(Vol. iv., p. 379.)
Assuming that the principal ATROCITIES of the reverend Richard Farmer
are his _Essay on the learning of Shakespeare_, and the substance of a
note on _Hamlet_, Act V. Sc. 2., I shall transcribe, as a hint to the
lovers of manly criticism, a general character of that writer, a
character of his _Essay_, and the note in question:--
1. "His knowledge is various, extensive, and recondite. With much
seeming negligence, and perhaps in later years some real
relaxation, he understands more and remembers more about common
and uncommon subjects of literature, than many of those who would
be thought to read all the day and meditate half the night. In
quickness of apprehension and acuteness of discrimination I have
not often seen his equal."--Samuel PARR.
2. "It [the _Essay on the learning of Shakespeare_] may in truth
be pointed out as a master-piece, whether considered with a view
to the sprightliness and vivacity with which it is written, the
clearness of the arrangement, the force and variety of the
evidence, or the compression of scattered materials into a narrow
compass; materials which inferior writers would have expanded into
a large volume."--Isaac REED.
3. "There's a divinity that _shapes our ends_, _Rough-hew_ [them
how we will.] Dr. Farmer informs me, that these words are merely
technical. A wool-man, butcher, and dealer in _skewers_, lately
observed to him, that his nephew (an idle lad), could only
_assist_ him in making them;"--'he could _rough-hew_ them, but I
was obliged to _shape their ends_.' [To shape the ends of
_wool-skewers_, i.e. to _point_ them, requires a degree of skill;
any one can _rough-hew_ them.] Whoever recollects the profession
of Shakespeare's father, will admit that his son might be no
stranger to such a term [such terms]. I have [frequently] seen
packages of wool pinn'd up with _skewers_.--STEEVENS.
This note was first printed by Malone in 1780, and was reprinted by him
in 1790; the portions within brackets having been added in 1793? It is
clear, from this statement, that it received the deliberate revision of
its author. Now, I cannot deny that Farmer related the anecdote of the
_wool-man_--suspicious as is the character of the witness, but I contend
that the observations on it should be ascribed to Steevens alone; and so
I shall leave your critic A. E. B. to his own reflections.