhibit the
--"very ecstacy of love:
Whose violent property foredoes itself,
And leads the will to desperate undertakings,
_As oft as any passion under heaven_,
That does afflict our natures."--
HAMLET. Act ii. Sc. i.
[4]
Quaerit quod nusquam est gentium, repent tamen.
Facit illud verisimile, quod mendacrium est.
PLAUTI PSEUDOLUS, Act i. Sc. 4.
Ficta voluptatis causa, sint proxima veris. HOR. ARS POET, 338.
See too the celebrated passage of Shakespeare himself--
Midsummer-night's Dream, Act v. Sc. 1; and Idler, 84.--Ed.
[5] The judgment of French poets on these points may be inferred from
the tenour of Boileau's admonitions:
Gardez donc de donner, ainsi que dans Clélie,
L'air ni l'esprit françois à l'antique Italie;
Et, sous des noms romains faisant notre portrait,
Peindre Caton galant, et Brutus dameret.
Art Poétique, iii.--Ed.
[6] The critic must, when he wrote this, have forgotten the Cyclops of
Euripides, and also the fact, that when an Athenian dramatist
brought out his _three_ tragedies at the Dionysiac festival, he
added, as a fourth, a sort of farce; a specimen of which Schlegel
considers the Cyclops. Mr. Twining, in his amusing and instructive
notes on Aristotle's Poetics, refers to the drunken jollity of
Hercules in the Alcestis, and to the ludicrous dialogue between
Ulysses and Minerva, in the first scene of the Ajax of Sophocles, as
instances of Greek tragi-comedy. We may add the Electra of
Euripides; for if the poet did not intend to burlesque the rules of
tragic composition in many of the scenes of that play, and to make
his audience laugh, he calculated on more dull gravity in Athens,
than we are accustomed to give that city of song the credit for. The
broad ridicule which Aristophanes casts against the tragedians is
not half so laughable.
[7] Thus, says Dowries the Prompter, p. 22: "The tragedy of Romeo and
Juliet was made some time after [1662] into a tragi-comedy, by Mr.
James Howard, he preserving Romeo and Juliet alive; so that when the
tragedy was revived again, 'twas played alternately, tragical one
day, and tragi-comical another, for several days together."
STEEVENS.
[8] This opinion is controverted, and its effects deplored, by Dr. J.
Warton, in a note to Malone's Shakespeare, i. p. 71.--Ed.
[9] Dr. Drake conceives that Dr. Wolcot was indebted to the above noble
passage for the _prima stamina_ of the following stanza:
Thus, while I wond'ring pause o'er Shakespeare's page
I mark, in visions of delight, the sage
High o'er the wrecks of man who stands sublime,
A column in the melancholy waste,
(Its cities humbled, and its glories past,)
Majestic 'mid the solitude of time.--Ed.
[10] The poets and painters before and of Shakespeare's time were all
guilty of the same fault. The former "combined the Gothic mythology
of fairies" with the fables and traditions of Greek and Roman lore;
while the latter dressed out the heroes of antiquity in the arms
and costume of their own day. The grand front of Rouen cathedral
affords ample and curious illustration of what we state. Mr.
Steevens, in his Shakespeare, adds, "that in Arthur Hall's version
of the fourth Iliad, Juno says to Jupiter:
"The time will come that _Totnam French_ shall turn."
And in the tenth Book we hear of "The Bastile": "Lemster wool," and
"The Byble."
[11] The relaxations of "England's queen" with her maids of honour were
not, if we may credit the existing memoirs of her court, precisely
such as modern fastidiousness would assign to the "fair vestal
throned by the west."
[12] A very full and satisfactory essay on the learning of Shakespeare,
may be found in Mr. Malone's Edition of Shakespeare, i. 300.
[13]
[Greek: Memonomenos d' o tlaemon
Aealin aethelon katheudein.] Anac. 8.
[14] The Comedy of Errors, which has been partly taken by some wretched
playwright from the Menaechmi of Plautus, is intolerably stupid:
that it may occasionally display the touch of Shakespeare, cannot
be denied; but these _purpurei panni_ are lamentably infrequent;
and, to adopt the language of Mr. Stevens, "that the entire play
was no work of his, is an opinion which (as Benedick says) fire
cannot melt out of me; I will die in it at the stake." Dr. Drake's
Literary Life of Johnson.--Ed.
[15] A list of these translations may be seen in Malone's Shakespeare,
i. 371. It was originally drawn up by Mr. Steevens.--Ed.
[16] See Dryden in the Epistle Dedicatory to his Rival Ladies.--Ed.
[17] It appears, from the induction of Ben Jonson's "Bartholomew Fair,"
to have been acted before the year 1590.--STEEVENS.
[18] The errors of the promoter's books of the present day excite the
violent invective of Mr. Steevens, in his notes on Johnson's
Preface.--Ed.
[19] This assertion is contradicted by Steevens and Malone, as regards
the second edition 1632. The former editor says, that it has the
advantage of various readings which are not merely such as
reiteration of copies will produce. The curious examiner of
Shakespeare's text, who possesses the first of these folio
editions, ought not to be unfurnished with the second. See Malone's
List of Early Editions in his Shakespeare, ii. 656.--Ed.
[20] It is extraordinary that this gentleman should attempt so
voluminous a work, as the Revisal of Shakespeare's text, when he
tells us in his preface, "he was not so fortunate as to be
furnished with either of the folio editions, much less any of the
ancient quartos: and even Sir Thomas Hanmer's performance was known
to him only by Dr. Warburton's representation."--FARMER.
[21] Republished by him in 1748, after Dr. Warburton's edition, with
alterations, &c.--STEEVENS.
[22] John Andreas. He was secretary to the Vatican library during the
papacies of Paul the second and Sixtus the fourth. By the former,
he was employed to superintend such works as were to be multiplied
by the new art of printing, at that time brought into Rome. He
published Herodotus, Strabo, Livy, Aulus Gellius, &c. His
schoolfellow, Cardinal de Cusa, procured him the bishopric of
Arcia, a province in Corsica; and Paul the second afterwards
appointed him to that of Aleria, in the same island, where he died
in 1493. See Fabric. Bibl. Lat. iii. 894, and Steevens, in Malone's
Shak. i. 106.
[23] See this assertion refuted by examples in a former note.--Ed.
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS
ON THE
PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE.
TEMPEST.
It is observed of The Tempest, that its plan is regular; this the author
of The Revisal[1] thinks, what I think too, an accidental effect of the
story, not intended or regarded by our author. But whatever might be
Shakespeare's intention in forming or adopting the plot, he has made it
instrumental to the production of many characters, diversified with
boundless invention, and preserved with profound skill in nature,
extensive knowledge of opinions, and accurate observation of life. In a
single drama are here exhibited princes, courtiers, and sailors, all
speaking in their real characters. There is the agency of airy spirits,
and of an earthly goblin; the operations of magick, the tumults of a
storm, the adventures of a desert island, the native effusion of
untaught affection, the punishment of guilt, and the final happiness of
the pair for whom our passions and reason are equally interested.
TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.
In this play there is a strange mixture of knowledge and ignorance, of
care and negligence. The versification is often excellent, the allusions
are learned and just; but the author conveys his heroes by sea from one
inland town to another in the same country; he places the emperour at
Milan, and sends his young men to attend him, but never mentions him
more; he makes Protheus, after an interview with Silvia, say he has only
seen her picture;[2] and, if we may credit the old copies, he has, by
mistaking places, left his scenery inextricable. The reason of all this
confusion seems to be, that he took his story from a novel, which he
sometimes followed, and sometimes forsook, sometimes remembered, and
sometimes forgot.
That this play is rightly attributed to Shakespeare, I have little
doubt. If it be taken from him, to whom shall it be given? This question
may be asked of all the disputed plays, except Titus Andronicus; and it
will be found more credible that Shakespeare might sometimes sink below
his highest flights, than that any other should rise up to his lowest.
MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.
Of this play there is a tradition preserved by Mr. Rowe, that it was
written at the command of queen Elizabeth, who was so delighted with the
character of Falstaff, that she wished it to be diffused through more
plays; but, suspecting that it might pall by continued uniformity,
directed the poet to diversify his manner, by showing him in love. No
task is harder than that of writing to the ideas of another. Shakespeare
knew what the queen, if the story be true, seems not to have known, that
by any real passion of tenderness, the selfish craft, the careless
jollity, and the lazy luxury of Falstaff must have suffered so much
abatement, that little of his former cast would have remained. Falstaff
could not love, but by ceasing to be Falstaff. He could only counterfeit
love, and his professions could be prompted, not by the hope of
pleasure, but of money. Thus the poet approached as near as he could to
the work enjoined him; yet having, perhaps, in the former plays,
completed his own idea, seems not to have been able to give Falstaff all
his former power of entertainment.
This comedy is remarkable for the variety and number of the personages,
who exhibit more characters appropriated and discriminated, than,
perhaps, can be found in any other play.
Whether Shakespeare was the first that produced upon the English stage
the effect of language distorted and depraved by provincial or foreign
pronunciation, I cannot certainly decide[3]. This mode of forming
ridiculous characters can confer praise only on him who originally
discovered it, for it requires not much of either wit or judgment; its
success must be derived almost wholly from the player, but its power in
a skilful mouth even he that despises it is unable to resist.
The conduct of this drama is deficient; the action begins and ends often
before the conclusion, and the different parts might change places
without inconvenience; but its general power, that power by which all
works of genius shall finally be tried, is such, that, perhaps, it never
yet had reader or spectator, who did not think it too soon at an end.
MEASURE FOR MEASURE.
There is, perhaps, not one of Shakespeare's plays more darkened than
this, by the peculiarities of its author, and the unskilfulness of its
editors, by distortions of phrase, or negligence of transcription.
The novel of Giraldi Cynthio, from which Shakespeare is supposed to have
borrowed this fable, may be read in Shakespeare Illustrated, elegantly
translated, with remarks, which will assist the inquirer to discover how
much absurdity Shakespeare has admitted or avoided.
I cannot but suspect that some other had new modelled the novel of
Cynthio, or written a story which, in some particulars, resembled it,
and that Cynthio was not the author whom Shakespeare immediately
followed. The emperour, in Cynthio, is named Maximine; the duke, in
Shakespeare's enumeration of the persons of the drama, is called
Vincentio. This appears a very slight remark; but since the duke has no
name in the play, nor is ever mentioned but by his title, why should he
be called Vincentio among the persons, but because the name was copied
from the story, and placed superfluously at the head of the list, by the
mere habit of transcription? It is, therefore, likely that there was
then a story of Vincentio duke of Vienna, different from that of
Maximine emperour of the Romans.
Of this play, the light or comick part is very natural and pleasing, but
the grave scenes, if a few passages be excepted, have more labour than
elegance. The plot is rather intricate than artful. The time of the
action is indefinite; some time, we know not how much, must have elapsed
between the recess of the duke and the imprisonment of Claudio; for he
must have learned the story of Mariana in his disguise, or he delegated
his power to a man already known to be corrupted. The unities of action
and place are sufficiently preserved.
LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST.
In this play, which all the editors have concurred to censure, and some
have rejected as unworthy of our poet, it must be confessed that there
are many passages mean, childish and vulgar; and some which ought not to
have been exhibited, as we are told they were, to a maiden queen. But
there are scattered through the whole many sparks of genius; nor is
there any play that has more evident marks of the hand of
Shakespeare[4].
MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM.
Wild and fantastical as this play is, all the parts, in their various
modes, are well written, and give the kind of pleasure which the author
designed. Fairies in his time were much in fashion; common tradition had
made them familiar, and Spenser's poem had made them great[5].
MERCHANT OF VENICE.
It has been lately discovered, that this fable is taken from a story in
the Pecorone[6] of Ser Giovanni Fiorentino, a novelist, who wrote in
1378. The story has been published in English, and I have epitomized the
translation. The translator is of opinion that the choice of the caskets
is borrowed from a tale of Boccace, which I have, likewise, abridged,
though I believe that Shakespeare must have had some other novel in
view.
Of The Merchant of Venice the style is even and easy, with few
peculiarities of diction, or anomalies of construction. The comick part
raises laughter, and the serious fixes expectation. The probability of
either one or the other story cannot be maintained. The union of two
actions in one event is, in this drama, eminently happy. Dryden was much
pleased with his own address in connecting the two plots of his Spanish
Friar, which yet, I believe, the critick will find excelled by this
play.
AS YOU LIKE IT.
Of this play the fable is wild and pleasing. I know not how the ladies
will approve the facility with which both Rosalind and Celia give away
their hearts. To Celia much may be forgiven for the heroism of her
friendship. The character of Jaques is natural and well preserved. The
comick dialogue is very sprightly, with less mixture of low buffoonery
than in some other plays; and the graver part is elegant and harmonious.
By hastening to the end of his work, Shakespeare suppressed the dialogue
between the usurper and the hermit, and lost an opportunity of
exhibiting a moral lesson, in which he might have found matter worthy of
his highest powers.
TAMING OF THE SHREW.
Of this play the two plots are so well united, that they can hardly be
called two, without injury to the art with which they are interwoven.
The attention is entertained with all the variety of a double plot, yet
is not distracted by unconnected incidents.
The part between Catharine and Petruchio is eminently sprightly and
diverting. At the marriage of Bianca, the arrival of the real father,
perhaps, produces more perplexity than pleasure. The whole play is very
popular and diverting.
ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.
This play has many delightful scenes, though not sufficiently probable,
and some happy characters, though not new, nor produced by any deep
knowledge of human nature. Parolles is a boaster and a coward, such as
has always been the sport of the stage, but, perhaps, never raised more
laughter or contempt than in the hands of Shakespeare.
I cannot reconcile my heart to Bertram; a man noble without generosity,
and young without truth; who marries Helen as a coward, and leaves her
as a profligate: when she is dead by his unkindness, sneaks home to a
second marriage, is accused by a woman whom he has wronged, defends
himself by falsehood, and is dismissed to happiness[7].
The story of Bertram and Diana had been told before of Mariana and
Angelo, and, to confess the truth, scarcely merited to be heard a second
time.
TWELFTH NIGHT.
This play is, in the graver part, elegant and easy, and, in some of the
lighter scenes, exquisitely humorous. Aguecheek is drawn with great
propriety, but his character is, in a great measure, that of natural
fatuity, and is, therefore, not the proper prey of a satirist. The
soliloquy of Malvolio is truly comick; he is betrayed to ridicule merely
by his pride. The marriage of Olivia, and the succeeding perplexity,
though well enough contrived to divert on the stage, wants credibility,
and fails to produce the proper instruction required in the drama, as it
exhibits no just picture of life.
WINTER'S TALE.
The story of this play is taken from The Pleasant History of Dorastus
and Fawnia, written by Robert Greene.
This play, as Dr. Warburton justly observes, is, with all its
absurdities, very entertaining. The character of Autolycus is very
naturally conceived, and strongly represented.
MACBETH.
This play is deservedly celebrated for the propriety of its fictions,
and solemnity, grandeur, and variety of its action; but it has no nice
discriminations of character; the events are too great to admit the
influence of particular dispositions, and the course of the action
necessarily determines the conduct of the agents.
The danger of ambition is well described; and I know not whether it may
not be said, in defence of some parts which now seem improbable, that,
in Shakespeare's time, it was necessary to warn credulity against vain
and illusive predictions.
The passions are directed to their true end. Lady Macbeth is merely
detested; and though the courage of Macbeth preserves some esteem, yet
every reader rejoices at his fall.
KING JOHN.
The tragedy of King John, though not written with the utmost power of
Shakespeare, is varied with a very pleasing interchange of incidents and
characters. The lady's grief is very affecting, and the character of the
bastard contains that mixture of greatness and levity which this author
delighted to exhibit.
KING RICHARD II.
This play is extracted from the Chronicle of Holinshed, in which many
passages may be found which Shakespeare has, with very little
alteration, transplanted into his scenes; particularly a speech of the
bishop of Carlisle in defence of King Richard's unalienable right, and
immunity from human jurisdiction.
Jonson, who, in his Catiline and Sejanus, has inserted many speeches
from the Roman historians, was, perhaps, induced to that practice by the
example of Shakespeare, who had condescended sometimes to copy more
ignoble writers. But Shakespeare had more of his own than Jonson, and,
if he sometimes was willing to spare his labour, showed by what he
performed at other times, that his extracts were made by choice or
idleness rather than necessity. This play is one of those which
Shakespeare has apparently revised[8]; but as success in works of
invention is not always proportionate to labour, it is not finished at
last with the happy force of some other of his tragedies, nor can be
said much to affect the passions or enlarge the understanding.
KING HENRY IV. PART II.
I fancy every reader, when he ends this play, cries out with Desdemona,
"O most lame and impotent conclusion!" As this play was not, to our
knowledge, divided into acts by the author, I could be content to
conclude it with the death of Henry the Fourth.
"In that Jerusalem shall Harry die."
These scenes, which now make the fifth act of Henry IV. might then be
the first of Henry V. but the truth is, that they do not unite very
commodiously to either play. When these plays were represented, I
believe they ended as they are now ended in the books; but Shakespeare
seems to have designed that the whole series of action, from the
beginning of Richard II. to the end of Henry V. should be considered by
the reader as one work, upon one plan, only broken into parts by the
necessity of exhibition.
None of Shakespeare's plays are more read than the first and second
parts of Henry IV. Perhaps no author has ever in two plays afforded so
much delight. The great events are interesting, for the fate of kingdoms
depends upon them; the slighter occurrences are diverting, and, except
one or two, sufficiently probable; the incidents are multiplied with
wonderful fertility of invention, and the characters diversified with
the utmost nicety of discernment, and the profoundest skill in the
nature of man.
The prince, who is the hero both of the comick and tragick part, is a
young man of great abilities and violent passions, whose sentiments are
right, though his actions are wrong; whose virtues are obscured by
negligence, and whose understanding is dissipated by levity. In his idle
hours he is rather loose than wicked; and when the occasion forces out
his latent qualities, he is great without effort, and brave without
tumult. The trifler is roused into a hero, and the hero again reposes in
the trifler. This character is great, original and just.
Percy is a rugged soldier, cholerick and quarrelsome, and has only the
soldier's virtues, generosity and courage. But Falstaff, unimitated,
unimitable Falstaff, how shall I describe thee! thou compound of sense
and vice; of sense which may be admired, but not esteemed; of vice which
may be despised, but hardly detested. Falstaff is a character loaded
with faults, and with those faults which naturally produce contempt. He
is a thief and a glutton, a coward and a boaster, always ready to cheat
the weak, and prey upon the poor; to terrify the timorous, and insult
the defenceless. At once obsequious and malignant, he satirizes in their
absence those whom he lives by flattering. He is familiar with the
prince only as an agent of vice, but of this familiarity he is so proud,
as not only to be supercilious and haughty with common men, but to think
his interest of importance to the duke of Lancaster. Yet the man thus
corrupt, thus despicable, makes himself necessary to the prince that
despises him, by the most pleasing of all qualities, perpetual gaiety,
by an unfailing power of exciting laughter, which is the more freely
indulged, as his wit is not of the splendid or ambitious kind, but
consists in easy scapes and sallies of levity, which make sport, but
raise no envy. It must be observed, that he is stained with no enormous
or sanguinary crimes, so that his licentiousness is not so offensive but
that it may be borne for his mirth.
The moral to be drawn from this representation is, that no man is more
dangerous than he that, with a will to corrupt, hath the power to
please; and that neither wit nor honesty ought to think themselves safe
with such a companion, when they see Henry seduced by Falstaff.
KING HENRY V.
This play has many scenes of high dignity, and many of easy merriment.
The character of the king is well supported, except in his courtship,
where he has neither the vivacity of Hal, nor the grandeur of Henry. The
humour of Pistol is very happily continued; his character has, perhaps,
been the model of all the bullies that have yet appeared on the English
stage.
The lines given to the chorus have many admirers; but the truth is, that
in them a little may be praised, and much must be forgiven: nor can it
be easily discovered why the intelligence given by the chorus is more
necessary in this play than in many others where it is omitted. The
great defect of this play is the emptiness and narrowness of the last
act, which a very little diligence might have easily avoided.
KING HENRY VI. PART I.
Of this play there is no copy earlier than that of the folio in 1623,
though the two succeeding parts are extant in two editions in quarto.
That the second and third parts were published without the first, may be
admitted, as no weak proof that the copies were surreptitiously
obtained, and that the printers of that time gave the publick those
plays, not such as the author designed, but such as they could get them.
That this play was written before the two others is indubitably
collected from the series of events; that it was written and played
before Henry V. is apparent, because in the epilogue there is mention
made of this play, and not of the other parts:
Henry the sixth in swaddling bands crown'd king,
Whose state so many had i' the managing
That they lost France, and made all England rue,
Which oft our stage hath shown.
France is lost in this play. The two following contain, as the old title
imports, the contention of the houses of York and Lancaster.
The two first parts of Henry VI. were printed in 1600. When Henry V. was
written, we know not, but it was printed likewise in 1600, and,
therefore, before the publication of the first and second parts: the
first part of Henry VI. had been often shown on the stage, and would
certainly have appeared in its place had the author been the publisher.
KING HENRY VI. PART III.
The three parts of Henry VI. are suspected, by Mr. Theobald, of being
supposititious, and are declared, by Dr. Warburton, to be certainly not
Shakespeare's[9]. Mr. Theobald's suspicion arises from some obsolete
words; but the phraseology is like the rest of our author's style, and
single words, of which, however, I do not observe more than two, can
conclude little.
Dr. Warburton gives no reason, but I suppose him to judge upon deeper
principles and more comprehensive views, and to draw his opinion from
the general effect and spirit of the composition, which he thinks
inferiour to the other historical plays.
From mere inferiority nothing can be inferred; in the productions of wit
there will be inequality. Sometimes judgment will err, and sometimes the
matter itself will defeat the artist. Of every author's works one will
be the best, and one will be the worst. The colours are not equally
pleasing, nor the attitudes equally graceful, in all the pictures of
Titian or Reynolds.
Dissimilitude of style, and heterogeneousness of sentiment, may
sufficiently show that a work does not really belong to the reputed
author. But in these plays no such marks of spuriousness are found. The
diction, the versification, and the figures, are Shakespeare's. These
plays, considered without regard to characters and incidents, merely as
narratives in verse, are more happily conceived, and more accurately
finished, than those of King John, Richard II. or the tragick scenes of
Henry IV. and V. If we take these plays from Shakespeare, to whom shall
they be given? What author of that age had the same easiness of
expression and fluency of numbers?
Having considered the evidence given by the plays themselves, and found
it in their favour, let us now inquire what corroboration can be gained
from other testimony. They are ascribed to Shakespeare by the first
editors, whose attestation may be received in questions of fact, however
unskilfully they superintended their edition. They seem to be declared
genuine by the voice of Shakespeare himself, who refers to the second
play in his epilogue to Henry V. and apparently connects the first act
of Richard III. with the last of the third part of Henry VI. If it be
objected that the plays were popular, and that, therefore, he alluded to
them as well known; it may be answered, with equal probability, that the
natural passions of a poet would have disposed him to separate his own
works from those of an inferiour hand. And, indeed, if an author's own
testimony is to be overthrown by speculative criticism, no man can be
any longer secure of literary reputation.
Of these three plays I think the second the best. The truth is, that
they have not sufficient variety of action, for the incidents are too
often of the same kind; yet many of the characters are well
discriminated. King Henry and his queen, king Edward, the duke of
Gloucester, and the earl of Warwick, are very strongly and distinctly
painted.
The old copies of the two latter parts of Henry VI. and of Henry V. are
so apparently imperfect and mutilated, that there is no reason for
supposing them the first draughts of Shakespeare. I am inclined to
believe them copies taken by some auditor who wrote down, during the
representation, what the time would permit, then, perhaps, filled up
some of his omissions at a second or third hearing, and when he had by
this method formed something like a play, sent it to the printer[10].
KING RICHARD III.
This is one of the most celebrated of our author's performances; yet I
know not whether it has not happened to him as to others, to be praised
most, when praise is not most deserved. That this play has scenes noble
in themselves, and very well contrived to strike in the exhibition,
cannot be denied. But some parts are trifling, others shocking, and some
improbable.
I have nothing to add to the observations of the learned criticks, but
that some traces of this antiquated exhibition are still retained in the
rustick puppet-plays, in which I have seen the Devil very lustily
belaboured by Punch, whom I hold to be the legitimate successor of the
old Vice[11].
KING HENRY VIII.
The play of Henry VIII. is one of those which still keeps possession of
the stage by the splendour of its pageantry. The coronation, about forty
years ago, drew the people together in multitudes for a great part of
the winter[12]. Yet pomp is not the only merit of this play. The meek
sorrows and virtuous distress of Catharine have furnished some scenes
which may be justly numbered among the greatest efforts of tragedy. But
the genius of Shakespeare comes in and goes out with Catharine[13].
Every other part may be easily conceived, and easily written.
The historical dramas are now concluded, of which the two parts of Henry
IV. and Henry V. are among the happiest of our author's compositions;
and King John, Richard III. and Henry VIII. deservedly stand in the
second class. Those whose curiosity would refer the historical scenes to
their original, may consult Holinshed, and sometimes Hall: from
Holinshed, Shakespeare has often inserted whole speeches, with no more
alteration than was necessary to the numbers of his verse. To transcribe
them into the margin was unnecessary, because the original is easily
examined, and they are seldom less perspicuous in the poet than in the
historian.
To play histories, or to exhibit a succession of events by action and
dialogue, was a common entertainment among our rude ancestors upon great
festivities. The parish clerks once performed at Clerkenwell a play,
which lasted three days, containing the History of the World.
CORIOLANUS.
The tragedy of Coriolanus is one of the most amusing of our author's
performances. The old man's merriment in Menenius; the lofty lady's
dignity in Volumnia; the bridal modesty in Virgilia; the patrician and
military haughtiness in Coriolanus; the plebeian malignity, and
tribunitian insolence in Brutus and Sicinius, make a very pleasing and
interesting variety: and the various revolutions of the hero's fortune
fill the mind with anxious curiosity. There is, perhaps, too much bustle
in the first act, and too little in the last.
JULIUS CAESAR.
Of this tragedy many particular passages deserve regard, and the
contention and reconcilement of Brutus and Cassius is universally
celebrated; but I have never been strongly agitated in perusing it, and
think it somewhat cold and unaffecting, compared with some other of
Shakespeare's plays; his adherence to the real story, and to Roman
manners, seems to have impeded the natural vigour of his genius.
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.
This play keeps curiosity always busy, and the passions always
interested. The continual hurry of the action, the variety of incidents,
and the quick succession of one personage to another, call the mind
forward, without intermission, from the first act to the last. But the
power of delighting is derived principally from the frequent changes of
the scene; for, except the feminine arts, some of which are too low,
which distinguish Cleopatra, no character is very strongly
discriminated. Upton, who did not easily miss what he desired to find,
has discovered that the language of Antony is, with great skill and
learning, made pompous and superb, according to his real practice. But I
think his diction not distinguishable from that of others: the most
tumid speech in the play is that which Cæsar makes to Octavia.
The events, of which the principal are described according to history,
are produced without any art of connexion or care of disposition.
TIMON OF ATHENS.
The play of Timon is a domestick tragedy, and, therefore, strongly
fastens on the attention of the reader. In the plan there is not much
art, but the incidents are natural, and the characters various and
exact. The catastrophe affords a very powerful warning against that
ostentatious liberality, which scatters bounty, but confers no benefits,
and buys flattery, but not friendship.
In this tragedy are many passages perplexed, obscure, and probably
corrupt, which I have endeavoured to rectify or explain, with due
diligence; but having only one copy, cannot promise myself that my
endeavours will be much applauded.
TITUS ANDRONICUS.
All the editors and criticks agree with Mr. Theobald in supposing this
play spurious. I see no reason for differing from them; for the colour
of the style is wholly different from that of the other plays, and there
is an attempt at regular versification and artificial closes, not always
inelegant, yet seldom pleasing. The barbarity of the spectacles, and the
general massacre, which are here exhibited, can scarcely be conceived
tolerable to any audience; yet we are told by Jonson, that they were not
only borne, but praised. That Shakespeare wrote any part, though
Theobald declares it incontestable, I see no reason for believing.
The testimony produced at the beginning of this play, by which it is
ascribed to Shakespeare, is by no means equal to the argument against
its authenticity, arising from the total difference of conduct, language
and sentiments, by which it stands apart from all the rest. Meres had
probably no other evidence than that of a title-page, which, though in
our time it be sufficient, was then of no great authority; for all the
plays which were rejected by the first collectors of Shakespeare's
works, and admitted in later editions, and again rejected by the
critical editors, had Shakespeare's name on the title[14], as we must
suppose, by the fraudulence of the printers, who, while there were yet
no gazettes, nor advertisements, nor any means of circulating literary
intelligence, could usurp at pleasure any celebrated name. Nor had
Shakespeare any interest in detecting the imposture, as none of his fame
or profit was produced by the press.
The chronology of this play does not prove it not to be Shakespeare's.
If it had been written twenty-five years in 1614, it might have been
written when Shakespeare was twenty-five years old. When he left
Warwickshire I know not; but at the age of twenty-five it was rather too
late to fly for deer-stealing.
Ravenscroft, who in the reign of Charles II. revised this play, and
restored it to the stage, tells us, in his preface, from a theatrical
tradition, I suppose, which in his time might be of sufficient
authority, that this play was touched, in different parts, by
Shakespeare, but written by some other poet. I do not find Shakespeare's
touches very discernible.
TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.
This play is more correctly written than most of Shakespeare's
compositions, but it is not one of those in which either the extent of
his views or elevation of his fancy is fully displayed. As the story
abounded with materials, he has exerted little invention; but he has
diversified his characters with great variety, and preserved them with
great exactness. His vicious characters sometimes disgust, but cannot
corrupt, for both Cressida and Pandarus are detested and contemned. The
comick characters seem to have been the favourites of the writer; they
are of the superficial kind, and exhibit more of manners than nature;
but they are copiously filled, and powerfully impressed.
Shakespeare has in his story followed, for the greater part, the old
book of Caxton, which was then very popular; but the character of
Thersites, of which it makes no mention, is a proof that this play was
written after Chapman had published his version of Homer[15].
CYMBELINE.
This play has many just sentiments, some natural dialogues, and some
pleasing scenes, but they are obtained at the expense of much
incongruity. To remark the folly of the fiction, the absurdity of the
conduct, the confusion of the names and manners of different times, and
the impossibility of the events in any system of life, were to waste
criticism upon unresisting imbecility, upon faults too evident for
detection, and too gross for aggravation.
KING LEAR.
The tragedy of Lear is deservedly celebrated among the dramas of
Shakespeare. There is, perhaps, no play which keeps the attention so
strongly fixed; which so much agitates our passions, and interests our
curiosity. The artful involutions of distinct interests, the striking
oppositions of contrary characters, the sudden changes of fortune, and
the quick succession of events, fill the mind with a perpetual tumult of
indignation, pity and hope. There is no scene which does not contribute
to the aggravation of the distress or conduct of the action, and scarce
a line which does not conduce to the progress of the scene. So powerful
is the current of the poet's imagination, that the mind, which once
ventures within it, is hurried irresistibly along.
On the seeming improbability of Lear's conduct, it may be observed, that
he is represented according to histories at that time vulgarly received
as true. And, perhaps, if we turn our thoughts upon the barbarity and
ignorance of the age to which this story is referred, it will appear not
so unlikely as while we estimate Lear's manners by our own. Such
preference of one daughter to another, or resignation of dominion on
such conditions, would be yet credible, if told of a petty prince of
Guinea or Madagascar. Shakespeare, indeed, by the mention of his earls
and dukes, has given us the idea of times more civilized, and of life
regulated by softer manners; and the truth is, that though he so nicely
discriminates, and so minutely describes the characters of men, he
commonly neglects and confounds the characters of ages, by mingling
customs ancient and modern, English and foreign.
My learned friend Mr. Warton, who has, in the Adventurer, very minutely
criticised this play, remarks, that the instances of cruelty are too
savage and shocking, and that the intervention of Edmund destroys the
simplicity of the story. These objections may, I think, be answered, by
repeating, that the cruelty of the daughters is an historical fact, to
which the poet has added little, having only drawn it into a series by
dialogue and action. But I am not able to apologize with equal
plausibility for the extrusion of Gloster's eyes, which seems an act too
horrid to be endured in dramatick exhibition, and such as must always
compel the mind to relieve its distress by incredulity. Yet let it be
remembered that our author well knew what would please the audience for
which he wrote.
The injury done by Edmund to the simplicity of the action is abundantly
recompensed by the addition of variety, by the art with which he is made
to co-operate with the chief design, and the opportunity which he gives
the poet of combining perfidy with perfidy, and connecting the wicked
son with the wicked daughters, to impress this important moral, that
villany is never at a stop, that crimes lead to crimes, and at last
terminate in ruin.
But though this moral be incidentally enforced, Shakespeare has suffered
the virtue of Cordelia to perish in a just cause, contrary to the
natural ideas of justice, to the hope of the reader, and, what is yet
more strange, to the faith of chronicles. Yet this conduct is justified
by the Spectator, who blames Tate for giving Cordelia success and
happiness in his alteration, and declares, that, in his opinion, "the
tragedy has lost half its beauty." Dennis has remarked, whether justly
or not, that, to secure the favourable reception of Cato, "the town was
poisoned with much false and abominable criticism," and that endeavours
had been used to discredit and decry poetical justice. A play in which
the wicked prosper, and the virtuous miscarry, may doubtless be good,
because it is a just representation of the common events of human life:
but since all reasonable beings naturally love justice, I cannot easily
be persuaded, that the observation of justice makes a play worse; or
that, if other excellencies are equal, the audience will not always rise
better pleased from the final triumph of persecuted virtue.
In the present case the publick has decided[16]. Cordelia, from the time
of Tate, has always retired with victory and felicity. And, if my
sensations could add any thing to the general suffrage, I might relate,
I was many years ago so shocked by Cordelia's death, that I know not
whether I ever endured to read again the last scenes of the play till I
undertook to revise them as an editor.
There is another controversy among the criticks concerning this play. It
is disputed whether the predominant image in Lear's disordered mind be
the loss of his kingdom or the cruelty of his daughters. Mr. Murphy, a
very judicious critick, has evinced by induction of particular passages,
that the cruelty of his daughters is the primary source of his distress,
and that the loss of royalty affects him only as a secondary and
subordinate evil. He observes, with great justness, that Lear would move
our compassion but little, did we not rather consider the injured father
than the degraded king.
The story of this play, except the episode of Edmund, which is derived,
I think, from Sidney, is taken originally from Geoffry of Monmouth, whom
Holinshed generally copied; but, perhaps, immediately from an old
historical ballad. My reason for believing that the play was posterior
to the ballad, rather than the ballad to the play, is, that the ballad
has nothing of Shakespeare's nocturnal tempest, which is too striking to
have been omitted, and that it follows the chronicle; it has the
rudiments of the play, but none of its amplifications: it first hinted
Lear's madness, but did not array it in circumstances. The writer of the
ballad added something to the history, which is a proof that he would
have added more, if more had occurred to his mind, and more must have
occurred if he had seen Shakespeare.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
This play is one of the most pleasing of our author's performances. The
scenes are busy and various, the incidents numerous and important, the
catastrophe irresistibly affecting, and the process of the action
carried on with such probability, at least with such congruity to
popular opinions, as tragedy requires.
Here is one of the few attempts of Shakespeare to exhibit the
conversation of gentlemen, to represent the airy sprightliness of
juvenile elegance. Mr. Dryden mentions a tradition, which might easily
reach his time, of a declaration made by Shakespeare, that "he was
obliged to kill Mercutio in the third act, lest he should have been
killed by him." Yet he thinks him "no such formidable person, but that
he might have lived through the play, and died in his bed," without
danger to the poet. Dryden well knew, had he been in quest of truth,
that, in a pointed sentence, more regard is commonly had to the words
than the thought, and that it is very seldom to be rigorously
understood. Mercutio's wit, gaiety and courage, will always procure him
friends that wish him a longer life; but his death is not precipitated,
he has lived out the time allotted him in the construction of the play;
nor do I doubt the ability of Shakespeare to have continued his
existence, though some of his sallies are, perhaps, out of the reach of
Dryden; whose genius was not very fertile of merriment, nor ductile to
humour, but acute, argumentative, comprehensive and sublime.
The nurse is one of the characters in which the author delighted; he
has, with great subtilty of distinction, drawn her at once loquacious
and secret, obsequious and insolent, trusty and dishonest.
His comick scenes are happily wrought, but his pathetick strains are
always polluted with some unexpected depravations. His persons, however
distressed, have a conceit left them in their misery, a miserable
conceit.
HAMLET.
If the dramas of Shakespeare were to be characterized, each by the
particular excellence which distinguishes it from the rest, we must
allow to the tragedy of Hamlet the praise of variety. The incidents are
so numerous, that the argument of the play would make a long tale. The
scenes are interchangeably diversified with merriment and solemnity;
with merriment, that includes judicious and instructive observations;
and solemnity, not strained by poetical violence above the natural
sentiments of man. New characters appear from time to time in continual
succession, exhibiting various forms of life and particular modes of
conversation. The pretended madness of Hamlet causes much mirth, the
mournful distraction of Ophelia fills the heart with tenderness, and
every personage produces the effect intended, from the apparition that,
in the first act, chills the blood with horrour, to the fop, in the
last, that exposes affectation to just contempt.
The conduct is, perhaps, not wholly secure against objections. The
action is, indeed, for the most part, in continual progression, but
there are some scenes which neither forward nor retard it. Of the
feigned madness of Hamlet there appears no adequate cause[17], for he
does nothing which he might not have done with the reputation of sanity.
He plays the madman most, when he treats Ophelia with so much rudeness,
which seems to be useless and wanton cruelty.
Hamlet is, through the whole piece, rather an instrument than an agent.
After he has, by the stratagem of the play, convicted the king, he makes
no attempt to punish him; and his death is at last effected by an
incident which Hamlet had no part in producing.
The catastrophe is not very happily produced; the exchange of weapons
is rather an expedient of necessity, than a stroke of art. A scheme
might easily have been formed to kill Hamlet with the dagger, and
Laertes with the bowl.
The poet is accused of having shown little regard to poetical justice,
and may be charged with equal neglect of poetical probability. The
apparition left the regions of the dead to little purpose; the revenge
which he demands is not obtained, but by the death of him that was
required to take it; and the gratification, which would arise from the
destruction of an usurper and a murderer, is abated by the untimely
death of Ophelia, the young, the beautiful, the harmless, and the pious.
OTHELLO.
The beauties of this play impress themselves so strongly upon the
attention of the reader, that they can draw no aid from critical
illustration. The fiery openness of Othello, magnanimous, artless, and
credulous, boundless in his confidence, ardent in his affection,
inflexible in his resolution, and obdurate in his revenge; the cool
malignity of Iago, silent in his resentment, subtle in his designs, and
studious at once of his interest and his vengeance; the soft simplicity
of Desdemona, confident of merit, and conscious of innocence, her
artless perseverance in her suit, and her slowness to suspect that she
can be suspected, are such proofs of Shakespeare's skill in human
nature, as, I suppose, it is vain to seek in any modern writer. The
gradual progress which Iago makes in the Moor's conviction, and the
circumstances which he employs to inflame him, are so artfully natural,
that, though it will, perhaps, not be said of him as he says of himself,
that he is "a man not easily jealous," yet we cannot but pity him, when
at last we find him "perplexed in the extreme."
There is always danger, lest wickedness, conjoined with abilities,
should steal upon esteem, though it misses of approbation; but the
character of Iago is so conducted, that he is, from the first scene to
the last, hated and despised.
Even the inferiour characters of this play would be very conspicuous in
any other piece, not only for their justness, but their strength. Cassio
is brave, benevolent and honest, ruined only by his want of stubbornness
to resist an insidious invitation. Roderigo's suspicious credulity, and
impatient submission to the cheats which he sees practised upon him, and
which, by persuasion, he suffers to be repeated, exhibit a strong
picture of a weak mind betrayed by unlawful desires to a false friend;
and the virtue of Aemilia is such as we often find, worn loosely, but
not cast off, easy to commit small crimes, but quickened and alarmed at
atrocious villanies.
The scenes, from the beginning to the end, are busy, varied by happy
interchanges, and regularly promoting the progression of the story; and
the narrative, in the end, though it tells but what is known already,
yet is necessary to produce the death of Othello.
Had the scene opened in Cyprus, and the preceding incidents been
occasionally related, there had been little wanting to a drama of the
most exact and scrupulous regularity.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Mr. Heath, who wrote a Revisal of Shakespeare's text, published in
8vo. circa 1760.
[2] This is not a blunder of Shakespeare's, but a mistake of Johnson's,
who considers the passage alluded to in a more literal sense than
the author intended it. Sir Proteus, it is true, had seen Silvia for
a few moments; but though he could form from thence some idea of her
person, he was still unacquainted with her temper, manners, and the
qualities of her mind. He, therefore, considers himself as having
seen her picture only. The thought is just and elegantly expressed.
So in the Scornful Lady, the elder Loveless says to her, "I was mad
once when I loved pictures. For what are _shape_ and _colours_ else
but _pictures?_"--Mason in Malone's Shak. iv. 137.--Ed.
[3] In the Three Ladies of London, 1584, is the character of an Italian
merchant, very strongly marked by foreign pronunciation. Dr.
Dodypoll, in the Comedy which bears his name, is, like Caius, a
French physician. This piece appeared, at least, a year before The
Merry Wives of Windsor. The hero of it speaks such another jargon as
the antagonist of Sir Hugh, and, like him, is cheated of his
mistress. In several other pieces, more ancient than the earliest of
Shakespeare's, provincial characters are introduced--Steevens.
In the old play of Henry V. French soldiers are introduced speaking
broken English.--Boswell.
[4] See, however, Dr. Drake's Essays on Rambler &c. ii. 392.--Ed.
[5] Johnson's concluding observation on this play, is not conceived with
his usual judgment. There is no analogy or resemblance whatever
between the fairies of Spenser, and those of Shakespeare. The
fairies of Spenser, as appears from his description of them in the
second book of the Faerie Queene, Canto 10. were a race of mortals
created by Prometheus, of the human size, shape, and affections, and
subject to death. But those of Shakespeare, and of common tradition,
as Johnson calls them, were a diminutive race of sportful beings,
endowed with immortality and supernatural power, totally different
from those of Spenser.--M. MASON.
[6] The first novel of the fourth day. An epitome of the novels, from
which the story of this play is supposed to be taken, is appended to
it in Malone's edition, v. 154.
[7] This opinion of the character of Bertram is examined at considerable
length in the New Monthly Magazine, iv. 481.--Ed.
[8] The notion that Shakespeare revised this play, though it has long
prevailed, appears to me extremely doubtful; or to speak more
plainly, I do not believe it. MALONE. See too the Essay on the
Chronological order of Shakespeare's plays, Malone's edition, ii.
[9] For a full discussion of this point, see the Dissertation on the
three parts of King Henry VI. tending to show that those plays were
not written originally by Shakespeare. The dissertation was written
by Malone, and pronounced by Porson to be one of the most convincing
pieces of criticism he had ever met with. Malone's Shakespeare,
xviii. 557.
[10] See this opinion controverted. Malone's Shakespeare, xviii. 550.
--Ed.
[11] This paragraph, apparently so unconnected with the preceding,
refers to some critical dissertations on the character of Vice.
They may be found in Malone's Shakespeare, xix. 244. See likewise
Pursuits of Literature, Dialogue the First.--Ed.
[12] Chetwood says, that during one season it was exhibited 75 times.
See his History of the Stage, p. 68.--Ed.
[13] Dr. Johnson told Mrs. Siddons that he admired her most in this
character.--Mrs. Piozzi.
[14] This statement is not quite accurate concerning the seven spurious
plays, which the printer of the folio in 1664 improperly admitted
into his volume. The name of Shakespeare appears only in the
title-pages of four of them: Pericles, Sir John Oldcastle, the
London Prodigal, and the Yorkshire Tragedy. Malone's Shak. xxi. 382.
[15] The first seven books of Chapman's Homer were published in the year
1596, and again in 1598. The whole twenty-four of the Iliad
appeared in 1611.--STEEVENS.
[16] Dr. Johnson should rather have said that the managers of the
theatres-royal have decided, and that the public has been obliged
to acquiesce in their decision. The altered play has the upper
gallery on its side; the original drama was patronized by Addison:
Victrix causa _Diis_ placuit, sed victa _Catomi_. LUCAN. Malone's
Shak. x. 290.
[17] See, however, Mr. Boswell's long and erudite note in his
Shakespeare, vii. 536. "Il me semble," says Madame De Staël, "cu'en
lisant cette tragédie, on distingue parfaitement dans Hamlet
l'égarement réel à travers l'égarement affecté."--Mme. De Staël de
la Littérature, c. xiii. See also Schlegel in his Dramatic
literature, ii.--Ed.
AN ACCOUNT OF THE
HARLEIAN LIBRARY.
To solicit a subscription for a catalogue of books exposed to sale, is
an attempt for which some apology cannot but be necessary; for few would
willingly contribute to the expense of volumes, by which neither
instruction nor entertainment could be afforded, from which only the
bookseller could expect advantage, and of which the only use must cease,
at the dispersion of the library[1].
Nor could the reasonableness of an universal rejection of our proposal
be denied, if this catalogue were to be compiled with no other view,
than that of promoting the sale of the books which it enumerates, and
drawn up with that inaccuracy and confusion which may be found in those
that are daily published.
But our design, like our proposal, is uncommon, and to be prosecuted at
a very uncommon expense: it being intended, that the books shall be
distributed into their distinct classes, and every class ranged with
some regard to the age of the writers; that every book shall be
accurately described; that the peculiarities of editions shall be
remarked, and observations from the authors of literary history
occasionally interspersed; that, by this catalogue, we may inform
posterity of the excellence and value of this great collection, and
promote the knowledge of scarce books, and elegant editions. For this
purpose, men of letters are engaged, who cannot even be supplied with
amanuenses, but at an expense above that of a common catalogue.
To show that this collection deserves a particular degree of regard from
the learned and the studious, that it excels any library that was ever
yet offered to publick sale, in the value, as well as number, of the
volumes, which it contains; and that, therefore, this catalogue will not
be of less use to men of letters, than those of the Thuaniau, Heinsian,
or Barberinian libraries, it may not be improper to exhibit a general
account of the different classes, as they are naturally divided by the
several sciences.
By this method we can, indeed, exhibit only a general idea, at once
magnificent and confused; an idea of the writings of many nations,
collected from distant parts of the world, discovered sometimes by
chance, and sometimes by curiosity, amidst the rubbish of forsaken
monasteries, and the repositories of ancient families, and brought
hither from every part, as to the universal receptacle of learning.
It will be no unpleasing effect of this account, if those that shall
happen to peruse it, should be inclined by it to reflect on the
character of the late proprietors, and to pay some tribute of veneration
to their ardour for literature, to that generous and exalted curiosity
which they gratified with incessant searches and immense expense, and to
which they dedicated that time, and that superfluity of fortune, which
many others of their rank employ in the pursuit of contemptible
amusements, or the gratification of guilty passions. And, surely, every
man, who considers learning as ornamental and advantageous to the
community, must allow them the honour of publick benefactors, who have
introduced amongst us authors, not hitherto well known, and added to the
literary treasures of their native country.
That our catalogue will excite any other man to emulate the collectors
of this library, to prefer books and manuscripts to equipage and luxury,
and to forsake noise and diversion for the conversation of the learned,
and the satisfaction of extensive knowledge, we are very far from
presuming to hope; but shall make no scruple to assert, that, if any man
should happen to be seized with such laudable ambition, he may find in
this catalogue hints and informations which are not easily to be met
with; he will discover, that the boasted Bodleian library is very far
from a perfect model, and that even the learned Fabricius cannot
completely instruct him in the early editions of the classick writers.
But the collectors of libraries cannot be numerous; and, therefore,
catalogues could not very properly be recommended to the publick, if
they had not a more general and frequent use, an use which every student
has experienced, or neglected to his loss. By the means of catalogues
only, can it be known what has been written on every part of learning,
and the hazard avoided of encountering difficulties which have already
been cleared, discussing questions which have already been decided, and
digging in mines of literature which former ages have exhausted.
How often this has been the fate of students, every man of letters can
declare; and, perhaps, there are very few who have not sometimes valued
as new discoveries, made by themselves, those observations, which have
long since been published, and of which the world, therefore, will
refuse them the praise; nor can the refusal be censured as any enormous
violation of justice; for, why should they not forfeit by their
ignorance, what they might claim by their sagacity?
To illustrate this remark, by the mention of obscure names, would not
much confirm it; and to vilify, for this purpose, the memory of men
truly great, would be to deny them the reverence which they may justly
claim from those whom their writings have instructed. May the shade, at
least, of one great English critick[2] rest without disturbance; and may
no man presume to insult his memory, who wants his learning, his reason,
or his wit.
From the vexatious disappointment of meeting reproach, where praise is
expected, every man will certainly desire to be secured; and, therefore,
that book will have some claim to his regard, from which he may receive
informations of the labours of his predecessors, such as a catalogue of
the Harleian library will copiously afford him.
Nor is the use of catalogues of less importance to those whom curiosity
has engaged in the study of literary history, and who think the
intellectual revolutions of the world more worthy of their attention,
than the ravages of tyrants, the desolation of kingdoms, the rout of
armies, and the fall of empires. Those who are pleased with observing
the first birth of new opinions, their struggles against opposition,
their silent progress under persecution, their general reception, and
their gradual decline, or sudden extinction; those that amuse themselves
with remarking the different periods of human knowledge, and observe how
darkness and light succeed each other; by what accident the most gloomy
nights of ignorance have given way to the dawn of science; and how
learning has languished and decayed, for want of patronage and regard,
or been overborne by the prevalence of fashionable ignorance, or lost
amidst the tumults of invasion, and the storms of violence. All those
who desire any knowledge of the literary transactions of past ages, may
find in catalogues, like this at least, such an account as is given by
annalists, and chronologers of civil history.
How the knowledge of the sacred writings has been diffused, will be
observed from the catalogue of the various editions of the Bible, from
the first impression by Fust, in 1462, to the present time; in which
will be contained the polyglot editions of Spain, France, and England,
those of the original Hebrew, the Greek Septuagint, and the Latin
Vulgate; with the versions which are now used in the remotest parts of
Europe, in the country of the Grisons, in Lithuania, Bohemia, Finland,
and Iceland.
With regard to the attempts of the same kind made in our own country,
there are few whose expectations will not be exceeded by the number of
English Bibles, of which not one is forgotten, whether valuable for the
pomp and beauty of the impression, or for the notes with which the text
is accompanied, or for any controversy or persecution that it produced,
or for the peculiarity of any single passage. With the same care have
the various editions of the book of Common Prayer been selected, from
which all the alterations which have been made in it may be easily
remarked.